"I wasn't hungry. And I don't like people." That wasn't entirely accurate. It was obvious to anyone who saw her work that Rose held a great well of compassion for those in her charge, and a deep empathy held ruthlessly in check by layers of prickly defense mechanisms. Anyone who had known her before losing her family and leaving Russia would scarcely recognize the woman she'd become of necessity. It was more that the dinner was sure to have held too many people, and her nerves frayed all too easily in those sorts of situations, worn thin by the way she constantly checked her surroundings for danger.
"Did you?" If she had to guess, she'd have said that he hadn't attended the dinner. He always seemed to be sort of there, in the cirque, but a little apart from the people who made up its workforce. She wondered if that was preference or instruction or some mix of both.