“
Mrs. Bristow’s eyes crinkled at the corners with her cheeky smile. She turned to go, only to stop and address us again. “He did an admirable thing today, did Mr. Hendry. I was here all those years ago, when he attacked Mrs. Glass, as she was still called then, before she became Lady Rycroft. I wouldn’t say I knew him at all, but looking back, I remember a vacancy in his eyes. It was as if he wasn’t there, inside the shell of his body.” She gave me a flat smile. “He wasn’t a nice man then, but he wasn’t born mean. The world in general and Lord Coyle in particular made him like that. If he was born mean, he couldn’t have fathered such a wonderful and kind young woman.” She bobbed a brief curtsy, turned away quickly, and walked out of the room, closing the door behind her.
”
”
C.J. Archer (The Journal of a Thousand Years (Glass Library, #6))