Come the Night

Gillian had already begun to think that she’d made a very poor decision in agreeing to stay at Oak Hollow. “Toby and I are stopping with friends of Mr. Kavanagh’s on Long Island. We shall not be back until tomorrow morning.”

“It sounds as if you’ve been very busy, Gilly. I can’t wait to hear the details.”

That was something Gillian did not anticipate with any degree of pleasure. “I shall see you tomorrow morning, then. Give my regards to Ethan, and assure him that Toby and I are quite well.”

“Swell.” He paused. “Be careful, Gilly. But then, you’re always careful. Or at least you used to be.”

He hung up, and Gillian was left with his unsettling words ringing in her ears. Hugh was hardly a model of discretion himself. If he thought she had been reckless in her dealings with Ross, he must really be concerned.

But he had agreed that she ought to allow Toby some contact with his father. Even if he hadn’t, she would have relied on her own judgment, not his.

Judgment she had begun to doubt more and more as the day went on.

As for Ethan…He had always been protective when they were children, angry when her father had been more critical than usual or had made it difficult for her to leave Snowfell to meet him. When they’d met again as adults, after a separation enforced by Sir Averil and facilitated by Ethan’s years away in Europe and the East, she’d told him about Toby’s real parentage, but she’d made it very clear that she had no desire to rekindle her past with her American lover. She couldn’t guess why he would be so upset about her having met with Ross.

After returning the receiver to its cradle, Gillian stepped out of the room. She was relieved to find the hall empty. Moving quickly to the stairs, she paused at the landing. She heard the low hum of Ross’s voice and the higher pitch of Toby’s light alto coming from Toby’s room.

The temptation to listen was great, but she deliberately closed her ears and continued on to her room. She would bide her time until she could speak to Toby herself, and then she would be free to spend the rest of the night alone.

Alone with the cruel little voice that kept asking her if she’d made the worst mistake of her life on that painful day twelve years ago.

GRIFFIN WAS WAITING for Ross at the bottom of the staircase.

As restrained as Grif had been compared to Allie, Ross had a feeling he wasn’t going to get away without answering a few questions. He’d noticed the way Griffin had watched first him and then Gillian, silently appraising, his golden eyes narrowing from time to time as he listened to their brief exchanges…or lack of them.

Whatever Grif was thinking, it was better that he knew at least some of the facts rather than speculate and come up with all the wrong ideas.

“How about that drink?” Ross suggested.

“Has Mrs. Delvaux retired?” Griffin asked.

“I haven’t seen her since I went up.” Ross passed Griffin and walked into the summer parlor, heading straight for the sideboard. “What she told you was the truth, you know.”

Griffin considered Ross from the doorway, one brow cocked. “Which part?” he asked.

“About our meeting while I was recuperating in a London hospital.”

“I don’t doubt it.”

Ross poured himself a brandy. “We got pretty close back then. You know how it was. People formed strong bonds during the War, and it didn’t really matter who you were or where you came from.”

“I remember.”

“Anyway, she got married, and I went on to join the force.” He paused, wondering if Grif had heard anything about the scandal while he and Allie had been away. “I didn’t hear from her until she phoned me from England a couple of weeks ago. She thought we should meet again for old times’ sake.”

“Old times,” Griffin repeated. He wandered toward the windows. “You don’t have to play these games with me. I owe you more than I can repay. I would never presume to judge you.”

Ross downed the drink and poured another before he had time to think. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“And I would accept that, Ross, if it weren’t so clear that you’re in some kind of trouble.”

He didn’t know. Ross expelled his breath. “And you think this ‘trouble’ I’m in has something to do with an old friend from the War?”

“She’s more than an old friend, isn’t she?”

The second drink disappeared in seconds. Ross set the glass down a little too forcefully.

“We were close,” he said. “Very close. But it didn’t work out.”

Griffin sat on the sofa, stretching his arm across the back. “What about the boy?”

“What about him?”

“He’s yours, isn’t he?”

Ross could have denied it. If he had, Griffin might have left it alone. Or, white knight that he was, he might have decided to interfere anyway, his usual courtesy be damned.

“How could you tell?” Ross asked.

“A hunch.”

“That’s all? A hunch?”

“And the fact that you offered to take Toby up to bed. If you’d never met the child until recently…”

“I hadn’t.” Ross forced himself to walk away from the sideboard. “Look, it’s not something I want to talk about.”

“Did Mrs. Delvaux bring Toby to the States to see you?”

“No. And please don’t mention any of this to her. She and Toby…” He swallowed. “They might not be in New York much longer.”

“I see.”

“I doubt it.” The impulse to tell Griffin everything gnawed at Ross. He wished he could take the risk of getting drunk. “What do you think of the kid?”

“He seems a fine boy,” Grif said. “He looks very much like his mother.”

“I’d noticed that.” Ross paced across the room. Though it wasn’t small, it seemed far too confining. “He’s only part werewolf,” he said suddenly.

“Is that important?”

“It is to Ji—To Mrs. Delvaux.”

Griffin considered that in silence. “You’re worried about Toby.”

“I want to make sure he has a good life in England,” Ross said. He rubbed his hand across the unshaven stubble on his chin. “Hell. I’ve only known him two days, Grif. And seeing Jill again…”

“Allie told me she’s a widow.”

Ross wondered what sort of conversation she and Gillian had had. “Yeah.”

“Do you still love her?”

CHAPTER SEVEN

THE BLUNTNESS of the question left Ross stammering. “She…I…” He gave himself a hard mental shake. “What makes you think I loved her?”

Griffin looked at him as if he’d said something stupid. Ross wished he were back in his own apartment, with a cheap bottle of whiskey and a stained wall to throw it at.

“It wouldn’t have worked,” he muttered.

“Yet she’s here.”

Too much had already been said. Ross opened one of the French doors to the garden and walked out, leaving Grif to his speculations.

The garden smelled strongly of roses, both new and fading. The moon was high and very bright. He wandered aimlessly for a while, across the rolling lawn and then down to the boathouse that stood near the dock. The scent of salt water was so strong that he almost didn’t realize that Gillian was already there.

Gillian, yes. But she waited for him on four legs instead of two, and the moonlight caressed sleek golden fur and sparkled in slanted lupine eyes.

Ross stopped, transfixed by memory and Gillian’s magnificence. She was more glorious in her maturity than she’d been that first time he’d caught her in wolf shape, but he felt that same sense of shock and realization, understanding that certain puzzles had been solved and mysteries explained. No one, not even the most superstitious human, could have looked at her now and doubted that she was beautiful.

And untouchable. Untouchable because she was what she was, and he could never Change and stand at her side as partner and true equal.

He turned to leave. A low whine brought him to a halt. He didn’t move again until he heard her return from the boathouse on two human feet.

“Ross.”

She wore a dress cut much shorter than she seemed to prefer—one of Allie’s, no doubt—and flat pumps a size too large. Her legs were bare, and her hair hung loose below her shoulders. She looked so unlike the Gillian he’d met two days ago that he could do nothing but stare.

She glanced down at herself. “I suppose I look rather a mess,” she said.

She spoke like a girl with her first beau, doubting her own ability to attract the interest of any male. Ross thought of the golden wolf and struggled not to laugh at the desperate irony of it.

“No,” he said roughly, blurting out the first words that came into his head. “You look beautiful.”

His pronouncement had an unexpected effect. Gillian’s face flushed red, and she smoothed her skirt as if she could somehow make it extend farther down her legs. “I thought I would be alone,” she said.

“I’ll leave.”

“No.” She brushed her hot cheeks with her fingertips. “That isn’t necessary. I was about to return to the house.”

“Don’t.” He realized he’d taken complete leave of his senses, and he didn’t care. “Stay.”

Gillian took an awkward step, stumbled, then caught herself just as Ross reached her. He grasped her arm and felt her muscles tense. The scent of her hair and skin swirled around his head, far sweeter than any rose.

If Gillian had behaved true to form, she would have extracted herself from his grip immediately. Instead, she laughed. The sound was almost girlish, nervous and bright.

“I’m not usually quite so clumsy,” she said.

“I know.” He glanced around and noticed a bench near the boathouse, set where the lawn gave way to the beach. He eased her down, though it was clear she didn’t need his help. She sat with her back straight and her hands folded at her knees, gazing out at the dark, choppy water.

Ross continued to stand, half-afraid he would send her running off again if he tried to share the bench with her. A little afraid of himself, too.

“Toby’s asleep?” he asked.

“He soon will be, if he isn’t already,” she said. “I didn’t realize it was possible to exhaust him.”

The ease of her speech, like her laugh, set Ross back on his heels. He’d expected her to be warier after meeting Allie and Grif; Allie could come on pretty strong, especially in comparison to someone as reserved as Gillian. Maybe he seemed less threatening in comparison.

“I guess you don’t feel very comfortable with the Durants,” Ross said. “I’m sorry it turned out this way.”

Gillian raised her hand in a brief, dismissive gesture. “Mrs. Durant is an unusual woman, but quite charming,” she said. “Mr. Durant is very pleasant company.”

“Yeah.” Ross figured that it didn’t matter if she was lying just be to be polite, as long as it helped her cope. “I guess this place has one advantage. You’re a lot safer Changing here than in the city.”

“I hadn’t thought about it.”

“But you’ve been living in the countryside. You must find Manhattan pretty confining.”

She cast him a distracted look. “We…seldom find occasion to Change at Snowfell.”

It was such a strange comment that Ross wasn’t sure how to respond. “I thought Changing was the most important thing for your people.”

“It is.” She answered so quickly that she hardly seemed to realize what she’d said until the words were spoken. “I…Of course there is a great deal more.…It is simply…” Her shoulders went up in a defensive posture, and Ross had a sudden, inexplicable flash of insight.

“You don’t really like it, do you?”

She would have bolted from the bench if Ross hadn’t stood in her way. Her scent heightened with some strong emotion.

“If I didn’t ‘like’ it,” she said tightly, “why would I do it here?”

Ross had nothing but pure conjecture on his side, yet he couldn’t let it go. “I don’t know,” he said. “Maybe being around people who’ve broken the rules means you have to remind yourself who you are and what you’re supposed to believe.”

“I know what I am.”

“But are you so sure what you believe?” He leaned over her. “What was it like when you went back to Snowfell, Gillian? What made you this way?”

Waves licked at the beach and receded again, whispering derision at Ross’s stupidity. She would never confide in him, not while he treated her like an enemy.

“I’m sorry,” he said.

Gillian met his gaze, her hazel eyes searching his as if she thought he was mocking her again. “Why, Ross?”

“Why what?”

“Why are you doing this?”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

She got up, dodged him and walked to the edge of the water. “What do you really want? It isn’t money. You’re in no position to keep Toby, even if you were to steal him from me.”

He flinched. “I told you I wouldn’t take him from his mother.”

“If you truly thought it was in Toby’s best interests…” She turned to face him. “Wouldn’t you? Wouldn’t you do anything?”

“If you’re asking if I care about Toby, I do. That doesn’t mean I’m out to cause you pain.”

“Then the man I once knew isn’t entirely gone.”

“Twelve years is a long time. It changes some things, but not everything.”

“Yes. Some things never change.” She buried the toe of her pump in the damp sand. “Am I such a terrible mother?”

Seeing this side of Gillian—this doubt and fear, this vulnerability—unmanned Ross more than anything else she could have done. “Jill…”

“Do you hate me, Ross?”

He wouldn’t in his wildest dreams have expected her to ask such a question. “For God’s sake,” he said hoarsely. “I don’t hate you. I never—”

But that wasn’t true. He had hated her, no matter how much he’d tried to deny it. He just hadn’t realized how much until the hatred was gone.

For it was gone, and he didn’t know what do with the empty space it had left inside him.

Unable to find the words, he took Gillian’s shoulders, pulled her toward him and kissed her.

If she’d struggled, if she’d pulled away and slapped his face, he wouldn’t have blamed her. She did neither. She softened in his arms, as pliant and responsive as she’d been as a girl of eighteen. The distinctive scent of arousal filled his senses, threatening to overwhelm him. He retained enough self-control not to demand too much, so Gillian gave freely in return, locking her arms around his shoulders, accepting the thrust of his tongue with a soft groan of pleasure.

That was when Toby found them.

He made hardly a sound, but Ross smelled him instantly. So did Gillian. She lurched backward, uncharacteristically clumsy once again, and pressed her palm to her mouth. Ross felt as if someone had punched him in the gut.

“Mother,” Toby said, his mouth quivering as he fought to conceal an expression he didn’t want them to see. “Father.”

“What are you doing here?” Ross demanded, aware that Gillian was still struggling to regain her composure. “Why aren’t you in bed?”

“I couldn’t sleep.” He hunched a little under Ross’s glare. “I heard voices outside.”

Sure he had, the little devil. He’d probably been looking for a chance to escape his room ever since he’d heard his mother leave the house.

“You’re going back right now,” Ross said. “March.”

“I’ll take him,” Gillian said.

Her voice held no trace of the softening she’d shown since Ross had met her on the beach. Her face was strained and pale.

She’d probably like to shoot herself right about now, Ross thought. How’s she going to explain this to Toby?

And how was Ross going to explain it to himself? When he’d left the house, kissing Gillian had been the furthest thing from his mind.

“Do you still love her?” Griffin had asked. Hell, it had nothing to do with love. Ross still found Gillian attractive—more than that, he’d been forced to admit he still wanted her. And her response had told him that the attraction and the wanting were mutual.

Maybe she’d had other lovers since her husband’s death, but he was beginning to doubt it. Having made the mistake already, she wouldn’t have chosen another human, and he had a hunch that English werewolves weren’t casual in their sexual relationships, even among themselves.

Then there was the way she’d kissed him, tentatively at first, then with an intensity that hinted at passion long denied.

Even though she and Ross had made love only once in London, Gillian had been uninhibited, almost wild in her physical expressions of desire. It was the side of her that had convinced him, in his naiveté, that she might abandon her old life and return with him to America.

He wouldn’t make the same mistake twice. Most likely Gillian would never come within touching distance of him again; she wouldn’t want Toby getting any more ideas. But even if she did, it wouldn’t mean anything except that she was still capable of wanting him.

Ross walked away from the boathouse at a fast clip, hoping to get his wayward body back under control. Gillian would know if he went into the house still in a state of arousal. He just couldn’t let her have that kind of power over him. And in spite of what he’d told her, he had yet to make up his mind about Toby. How could he, when he’d barely had time to talk to the kid?

Fresh out of answers, he walked for a good two hours, following the road that ran parallel to the ocean. He passed a dozen fancy mansions, some bigger than Griffin’s. It was ironic. He remembered when Griffin had been dead set on marrying off his younger sister, Gemma, to some human guy from high society. Grif had wanted to forget the animal side of himself. Events had finally compelled him to accept his werewolf nature. Could Gillian accept her son’s human blood?

Hell, he’d been a cop. Still was, whatever anyone else said. In the end, he had to rely on facts. Maybe he’d jumped to the wrong conclusions about Gillian’s fears for Toby, seeing and hearing only what he expected instead of what really existed.

She loved Toby too much to make him suffer for being part-human.

She’d never loved Ross that much.

Another couple of days and I’ll be sure. Then I’ll know I did everything I could.

Everything but forget.

It was near dawn when Ross returned to the house. He heard Allie moving about and took the stairs quietly, wanting to dodge more probing discussions. A couple of hours’ shut-eye would wipe the last confusion out of his head.

But it wasn’t going to be quite that simple. He could smell Gillian even from several rooms away, hear the faint movements she made as she stirred in her bed. When he finally did manage to sleep, his dreams were full of her, full of the sounds of her cries as he made love to her, the feel of her nails scraping his back and the brush of her hair across his face.

The first thing he did when he woke was to take a long, cold dip in the bathtub. It didn’t do a damned bit of good. And short of hiding in his room, he couldn’t avoid Gillian any longer once it was over. He went downstairs to the modern kitchen where Gillian, Toby, Allie and Griffin were eating eggs, bacon and toast.

“Boy, I’ll be glad when Starke is back,” Allie said, polishing off her last bite.

“You don’t like my cooking?” Griffin asked, pretending offense.

“You can cook?”

Griffin showed the tips of his teeth, and Allie laughed. Gillian gazed at them with a strangely bereft look on her face.

She’s never seen this kind of thing before, Ross thought. He still knew almost nothing about her parents or her life at Snowfell, and she hadn’t had enough of a marriage to develop the kind of easy, bantering devotion that Grif and Allie shared.

He was glad of that, and he despised himself for it.

He sat down and buttered a piece of cold toast, returning Allie’s cheerful greeting. Gillian was absorbed in studying the intricate floral pattern of the tablecloth. Toby watched Ross out of the corner of his eye and pushed the remnants of his egg around on his plate with his fork.

“I want to thank you again for your hospitality,” Gillian said to Allie and Griffin. “Toby and I will be returning to Manhattan this morning.”

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