Come the Night

“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.

“That was capital!” Toby exclaimed, his gaze darting from Gillian to Ross and back again. “You weren’t afraid, Mother?”

She managed a smile for him, excluding Ross. “Not in the least. I found it quite delightful.”

Toby gave Ross a pointed look, as if he were trying to convey some secret message. Ross found himself at a loss, and Toby turned away.

“May we try the Aerial Swing?” he asked.

They made their way to the Aerial Swing, which consisted of four large gondolas suspended from the ends of crossbeams projecting from a tall, narrow tower. The crossbeams rotated around the tower as they moved up and down, swinging the gondolas in a wide circle far above the earth.