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Helen turned to her own tea, somewhat disconcerted. It was hard to tell whether that “ah” had been approving, disapproving, or something else entirely. After dinner they had retired to the sitting room, now cleaned—well, at least cleaner than it had been before. The maids had labored over it all afternoon and even had a fire crackling in the old stone fireplace. The stuffed animals still stared down out of rather gruesome glass eyeballs, but they no longer had trails of cobwebs hanging from their ears. That was a definite improvement.
Jamie and Abigail had stayed in the sitting room only long enough to make their good nights. When Helen had put them to bed and returned, Sir Alistair had been in discussion with Miss McDonald at the far end of the room. Miss Munroe had sat waiting by the door. If Helen was a suspicious sort, she’d wonder if Miss Munroe had been lying in wait for her.
Now she cleared her throat. “Sir Alistair said he hadn’t seen you in quite some time?”
Miss Munroe scowled over her tea. “He hides himself away here like a leper.”
“Perhaps he feels self-conscious,” Helen murmured.
She glanced to where Sir Alistair and Miss McDonald were in conversation. Instead of tea, he drank brandy from a clear glass. He tilted his head toward the older lady, listening gravely to whatever she was saying. His clubbed hair exposed his scars, but it also civilized his countenance. Studying his profile, she realized that without the scars, he was a handsome man. Had he been used to female attention before he’d been maimed? The thought disconcerted her, and she looked away from him.
Only to find Miss Munroe watching her with an inscrutable expression. “It’s more than self-consciousness.”
“What do you mean?” Helen frowned into her tea, thinking. “Abigail screamed when she first saw him.”
Miss Munroe nodded once, sharply. “Exactly. Children who don’t know him fear him. Even grown men have been known to look askance at him.”
“He doesn’t like making others uncomfortable.” Helen looked into Miss Munroe’s eyes, seeing a spark of approval there.
“Can you imagine?” Miss Munroe mused softly. “Having a face that made you the center of attention wherever you went? Having people stop and stare and be afraid? He can’t just be himself, can’t just fade into a crowd. Wherever he goes, he’s made aware of himself. He never has a moment of respite.”
“It would be hellish.” Helen bit her lip, a wave of unwanted sympathy washing over her, threatening to drown her good sense. “Especially for him. He’s so gruff on the outside, but on the inside I think he’s more sensitive than he likes to let on.”
“Now you begin to understand.” Miss Munroe sat back in her seat and stared broodingly at her brother. “It was actually better when he first returned from the Colonies. Oh, his wounds were fresher then, more shocking, but he hadn’t yet realized, I think. It was a year or two before he knew that it would always be like this. That he was no longer an anonymous man but a freak.”
Helen made a small sound of dissent at the harsh word.
Miss Munroe looked at her sharply. “It’s true. It does him no good to gloss over it, to pretend that the scars aren’t there or that he’s a normal man. He is what he is.” She leaned forward, her gaze so intense that Helen wanted to look away. “And I love him more for it. Do you hear me? He was a good man when he went away to the Colonies. He came back an extraordinary man. So many think that bravery is a single act of valor in a field of battle—no forethought, no contemplation of the consequences. An act over in a second or a minute or two at most. What my brother has done, is doing now, is to live with his burden for years. He knows that he will spend the rest of his life with it. And he soldiers on.” She sat back in her chair, her gaze still locked with Helen’s. “That to my mind is what real bravery is.”
Helen tore her eyes away from the other woman and stared blindly down at the teacup, her hand trembling. Earlier, in the kitchen, she’d not fully understood his burden. To tell the truth, she’d thought him a bit of a coward for hiding in his dirty castle. But now… To live an outcast to humankind for years and to understand fully that damnation—as surely such an intelligent man as Sir Alistair must—yes, that would take real fortitude. Real bravery. She’d never thought before about what Sir Alistair endured, what he would endure for the rest of his natural life.
She looked up. He still talked to Miss McDonald, his face in profile to her. His scars were all hidden from this angle. His nose was straight and long, his chin firm and somewhat pronounced. His cheek was lean, his eye heavy-lidded. He looked like a handsome, clever man. Perhaps a bit weary this late in the evening. He must’ve felt her gaze. He turned, fully revealing his scars now, welted and red and ugly. His eye patch hid his missing eye, but the cheek under it sagged.
She stared at his face, at him, seeing both the handsome, clever man, and the scarred, sardonic recluse. The air felt thin in her lungs, and her chest labored to take in more, but still she stared, forcing herself to see all of him. All of Sir Alistair. What she saw should have repelled her, but instead she felt an attraction so intense it was all she could do not to rise and go to him at once.
He slowly raised his glass of brandy and saluted her before drinking, still watching her over the rim.
Only then could she tear her gaze away, gasping to fill her lungs with air. Something had happened in those few seconds when she’d held his eyes. It was as if she’d seen into his soul.
And perhaps as if he’d seen into hers.
Chapter Eight
Now, all the next day, Truth Teller thought of what he’d seen, and as the shadows grew long in the courtyard, he went to the cage of swallows and opened the door. Immediately they flew out and swarmed the evening sky. When the beautiful young man came into the courtyard, he gave an angry shout. He drew a fine silk bag and a little gold hook from his robes and gave chase to the swallows, running from the castle as he followed them. . . .
—from TRUTH TELLER
Alistair woke the next morning before dawn, as was his usual custom. He stirred the fire, lit a candle, splashed about in the frigid water in the basin on his dresser, and hurriedly got dressed. But when he walked out into the hallway, he paused in indecision. When Lady Grey had been alive, they’d take their morning rambles at this time, but now she was gone and the new, still unnamed puppy was too little to ramble.
He wandered, feeling vaguely irritable and sad, to the window at the end of the hall. Mrs. Halifax had been here. The window was suspiciously clean on the inside, although the ivy still half covered the outside. Hazy peach light was just beginning to illuminate the hills. It was going to be a sunny day. A perfect day for rambling, he thought morosely. Or a day for . . .
The wayward thought crystallized, and he made for the stairs. On the floor below, no light shone beneath the door of the room of his sister and Miss MacDonald. Oh, it’d been years since he’d gotten the drop on Sophia. Alistair banged on the door.
“What is it?” she shouted from within. Like him, she woke at once, fully alert.
“Time to rise, sleepyhead,” he called.
“Alistair? Have you lost what mind you have?” She stumped to the door and flung it open. Sophia wore a voluminous gown, her graying hair in long braids.
