Page 40 of The Sisters of Sea View
Viola inwardly cringed. She normally avoided mentioning it, loath to invite the direct comparison.
“Not that you’d know it,” she quickly explained. “We look nothing alike. She surpasses me in every way. In every measure.”
“How so?”
“She is far more beautiful, as well as taller. Quick and lively in discourse and repartee. Everyone likes her. She dances well, sings well, and has every advantage.”
“And you don’t?”
She shook her head.
“Why? What are you hiding beneath that veil?”
She stared through the fine mesh, wanting to stay hidden there. She dreaded his reaction, expecting to see him turn away in disgust. Fearing that very thing.
Yet she did not blame him for thinking her behavior odd. A veil indoors, as though in deep mourning? Or a victim of smallpox?
She licked dry lips. “I am scarred. May we leave it at that?”
For a moment longer he stared at her, then he grumbled cynically, “And I haveno ideawhat that is like.”
She huffed. “Now, will we waste an entire hour sparring, or shall I read something?”
Yet before she had read more than a few lines, Armaan knocked to tell them the surgeon had arrived.
Viola instantly stiffened, but the man who entered was pleasant and professional and not familiar in the least.
The major made the perfunctory introductions. “Miss Summers, Mr. Bird.”
Viola nodded, and the man bowed to her before turning back to his patient.
“Time to remove your bandages and see how your eye is healing,” he announced, then frowned around the dim room. “It’s too dashed dark in here.”
“As I have been telling him.” Viola crossed the room and foldedback the shutters from one window, then the next, then walked to the door. “I will leave you to it.”
“No need. Should only take a few minutes.”
“Then I shall wait outside.” Although Mr. Bird looked nothing like the surgeon of her nightmares, she was still not keen to spend time in his company.
As she walked away, she overheard Mr. Bird ask, “Your intended?”
Followed by another of the major’s characteristic snorts.
It stung, even as she told herself it should not.
A short while later, the surgeon quit the room and tipped his hat to her. “He is all yours.”
Hardly.
She tentatively reentered. Major Hutton stood there, both eyes uncovered, bathed in sunlight. She could more clearly see his burn scars now—the mottled web of smooth and raised skin, some light, some deep red on his right cheek and side of his neck. Since this was the first time she had seen him in such good lighting, she also surveyed the rest of his features, his long nose, large, deep-set eyes, and thin, markedly bow-shaped lips. And she decided that, somehow, his unusual features taken together formed a handsome face.
“You look ... different.”
“Any better?” He smirked. “Or do you prefer my face covered in bandages?”
“No, it’s ... I am sure you’re glad to be rid of them. And you are standing.”
“Very observant. Yes, time to begin regaining my strength.”
