He was known for it — for the flat, unreadable calm he wore into every negotiation, the face that never gave anything away.

He kept it now, but it cost him.

Because he was doing the arithmetic that the scars forced on anyone who understood them: that these were old, which meant they had happened years ago; that they were healed, which meant she had survived them alone; and that she had spent every day since hiding them under sleeves and heavy cloth, smiling thinly at dinners, being called difficult and plain by the very people who had put them there.

He had walked into this marriage believing he was the one with all the information — the shrewd man who knew exactly what he was acquiring.

Kneeling on that floor, he understood he had known nothing at all.

He had been told a story about a strange, unlovable woman, and he had believed it, the way everyone had believed it, because believing it was easier than asking what could make a person go so quiet.