Secret of the Wolf (11 page)

"I have come to believe that certain elements of his past experiences caused his mental

collapse some years ago. By uncovering them through hypnosis, we have begun to

confront them. By confronting them, we cause them to lose their power.”

Uncovering the past. A deep chill penetrated his heart. "Another of your father's

theories?”

"One of my own." She met his gaze without false modesty. "I am still developing this

method of treatment.”

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He forced the fear aside. "I look forward to observing your technique.”

"You shall have your opportunity very soon." She looked in the direction of the hallway.

"There are only two others you must meet—May, our youngest, and Harper Lawson.

I've seen little of May since you arrived, and she may still be in hiding.”

"She's afraid of me?”

"She fears many things. In some ways, she is younger than her age. She came to us

two years ago, in a state of hysteria. Her mother left her with us for treatment. Only

Oscar and I have been permitted to come close to her. She has greatly improved but,

as with the others, progress can be slow.”

"What caused her hysteria?”

Once more Johanna hesitated. "I cannot give you details—that must remain confidential

between physician and patient. Suffice it to say that her home life was not a happy one.”

A leap of intuition, and a subtle change in Johanna's expression, told Quentin what he

wished to know. His lip curled over his teeth, almost without his realizing it. "A child who

has suffered at the hands of those who should have cared for her," he guessed. "Like

Oscar.”

Johanna looked down at her folded hands. "This is why my father and I believe so

strongly in what we do. To abandon such people to life in an asylum, or as prisoners in

their own homes, is unconscionable if there is any way to help.”

Under Johanna's dry tones and scholarly speech Quentin heard the ardor that made

him so powerfully aware of her. She was devoted to these people, odd as they were.

She accepted them. As she might accept him
.

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"You have a very generous spirit," he said with complete sincerity. "The world is

fortunate that you chose this profession.”

The palest stain of pink touched her high cheekbones. "Some members of the medical

community might disagree. Our methods and ideas are controversial among

neurologists and asylum directors." She rose and smoothed her skirts. "Come.”

He was about to follow her from the room when he heard a muted sound outside the

window overlooking the garden. He pushed back the lace curtains just in time to see a

girl with short, dark hair tumbled about her face and a book clutched in her arms, dart

behind a vine-covered trellis. She held very still, but he could see her brown eyes, wide

with alarm
.

May. She reminded him very much of a wild creature, not unlike his elder brother

Braden's young American wife, Cassidy. But Cassidy hadn't been afraid of anything.

This one would bound away like a fawn at the first perception of danger
.

Johanna appeared at his shoulder. "You've found her," she said. "May spends most of

her time in her room, reading, or in the woods. I don't deny her that freedom. She

always remains close to home.”

"I have some acquaintance with wild things and places," Quentin said
.

"Do you?" Johanna tilted her head to search his eyes. "Perhaps, then, you will

understand May.”

"I am always in favor of understanding." He lifted his hand, allowing it to graze hers.

Unobtrusively she swept her hand behind her skirts and made haste to walk away
.

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What game are you playing? he asked himself. What will you do if she begins to

respond to your advances?

He shrugged off the question as he did so many others and trailed after her into the

hallway
.

She paused outside a closed door. "This is Harper Lawson's room. He seldom leaves it,

even for meals." She drew a breath. "Harper was a soldier in the War, fighting with an

Indiana regiment. My father had only begun to work with him when he suffered his

apoplectic attack. I have since determined that Harper's insanity has its origins in his

service, though he was able to live a normal life for some time following the war. I have

read other cases in which soldiers such as Harper

”

A soldier. Quentin lost the thread of her words, gripped by a sudden wave of dizziness.

She'd said the War had made this man insane
.

War.

He clutched at the wall, fingers curved into claws. A choking fear rose in his throat. His

nostrils flared to the rank smell of smoke, of blood, of sweat and unwashed bodies. The

hammering of gunfire reverberated in his ears until he could hear nothing else

Bodies falling. Ambush. Captain Stokes collapsed beside him in midshout, missing part

of his face. Blood drenched Ouentin's uniform. Young Beringer's legs were shot out

from under him. He screamed in a high-pitched wail of pain and terror
.

Quentin's vision clouded, narrowed, fixed on the enemy among the rocks above. He

could smell the outlaws in their hiding places, carrying out the slaughter from complete

safety. There weren't enough men to take them on. This was supposed to have been a

simple police action, to capture a minor Pathan bandit who'd been harassing the more

amicable Punjabi villagers. Lieutenant Colonel Jeffers couldn't have known that he'd

sent them into a trap
.

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Untouched by the whizzing bullets, Quentin dropped his pistol. He felt nothing. Nothing

was the last thing he remembered, until he woke in the hospital tent

"Are you ill?" He sprang back, heart pounding, before he recognized Johanna's voice.

He focused on her grave blue eyes until the trembling had passed
.

Blue eyes like still, deep water. Calming. He floated away with them, into a land of

peace. Nirvana, the Buddhists called it
.

"Quentin," she said, drifting somewhere alongside him. "Do you hear me?”

He heard, but he couldn't speak. He didn't know what caused his pulse to beat so high,

or why she thought him ill. She had been speaking of Harper, and then

Nothing. Blankness. Moments and words lost to him—then Johanna's voice, her eyes.

That was all
.

Another one. Another episode of "disappearing," though he hadn't touched a drop of

alcohol
.

"You were somewhere else just a moment ago," she said. "Do you remember?”

Somewhere else. A place of blood and heat and fear. A narrow defile between jagged

cliffs—a trap. Rocky walls closing in; a room of damp stones. Darkness. Hours and

hours of darkness, and hunger, and pain. The images bled together in confusion
.

And then the orders. Orders that came as hard and deadly as bullets. He threw up his

arms, casting the images away. Staggering. Falling
.

He found his weight supported against a solid, sweetly curved body
.

"You had better sit down," Johanna said. "You have pushed yourself too hard.”

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Her words pierced the fog in his brain. Johanna. She held him. Her arms were strong

and sheltering, but soft as a woman's should be. Warm. Comforting
.

He gave up all thought and allowed himself the sheer physical pleasure of feeling her

body pressed to his. Snug bodice and underclothing couldn't disguise the fullness of

breasts that so generously fit the crook of his arm. He rested one hand on her waist, just

where it joined the flare of her hips. Her simple dress was a great advantage under the

circumstances: no flounces and layers and furbelows to get in the way. Just a bit of

cloth and the heat of flesh beneath
.

And her scent. Clean, smelling slightly of soap. The scent of woman. A woman who

wasn't indifferent to the man she held. Her body was becoming aroused, even if she

didn't know it
.

He settled his face into the cradle of her upper shoulder, his cheek brushing her neck

and jaw. With just a slight tilt of his head, he could kiss the skin above the edge of her

collar
.

"We shall postpone your introduction to Mr. Lawson," she said, her words muffled in his

hair. "I will help you back to bed—”

"Only if you join me in it," he whispered
.

"I beg your pardon?”

"I still feel quite

dizzy," he said, tightening his hold about her waist
.

"We shall take small steps," she said, and began moving him firmly in the direction of

his room at the end of the hall. The movement felt very much like an extremely intimate

waltz
.

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"Do you dance, Johanna?" he asked, spreading his hand over the small of her back
.

"Seldom, and not with my patients." Her pulse beat erratically, loud enough for Quentin

to hear with no effort
.

"Such a waste." He stumbled, and his hand slipped lower to cup her buttocks. There

was no bustle to impede his progress
.

She went stock-still and forcibly pushed him away, turned him about, and marched him

with a soldier's tread through the door of his room. Without ceremony or excessive

gentleness she let him fall to the bed
.

"I had thought," she said, facing him with hands on hips, "that you might join us for

dinner tonight. But I think, upon reflection, that you should remain in bed.”

Quentin's protest died with the appearance of a rampaging headache. He might as well

have been drunk, and earned it. He rolled sideways and stretched out, shielding his

eyes from the light
.

Johanna's hand settled on his forehead. "You are not feverish," she said. "Good.”

Along with the pain in his head had come a very prominent swelling in his nether

regions—which Johanna, doctor that she was, could not have failed to observe.

Unfortunately, she didn't offer to lay her healing hands on his aching member
.

"Do you know what happened to you outside Harper's room?" she asked, dousing his

less-than-idle fantasies
.

"Nothing," he said. He patted the mattress beside him. "Care to join me? I should like to

sample more of your bedside manner.”

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This time he couldn't even raise a blush in her. "I believe," she said, sitting down in the

chair, "that you briefly entered a spontaneous hypnotic state. Quite unusual, but not

impossible. It bodes very well for our work together.”

Their work. She meant the techniques she wanted to try on him, the cure for his

drinking
.

"Why did you ask me

if I was somewhere else?”

"I thought that you were reliving some episode in your past. As I mentioned before, this

can happen in the hypnotic state—”

Reliving the past. His ribs seemed to contract around his heart, pressing down so that

he couldn't breath. Was that how it would be, this hypnosis? Going back to the heat and

blood and darkness, memories torn from some hidden place he hadn't visited in a

decade?

Or worse, deliberately surrendering to the blankness, the nothingness?

"No," he rasped. "I think I

I don't think you can help me. I'm sorry, but I must leave."

He began to sit up, but her hand stopped him. That capable, gentle hand, fingers

spread as if she would capture his heart like some small wounded creature
.

"I will not yet ask you what you saw there in the hallway," she said. "I have seen that

look on Harper's face. But I can tell you that it is normal to be afraid." Her blue eyes

were filled with compassion. "Every man has his reason for drinking. Perhaps your

reason is not one you wish to face. But you have the strength and courage to do so.”

"No." He laughed hoarsely. "I am a coward.”

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"No more than any other human being.”

The irony of her words stopped his laughter. "And what if you're wrong? What if we start

something we can't finish?”

"We will work together to find the answers, Quentin Forster.”

Quentin closed his eyes. She'd won. Behind her gentle touch was the force of