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“Are your parents still living?”
She wondered why he would ask. Or care. “My mother died long ago. My father…has become rather eccentric in his old age, and seldom leaves Snowfell. I do what I can for him.”
“So you’ve never left.”
“Toby and I have everything we need there.”
“And Toby was doing all right without knowing about his real dad. The only mistake you made was to write the truth down so that he could find it.”
He was right. It had been a terrible mistake. She’d remembered having destroyed the diary a year after Toby’s birth, after she’d learned that Ross had found employment with the New York City police force. But her memory had played tricks on her…she’d only torn out certain pages, leaving a patchwork of notations that had revealed the very things she’d never wanted Toby to know.
“Why did you keep track of me?” Ross asked.
She couldn’t invent a convincing reason. “I don’t know,” she said.
He seemed to accept her answer. “What did Toby do when he found out that Delvaux wasn’t his father?”
“He was…intrigued,” Gillian said carefully. “A boy of his age is incessantly curious about everything, especially himself. It was only natural that he should wish to know more about you.”
“What did you tell him?”
“I had little chance to discuss the matter with him before he ran away.”
“And you didn’t notice he was gone until he’d gotten all the way to the ship?”
Gillian felt a prickle of heat rushing over her skin. “He’s run away before, but never went farther than the neighboring estate.”
“Sounds like he didn’t have everything he needed at Snowfell after all.”
“Boys of his age are naturally restless.”
He offered no contradiction. “You never considered letting him meet his real father, even in secret?”
Another question filled with pitfalls. “It would hardly have been fair to him—or to you,” she said. “My…writings did not continue beyond the first few years. I knew nothing of your present life. You might have had a wife, children of your own. I could not anticipate that you would wish…to be…burdened with the knowledge.”
The corner of his mouth twitched. “Mighty considerate of you,” he said, lapsing into that peculiar Western dialect she remembered from London. “But you were wrong on all counts, Mrs. Delvaux. No wife. No kids. Never had much use for the idea.”
“Then I see no real difficulty in our…in the situation. Toby has met you. His curiosity has been satisfied.”
“Has it?”
She remembered what Toby had said to her in the bedroom. “Toby is a boy of intelligence and ability beyond his years,” she said. “He is affectionate with those who have earned his trust. But he can also be rash and stubborn. He has done a very dangerous thing by traveling alone to America. Such behavior must not be rewarded.”
“So he should be punished for wanting to know the truth?”
Her stomach began to knot. “I have answered your questions,” she said. “What more do you want of us?”
Ross looked at her and then down at the carpet between his feet, and she recognized something she hadn’t expected to see: uncertainty. She might almost have called it vulnerability. But the moment passed quickly, and when he spoke again, it was without any trace of hesitation.
“I want to see more of my son,” he said.
CHAPTER THREE
PANIC SWELLED in Gillian’s throat, but she fought it down. She needed to use reason now, not emotion. Unless Ross had lost the basic decency that had been such a fundamental part of the boy she had known, he would listen to a sensible argument.
“Please be seated,” she asked.
He regarded her as warily as if she’d asked him to jump out the window, but he acceded to her request. He selected one of the deep armchairs, and she took a seat on the sofa, holding herself still and erect.
“I understand,” she began, “that you are curious about Toby. That’s only to be expected. I can see that you are also concerned about his welfare.” She paused, trying to collect her thoughts. “Since you lack experience with children, you may not realize…how impressionable a young boy can be.”
“Impressionable.” Ross got up abruptly, went to the illegally stocked sideboard where Hugh had left his bottle of brandy and poured himself a glass. “You mean he might be susceptible to bad influences.”
How easily he twisted her words. “He may be entering the transition at any time. Additional distractions will only serve to confuse him and make him unhappy at such a crucial juncture in his life.”
Ross emptied the glass. “You think I’ll confuse him?” he asked. “You think he’ll lose his ability to Change just by being around me?”
Gillian flinched. “I implied no such thing,” she said stiffly.
“But you’re worried about it, aren’t you? He’s my son, and that means…” He paused to pour himself another glass and inspected it critically. “What else are you worried about, Mrs. Delvaux? Afraid I’ll give Toby a yen to be a cop like his old dad?”
Gillian pushed her anger back into the little hollow deep inside her chest. “You can only hurt him if you give him reason to believe…if you allow him to form an attachment to you which cannot last.”
“Hurt him?” Ross quickly swallowed the second drink and set it down so hard that Gillian expected the glass to shatter. “Is that what you think I’m trying to do?”
“No, of course not. But Toby’s future is in England, and you surely would not wish him to be torn—”
“Between you and me?” He pushed the half-empty brandy bottle aside with a sweep of his hand. “Do you think I could take him away from you?”
Ice water rolled through Gillian’s veins. “Is that what you intend to do?”
Ross dragged his palm over his face and returned to the chair. “No.” He met her gaze with an earnestness that battered at her defenses more surely than a barrage of curses. “I don’t steal kids from their mothers. But he’s blood of my blood. You can’t make that fact disappear, no matter how much you want to.”
“I have no wish to deny it.”
He gave her cynical smile. “Yeah. I guess it’s a little too late for that.” He sobered. “All I’m asking is a few days. Just a few days, Jill.”
Gillian swallowed and looked away. “Jill” had been Ross’s pet name for her; she still remembered when he’d told her, with a teasing sort of tenderness in his eyes, that “Gillian” was too “highfalutin” for everyday use. She’d thought that it was his way of bridging the gap of wealth and class that lay between them, differences she had been just as ready to set aside.
Until he’d tried to make their affair more than it could ever be.
She rested her hands in her lap, deliberately relaxing her fingers and letting all emotion drain away. “I know you have no reason to trust me,” she said, “but I must ask you to believe that I know what is best for our…for Toby. He has romantic notions that may perhaps have led him to believe that he will find something—something mysterious and wonderful—here with you that he hasn’t found at home. He has an idealized image of the father he never knew.”
Ross dropped his hands between his knees. “I never claimed to be anyone’s ideal. I won’t lie to the kid.” His voice grew husky. “Am I asking so much, Jill? A few days out of a lifetime?”
His question hung between them, so saturated with unspoken feeling that Gillian felt worse than if he’d shouted and raged. The gentleness of his voice didn’t change the circumstances in the least, but her mouth simply refused to speak the words that necessity should have made so simple.
He was asking her to trust him. Trust him with the most important thing in her life, when he had every reason to resent her. She had known from childhood that emotions could change in an instant, that one could never rely on anyone else’s behavior, only one’s own. His motives were still a mystery to her; it wasn’t as if he knew more than a trifle about Toby or could even begin to understand him.
But what other purpose could he have? If he were planning some sort of retaliation for the assaults on his pride, surely he wouldn’t be here in her hotel room bargaining with her.
The brash young doughboy she’d known in London would never have sought revenge. Such dark emotions had been alien to him, even after he’d faced death on the battlefield. That was only one reason she’d found it so easy to believe, however briefly, that she loved him.
“I shall consider everything you’ve suggested,” she said. “Will it be acceptable if I telephone you tomorrow?”
He pushed his hands into his trouser pockets, a gesture she remembered all too well. “I guess it’ll have to be.” He glanced toward the door to the bedrooms. “Do you mind if I look in on him before I go?”
The wolf in Gillian wanted nothing more than to rush across the room and block the door with her body. The woman was nearly paralyzed and hated herself for it.
“Of course,” she said. “But please don’t wake him.”
“He won’t even know I’m there.” Ross picked up his hat and headed unerringly for the room where Toby was sleeping. He made no sound at all when he stepped into the bedroom. Gillian paused in the doorway as he went to the bed and looked down at the boy sprawled beneath the covers.
There should have been nothing remarkable in the sight of a father watching his son while he slept. It happened all over the world every day. But Gillian could hardly breathe as Ross knelt beside the bed, reached out with one big hand and touched Toby’s hair with such gentleness that Toby didn’t so much as stir the tip of one little finger.
The moment lasted for a dozen heartbeats, and then Ross withdrew. He met Gillian’s gaze, and the gentle wonder that lingered in his face warmed her like a fire in winter.
“Thanks,” he said simply, and slipped out of the room. Her skin hummed beneath the sleeve of the blouse he had brushed in passing. She compelled her feet to follow him to the outer door, astonished at how difficult it was to regain control of her own body.
Ross opened the door to the hall and turned to face her, his expression unreadable once again. “I’ll be expecting your call,” he said.
“Ross—”
“Good night, Gillian.” He placed his hat on his head, nodded briefly and walked away.
Gillian leaned heavily against the doorjamb, watching him until he reached the elevator and stepped inside. She felt nervous, a little sick to her stomach and oddly exhilarated.
The first two symptoms she understood well enough. But the third…that one made no sense at all. Physical yearning was a thing of the body alone, easily governed by the mind. It was only a ghost, a dream, a memory with no validity in the present.
She backed away from the door, closed it firmly and returned to Toby’s bedroom. He was sitting up, his chin resting on his bent knees.
“He’s gone, isn’t he?” he asked.
“Yes.” Gillian sat in the chair nearest the bed and folded her hands in her lap. “Did we wake you?”
He shook his head. “I had a dream that Father was teaching me how to fish.”
“How to fish?”
“Mmm-hmm. Except I was very small. And Father was living with us at Snowfell.”
Gillian’s nails pressed tiny crescents into her palms. “Toby…it would be wise…it would be better if you didn’t call Mr. Kavanagh ‘Father.’”
His bright, direct gaze focused on her. “Why not? He is my father.”
“In a literal sense, yes. But once we return to England, it’s likely that you’ll never see him again. You will find it easier to adjust if you—”
“If I pretend I never met him?” Toby leaned back against the pillows and folded his arms across his chest. “I can’t forget, even if you can.”
It was surprising, Gillian thought, how much a child’s thoughtless words could sting. “Tell me,” she said, “why you’re so fond of Mr. Kavanagh when you’ve spent scarcely any time with him.”
Toby considered her question with a lightning shift to that precocious maturity that still had the power to surprise her. “Isn’t one supposed to like one’s father?” he asked.
If she hadn’t known better, she might have thought he was testing her. But she’d been careful, so very careful, to keep him away from Sir Averil and his volatile moods.
“That isn’t an answer, Toby.”
“I just like him. He doesn’t treat me like a child.”
“But you are a child. There are many things you don’t understand.”
“I understand that you wrote that you didn’t think Ross was good enough to be my father because he wasn’t like you and Hugh and Grandfather.”
Gillian felt light-headed. He’d read just enough to confuse him, and now she had to set it right.
“Do you remember when we talked about how rare werewolves are in the world?” she asked.
He tangled his fingers in the sheets, his expression turning sullen. “Yes,” he muttered.
“Wise men realized that the only way to save our kind was to marry those of loup-garou blood to each other, to preserve our abilities and our way of life. That is the purpose of the Convocation. That is why we must sometimes set aside the things we…might think we want in order to help all our people.”
“And Mr. Delvaux was the right kind of werewolf.”
Oh, how she had tried to keep this from him. How she had danced around the subject, knowing that one day Toby might discover his mixed heritage and what it could mean.
How much had he read in those damning notations?
“Mr. Delvaux,” she said, “was from a family that could trace its bloodlines back to the fourteenth century and beyond. No one questioned that he had all the qualities necessary to strengthen our people.”
“You didn’t even love him.”
“You can hardly make such judgments, Toby, when he died before you were born.”
He gave her a hard, direct look. “I know you didn’t love him, but you still thought he was better than my real father.” His jaw set in a way that reminded Gillian far too much of Ross. “There isn’t anything wrong with Father, whatever you say.”
Dangerous, dangerous waters. “You’re right, Toby,” Gillian said gently. “There’s nothing wrong with Mr. Kavanagh. I’ve no doubt that he is very competent in everything he does. I’m certain he has a full life here, with his work as a police officer.”
Toby wasn’t to be distracted. “He wasn’t a police officer when you met,” Toby said. “He was a soldier, wasn’t he?”
“Yes, but—”
“Did you know, then, that he was only part werewolf?”
Dear God. “I…it isn’t always possible to tell.”
“But you liked him anyway, didn’t you?”
“Yes. I liked him, Toby.”
