Secret of the Wolf (27 page)

Meeting him, are you?”

"He's asked to consult with me. I don't often get the opportunity.”

" 'Course." The older woman bustled back to the stove. "I'll get things settled up here

and head back to town.”

Too restless to eat, Johanna took a tray in to her father and found him clean, contented,

and alert. He had a broad grin for her, and ate with real gusto
.

"I've been neglecting you, Papa," she said, helping him cut a piece of cold roast beef

into small pieces. "I am sorry.”

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He tasted a bite and rolled his eyes. "Sehr gut." After a moment he looked at her. "Don't

worry, meine Walkürchen. The young man has been very good company.”

Quentin. "He's been spending much time with you?”

"A fine lad. Knows how to tell a good joke.”

"You like him very much, Papa.”

"Don't you?”

That old, piercing gaze caught her unaware. "Of course I do. But he is a—" She'd

almost said patient, and remembered that her father had thought him a doctor
.

"We made a good choice, bringing him in," Papa said. "He has a healer's touch.”

A healer's touch. Her father had always been a keen judge of character. Was he still?

There could be no doubt that Quentin had done him only good, as he had May
.

But then there was Lewis. And Irene, who was now avoiding him. And today's

disconcerting revelations
.

She put her father to bed and went to seek Quentin. He was already waiting for her in

the hall
.

"We must talk," he said
.

Her mind's eye filled with a tantalizing vision of Quentin standing naked in the woods,

then shifted to the image of his face, snarling and brutal. Suddenly she didn't want to be

alone with him in her office, or anywhere inside four walls
.

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"Yes," she said. "Shall we go to the vineyard?”

It was a place of tidily spaced rows of vines pruned into tortured shrubs, each standing

alone, well-disciplined troops of obstinate old men laden with burdens of new grapes
.

The kind of place where he and Johanna could be together yet totally apart
.

Quentin paused to run his fingers over the plump, nearly ripe fruit on the nearest vine,

pretending to be fascinated by them. All the while his senses were focused on the

woman a few feet away
.

Of the little he recalled from his latest memory lapse, one thing stood clear in his mind:

Johanna's arms. Johanna's touch. Johanna, holding him, comforting him. Johanna's

voice whispering, "I care for you, Quentin.”

What had he done to provoke those words, that tenderness? And what had happened

afterward to bring the wariness into her eyes, while Harper watched vigilantly beside

her?

He crushed a grape between his fingers and let the pulp fall. "What did I do, Johanna?"

he asked. "You told me that I entered another spontaneous trance, but I know very well

that's not all." He sought her eyes. "Tell me the truth.”

She paused in her own examination of an immature bunch of grapes and looked up.

She was too restrained, too emotionless. Hiding something from him
.

Something he wasn't going to like
.

"As you know," she said, "our past few meetings have not been very successful. I

haven't been able to fully hypnotize you, as I did at first. But this time—" Her body

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tensed as if to take a step toward him, but she reached for the nearest vine instead.

"You underwent a sort of transformation. It was as if you were indeed a child again. A

child who had suffered much.”

He laughed, torn by mingled relief and dread. "Ah, the agonies of youth. I must have

disgusted you.”

"Stop." She didn't touch him, but the sheer force of her determination silenced him. "You

make light of it, but things happened in your childhood that must have affected you

deeply. You told me about your grandfather—”

Her voice faded. Between one moment and the next, his mind went blank. Pictures, like

photographs frozen in time, came to him one by one. Greyburn. Playing on the vast

lawn with Rowena and Braden. The Great Hall hung with its swords and shields and

immense wooden doors carved with images of wolves and men. His mother in bed,

slowly dying. The room with the armor, where Grandfather dealt out punishment. And

the cellar

A swell of dizziness sent him grabbing a handful of leaves as if their frailty could support

him. They tore from the vine and fluttered to the ground
.

Johanna caught him in her arms. She held him until he could stand again, and let him

go
.

"I am sorry," she said. "I know this will not be easy for you, Quentin. But I believe what

happened today is significant. You must not give up.”

He clasped his hands behind his back to disguise their trembling. He wanted to give up.

If not for the memory of Johanna's arms about him, protecting, caring

loving

"Was that all I did? Behave like a child?" He clenched his teeth. "Did I become

aggressive?”

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The minute alterations in her scent and her stance gave her away, though she hardly

moved. "Have you reason to believe that you might?" she said, her voice unnaturally

quiet
.

She was sidestepping his questions with more of her own. How could he explain? How,

when he didn't understand it himself? "There may have been times when I didn't behave

quite properly.”

"Times you don't remember, because of the gaps in your memory? Yes, you told me

about them in our first session, but I assumed—" She broke off and looked away, her

expression bleak. "Have you experienced such gaps since you came to the Haven?”

He went cold. "Yes.”

"But you have not been drinking.”

He shook his head
.

"Do you remember any occasion when you became aggressive, here or in the past?”

Until this morning, he could have answered "yes" with perfect honesty. Until this

morning, he'd had only the sense of wrongness following his many binges. He'd see

wariness in the eyes of strangers, sometimes fear, even hatred. That was when he

knew it was time to move on
.

But this morning, in town, he had remembered: the anger, the wildness, the desire to

hurt those who had bullied Oscar
.

"You must be honest with me, Quentin." Her face had gone a little pale under its

ruddiness
.

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"I've tried to be," he said, choking on the half-truth. His nails bit into his palms. "Did I

attempt to hurt you, or Harper?”

"No." She wasn't lying, but she withheld something from him, and she wouldn't meet his

eyes. The only solace he could find was in her nearness; she still trusted him enough to

put herself within his easy reach. He was torn between the desire to weep and to catch

her up in his arms and kiss her until she was breathless
.

"I would never hurt you," he whispered. "Not you or anyone at the Haven. But there is

something you must know." He gazed off across the rows of vines, and beyond to the

fields and wooded hills. "Something happened this morning, when I went into town with

Oscar.”

He told her, slowly, of the incident in Silverado Springs, Oscar's predicament, and what

he had done. She listened as dispassionately as if he were reciting a list of the

provisions he'd brought back from town
.

"You were trying to protect Oscar," she said after a long, charged silence. "You didn't

hurt the boy.”

"No.”

"Then it seems to me that your reaction was not unwarranted." She spoke as if by rote,

all passion quenched. "Oscar could not defend himself. It is in our desire to succor the

weak and helpless that we rise above the beasts.”

Was she creating excuses for him, or had he failed to make her understand? You do a

disservice to the beasts, Johanna. It is men who are the savages
.

"I fear," he said, "that I didn't improve the Haven's reputation in Silverado Springs.”

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"That does not concern me. It will take time to make people realize that insanity or

mental deficiency is neither a shame nor a sin." She blinked several times, returning

from a place inside herself, and finally looked at him
.

"When you first came to us," she said, "I thought the drinking was the cause of your

illness. I was wrong." She searched his eyes, piercing straight to the heart. "It's the

shadows that haunt you. The shadows of your past. The ones that came to life in your

childhood, and followed you into India. And led you finally to us.”

Quentin felt as if she'd sifted his mind like one of the true loup-garou blood. She knew

him better than he knew himself. But when had he ever really known himself?

She drew in a breath. "You do want help, Quentin. No matter what difficulties we may

face.”

God help him. "Yes.”

"Even if it means—" She paused, and again he was left with the certainty that she had

stopped herself from speaking frankly. But not because she was afraid of him. He hadn't

yet driven her to that
.

Did she fear for him?

"There is one more thing I must ask you now," she said
.

He braced himself. "Ask.”

"Lewis came to me today. He claimed to have seen you change into a wolf.”

Quentin couldn't quite stifle a bitter laugh at the absurdity of it. "Oh, lord.”

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She simply stared at him. "Were you running in the woods unclothed, as Lewis claims?”

How could he answer? "I was in the woods. I did a bit of running.”

"And did you feel the desire to become a wolf, Quentin?”

The quandary was most ironic: to let Johanna believe him even more insane than he

was, or tell her the unvarnished truth.
.

If any human could be trusted with the facts of his nature, she could. But such

knowledge would place more burdens upon her—the burden of belief in the face of all

she knew, the burden of secrecy

and the burden of acceptance. If she could accept
.

It was too great a risk. Their relationship hung in the balance
.

And what relationship is that?

"A wolf, at least, very seldom doubts his own sanity," he said at last
.

Her face revealed her thoughts as distinctly as chalk on a slate. "Is this all you have to

tell me?”

"I wish I were not such a disappointment to you, Johanna.”

Rare temper sparked in her eyes. "You did not mention any of this to Lewis?”

"No. I was trying for a little solitude.”

She clearly had more to say, but held her tongue. "Lewis was very upset. It will be best

for you to stay away from him. And if you feel any urge toward—”

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"Running naked in the woods?”

"—any desire to turn into a wolf, you will come straight to me.”

"I understand. The next time I feel the need to divest myself of my clothing, I will most

certainly go straight to you.”

Her fair skin caught fire. "We'll continue this conversation later. I shall be going into town

for part of the day tomorrow, and have arrangements to make.”

He caught her arm as she turned to go. "I have a question for you, Johanna.”

She tilted her face to his, and his body tightened with desire
.

"When I was in my trance

did I kiss you?”

The flush spread from her neckline to her forehead. It was all he needed to know. He

bent just enough to fit his mouth to hers, and kissed her again. Lightly, a mere brush of

the lips was all he dared to attempt. The shock that coursed through him was as

powerful as anything he'd felt while buried deep in the aroused body of a woman in the

throes of her passion
.

Any woman but Johanna
.

She didn't strike him, or stumble away. Her eyes lost their bright hue, leaving her

cheeks with the only color in her face. Her lips parted and closed again without uttering

a sound. If not for the heightened richness of her scent and the audible speeding of her

heart, she might have seemed unmoved
.

When he let her go she simply turned and walked back toward the house, her skirts

trailing unheeded in the fecund earth
.

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