“But have you ever met the man?” Aunt Esther demanded from the foot of the table.
“Can’t say that I have.”
“There!” Mrs. Whippering sat back triumphantly. “And I don’t know a single person who has—save for you, dear nephew, and I don’t think you’ve seen him in years, have you?”
Jasper shook his head somberly. It was his turn to stare at the table and twist his wineglass.
“Well, how do we know he’s even still alive?” Aunt Esther asked.
“I’ve heard he sends letters to the university,” Mrs. Flowers ventured from his left. “I have an uncle who lectures there, and he says Sir Alistair is very well respected.”
“Munroe is one of Scotland’s great intellectuals,” Sir Angus said.
“Be that as it may,” Aunt Esther said, “I don’t know why he doesn’t show his face here in town. I know that people have invited him to dinners and balls, and he always declines. What is he hiding, I ask you?”
“Scars,” Sir Angus rumbled.
“Oh, but surely that’s just a rumor,” Lady Caroline said.
Mrs. Flowers leaned forward, putting her ample bosom perilously near the gravy on her plate. “I’ve heard his face is so terribly scarred from the war in America that he has to wear a mask so that people don’t faint in horror.”
“Poppycock!” Miss Stewart snorted.
“It’s true,” Mrs. Flowers defended herself. “My sister’s neighbor’s daughter caught a glimpse of Sir Alistair leaving the theater two years ago and swooned. Afterward she took to bed with a delirious fever and wasn’t well for months.”
“She sounds a very silly girl,” Miss Stewart retorted, “and I’m not sure I believe a word of it.”
Mrs. Flowers drew herself up, obviously offended.
Aunt Esther intervened. “Well, my nephew ought to know whether or not Sir Alistair is horribly scarred. He served with the man, after all. Jasper?”
Jasper felt his fingers begin to shake—an awful physical symptom of the rotting malaise within himself. He let go of his wineglass before he knocked it ove {kno shr and hastily hid his hand beneath the tablecloth.
“Jasper?” his aunt repeated.
Damn it, they were all looking at him now. His throat was dry, but he couldn’t raise his glass of wine.
“Yes,” he finally said. “Yes, it’s true. Sir Alistair Munroe is scarred.”
BY THE TIME Jasper helped see off his aunt’s guests, he was bone-tired. Melisande had excused herself from the company shortly after supper. He paused outside the door to the bedroom Aunt Esther had given them. Melisande was probably abed. He twisted the doorknob gently so as to not awaken her. But when he entered the room, he saw that she wasn’t asleep. Instead, she was making a pallet on the floor against the far wall. He halted because he didn’t know whether to laugh or swear.
She looked up and saw him. “Can you hand me the blanket from the bed?”
He nodded, not trusting his voice, and went to the bed to pull off the blanket. What must she think of him? He crossed to the fire and handed the blanket to her.
“Thank you.” She bent and began tucking it about a pile of linens to make a rough mattress.
Did she worry that she’d married a madman? He looked away. The room wasn’t big, but it was cozy. The walls were a gray-blue, the floor covered by a faded brown and rose patterned rug. He went to the window and pulled back the curtain to look out, but the night was so dark, he couldn’t pick anything out. He let the curtain fall. Suchlike must have been and gone. Melisande had already undressed. She wore a pretty lace-trimmed shift and her wrapper.
He took off his coat and began unbuttoning his waistcoat. “Lovely dinner.”
“Yes, it was.”
“Lady Charlotte was most amusing.”
“Mmm.”
He pulled off his neck cloth and then held the strip of material in his fingers, staring down at it blindly. “It’s because of the army, I think.”