Kitabı oku: «Come the Night», sayfa 3

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.

“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.”

“I know the facts of life, Mother.” His cheeks colored, raising a spattering of freckles. “You decided to have a baby with him, didn’t you?”

The facts of life. Toby had only the weakest grasp on the nature of relationships between men and women, but he knew enough.

“Sometimes,” she said, “we don’t always expect what’s going to happen.”

“You didn’t want me to be born?”

“Oh, Toby.” She moved quickly toward the bed and sat down, her arms trembling with the need to embrace him. “You were a miracle. A wonderful gift.”

“But I’m part human.”

He knew, and there was no going back. “Yes. But your werewolf blood is of the very strongest. You don’t have anything to—”

Be afraid of. But he wasn’t afraid. Not…yet. She had almost slipped, almost revealed too much.

“Even if Father isn’t like Mr. Delvaux, he’s still a werewolf,” Toby said, speaking into her sudden silence. “I’ll bet he could thrash anyone coming to the Convocation.” He bit his lower lip. “Maybe you don’t have to Change to be a real loup-garou.”

Gillian began to shake. He was talking as much about himself as Ross. Either he’d seen through her private fears or he’d drawn the natural conclusions from what he’d read.

She couldn’t lie. But she wouldn’t tell the whole truth.

“You’re very real,” she said, cupping his face between her hands. “And there are many admirable things about humans. Think of Uncle Ethan. Haven’t we been good friends?”

“Would you marry him if he asked you?”

For a few seconds she was too stunned to answer. “Ethan? Where did you get such an idea, Toby?”

“It wouldn’t matter whom you married if you weren’t going to have any more babies, would it? You could even marry Father.”

If he really believed that, she had succeeded in one thing, at least: she had kept him busy enough at Snowfell—and isolated enough, when the occasion required it—that he hadn’t grasped how little her life was her own, or how hard she’d striven not to let him feel the weight of burdens he was too young to bear.

But he would have to be told about what awaited them both at the Convocation. And soon.

“No,” she said gently. “That is quite out of the question. Our lives have become too different. We are too different.”

He frowned at the counterpane. “What if Father wants me to stay in America?”

“He knows that is impossible, Toby. A boy belongs with his mother.”

“What if he asks you to stay, too?”

That icy river sluiced anew through Gillian’s veins. “He will not. You must put any notion of our remaining in America out of your mind.”

She could see right away how little impact that command had on Toby. She should have found a better way to control him, to raise him with enough discipline to have prevented him from considering such a mad course as running away from England. But each time she’d considered treating him more strictly, she’d thought of Sir Averil, and all such resolutions had deserted her.

There was only one way of getting through to him now. And it would mean sacrifice…and faith that her bargain would be enough.

“You would like to see your father again,” she said.

Toby sat up. “Oh, yes!”

“Then I propose a compromise.”

“He’ll come to visit England with us!”

Oh, Lord. He had no idea. None whatever.

“No,” she said. “You know the Convocation is soon to begin, and there won’t be room for more visitors. I propose that we remain in New York for a few days, and you may see Mr. Kavanagh, if he is agreeable. But at the end of that time, you must promise to return with me to the ship without protest.”

Toby cocked his head. “Two weeks.”

“A few days, no more.”

His chest rose and fell in a great sigh. “Agreed,” he said. “May I ring him now?”

“Tomorrow morning is soon enough.” She rose, letting him see nothing of her apprehension. “Back to sleep, young man.”

He plunged back under the sheets with the energy of any ordinary eleven-year-old boy. Gillian was almost out the door when his voice brought her to a halt.

“Thank you, Mother,” he said.

Unable to trust her own voice, Gillian left the room. She almost went straight to the sideboard and the half-empty bottle of brandy, but she didn’t. Alcohol was a refuge of which she had no need.

Ross had. But he wasn’t the one who’d lost the skirmish between them. An hour or two was all the time it had taken him to win Toby over. He had never held a wailing infant in his arms, changed a nappy or soothed a little boy’s hurt, but Toby was already halfway his.

Was that how it happened to me?

The front door clicked. Hugh stuck his head into the room and glanced about warily.

“Is it safe?” he asked.

“Mr. Kavanagh is gone.” Gillian pulled the pins out of her hair and let it tumble down around her shoulders. “Did you enjoy your walk?”

Hugh snorted. “Enjoy it? I was worried sick about you.”

“There was no need.” She sat on the sofa. “Mr. Kavanagh was quite civil.”

Hugh eyed the brandy as he sat in one of the armchairs. “What now? Do I buy a gun or start packing my bags?”