Kitabı oku: «Come the Night», sayfa 2

“Thanks, Art. I owe you one.”

Art shrugged. “I can always play dumb if the higher-ups come after me,” he said. “Only a couple of uniforms know he’s here, so you can…” He hesitated. “You are going to take him, aren’t you?”

Ross saw the chasm opening up before him. He knew he could walk away, find out where Ethan Warbrick was staying and send Tobias to him, just as Mrs. Delvaux wanted.

But it wasn’t that easy. Ross couldn’t look away from the cold hard evidence of the boy’s parentage. Gillian’s son.

His son.

“Yeah,” he said. “I’ll take him.”

Art’s relief was obvious. “Right. It might be a good idea to go out the back door.”

Ross nodded, and then an unpleasant thought occurred to him. “He doesn’t know…you didn’t tell him…”

“No. As far as he knows, you still work here.”

“That’s another one I owe you.”

Art shifted his weight. “Do you, uh…if you need a little cash, I’d be glad to—”

“Thanks, but I’m fine,” Ross said, more sharply than he’d intended. “The kid won’t starve before he gets back to England.”

Their eyes met, and Ross realized what he’d just said. He’d already assumed he was sending Toby back to his mother.

And what else are you supposed to do with him?

“I gotta get back to work,” Art said. “Take care, Ross.”

They shook hands. Art strode away, his thoughts probably on whatever case he was working on now. The way Ross’s would have been not so long ago.

Hell.

Ross blew out his breath and opened the interrogation room door. Toby sprang back as the door swung in, guilt flashing across his face.

What did you expect? Ross thought. He walked past Toby and picked up the suitcase.

“Come with me,” he said.

“Are we going home?” Toby asked, hurrying to join him.

Home? “To my place, yes,” he said. Where else was there to go?

He led Toby down the corridor and around several corners until they reached one of the back doors, encountering only a couple of detectives along the way. If Toby noticed their stares, he didn’t let on. The door opened up onto an alley, where several patrol cars were parked. Ross continued on to West Fifty-fourth Street and kept walking, one eye on Toby, until they’d left the station some distance behind. Only then did he stop, pull Toby out of the crowd of busy pedestrians and ask the rest of his questions.

“How did you find out I’m your father?” he asked.

Toby’s body began to vibrate, as if he could barely contain his emotions. “Mother wrote it all down. She didn’t think I’d ever find out, but I…” The spate of words trickled to a stop. “You are my father.”

It was as much question as statement, the one crack of uncertainty in the boy’s otherwise confident facade.

“I know you didn’t expect me,” Toby said, slipping into a surprisingly engaging diffidence. “Mother never told you about me. She was never going to tell me, either. That was wrong, wasn’t it?”

If it hadn’t been for the boy’s age, Ross might have suspected he was being played. But Toby was as sincere as any eleven-year-old kid could be.

“You said she wrote it all down,” Ross said. “Did she say…why she didn’t want to tell us?”

“Yes.” Tobias frowned, a swift debate going on behind his eyes. “But it doesn’t matter to me, Father. I don’t care if you’re only part werewolf and can’t Change.”

Ross was careful not to let his face reveal his emotions. He’d known, of course. Lovesick fool that he’d been, even at nineteen he’d been able to guess the reason why she’d left him.

“You aren’t angry, are you?” Toby said into the silence. “You won’t send me back? I promise I won’t be any trouble.”

Ross stifled a laugh. Trouble? Hell, none of this was the kid’s fault. Ross knew who to blame. And she didn’t even have the courage to face the situation she’d created.

With a little bit of help from you, Ross, me boyo…

Toby continued to gaze up at him, committed to the belief that had carried him across the Atlantic. If there was the slightest trace of doubt in his eyes, it was buried by stubborn determination. And blind, foolish, unshakable faith. Just like the kind Ross had had, once upon a time.

A small, firm hand worked its way into his.

“Are you all right?” Toby asked, his eyes as worried as they had been resolute a moment before.

The feel of that trusting hand was unlike anything Ross could remember. He felt strangely humbled and deeply inadequate. Nothing and no one had made him feel that way in a very long time.

“I’m all right, kid,” he said. “It’s just that I’m not exactly used to this sort of thing.”

“Neither am I.”

Ross bit back another laugh. Toby only reached halfway up to his chest, but he was every bit as precocious as Warbrick had said. Maybe that would make it easier.

Easier to do what? To convince him he has to go back to his mother? That whatever he thinks he’s looking for, I’m not it?

“I gotta warn you, Toby,” he said, “The way you’re used to living…well, I’m pretty sure it’s a lot different from my place.”

Toby gave a little bounce of excitement, as if something tightly wound inside him was beginning to give way. “Don’t worry,” he said. “I’ve read Dashiell Hammett. I know all about American detectives.”

Ross rolled his eyes. How did a kid his age get hold of Hammett’s books, especially in England? That was rough stuff for an eleven-year-old boy. And it had probably given him ideas no real cop or detective could live up to. Especially not Ross Kavanagh.

To think that just a few hours ago he’d thought his problems couldn’t get any worse.

Start simple, he told himself. “You hungry?” he asked.

Toby turned on that high-voltage grin. “Oh, yes! May we have frankfurters, please?”

“You’ve never had a hot dog?”

“I’ve only read about them. They must be the cat’s pajamas.”

The American slang sounded funny coming out of this kid’s mouth. “Yeah. The height of gourmet dining.” Ross spotted a vendor down the street, a guy he’d known almost as long as he’d been on the job.

“Mr. Kavanagh!” Petrocelli said cheerfully. “It’s been a while, hasn’t it?”

You had to give it to Petrocelli. He’d never indicated that he knew anything about Ross’s disgrace, even though it had been in all the papers. “Two dogs, Luigi. Easy on the sauerkraut.”

“You bet.” The man began slathering two buns with mustard, ketchup and sauerkraut. Toby stood on his toes and watched, politely restrained, but clearly ravenous. He thanked the vendor very graciously, glanced at Ross for permission, then bit into his hot dog with every indication of pure bliss, just like any redblooded American boy.

“Relative of yours?” Petrocelli asked. “There’s something familiar about him.”

The vendor’s casual words hit Ross like a line drive. He grabbed Toby and pulled him away before he was tempted to make up some pathetic story about a long-lost nephew.

At least the long-lost part is accurate.

Oblivious to Ross’s turmoil, Toby drifted along the sidewalk, hot dog in hand, turning in slow circles as he took in the towering buildings on every side. Ross plucked him from the edge of the kerb when he would have walked right into the street.

“Listen, kid,” he said, planting Toby in front of him. “This is New York. Haven’t you ever been in a big city before?”

Toby gazed at him with the slightly blank expression of a rube just off the train from Podunk. “Grandfather, Mother and I went to London once, when I was very small. I don’t really remember.”

Ross was momentarily distracted by thoughts of Gillian and grimly forced his attention back to the matter at hand. “London ain’t New York,” he said. “You can get yourself hurt a hundred different ways here if you’re not careful.”

“Oh! You don’t have to worry. I can take care of myself.”

Ross tried to imagine what it must have been like for a little boy to cross the ocean alone and make his way from the docks to Midtown without adult assistance. The kid had guts, no doubt of that. “Do you have any money?” he asked.

Toby plunged his hand into his trousers and removed a wad of badly crinkled bills. “I have pound notes and a few American dollars,” he said. “Do you need them, Father?”

Damn. “You hold on to them for now.” He frowned at Toby’s gray tweed suit with its perfectly cut jacket and short trousers, now disheveled and stained. “That the only outfit you’ve got?”

“Oh, no. I have another suit in my bag. I’m sorry I didn’t have time to change.”

His expression was suddenly anxious, as if he expected Ross to blame him for the state of his clothes. Ross reached out and put his hand on the boy’s shoulder.

“Listen,” he said. “I’m down to my last clean shirt myself. Guys in my line of work—” my former line of work “—don’t always have time to look pretty.”

Toby relaxed for about ten seconds before his facile mind latched on to a new subject. “Have you arrested lots of criminals, Father?”

Ross wondered why he was so bent on making the kid think well of him. “I’ve taken a few bad guys off the streets in my day.”

“Capital!” Toby’s eyes swept the streets as if he expected a mobster to appear right in front of them. “Do you think we’ll meet any bootleggers?” he asked eagerly.

“We aren’t going to see any bootleggers, mobsters or criminals of any kind.”

Toby’s face fell. “You said New York was dangerous.”

“It’s not like there’s a gunfight every few minutes. You just have to be careful.” He resisted the urge to take out his handkerchief and wipe a bit of mustard from Toby’s upper lip. “You wouldn’t have made it this far if you weren’t pretty good at that.”

Another lightning-quick change of mood and Toby was grinning again. “Will you show me all around New York? Will we see the Woolworth Building and Coney Island?”

Ross cleared his throat. He still wasn’t prepared to lie to the kid, but he didn’t have to tell the whole truth, either. “I’ll see what I can do,” he said. “You need a wash-up, first. And a nap.”

“Oh, I don’t take naps anymore.”

“You will today.”

Toby groaned. “You sound just like Mother.”

Ross grabbed Toby’s hand and flagged down a taxi. “How is she?” he asked.

The question was out before he could stop it. Don’t kid yourself. You’d have asked it sooner or later.

“Oh, she’s all right.”

Ross said nothing until a cab pulled up, and he and Toby were in the backseat. “Does she live alone?” he asked. “I mean…” Idiot. He shut up before he dug the hole any deeper.

But Toby was too bright to have missed his intent. “I haven’t got another father,” he said. “I always knew my real father wasn’t dead.”

“Mr. Delvaux…”

“Mother never talked about him. I’m not even sure he’s real.”

“You mean your mother wasn’t really married?”

Now you’ve done it, he thought. But Toby didn’t seem to be offended.

“I don’t know,” the boy said. “Some of the pages in her diary were missing, but there was enough in it to help me find you.”

Gillian had kept a diary. About him. And she’d somehow known that he’d gone into the force when he returned to America. He hadn’t even thought about it himself until he was standing on the East River docks, trying to think of the best way to forget Gillian Maitland.

Why hadn’t she forgotten him?

“Didn’t you think how upset your mother would be when you ran away?” he asked, resolutely focusing on the present.

Toby hunched his shoulders. “She has enough things to worry about.”

Ross swallowed the questions that immediately popped into his head. “Your mother has done a lot more than just worry.”

A speculative look came into Toby’s hazel eyes. “How do you know that, Father?”

“She sent someone to look for you. A man called Ethan Warbrick.”

“Uncle Ethan?” Toby’s forehead creased with concern. “Don’t tell him I’m here.” He tugged at Ross’s sleeve. “Please, Father.”

“Don’t you like him?”

“He’s all right, but…” He lowered his voice. “I think he wants to marry my mother.”

“War—Uncle Ethan isn’t a werewolf, is he?”

Toby looked up at him curiously. “No,” he said. “Did you think he was?”

“He knows all about werewolves.”

“Mother and Uncle Ethan were secret friends when they were children.”

“Does she want to marry Uncle Ethan?” he asked, cursing himself for his weakness.

“I don’t know,” Toby said slowly, as if he’d given the matter some thought. “You wouldn’t let him, would you?”

Ross didn’t get a chance to come up with an answer, because the cab had arrived at his building and someone was standing by the door. Someone Ross recognized the moment she turned her head and looked straight into his eyes.

Gillian Maitland.

CHAPTER TWO

SHE’D CHANGED.

Oh, not so much in outward appearance; she’d always thought of herself as plain, but to Ross, she’d been beautiful from the first moment he’d laid eyes on her in the hospital. She still was. Her features were a little stronger now, a little more fully formed with experience and maturity; the faintest of lines radiated out from the outer corners of her eyes; and her golden hair had grown long, gathered in an old-fashioned chignon at the base of her slender neck.

No, it wasn’t so much her appearance that had altered, or the cut of her clothing. Her suit was conservative, the skirt reaching below her knees, the long jacket and high-necked blouse sober and without embellishments of any kind. Ross remembered when he’d first seen her out of uniform; she’d been very proper even then, as far from being a “modern girl” as he could have imagined. Nor had her scent changed, that intriguing combination of natural femininity and lavender soap.

But her eyes…oh, that was where Ross saw the difference. They were cool and distant, even as her expression registered the natural shock of seeing him again after so many years. The hazel depths he’d always admired were barred like a prison, holding the world at bay. Behind those bars crouched emotions Ross couldn’t read, experiences he hadn’t been permitted to share. And a heart as frigid as an ice storm in January.

She looked from his face to Toby’s, and her straight, slender body unbent with relief. He’d been wrong. Her heart wasn’t cold. Not where her son was concerned.

“Toby,” she said. “Thank God.”

Toby stood very still, his face ashen. He began to walk toward his mother, not unlike a prisoner going to his well-earned punishment. Gillian knelt on the rough pavement and smiled, her eyes coming to life.

“Mother,” Toby said, his voice catching, and walked into her arms.

Gillian closed her eyes, kissed Toby’s flushed cheek and held him tight for a dozen heartbeats. Then she let him go and stood up, keeping her hand on her son’s shoulder.

“Thank you,” she said to Ross, sincere and utterly formal. “Thank you for finding him.”

Ross opened his mouth to answer and found his tongue as thick and unwieldy as a block of concrete. “I didn’t find him,” he managed to say at last. “He found me.”

“At the police station,” Toby offered, his brief moment of repentance already vanished. He looked from Ross to his mother, wide-eyed innocence concealing something uncomfortably like calculation. “You needn’t have worried, Mother. I was never in any danger.”

Gillian tightened her fingers on his shoulder, her gaze steady on Ross’s. “I’m sorry that you were put to so much trouble,” she said. “I didn’t know he had left England until the ship had already departed.”

“Yeah.” Ross locked his hands behind his back. “Your friend Ethan Warbrick told me the story. He implied that you weren’t coming.”

The barest hint of color touched Gillian’s smooth cheeks. “Perhaps Lord Warbrick misunderstood.” She glanced away. “Again, I apologize, Mr. Kavanagh. If you’ve incurred any expenses…”

“I bought him a hot dog,” Ross said, a wave of heat rising under his collar. “It didn’t exactly break the bank.” He smiled the kind of smile he reserved for suspects in the interrogation room. “As I told Warbrick, I don’t need any ‘consideration,’ either.”

“I don’t understand.”

That little hint of vulnerability was a nice touch, Ross thought. “Tell Warbrick he can tear up the check.”

“The—” Her eyes widened. “Oh, no. You mustn’t think such a thing, Ross. You—” She caught herself, donning the mantle of aristocratic dignity again. “We shan’t trouble you any longer, Mr. Kavanagh.”

She turned to go, taking Toby with her. He dug in his heels and wouldn’t budge. Ross pushed past the burning wall of his anger and crossed the space between them until he was blocking her path of escape.

“Is that it?” he asked softly. “Nothing else to say…Mrs. Delvaux?”

Most people would have shrunk away from the finely tuned menace in Ross’s voice. Gillian wasn’t most people.

“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.