won’t even know I’m there.” Ross picked up his hat and headed unerringly for the room where Toby was sleeping. He made no sound at all when he stepped into the bedroom. Gillian paused in the doorway as he went to the bed and looked down at the boy sprawled beneath the covers.
There should have been nothing remarkable in the sight of a father watching his son while he slept. It happened all over the world every day. But Gillian could hardly breathe as Ross knelt beside the bed, reached out with one big hand and touched Toby’s hair with such gentleness that Toby didn’t so much as stir the tip of one little finger.
The moment lasted for a dozen heartbeats, and then Ross withdrew. He met Gillian’s gaze, and the gentle wonder that lingered in his face warmed her like a fire in winter.
“Thanks,” he said simply, and slipped out of the room. Her skin hummed beneath the sleeve of the blouse he had brushed in passing. She compelled her feet to follow him to the outer door, astonished at how difficult it was to regain control of her own body.
Ross opened the door to the hall and turned to face her, his expression unreadable once again. “I’ll be expecting your call,” he said.
“Ross—”
“Good night, Gillian.” He placed his hat on his head, nodded briefly and walked away.
Gillian leaned heavily against the doorjamb, watching him until he reached the elevator and stepped inside. She felt nervous, a little sick to her stomach and oddly exhilarated.
The first two symptoms she understood well enough. But the third…that one made no sense at all. Physical yearning was a thing of the body alone, easily governed by the mind. It was only a ghost, a dream, a memory with no validity in the present.
She backed away from the door, closed it firmly and returned to Toby’s bedroom. He was sitting up, his chin resting on his bent knees.
“He’s gone, isn’t he?” he asked.
“Yes.” Gillian sat in the chair nearest the bed and folded her hands in her lap. “Did we wake you?”
He shook his head. “I had a dream that Father was teaching me how to fish.”
“How to fish?”
“Mmm-hmm. Except I was very small. And Father was living with us at Snowfell.”
Gillian’s nails pressed tiny crescents into her palms. “Toby…it would be wise…it would be better if you didn’t call Mr. Kavanagh ‘Father.’”
His bright, direct gaze focused on her. “Why not? He is my father.”
“In a literal sense, yes. But once we return to England, it’s likely that you’ll never see him again. You will find it easier to adjust if you—”
“If I pretend I never met him?” Toby leaned back against the pillows and folded his arms across his chest. “I can’t forget, even if you can.”
It was surprising, Gillian thought, how much a child’s thoughtless words could sting. “Tell me,” she said, “why you’re so fond of Mr. Kavanagh when you’ve spent scarcely any time with him.”
Toby considered her question with a lightning shift to that precocious maturity that still had the power to surprise her. “Isn’t one supposed to like one’s father?” he asked.
If she hadn’t known better, she might have thought he was testing her. But she’d been careful, so very careful, to keep him away from Sir Averil and his volatile moods.
“That isn’t an answer, Toby.”
“I just like him. He doesn’t treat me like a child.”
“But you are a child. There are many things you don’t understand.”
“I understand that you wrote that you didn’t think Ross was good enough to be my father because he wasn’t like you and Hugh and Grandfather.”
Gillian felt light-headed. He’d read just enough to confuse him, and now she had to set it right.
“Do you remember when we talked about how rare werewolves are in the world?” she asked.
He tangled his fingers in the sheets, his expression turning sullen. “Yes,” he muttered.
“Wise men realized that the only way to save our kind was to marry those of loup-garou blood to each other, to preserve our abilities and our way of life. That is the purpose of the Convocation. That is why we must sometimes set aside the things we…might think we want in order to help all our people.”
“And Mr. Delvaux was the right kind of werewolf.”
Oh, how she had tried to keep this from him. How she had danced around the subject, knowing that one day Toby might discover his mixed heritage and what it could mean.
How much had he read in those damning notations?
“Mr. Delvaux,” she said, “was from a family that could trace its bloodlines back to the fourteenth century and beyond. No one questioned that he had all the qualities necessary to strengthen our people.”
“You didn’t even love him.”
“You can hardly make such judgments, Toby, when he died before you were born.”
He gave her a hard, direct look. “I know you didn’t love him, but you still thought he was better than my real father.” His jaw set in a way that reminded Gillian far too much of Ross. “There isn’t anything wrong with Father, whatever you say.”
Dangerous, dangerous waters. “You’re right, Toby,” Gillian said gently. “There’s nothing wrong with Mr. Kavanagh. I’ve no doubt that he is very competent in everything he does. I’m certain he has a full life here, with his work as a police officer.”
Toby wasn’t to be distracted. “He wasn’t a police officer when you met,” Toby said. “He was a soldier, wasn’t he?”
“Yes, but—”
“Did you know, then, that he was only part werewolf?”
Dear God. “I…it isn’t always possible to tell.”
“But you liked him anyway, didn’t you?”
“Yes. I liked him, Toby.”
“I know the facts of life, Mother.” His cheeks colored, raising a spattering of freckles. “You decided to have a baby with him, didn’t you?”
The facts of life. Toby had only the weakest grasp on the nature of relationships between men and women, but he knew enough.
“Sometimes,” she said, “we don’t always expect what’s going to happen.”
“You didn’t want me to be born?”
“Oh, Toby.” She moved quickly toward the bed and sat down, her arms trembling with the need to embrace him. “You were a miracle. A wonderful
