Come the Night

Chapter One

New York City, July, 1927

ROSS KAVANAGH contemplated the half-empty bottle of whiskey and wondered how much more it would take to get him stinking drunk.

It wasn’t the first time, and it wouldn’t be the last. He’d never been a drinker before they threw him off the force. There hadn’t seemed to be much point; even a man only one-quarter werewolf had a hard time becoming inebriated. And he’d been content with the world.

Content. Until everything had been taken away from him, he hadn’t really thought about what the word meant. He’d given up on anything beyond that a long time ago. It was enough to have the work, the company of the guys in the homicide squad, the knowledge that he’d kept a few criminals off the streets for one more day.

Now that was gone. And it wasn’t coming back.

He lifted the bottle and took another swig. The whiskey was bitter on his tongue. He finished the rest of the bottle without taking a breath and set it with exaggerated care down on the scarred coffee table.

Maybe he should put on a clean shirt and find himself another couple of bottles. Ed Bower kept every kind of liquor hidden behind his counter, available for anyone who knew what to ask for. Sure, Ed Bower was breaking the law. But what did the law matter now?

What did anything matter?

Ross scraped his hand across his unshaven face and got up from the sofa. He walked all too steadily into the bathroom and stared into the spotted mirror. His face looked ten years older than it had two weeks ago. Deep hollows crouched beneath his eyes, and his hair had gone gray at the temples. He wondered if Ma and Pa would even recognize him if he went home to Arizona.

But he wasn’t going home. That would mean he was licked, and he wasn’t that far gone.

Maybe tomorrow. Maybe tomorrow he would sober up and start looking for the guy who’d made a mockery of his life. The bum who had gotten away with murder.

Ross sagged over the sink, studying the brown stains in the cracked bowl. Clean up. Get dressed. Think about living again, even though no cop in the city would give him the time of day and the mobsters he’d fought for twelve years would laugh in his face.

Someone knocked on the door, pulling Ross out of his dark thoughts. Who the hell can that be? he thought. It wasn’t like he had a lot of civilian friends. As far as he knew, Griffin and Allie were still in Europe. They were the only ones he could imagine showing up at his apartment in the middle of the day.

Maybe it’s the chief coming to give me my job back. Maybe they found the guy.

He laughed at his own delusions. The person at the door knocked again. Kavanagh swallowed a stubborn surge of hope, threw on his shirt and went to the door.

The man on the landing was a stranger, his precisely cut suit perfectly pressed and his shoes polished to a high sheen. His face was chiseled and handsome; his hands were manicured and free of calluses. Ross sized him up in a second.

Money, Ross thought. Education. Maybe one of Griffin’s friends, though there was something about the guy’s face that set off alarm bells in Ross’s mind.

“Mr. Kavanagh?” the man said in a very proper upper-class English accent.

Ross met the man’s cool gaze. “That’s me,” he said.

“My name is Ethan Warbrick.” He didn’t offer his hand but looked over Ross’s shoulder as if he expected to be invited in. “I have a matter of some importance to discuss with you, Mr. Kavanagh.”

“What is it?”

“Something I would prefer not to discuss in the doorway.”

Ross stepped back, letting Warbrick into the apartment. The Englishman glanced around, his upper lip twitching. Ross didn’t offer him a seat.

“Okay,” Ross said, leaning casually against the nearest wall as if he didn’t give a damn. “What’s this about?”

Warbrick gave the room another once-over and seemed to decide he would rather continue standing. “I will come right to the point, Mr. Kavanagh. I’ve come to see you on behalf of a certain party in England with whom you were briefly acquainted during the War. She has asked me to locate you and warn you about a visit you may presently be receiving.”

The Englishman’s statement took a moment to penetrate, but when it did, Ross couldn’t believe it meant what he thought it did.

She. England. The War. Put those words together and they meant only one thing: Gillian Maitland. The girl he’d believed himself in love with twelve years ago. The one who’d left him standing on a London kerb feeling as if somebody had shot him through the heart.

“Sorry,” Ross said, returning to the door. “Not interested.”

“Perhaps you ought to hear what I have to say, Mr. Kavanagh.”

“Make it fast.”

“To put it simply, Mrs. Delvaux, whom you once knew as Gillian Maitland, expects her son to be arriving in New York at any moment.”

Ross turned his back on the Englishman. He’d been right.

Gillian.

“What does her son have to do with me?” he asked.

“He believes you to be his father.”

The floor dropped out from under Ross’s feet. “What did you say?”

“Young Tobias is under the mistaken impression that you are his father. He stowed away on a ship bound for America, and every indication suggests that he is on his way to you.”

It took a good minute, but the world finally stopped spinning. Ross made his way to the sofa and sat down, resenting the empty bottle on the table before him. “How old is he?” he asked hoarsely.

“Eleven years. Mrs. Delvaux has asked me to intercept him and send him home.”

Ross jumped up again, unable to banish the pain in his chest. “Is he my son?”

Warbrick hesitated just an instant too long. “Mrs. Delvaux married a Belgian gentleman shortly after her return from her volunteer work in London. Tobias was born nine months later.”

Gillian, married. To “a Belgian gentleman”—gentleman being the key word. And Ross was willing to bet he was a full-blooded werewolf. Just like Gillian.

Warbrick wasn’t a werewolf. Not that Ross could always be sure the way some shifters could, but he had a pretty good knack for figuring out what made people tick.

Even so, if Gillian knew the guy well enough to send him after her son, odds were that he knew about the existence of loups-garous and knew that Gillian was one of them. He wouldn’t be the first human to be privy to that information. Not by a long shot.

And if he knew about werewolves, he ought to know how dangerous it was to tangle with one. Even a part-blood like Ross.

“How do you know Jill?” he said, deliberately using the nickname he’d given her in London.

“Not that it is any of your business, Mr. Kavanagh, but Mrs. Delvaux and I are neighbors and old friends.”

“Where is Mr. Delvaux?” Ross asked abruptly.

“He died in the War, shortly after their marriage.”

Ross released his breath. Gillian was a widow. She’d never remarried. He didn’t know what that meant. He shouldn’t care. He didn’t.

But there was one thing he did care about. He spun on his foot and strode toward Warbrick, stopping only when he had a fistful of the Englishman’s lapel in his grip.

“He is my son, isn’t he?”

To his credit, Warbrick didn’t flinch. His face remained deceptively calm, but Ross wasn’t fooled. This guy was no fighter.

“I’ll find out one way or another,” Ross said. “So you might as well tell me now and save us both a lot of trouble.”

Ross could see Warbrick weighing the chances of his getting out of the apartment with his pretty face intact. He made the right decision.

“Yes,” he said. “Kindly release me.”

Ross let him go. Warbrick smoothed his jacket.

“The fact that Tobias is your son is of no consequence,” he said. “He doesn’t know you. He wasn’t even aware of your existence until a fortnight ago.”

“How did he find out?”

“It was entirely an accident, I assure you.”

“And he decided to come to New York all by himself?”

“He is a precocious child, but he is still a child. You can have no possible interest in a boy you have never seen.”

Ross stepped back, cursing the booze for muddling his thoughts. Warbrick was right, wasn’t he? Maybe the kid was bright, but he was Ross’s son in name only.

Gillian had made sure of that. She could have written, sent a telegram. She hadn’t bothered. Instead, she’d married this Delvaux guy and passed the boy off as his.

Ross knew how easy it would be to let his anger get out of control. “Let me get this straight,” he said. “Mrs. Delvaux asked you to run me down and make sure I hand over the kid as soon as he turns up.”

“That is correct.”

“How is he supposed to find me?”

“The same way I located you. He knows that you worked for the New York City police.”

Worked. Past tense. “He learned all this by accident?”

“It hardly matters, Mr. Kavanagh. You will be doing Mrs. Delvaux a great service, and she is sensible of that. We are prepared to offer you a substantial sum of money for your cooperation.”

Sure. Buy the dumb American off. Neat, convenient, painless.

“Why didn’t she come herself?” he asked. “If she’s so worried about the kid…”

“Since she knows that I have been resident in New York for nearly a year,” Warbrick said, “it was hardly necessary for her to come in person.” He withdrew a piece of paper from his jacket pocket. “I have been authorized to present you with this check for one thousand dollars as soon as the child is safely in my custody. Even if I am able to locate him first, you will receive it as consideration for your—”

“Get out.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“You heard me.” He grabbed the Englishman’s shoulder and propelled him toward the door. “You can tell Mrs. Delvaux that I don’t need her money.”

The heels of Warbrick’s shoes scraped on the landing. “You are making a serious mistake,” he said, anger rising in his voice. “If necessary, I will enlist the police to—”

“You do that.” Ross pushed Warbrick toward the stairs. “Don’t trip on your way down.”

He listened until he heard the door in the lobby snap shut. His hands had begun to shake. He went back into his apartment, closed the door and leaned against it, waiting for the fury to pass.

For eleven years he’d had a son he didn’ t know about. For eleven years Gillian hadn’t bothered to contact him—until she needed something from the American chump who’d been stupid enough to fall for a lady of wealth and privilege and pure werewolf blood.

He was still a chump, letting her get to him this way. He had to start thinking rationally again. Think about what he would do if the boy did show up. It wasn’t as if he had anything to say to the kid.

Maybe Warbrick would find him before he got this far. That would solve everybody’s problems.

Then you can go back to drinking again. Forget about the kid, forget about Mrs. Delvaux, forget about the job.

There were just too damned many things to forget.

He went into the bathroom, turned on the faucet in the bathtub and stuck his head under the stream of cold water. When his mind was clear, he shed his clothes and scrubbed himself from head to foot. He got out his razor and shaved the stubble from his chin. He was just taking his last clean shirt and trousers from the closet when the telephone rang. He let it ring a dozen times before he picked up the receiver.

“Kavanagh?”

Ross knew the voice well. Art Bowen had been one of the last of his fellow cops to stand by him when everyone else had left him hanging in the wind. But finally even Bowen had decided that it wasn’t worth jeopardizing his career to associate with a suspected murderer.

“Hello, Art,” Ross said. “How are you?”

There was a beat of uncomfortable silence. “Listen, Ross. You need to get down to the station right away.”

Ross’s fingers went numb. They found the real killer. They know I’m innocent. It’s over.

“There’s someone here looking for you,” Art continued. “He claims he’s from England.”

The floor began to heave again. “Who?” he croaked. “His name is Tobias Delvaux. He says he’s your son.”

 

ETHAN HAILED A TAXI and gave terse instructions to the cabbie, promising a generous tip for a quick ride back to his hotel.

As unbelievable as it seemed, Kavanagh had gotten the better of him. Considering the ex-policeman’s circumstances, Ethan hadn’t been prepared for his hostility, let alone his refusal of the check. The man had lost everything, including his means of support, and he was clearly not in a position to refuse financial assistance.

But he had—and far worse, he’d presumed to treat Ethan as if he were a commoner.

Of course, he had made a mistake in allowing Kavanagh to know that Toby was his son. He had been too eager to observe the American’s expression when he realized that Gillian had concealed the boy’s presence all these years, that she hadn’t had the slightest desire to renew their relationship.

He had received some satisfaction in that, at least. Kavanagh’s pretense at indifference had been spoiled by the anger he had unsuccessfully attempted to conceal.

But was the anger merely at Gillian’s deception? Or was there something more behind it? Something that would make Kavanagh far more of a problem than Ethan had anticipated?

He had no intention of taking a chance. When the cab pulled up in front of his hotel, he already knew what he must do.

Bianchi’s secretary was polite and apologetic when she informed Ethan that the boss was on holiday. When Ethan pressed, she provided him with the mobster’s location, though she carefully reminded him that the boss didn’t like to be disturbed when he was fishing in the Catskills.

Ethan dismissed her warnings. He’d become quite wealthy as a result of skilled investments in American industry and less “legitimate” pursuits, and he’d contributed generously to Bianchi’s defense the last time the boss had been under investigation.

Bianchi owed him, and what he wanted wasn’t much of an inconvenience for a man of the boss’s power and influence. Ethan knew that there was some risk in leaving town at this juncture, but he had a number of hired men watching for Toby, including several in the police department.

And if something were to happen to the boy… why, even that tragedy could be turned to his advantage.

Ethan rang the concierge to arrange for a car and began to pack.

 

WALKING INTO THE precinct was like walking into the kind of nightmare where everything starts out perfectly normal before going all to hell. Ross stepped through the doors the way he had thousands of times before. He passed a couple of uniforms loitering near the entrance. They started when they saw him; then their faces went hard and blank.

It was the same with every cop he met on the way to the reception desk. Guys who’d been closer to him than brothers turned their backs as he went by. He heard more than one curse crackling in the air behind him. The young officer at the desk gave him a cold stare and suddenly became absorbed in his paperwork.

“I’m here to see Art Bowen,” Ross said.

The officer pretended not to hear him. Ross leaned over the desk, forcing the uniform to lean back.

“He’s expecting me,” Ross said. “Why don’t you be a good kid and let him know I’m here?”

The young cop obviously wanted to go on ignoring Ross. Nevertheless, he picked up the telephone and did as Ross asked, resentment in every line of his body.

Art came into the room five minutes later. He didn’t offer his hand.

“Hello, Ross,” he said.

“Art.” Ross looked past his shoulder. “You said you have my—”

Art made a cautionary gesture and glanced at the uniform behind the desk. “Let’s go someplace where we can talk.”

Ross nodded and dropped into step behind Art. He’d endured another half-dozen cold shoulders by the time they reached one of the interrogations rooms. Art waved Ross in ahead of him and locked the door.

Sitting behind the table was a smallish kid who could have been anywhere between nine and twelve years old. He jumped up as soon as he saw Ross, and they stared at each other in mutual fascination.

The first thing Ross noticed was that Tobias looked exactly like his mother. Oh, not feminine in any way, but fine-boned and intelligent, a little wary, with even and unremarkable features, light brown hair and Gillian’s hazel eyes. His smell was distinctly his own, but it held traces of something half-familiar. Something that reminded Ross as much of himself as Gillian.

“Is this your son, Ross?” Art asked behind him.

Ross looked for any sign of himself in the kid. Maybe there was something in the chin, the line of the mouth, the straight and serious brows. Or maybe that was just an illusion.

The boy stepped forward. “How do you do, sir,” he said. His voice, like Warbrick’s, was that of a cultured resident of England, high with eleven-year-old nervousness, but clear and strong. The kid wasn’t afraid. Of that much Ross was certain.

“Hello, Tobias,” he said, his own voice less than steady.

“Toby, sir. If you don’t mind.”

Art cleared his throat. “I guess you aren’t surprised to see him,” he said. “I didn’t know you had any children.”

Ross couldn’t think of a single good way to answer that question. “How much has he told you?”

“Just that he’s come all the way from England to see you. Looks like he came alone.”

“I did,” Toby said, lifting his chin. He eyed Art warily. “Am I under arrest?”

Laughter caught in Ross’s throat. “What have you been telling him, Art?”

“Nothing.” He gave Ross a direct look that suggested he had more to say on that subject. “I made a few calls. No record of a kid by his name on any ship’s manifest.”

Warbrick had said he’d stowed away. Suddenly feeling far older than his thirty-one years, Ross crouched to the boy’s level.

My son.

He took himself firmly in hand. The only way he was going to be able to deal with this mess was by treating it like any other case. Leave everything personal out of it.

“Tobias—” he began.

“Toby,” the boy said, meeting his gaze.

“Toby. I’m going to ask you some questions, and I expect you to answer them honestly.”

“Of course, Father.”

Funny how much of a punch such a common word could pack.

“Did you really travel on a ship from England by yourself?” he asked.

“I wasn’t any trouble. No one knew I was there.”

“But you didn’t tell anyone you’d left home.”

Toby gazed down at his badly scuffed shoes. “No,” he said quietly.

“How long have you been in New York?”

Toby brushed at his soiled short pants, which Ross guessed he’d been wearing for several days, if not longer. “Just a few days,” he said. He mover closer to Ross and lowered his voice. “I think someone was after me,” he said, “so I hid until they went away.”

“Who was after you?”

“I thought they might be gangsters, but I don’t really have anything worth stealing.”

Ross glanced at the battered suitcase standing beside the table. It might have held a couple of changes of clothing and a few other necessities, but not much else. “I don’t think it was gangsters, Toby. But if you thought you were in danger, you should have come straight to the police.”

“Maybe it was the police,” Toby whispered, rolling his eyes in Art’s direction. “I had to come here because it was the only way I knew how to find you.” Unexpectedly, he grinned, the expression transforming his features the same way Gillian’s smiles had always done. “I knew you’d come for me.”

Ross straightened, reminding himself not to swear in front of a kid. “Okay,” he said. “I need to talk to Art for a few minutes. Can you wait here a little longer?”

“Of course, Father.”

With a wince, Ross turned for the door. Art went with him.

“You didn’t know about him, did you?” Art said as soon as they were in the corridor.

There wasn’t any way to avoid answering, and Ross didn’t see the point in lying. “Not until this morning,” he admitted.

Art nodded sympathetically. “The War?”

“Something like that.”

Mercifully, Art didn’t pursue that line of questioning. “Did Warbrick come to see you?” he asked.

“You talked to him?”

“Yeah. He came in first thing this morning, asking to speak to the Chief. I got stuck with him.” Art’s lip curled in contempt. “He demanded that we inform him if a certain kid turned up. Said the boy had run away and might come to the station.”

“Did he tell you why?”

“It came out after he asked where you lived. Except he claimed the kid mistakenly thought you were his father, and made noises about going higher up if we didn’t do exactly as he said.” Art snorted. “Damned Limey, thinks he can lord it over us.”

“He showed up at my place with the same story,” Ross said. “I threw him out.”

Speculation brimmed in Art’s eyes. He controlled it. “I wasn’t much in the mood to kowtow to Warbrick, so when the kid turned up, I called you instead of him.”

“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-yearold 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 red-blooded 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.

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.