Come the Night

“I had not thought,” she said, “that you would wish to prolong the conversation.”

“I didn’t know we were having one,” he said. “Not the kind you’d expect between old friends.”

Gillian understood him. She understood him very well, but she wasn’t about to crack. “This is neither the time nor the place,” she said, holding on to Toby as if she expected him to bolt.

Ross showed his teeth. “As it so happens,” he said, “my schedule is pretty open at the moment. You pick the time and place. I’ll be there.”

She looked down at Toby. He was listening intently to every word, his head slightly cocked.

“We will not be staying in America long,” she said. “The ship—”

“Mother!” Toby cried. “We’ve only just arrived.” He turned pleading eyes on Ross. “Father promised he’d take me to Coney Island.”

Ross had promised nothing of the kind, but under the circumstances, he wasn’t prepared to dispute Toby’s claim. He was certain he’d seen Gillian flinch when Toby said “Father.” Did she really believe he would have accepted Warbrick’s lie about the kid being some other guy’s son?

“I’m surprised that Mr. Kavanagh has had time to make such promises,” she said, her voice chilly.

“Toby knows what he wants,” Ross said. “I like that in a man.”

“He’s hardly a—” She clamped her mouth shut. “If you have no objection, I’ll take Toby back to our hotel. My brother is also stopping there. He can watch Toby while you and I—”

“Uncle Hugh came, too?” Toby interrupted.

“Yes. And you will remain with him while I make arrangements for our return to England.”

“But Mother—”

“Do as your mother says,” Ross said. “I’ll come along with you.”

“And we’ll go to Coney Island before I leave?”

“Maybe.” He stared at Gillian until she met his gaze. “You don’t mind if I accompany you to your hotel?”

She stiffened. “That is hardly necessary, Mr. Kavanagh.”

“New York is a complicated city, Mrs. Delvaux. I’ll feel better knowing you aren’t traveling alone.”

Gillian had never been anything but bright. She knew she was licked, at least for the moment. She inclined her head with all the condescension of a queen.

“As you wish,” she said. She gave the address of her hotel—one of the fancy kind an ordinary homicide detective seldom had occasion to set foot in—and Ross escorted her and Toby back to Tenth Avenue, where he flagged down a taxi.

The ride to Midtown was about as pleasant as a Manhattan heat wave. Toby sat between Ross and Gillian, darting glances from one to the other, but remaining uncharacteristically silent. If Gillian felt any shame about the situation, her forbidding demeanor concealed it perfectly. Ross’s temper continued to simmer, held in check by the thought that he would soon have Gillian alone.

And when he did…by God, when he did…

“Roosevelt Hotel,” the cabbie announced as he pulled his vehicle up to the kerb. Ross stepped out first, circled the cab and opened the door for Gillian, extending his hand to help her up.

She hesitated for just a moment, then put her gloved hand in his.

Ross knew he shouldn’t have felt anything. Not a damned thing. He couldn’t even feel her skin through the kid gloves, and she let go as soon as her feet were firmly planted on the sidewalk.

But there was something he couldn’t deny, a spark of awareness, a memory of flesh on flesh in a far more intimate setting. Unwillingly, he glanced at Gillian to see if she’d felt it, too, but her attention was fixed on her pocketbook as she counted out the fare. Ross was just a few seconds too late to stop her. She took Toby’s hand as he bounced up beside her and marched across the sidewalk without a word to Ross; the doorman hurried to open the door and tipped his hat as she swept into the lobby.

“Nice family you got there, mister,” the cabbie said as Ross stared after her.

There was genuine admiration in the guy’s voice. Ross pressed another buck into the guy’s hand and started after Gillian, walking in a way that advised anyone in his path to step aside.

His skin began to prickle as soon as he entered the lobby. He’d spent his childhood up to his knees in manure and mud or coated with dust and sweat, working his parents’ ranch alongside the hired hands. There hadn’t been much extra money in those days, though the Kavanaghs always managed to keep their heads above water. Ross had received most of his education in a one-room schoolhouse, and the folks with whom his family associated had all been simple, hardworking ranchers, not much different from Chantal and Sim Kavanagh except in their unadulterated humanity.

The Roosevelt Hotel had never been intended for the common man. It was only a few years old, its carpets and fancy upholstery pristine, every metal surface sparkling, porters and spotlessly uniformed bellhops poised to fulfill every guest’s slightest wish. One of the bellhops rushed forward to take Toby’s suitcase; Ross gave the kid a hard look and lifted the bag out of Gillian’s hand.

Gillian continued to the elevators without stopping; though no one would take her for a glamour girl, her inborn werewolf grace naturally attracted attention. Ross bristled at the expensively suited swells who watched her progress across the lobby with appreciative stares; Gillian simply ignored them. Rich or not, they were only human.

The boy in the elevator seemed very aware of Ross’s mood. He stood quietly in his corner until the elevator settled to a stop and Gillian got out.

The corridor smelled of perfume and fresh flowers from the vases set on marble stands between the widely spaced doors. Gillian paused before one of the doors, produced a key and entered.

The door led to a luxurious suite, complete with an obviously well-stocked and illegal bar. A handsome young man sprawled on the brocade sofa, drink in hand, his wayward hair several shades darker than Gillian’s gold. The young man sprang to his feet when he saw Gillian and Toby.

“Gilly!” he exclaimed. “You found him!”

Toby hung back, waiting for Ross to enter the suite. The young man’s gaze fixed on Ross in surprise.

Gillian’s posture was as rigid as it could be without losing any of its grace. “Hugh,” she said, “may I present Mr. Ross Kavanagh. Mr. Kavanagh, my brother, Hugh Maitland.”

IF A BOMBSHELL had gone off in the room, the shock couldn’t have been more palpable. Hugh’s nostrils flared, taking in Ross’s scent as Gillian’s words began to penetrate.

“Ross Kavanagh?” he said. “The Ross Kavanagh?”

Gillian had no intention of belaboring the point. The day had already proven to be an unmitigated disaster, and Hugh’s involvement was only likely to make matters worse. Her hopes of keeping the truth from Ross had been naive from the start.

So had her conviction that seeing him again would have no effect on her heart.

If it hadn’t been for Toby, she might not have been able to maintain her composure, but he kept her focused. She would deal with Ross—and her own unacceptable weakness—once her son was safely out of danger.

She took Toby’s hand firmly in hers. “You’ll excuse me,” she said, “but Toby must have a bath and then a nap. Hugh, I’m sure you will provide Mr. Kavanagh with appropriate refreshments.”

Hugh gazed at her with lingering astonishment. “Yes. Yes, of course.”

“I’m not at all tired, Mother,” Toby said, his jaw setting in that stubborn expression that so perfectly mirrored Ross Kavanagh’s. “Mayn’t I—”

Gillian stared into Toby’s eyes. She seldom felt the need to bring the full weight of her authority to bear, but she was desperate…to get him away from Ross’s influence. Toby shrank ever so slightly under her gaze, acknowledging the wolf he had yet to become. He was very subdued as he accompanied her into the ornate water closet.

There were no further arguments from him as she ran a bath and left him to soak in the hot water. She retreated to her bedroom and went to the window, staring out at this cold, modern city of steel canyons and seething humanity.

She’d thought herself prepared. She’d thought that she could face Ross in the same way she’d dealt with New York itself: by keeping a firm grip on who she was, where she had come from and why she was here. By reminding herself that what she and Ross had shared had been no more than a few weeks’ passion, that they’d never had anything in common save for their youth and reckless disregard for propriety.

All her careful preparations had disappeared when Ross had arrived at the apartment building with Toby beside him. The image she’d held had been that of a boy only slightly older than she’d been twelve years ago: a handsome young man with striking light brown eyes and hair a few shades darker, unpolished yet undeniably compelling. A young man who’d claimed to love her…just before he admitted that he was only one-quarter werewolf and unable to Change.

That boy was gone. The man who’d stared at her with such accusation might have been another person entirely. He was no longer young; the lines in his forehead and around his eyes testified to a life of conflict, a career spent enforcing the law for the humans whose blood he shared. He was still handsome, but it was a grim sort of attractiveness, touched with bitterness that Gillian dared not examine too closely.

But it was what lay beneath the surface that had startled her most. At the hospital in London he had seemed so completely human that she’d never questioned her initial assumption; even after he’d told her the truth, she’d hardly been able to recognize the wolf within him.

No longer. The life he’d lived since the War had chiseled away at his humanity, revealing the core of his werewolf nature. It gleamed yellow under the brown of his eyes, sculpted the bone and muscle of his face, stalked in his every movement.

Those changes alone would have been enough to shake her equilibrium. But it was something within herself that had stripped her of her defenses, something she couldn’t possibly have anticipated that struck at her with all the force of a hurricane.

Gillian pressed her forehead to the cool window glass. Years had passed—years of dedication to duty, to her father, to her son. It should not even be possible for her to still desire a man she had known for only a handful of weeks amid the chaos of war, a man who could never become her mate. She had almost forgotten what it was to feel that kind of excitement, that kind of pleasure. Such things had no place in the life of a sequestered widow, and she had accepted that they would have no part in her forthcoming marriage.

Why, then, had this happened now? Was it her punishment for refusing to recognize Toby’s incipient rebellion, for neglecting to meet needs she hadn’t understood? Or was it a gift in disguise, a reminder that she must never let down her guard, never for a moment surrender to her own natural weakness?

She had felt weak in Ross’s presence. Weak and vulnerable. But he would never know it. She would make certain of that. She would take Toby home as quickly as possible. And then…

“Gilly?”

Hugh’s voice held a note of concern that reminded her how long she’d been gone. She answered her brother’s tap on the bedroom door with a calm that was almost sincere.

“I’m sorry, Hugh,” she said. “Give me a few more moments to put Toby to bed, then I’ll join you.”

“You’d better,” Hugh said. “Kavanagh isn’t much for small talk, and I don’t want to be the one giving all the explanations.”

Explanations. Was that what Ross wanted of her? The strength of his anger had been almost overwhelming, all the more effective for its quietness; she could well envision criminals quailing before him, begging to confess rather than face that simmering stare.

She returned to the bathroom to find Toby dozing in the cooling water. She woke him, left him to towel himself dry and then steered him into his room.

“Is Father still here?” he asked sleepily, hovering near the door.

“Mr. Kavanagh is with Hugh at the moment. But you are to sleep now, young man. You’ve had quite enough adventure for one day. We shall have a good long talk about this later.”

Ordinarily Toby might have been concerned about his inevitable punishment, but his mind was on other subjects. “I’ll see Father tomorrow, won’t I?”

Toby had been this way since he could talk: direct, fearless and frightfully stubborn. Gillian had simply failed to realize—had not let herself realize—how much he would be like the man who had sired him.

She had only lied to him once, and the unfortunate results of that deception were plain to see.

“I don’t know,” she said. “Mr. Kavanagh and I have not spoken in many years.”

“Because you didn’t tell him about me.”

“I shall make my decisions based upon your welfare and nothing else.”

Toby glared at her, jaw set. That expression had been all too common of late; he was poised on that terrible brink between boy and man, cub and wolf. Gillian could feel him beginning to slip out of her grasp, and she wasn’t ready to let him go.

There is no need to rush. He will Change when the time is right. He will Change…

She shook off her pointless worries and herded him toward the bed. “Go to sleep, Toby,” she said. “I will inform you of my decision in the morning.”

“But if you—”

“Sleep.”

He crawled into bed, defying her with every movement of his rapidly growing body. She waited until he’d tucked himself in and then switched off the bedroom light.

There was no delaying the inevitable. She smoothed her skirt, made sure that her chignon was still in place and walked back to the sitting room.

Hugh was standing by the mantelpiece, a drink in his hand and his shoulders hunched. Ross hovered a few feet away, arms held loosely at his sides, as if he might spring into action at any moment. His head swung toward Gillian as she entered the room; the impact of his stare almost broke the measured rhythm of her stride.

She didn’t stop until she had reached the sofa. “Won’t you be seated, Mr. Kavanagh?” she asked.

“I prefer to stand, Mrs. Delvaux.”

“As you wish.” She glanced at Hugh. He looked deeply uncomfortable, and she had no desire to inflict the coming unpleasantness on someone who’d had no part in creating it.

“The evening is very mild, Hugh,” she said. “We’ve had little opportunity to see the city. Perhaps you’d enjoy a walk.”

Hugh shifted from foot to foot and looked from her to Ross. “I’d rather stay, if you don’t mind,” he said.

Gillian’s heart turned over. She’d always understood that Hugh needed protecting, even though he was Father’s favorite. He was good-natured to a fault, but foolish and feckless; the more formidable wolf characteristics Sir Averil had done so much to encourage were almost never in evidence behind that ready grin. But now he was prepared to give up his own comfort in defense of his sister, and Gillian loved him the more for it.

“You’d better beat it, kid,” Ross growled. “This is between me and the lady.”

The way he said “lady” was clearly not meant as a compliment. Hugh’s head sank a little lower between his shoulders.

“Since the subject under discussion involves my nephew,” he said, “it also concerns me.”

Ross gave Hugh a long, appraising look. He made a rumbling sound deep in his throat; his lips stretched to show the tips of his upper teeth. Quarter werewolf or not, he dominated Hugh as easily as a collie does a sheep.

“I’m sure your sister will fill you in,” he said. “Make yourself scarce, and we won’t have any arguments.”

Hugh’s face revealed the progress of his thoughts. He passed quickly from anger and indignation to uncertainty and, finally, resignation.

“All right,” he said, making an attempt at severity, “but if you need me, Gilly, I won’t be far.”

He gave a little jerk to his tie, spun around and walked through the door, trailing a wake of wounded dignity behind him.

“Hugh doesn’t deserve your scorn,” Gillian said once Hugh had closed the door. “He was a child when you and I knew each other.”

Ross shrugged. “I have nothing against him.” He glanced toward the hall. “Is the boy asleep?”

“He will be presently.”

“Then we can speak freely.”

She held his gaze, struggling to disregard the half-familiar scent of his body beneath the inexpensive suit. Surely that warm, masculine fragrance hadn’t been quite so potent in London. Surely his shoulders hadn’t been so broad, his movements so steeped with barely leashed power. Surely she hadn’t forgotten so much…

“I always knew you came from money,” Ross said, leaving his post by the door to wander around the sitting room. “I just didn’t realize how much until now.”

It wasn’t the way Gillian had expected the conversation to begin. Accusation had seethed in his voice when they’d spoken outside his apartment building, and Gillian could still feel a suggestion of violence beneath his deceptive calm. But he was attempting to approach their differences in a relatively civilized manner, and for that she should be grateful.

“I guess that’s why Warbrick offered to buy me off,” Ross said, picking up a fragile vase of intricately engraved crystal. “You’d hardly notice losing a thousand bucks.”

Gillian turned to face him, the solidity of the sofa at her back. “I must apologize,” she said, “for any insult Mr. Warbrick may have unintentionally given you. He and I had not discussed—”

“Unintentionally?” Ross laughed. “Where is your friend, by the way? He seemed pretty anxious to spare you any inconvenience.”

“I don’t know where he is at the moment,” Gillian said. That was the truth; she’d tried calling Ethan’s hotel when she and Hugh had arrived, but he hadn’t been in. “I assure you that he meant no harm. He—”

“Tried to make me believe that Toby wasn’t my son.” Ross set down the vase. “Was that your idea or his?”

Gillian revised her hopes for a civilized discussion. “I didn’t authorize him to deceive you,” she said.

“Even though that’s what you’ve been doing for the past twelve years?”

There was no sense in denying obvious fact, no point in stammering excuses that would only ring hollow. “I’m sorry that it has come to this, Ross,” she said, pushing past the barrier of his name. “It was never my intention to cause you pain.”

She expected another harsh retort, but Ross surprised her. His face emptied of all emotion. “I don’t remember saying anything about pain,” he said.

That was when Gillian realized he wasn’t going to speak of what he’d felt on the day she’d left him. She had assumed that a large part of his anger was directed at her—not because of Toby, but because she’d cut off all contact with him the day after he’d made his declaration. She couldn’t blame him; she had endured months of confusion, unhappiness and self-reproach before she’d come to terms with her decision and recognized its inevitability.

She had gradually erased all speculation about Ross’s feelings. Even if part of her had wished he would search her out and sweep her away, she had known such an act would be a terrible mistake. And when he hadn’t come for her, she’d assumed that his love had been like hers, built on a transient passion that would never have endured.

Apparently Ross had come to the same conclusion. If he was bitter, it wasn’t because he still loved her. If he was angry, it was because his pride had been damaged, not his heart.

Strange how little relief she felt.

Gillian released her breath. “I assume,” she said slowly, “that you have questions about Toby.”

Ross walked to the window and pushed back the silk drapes. “When did you marry Delvaux?”

Again he’d caught her off guard. She briefly considered telling him the real story, which Toby would have discovered for himself if her diary had been intact.

No. She would tell Ross exactly what she’d told Toby when he was old enough to understand.

“Jacques Delvaux,” she said, “was the man I was engaged to marry before I went to London.”

Ross stiffened, every muscle frozen, and then gradually relaxed.

“You were engaged?” he asked.

“Yes. My work as a nurse only postponed our wedding.”

“Let me guess. He was pure loup-garou.”

There. He had reached the obvious conclusion, as she’d known he would. The unpalatable truth lay between them, stinking of shattered dreams.

“Yes,” she said.

He could have berated her then, could have brought it all out in the open, painting her as the unredeemed villainess. But Ross said nothing about her lack of honesty. He laid no blame, offered no reproach. He simply waited, calm and remote, as if he were a priest awaiting a supplicant’s confession.

“Jacques and I were married a month after I returned to Snowfell,” she said. “Only a few days before he left to join his regiment on the front lines. He died within the week.”

Ross gazed at the wall behind her. “You knew Toby wasn’t his,” he said.

Of course she’d known. How could she not have recognized the changes in her own body? A werewolf female knew instinctively when she was with child. It ran in the blood as surely as the Change.

“I knew,” she admitted.

“Did you tell him?”

Gillian took a deep breath. What would she have done, if events had occurred just as she’d claimed? What if Sir Averil had been able to keep her pregnancy a secret and her arranged marriage—the real marriage—had happened exactly as Sir Averil had so carefully planned?

Let Ross think the very worst of her. It didn’t matter now.

“No,” she said. “There was no time.”

“But no one questioned that Toby was Delvaux’s,” Ross said. “You were together long enough to give your son a legitimate, acceptable father.”

The bitterness was gone. She’d done nothing to soothe his pride; she’d only given him more reason to despise her. But Ross’s words were rational, almost detached. It was as if he had become a different person than the one she’d been speaking to only an hour ago.

An hour. Had it really been such a short time? Could they have passed so easily through the turmoil of their reunion and emerged relatively unscathed?

“The world hasn’t changed so very much,” she said. “Toby would have been subject to harsh judgment if anyone knew that he was illegitimate.”

“But you weren’t really worried about what regular people might think. All those other loups-garous with their plans for the werewolf race wouldn’t have been too happy with you, either.”

Oh, yes. He clearly remembered her attempts to explain what had seemed so important for him to understand in those days, even before she’d known he was a little more than human.

“I was concerned with Toby’s future, yes,” she said.

“What about your family? You never talked about them. How were they involved in all this?”

Now he was striking much too close to the truth. “They approved of my marriage to Jacques, of course. Our families had been connected in the past.”

“So you couldn’t tell them about me, either.”

“They would not have understood. They trusted me…my honor. I could not have disappointed them.”

He cocked his head, as if he sensed how much she was omitting, but couldn’t frame the right questions.

“You did what you had to do to protect Toby,” he said evenly. “Where did you go after Delvaux died?”

“To Snowfell, the estate where I grew up. My family welcomed me.”

“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.