CHAPTER FOUR
CONEY ISLAND, Ross mused, was a place most werewolves would go out of their way to avoid, especially on a Sunday in May. And that suited him just fine.
He’d been sitting on his sofa, wide-awake after a sleepless night, when Gillian had telephoned. Her voice had startled him, even though he’d been expecting her call; he still wasn’t used to the richness of her tone, or the way it played along his nerves like the bow of a costly violin.
“Coney Island,” he’d suggested, after they’d dispensed with the exchange of meaningless courtesies and she’d made her proposal. “Toby seems to have his heart set on it.”
The sound of Gillian’s breathing had filled the silence over the line as she considered his recommendation. “Is it a suitable place for a boy of his age?”
Strange that she actually valued his opinion now that she’d decided to let Toby see him again; he’d begun to wonder if he’d judged her a little too harshly. But when she’d made it clear that she would be coming along, Ross had almost nixed the idea. He didn’t want her there. It wasn’t part of his plan.
Then he’d pictured Gillian surrounded by the hoi polloi of humanity in all its brash, loud and malodorous glory, and he’d changed his mind.
This was his world. She had stepped into it whether she’d intended to or not. All that mattered was that he had a couple of days to find a chance to talk to Toby alone. It wouldn’t take many questions to find out how Toby felt about being part-human…or if Gillian had done anything to make him feel bad about it, deliberately or otherwise.
Ross shoved his hands into his pockets and scanned the street. Automobiles and streetcars puttered up and down Surf Avenue, narrowly avoiding the hordes of pedestrians that crossed boldly in front of them. Gillian had said that she and Toby would arrive in a limousine. There weren’t too many of those on Coney Island these days; ever since the new subway extension had been put in and the beaches had opened to the public, Manhattan’s most humble citizens had become the majority of the island’s visitors.
That wouldn’t bother Toby, Ross was certain. There wasn’t a prejudiced bone in his body; he was a democrat at heart. And when he got a look at the Thunderbolt…
Ross caught himself. He’d never suspected how easy it would be to slip into that dangerous kind of thinking. There was no logical basis for it; he’d spent less than an hour with Toby yesterday, and yet he already thought he understood the kid just because he’d had something to do with bringing the boy into the world.
All he really knew was that Toby had any normal child’s appreciation for hot dogs and amusement parks. That he didn’t share all his mother’s views. And that he was brave, smart and determined to get what he thought he wanted.
Ross had believed the same things of Gillian when they’d met. Brave and smart and willing to throw caution to the winds once she’d decided that she wanted a doughboy boneheaded enough to wear his heart on his sleeve.
A young man and his girl brushed by Ross, hand in hand. Ross watched them walk through Luna Park’s garish entrance. Gillian’s qualities and his former relationship with her, good or bad, had little to do with his purpose now. The whole point of this meeting, and any others he could finagle, was to determine if Toby was safe and happy.
The first step had been convincing Gillian that there wouldn’t be any harm in letting him see his son. He’d played her the same way he played suspects, harsh at first and then gradually relenting, so that she started to think he was harmless. Reasonable. Willing to compromise.
Ross loosened his tie as the sun emerged from behind a cloud, reflecting heat up from the sidewalk under his feet. Obviously Toby hadn’t realized that he was part human until he’d found the diary. But had he sensed something amiss, something he could never quite define?
He’s eleven years old, for God’s sake. He didn’t act like a kid who’d had a difficult upbringing. But Ross couldn’t ignore the possibility that Toby was hiding his own private fears—fears he wouldn’t share with his mother. If there was any chance that Toby was going to suffer just for being Ross’s son, Ross wanted to know about it. If the kid was going to grow up feeling that something was wrong with him, Ross intended to do whatever was necessary to make sure that didn’t happen.
A few days was all Ross had to get at the truth. Gillian hadn’t given in because she had any regard for him; she’d just realized that he wasn’t going to walk away quietly, and that compromise was better than an outright battle.
Still, Ross knew she would never have let Toby anywhere near him if she’d heard about the scandal. The longer she stayed in New York, the more likely she was to run across that information. She’d said that Toby had an idealized image of the father he’d never known. And ideals…they had a way of crumbling under your feet when you least expected it.
The blare of a horn interrupted Ross’s thoughts. A black limousine pulled up at the kerb, and a uniformed chauffeur got out. Ross beat him to the back door and opened it.
Gillian looked up at him from beneath the brim of her rolled silk hat, and he caught his breath. Nothing in her appearance had changed since yesterday. That was the problem. She could still make him feel as addled as a schoolboy catching his first glimpse of a girl’s knees.
He held out his hand, and she accepted it, rising from the automobile like a swan unfurling its wings. Her georgette frock, plain enough to be almost severe, was a shade of green that brought out the same color in her eyes. She wore no rouge or lipstick. She needed none.
Damn her.
“Good afternoon, Mr. Kavanagh,” she said. She lifted her head, and her nostrils flared to take in the cacophony of smells that even the least sensitive werewolf would find overwhelming. A large, laughing family bearing baskets stuffed with bread and sausages careened by, trailing the scents of garlic, perspiration and smoke. Gillian watched them recede into the crowd, her face expressionless.
“Hallo, Father!” Toby popped up beside them, nearly bursting out of his blue serge suit. His face was scrubbed pink, his hair was neatly groomed and his shoes had been shined to a mirror finish; he looked as if he ought to have been in church instead of on the boardwalk.
“Hello, Toby,” Ross said, taken aback by the sudden tightness in his throat. “Glad you could make it.”
“So am I.” Toby’s gaze swept over the street, the vividly painted buildings and the people hurrying from one attraction to the next. “It’s even better than I imagined.”
Ross tried to remember when he’d last felt as excited as Toby was now. “Are those the clothes you usually wear when you go to an amusement park?” he asked.
Toby looked down at himself in surprise. “I’ve never been to one before. Mother always insists that I dress like a gentleman when we are away from Snowfell.” He grinned. “But I don’t see any gentlemen around here.”
Ross glanced at Gillian, who didn’t seem to be listening. “Does that bother you, Toby?” he asked. “Would you rather go someplace where your clothes won’t get dirty?”
Toby raised his fair brows in exaggerated disbelief. “You must be joking. I’d much rather wear dungarees like a cowboy, or a jumper and plus-fours like Uncle Hugh.”
“Maybe that can be arranged, once we’re back in the city.”
“Capital!” Toby tapped the leather bag dangling from a strap over his shoulder. “Mother did let me bring my bathing costume,” he said, lifting the bag for Ross’s inspection.
Ross hid his astonishment. Obviously Gillian had no conception of what the beaches would be like, swarming with uncouth human bathers competing for their small patches of sand. His treacherous thoughts shifted, constructing a detailed picture of Gillian in one of those revealing one-piece jersey swimming suits, her curves no longer hidden by a shapeless, low-waisted frock.
“Did your mother bring hers?” he blurted.
This time Gillian was paying attention. Her fair skin went pink. “I do not own a bathing costume,” she said. “We purchased Toby’s at a shop near the hotel.” She looked from side to side as if she were seeking escape. “If you will excuse me, I need to speak to the chauffeur.”
“You don’t have to keep him here,” Ross said. “I’ll make sure you get home safe and sound.”
She hesitated, probably wondering just how far she should trust him. “Yes,” she said. “Of course.” She turned to address the driver, who touched the brim of his cap and returned to the car.
Toby had spent the brief interlude bouncing in place, ready to bolt for the park entrance as soon the adults finished their boring conversation. Gillian moved to take his hand. He shook himself free as unconsciously as a dog shakes water from its back.
Gillian dropped her hands to her sides. “Where do we begin?” she asked.
Her voice was brisk, but there was uncertainty in it. She was as out of place here as Ross had been in the Roosevelt Hotel. Her wealth and perfect breeding bought her nothing in this egalitarian human world. She was lost, and that was exactly how Ross wanted her to feel.
But she hadn’t been that way in London. She’d worked among soldiers of all classes and had treated them equally, as had the other upper-class women who’d joined in the war effort. She’d never shown any outward sign of discomfort in her role as a common nurse. Even when she’d been faced with devastating injuries and suffering, she’d never faltered. And she’d given herself to a guy she’d assumed was human, a man not even from her own country.
Ross cursed under his breath. What the hell was he thinking? This was the real Gillian Maitland, the one who’d returned to her old life without a backward glance. That other Gillian had been a mask she’d temporarily worn, the way a little girl tries on her mother’s clothes and oversized shoes. And this Gillian—Mrs. Delvaux—had thrown away whatever spirit of rebellion and adventure had led her to volunteer in the first place.
Just like she’d thrown away his love.
Toby tugged at Ross’s arm. “May we go now, Father?”
“Toby!” Gillian said, inserting herself between him and Ross. “I doubt Mr. Kavanagh wishes his arm to be pulled from its socket.”
“Don’t trouble yourself on my account, Mrs. Delvaux,” Ross said. “I think I can handle my own son.”
She blanched and stepped back as if he’d struck her. Ross pretended he didn’t care. He ruffled Toby’s hair.
“What first?” he asked. “The Aerial Swing or the Dragon’s Gorge?”
“Which one is least frightening?” Toby asked in a low voice.
“Being scared is part of the fun, isn’t it?”
“Oh, I’m not worried about myself. But Mother is with us.”
“Do you think she’d be afraid?”
“I don’t know. She’s never been to a place like this before, either. I think she’s a little nervous.”
So even Toby saw it, though he wouldn’t realize that Gillian’s unease had nothing to do with the amusements themselves. He was capable of a child’s unthinking callousness, but he also wanted to protect his mother. Would he feel that way if he resented her, if he hadn’t already forgiven her those years of deception?
Ross cleared his throat. “Let’s start her off easy with the Dragon’s Gorge,” he suggested. “Mrs. Delvaux?”
“Yes, Mr. Kavanagh?”
“We’re off to see the Dragon’s Gorge,” Toby said. “You needn’t worry, Mother. You have two men to protect you.”
Gillian met Ross’s gaze. He could have sworn there was sadness in her eyes.
Because Toby wasn’t her little boy anymore. He was growing up. She was bound to lose him eventually, just like any mother. But for her, it was a hundred times worse. She might lose him to his humanity.
A sense of chivalry Ross had given up years ago compelled him to offer Gillian his arm. She ignored him and started toward the park entrance. Toby lingered to make sure Ross was following, and then he darted ahead. They waited in line to purchase their tickets and joined the stream of people sweeping into the concourse.
The Dragon’s Gorge was one of Luna Park’s primary attractions, and the crowd was considerable. Miniature railroad cars moved one by one along a winding track into the open maw of a vast cave, guarded on either side by snarling winged dragons. Toby walked at a rapid clip to the end of the line, trying to peer over the heads of the people ahead of him.
Gillian joined Toby, and Ross fell in behind them. The top of Gillian’s head was just level with Ross’s mouth; the smell of her skin and her hair, unsullied by the heavy perfumes so many women used, was far more intoxicating than the whiskey to which he’d become so attached since the hearing and its aftermath.
Both the whiskey and the woman were a kind of poison. Both confused his brain and his senses, made it all too easy to deny the hard facts of life. Ross backed away, bumping into the man behind him. He muttered an apology and deliberately closed off his senses until he, Gillian and Toby had reached the head of the line.
He wasn’t sure quite how it happened, but suddenly Toby was sprawled across the last seat of the waiting railroad car, leaving Ross and Gillian to take the first seat in the car behind it. The attendant gestured impatiently; Ross stepped into the car and helped Gillian in after him.
She sat just as stiffly as she had in her hotel room, her gloved hands tucked in her lap and her gaze fixed on the car ahead. Toby twisted in his seat and waved happily as the car lurched into motion.
“Is it quite safe for him to ride alone?” Gillian asked, speaking as if the words had been pried out of her by red-hot pokers.
“He isn’t a baby,” Ross said. “You can’t keep him in high chairs and diapers for the rest of his life.”
She glared at him, her eyes glowing as the shadows of the cave closed in around them. “You think me overprotective,” she said. “You think that Toby is as…worldly as any boy his age. He is not. He has lived all his life—”
“Around people just like him, where he’s safe from anything that could challenge what he’s been taught.”
“You know nothing of how he’s been raised.”
“I can guess.” He leaned back on the hard wooden seat, careful to keep from touching her. “The lessons don’t seem to have taken, though. He’s not a stuck-up little prig.”
Her breath came fast. “No,” she said, “he is not. But you, Mr. Kavanagh, are certainly not lacking in arrogance.”
“Because I’m honest?”
“Are you?” She searched his eyes. “Are you really?”
Ross started to answer and found he couldn’t speak. He was convinced in that moment that she could see right through him, right down to the core of the miserable failure he’d become.
He was saved as the railcar, which had been chugging its way to the top of a steep incline, suddenly plunged from darkness into a brilliant white scene of the North Pole. Ross hardly noticed. The car rolled on to the next exhibit, but he was no longer paying attention. He thought of all the places he’d read about and longed to see when he was a kid at his parents’ ranch in Cold Creek Valley, places with exotic names that seemed a million miles away: Timbuktu, Istanbul, Singapore. When he’d turned seventeen and the Great War was already raging in Europe, he’d seen joining up as a chance to escape Arizona and explore a little of the world. Ma had been against it at first, but Pa had understood Ross’s need to be part of something bigger than himself. They’d added to his own store of carefully saved money to send him on a boat to France.
There hadn’t been many American volunteers at the time; the United States was still years away from officially joining the War. But Ross had found exciting and often dangerous work as a driver for the American Volunteer Motor Ambulance Corps. He’d served for about three months when his vehicle hit a mine; somehow he’d gotten mixed in with a bunch of British wounded and been shipped off to recover in a London hospital.
That had been where he’d met Gillian. Of course he hadn’t known her name in the beginning; his injuries had been pretty severe, though not disfiguring, and at first he’d hardly been able to tell the difference between the succession of doctors, nurses and volunteers who passed by his bed.
But then he started to heal—fast, with the help of his werewolf blood—and he’d seen her visiting the men in the ward. He’d become increasingly intrigued by her poise, her grace, her untouchability. If anyone in the place represented his idea of a European aristocrat, loaded to the gills with “good breeding,” she was it.
It soon became obvious that she was very skilled at what she did; ice queen or not, she had a gentle touch and soothing voice for soldiers who needed comfort, and she was more competent than many of the professional nurses. Plenty of guys seemed to find her attractive. But she seldom smiled and never laughed, and no one seemed to be able to breach her air of cool superiority.
Ross had almost dismissed her as a just another arrogant, privileged blue blood. But then his condition had begun to improve, and he’d had set himself a challenge: to find out what made Gillian Maitland tick.
His first few attempts had failed. Maybe she was put off by his American drawl, or his easy manner and informal ways; he treated her as if she were his equal, and that didn’t sit well with her in the beginning. But eventually she began dropping by his bed more often, and he would regale her with the stories of the “Wild West” he’d learned at his father’s knee. She started to smile a little more. Warmth crept into her hazel eyes. He learned that her father was a baronet, and she came from a grand estate in the north of England. He figured that she’d never known a day of want in her life, which made her work at the hospital all the more admirable.
Little by little their relationship had evolved from a cautious friendship to a deeper bond. One night, after Ross was finally allowed to walk again, she’d let him kiss her.
A new Gillian had emerged after that brief incident, a girl of passion and hidden fire. Ross had felt like the peasant boy who’d won the heart of the king’s daughter. He and Gillian had kept their relationship carefully hidden from the hospital staff and patients. They had walked on the grounds after midnight, hand in hand, speaking little and feeling much.
One late night, on his way to meet her, Ross had seen Gillian Change from wolf to human form on the hospital lawn behind a clump of trees. He’d quickly overcome his shock, realizing that he’d already felt the difference in her without knowing it. He’d told her then, with perfect honesty, that he knew about the existence of werewolves, at least in America. She didn’t ask how or why he knew about loups-garous, and he didn’t reveal his own mixed heritage, unsure how she would feel about it.
After that, Gillian had told him all about the werewolves in Europe. They were trying to save the werewolf race from extinction, she’d explained. The number of loups-garous in the world was rapidly shrinking; they had to live secretly among humans, constantly fearing exposure. Ancient European families had been working tirelessly to preserve the pure werewolf bloodlines and unique gifts.
Ross had listened, strangely uncomfortable with the driven, almost mechanical way Gillian spoke of the Europeans’ efforts. She’d recited the information almost like a schoolgirl who’d learned her lessons by rote; the passionate, animated woman Ross had discovered beneath her aristocratic veneer seeming to vanish.
But then she’d self-consciously asked him to make love to her, and he’d forgotten the things that had troubled him. Their joining had been like a miracle, a gift Ross knew he didn’t deserve. He’d finally admitted that he was of werewolf blood. She’d laughed, her eyes filled with happiness and relief. Ross had believed that his dreams were about to come true.
Until she’d asked him to run as a wolf beside her, and he’d had to tell her that he couldn’t do it, that his mother was human and his father only half-werewolf. He hadn’t noticed then how quiet she’d become. He’d been certain, in spite of what she’d said about the European devotion to werewolf purity, that it couldn’t possibly matter. They loved each other. And he wanted her to marry him.
There had been no explanations, no warning. Gillian simply never showed up at their next planned rendezvous. She’d left her work at the hospital and disappeared without a word. And in his shock, Ross had remembered what he hadn’t wanted to acknowledge: the look in her eyes when he’d told her he couldn’t Change.
The look of a princess who’d just been told that her knight in shining armor was nothing but a crippled beggar after all.
A sharp movement jostled Ross out of the past. The car had made another turn and was descending into a new tableau, this one depicting the Grand Canyon. He looked at Gillian; she was gazing at the diorama with her lips slightly parted and an almost childlike expression of wonder on her face, as if she’d completely forgotten that Ross was there.
“Why didn’t you remarry?” he asked.
She started and clutched at the car’s railing as if she expected to be pitched out onto the ground. “I…beg your pardon?”
“Delvaux died before Toby was born. Why didn’t you find Toby another father?”
It was a stupid thing to ask. Ross knew he wasn’t thinking clearly, hadn’t been since Gillian had stepped out of the limousine.
He dug the hole a little deeper. “There must have been other acceptable candidates, even after the War,” he said. “Or did you run out of all the pure-blooded types in your part of the world?”
She turned toward him, her hair bleached white by the harsh overhead lights. “I had no desire to marry again.”
“Delvaux was that great, huh? You just couldn’t let go of his memory?”
Damn and double-damn. Now he’d given her reason to think he could be jealous, when he felt nothing of the kind. But Gillian didn’t offer the cutting reply he’d expected. She sighed and leaned back in her seat, the wonders of the Dragon’s Gorge forgotten.
“My time with Jacques was short,” she said. “He would not have wished me to grieve unduly.”
Ross’s heart lurched and slowly resumed its regular rhythm. She didn’t love him. Not any more than she loved me.
“But you still didn’t think Toby needed a man in his life,” he said.
“What makes you think he didn’t have one?”
Touché. Just because Gillian hadn’t married again didn’t mean she couldn’t have had a whole string of lovers. Her coolness hadn’t kept plenty of wounded soldiers from falling in love with her, though she’d given none of them a second glance.
They’d all been human, of course. But she’d thought Ross was human up until the time they’d made love, and that hadn’t stopped her.
“Is it Warbrick?” he asked in a bored tone.
“What?”
“Toby said Warbrick wanted to marry you. Or was it something more casual?”
Gillian might have been an excellent actress, but her discomposure seemed genuine. “There is nothing between…Children, as you know, have vivid imaginations. Ethan has been a good friend to Toby.”
“That must be why he begged me not to let Warbrick find him.”
“Toby knew that what he’d done was wrong and was hoping to avoid the consequences.”
“Was Warbrick likely to punish him? Isn’t that your job?”
Gillian didn’t seem to hear the second part of his question. “He is a good man,” she said quietly.
“Sure. But he’s got one serious flaw. He can’t Change.”
CHAPTER FIVE
ROSS KNEW HE’D gone too far, said out loud things he hadn’t meant to bring up in Gillian’s presence. But now it was done, and she had nothing to say. They rode on in silence until the car reentered the vast, openmouthed cave where the ride had begun and descended to the platform, where Toby was waiting for them.
