Surely he never had been Elizabeth said, turning to look behind her, “Did you see someone you know? Do you want to try to catch him up?”

“No-!” Rutledge answered abruptly, and then added at Hamish’s prompting, “I- A trick of the light, that’s all. I was wrong.”

It was surely something about the night that had disturbed him, and the noise and the acrid smell of the fireworks lingering in the smoky air. There was no one there “He canna’ be,” Hamish reminded Rutledge. “He’s deid. Like me!”

Deid. Like me!

Rutledge hesitated, on the point of asking Hamish what he knew-what he might have seen. Then-or just now.

But before he could frame the words, he stopped himself.

What if this had nothing to do with the war?

After a very fine dinner with Elizabeth and three of her friends at the hotel just along the High Street, Rutledge drove back to London. Introductions and the subsequent settling into chairs as everyone exclaimed over the success of the evening had given Rutledge time to collect himself and present a polite, pleasant facade in spite of his unsettled state of mind.

It was something he was becoming increasingly good at doing, finding the right mask for his terrors.

Caught up in their own excitement, no one at the table noticed his long silences or made anything of his distraction. He was the outsider among them, and they included him from kindness, expecting nothing in return. He overheard one of the women as she leaned toward Elizabeth and murmured, “He’s absolutely charming! Where did you find him?” as if he were a new suitor.

His hostess had replied dryly, “He was Richard’s best man. I’ve known Ian for ages. He’s been a great comfort.”

For Elizabeth’s sake, he was glad to find himself accepted. He couldn’t have borne it if he’d embarrassed her. Yet it could have happened all too easily.