Jack's usual response when delivered unpleasant tidings was to smile. This was his response to pleasant news as well, of course, but anyone could grin when offered a compliment. It took talent to curve one's lips in an upward direction when ordered, say, to clean out a chamber pot or risk one's life by sneaking behind enemy lines to determine troop numbers.But he generally managed it. Excrement…moving defenseless among the French…he always reacted with a dry quip and a lazy smile.This was not something he'd had to cultivate. Indeed, the midwife who'd brought him into the world swore to her dying day that he was the only baby she'd ever seen who emerged from his mother's womb smiling.He disliked conflict. He always had, which had made his chosen professions – the military, followed by genteel crime – somewhat interesting. But firing a weapon at a nameless frog or lifting a necklace from the neck of an overfed aristocrat – this was not conflict.Conflict – to Jack – was personal. It was a lover's betrayal, a friend's insult.
