Niall's shoulders hunched. She had scored a point in his most vulnerable region. "I had not known about this Wolf-Man—but the others…" His voice was as stiff as his posture. "I would not allow my sister to be in the company of anyone who might harm her. Of that you may be sure, Miss Hockensmith."
Ah. Of course he would be defensive. She must not let him think she found fault with his care of his beloved sister.
"Naturally you could not be aware of all this. You must concede, Mr. Munroe, that we women do understand each other better than even a brother could. You cannot be everywhere at once, nor think of every possibility. That is why I have taken it upon myself to help in any way I can."
At last he turned back to her. At last she had his full attention, even his appreciation. "I have not been unaware of your efforts, Miss Hockensmith. I have not disregarded your previous observations, and I realize that… even I cannot give Athena everything she may require."
"You are as fine a brother as any lady could wish. But Athena has no mother, no older sister to guide her. And though everyone in Denver society loves and admires your sister, Mr. Munroe, her very goodness may leave her defenseless against those who would take advantage of her. The uneducated and destitute, of any sort, are notorious for just such behavior."
He stared at the poster. "You once suggested that I send Athena away—to New York, perhaps. I did not see any benefit in it before. But we do have a second cousin there, in good society, who might provide companionship for her."
"And I know many in New York who would love her as much as we do." She clasped her hands eloquently. "It is only here that she is… bound by her past. She feels such a need to prove herself, and I see no evidence that she intends to moderate her activities."
"I have spoken to her on that subject."
"But has she listened? Some time away, in the company of well-bred and older advisers, would allow her to find a new perspective and realize how much more there is in the world to enjoy."
Niall subjected her to the same intense, piercing gaze that he had given the poster. "I am not yet convinced that she would be better off away from the only family she has. You do not know her as well as I, Miss Hockensmith."
Quickly she changed strategies and smiled gently. "Naturally not. You understand better than anyone how to care for Athena."
Her retreat softened his stance. "Nevertheless, you have valid points, Miss Hockensmith. I will consider them. As for the circus… there is no business here that cannot wait." He removed the weights and let the poster curl up. "I will see Athena at once. Would you be so kind as to accompany me?"
Her heart leaped. "Of course."
He smiled, a more genuine expression this time. "You are a lady of great generosity yourself, Miss Hockensmith. As generous as your father is astute. I believe he and I shall soon be sealing our partnership."
Elated, Cecily showed him only humble satisfaction. "That is wonderful news, Mr. Munroe."
"Athena and I will hope to see you and your father at dinner in the coming week," he said. "But for the moment—" He stepped around the desk, took his hat from the mahogany stand, and offered his arm to Cecily. "Shall we go, Miss Hockensmith?"
She took his elbow and walked with him to the door.
Let those overweening young ladies at the Windsor observe her now, and reconsider her worth. They had much to learn. Niall Munroe might be particularly unschooled where women were concerned, but he was still a man. And she was very much a woman.
Woman enough to rule all of Denver society.
"I am a werewolf." Morgan had never been one to question his senses. He had relied on their accuracy all his life, and he was not prepared to doubt them now. He had not misunderstood Athena Munroe's startling announcement.
Her gaze held his, steady and sane, though she shivered under the blanket and was not so well as she claimed. He would swear that she wasn't crazy. She'd have no cause to make up such a story, when most people would run screaming in terror after what she had witnessed.
But he would have known. Surely he would have known. Yet he had returned to the lot because of her, and just in time to save her from serious injury, if not death. Now they were connected more surely than by any tenuous sympathy. Now it was so much worse.
Fool.
"Have you… nothing to say?" she asked, a catch in her voice. "Perhaps you need proof of some kind. Unfortunately, I do not know how to give it."
She looked so small, so fragile without the armor of her chair, her legs like a rag doll's beneath her skirts. She had been a feather in his arms—no, not a feather, for a feather had no substance. She was altogether real, and warm, and female.
A female of his blood. He did not want it to be true. Oh, no. He wanted to prove her a liar.
"If you are what you claim," he said, "there are ways of showing it." He glanced around the tent. "Tell me what is in that chest."
She looked at the painted wooden trunk. "I don't—"
"Tell me what you smell."
Her eyes widened with comprehension. Not shock, or fear, or amazement, but recognition.
"A test," she murmured. "Very well." She closed her eyes again and breathed in deeply. Her brow puckered in a frown.
"There are a number of items in the chest," she said slowly. "Something… made of flowers. Dried flowers, and straw. A hat. Caitlin's." She breathed in again. "Yes, it belongs to Caitlin. And there is also a piece of leather—very worn—that is also Caitlin's, but it has been used with horses. Metal… a buckle, perhaps. A bit of harness. And… yes, the smell of an old book, one that has been damp too many times. Like an old, musty library. I think it is Ulysses's. And something of Harry's. Wool. Some article of clothing." She opened her eyes. "I hope you do not expect me to identify the specific garment?"
Morgan stared at her face. He knew she could not have seen the contents of the chest, yet she had described them accurately and without hesitation.
She had a werewolf's senses. If he bade her listen to some distant sound, report a fragment of conversation from the big top, he was sure she would oblige him. But if he asked her to stalk a buck in the deep wood, or run tirelessly for hours on end, or strip herself naked…
He worked his fingers into fists. "Impressive," he said. "But there is a surer form of proof. Change."
He might as well have struck her. She paled, and then the color returned in a rush. "You mean change into a wolf, as you did?"
She spoke as if the very idea was unthinkable. "What is wrong, Miss Munroe? Have you never done it before? Or is it that those who live as you do are above such things?"
"As I do?" She tried to push up on her elbows, thought better of it, and lay down again. "I do not understand you."
"Here, in the city. Among those people."
She was too practiced at the games of her kind to reveal any hurt, but he sensed it in her nonetheless. "Those people?" she said with a brittle smile. "You mean my friends? My brother? Those with orderly lives and assets and connections?"
"If you were anything like me," he said, "you could not deny your blood. And if you did not deny it, you could not tolerate the pretty cage you live in." He leaned forward, holding her gaze. "You know what I am. You must know others. Why did you choose this time to admit your nature if you prefer your safe and easy life? Why tell me at all?"
She let the blanket fall to her waist and made a Herculean effort to prop herself up. Morgan moved to help her, but her eyes flashed such proud disdain that he fell back.
"I confess that I know little of… our kind," she said. "I have only known of one other like me—"
"Your brother?"
"My mother. She… went away when I was born."
A peculiar feeling came over him, a desire to ease the sorrow he heard in her voice, to protect her from future unhappiness. Insane, unaccountable emotions.
But it was instinct—deep, reliable instinct—that told him to believe her words. To accept her claims.
To trust her.
"And your father?" he asked, more gently.
"He was not like my mother, but he knew what she was. When I was old enough to understand, he gave me a letter she had written before she… went away. It explained a few things, but so much was left unsaid. I was not even sure if there were others like us, or how many. Until now—"
"What about your brother?"
"He has a different mother—" She paused, weighing her words. "He knows what I am, but he is like Papa."
Human. Human father, human brother, absent mother. Raised in sheltered privilege in the heart of a human city. Alone.
Was that why she had come to him—for the answers her mother had not given her?
"Is that why you can't Change?" he asked. "You had no one to teach you?"
"But I did. I taught myself." Even in her awkward position she managed to square her shoulders and maintain her dignity. "I could do what you did, once. When I was younger. Before—" She made a brief, dismissive gesture toward her legs.
Pain. For a moment it was stark in her eyes, along with memories too agonizing to bear. His mind formed an image of himself crippled as she was, and flinched away from the horror. What had seemed an inconvenience for a human was worse than death to a werewolf.
"Your pity is quite unnecessary," she said, lifting her chin. "I accepted it long ago." Her eyes gave the lie to her words, but the deceptively tranquil cadence had returned to her voice. She might have been addressing her lady friends at tea.
If he'd been wise, he would have accepted her denial, told her whatever she wished to know, and sent her on her way. She believed she had come to terms with her affliction; who was he to suggest otherwise? If she had made a tolerable life for herself in the human world, that was her own affair.
But he remembered the small-minded conversation of the women she called "friends." Human friends. They could not know what she was, and still they branded her an outsider, an object of the pity she rejected.
He had been drawn to her by senses more profound than mere intellect. Drawn to protect her. And now that she had given him the secret that made her even more an outsider than before…
In all his wanderings, he had never met another of the wolf blood—not in the saloons or on the dusty roads, in ramshackle towns or mining camps. Now he found his mirror in a woman of wealth, education, and the position humans so valued. But there was no wildness in Athena Munroe. Spirit, perhaps, and courage, but no desperate yearning for the freedom beyond human walls.
We are nothing alike. We cannot be.
"I have tried to devote my time and resources to the service of others," she said quietly. "I am quite content. I have put that other life aside. But when I saw you… change… I realized that there was still a small part of me that was not yet laid to rest."
With an unwelcome jolt of insight, Morgan recognized how great an admission she had made to him. Her physical disadvantages made her fight doubly hard to be competent and strong in every other part of her life. In one way they were alike; they both did everything possible to avoid needing. Athena helped others; they needed her, not the reverse.
There was little enough that he needed. But now Athena needed him, and he did not know the extent of that need. Did she expect him—him, of all people—to absolve her of her werewolf nature?
He jumped up from the chair and paced out a circle in the sawdust. "What do you want of me?"
Athena had managed to work her legs to the edge of the cot, as if she might put her weight on her feet and walk away. "If you would be so kind," she said, "I would like to sit up. I am fully recovered."
He was certainly not. But he went to her and lifted her again, carrying her to the chair. The contact was disturbing, and he was aware of her distinct female scent and the acceleration of her heartbeat. Once she was settled he released her quickly and stepped away.
"Please forgive me, Mr. Holt," she said. "I realize that you did not seek my confidences. I shall try not to impose too much. If you can tell me—" She bit her lower lip. "Did you ever meet a woman named Gwenyth Desbois?"
"Your mother?"
She nodded. Her eyes shone—with hope, perhaps. He hated himself for having to shatter it.
"No. I knew only one other of wolf blood—my own mother."
"I see." She gazed down at her hands. "I had thought that you, having traveled so widely, might have known more like us."
He shook his head, wishing he could lessen the sting. "I last saw my mother and sister when I was fourteen."
"So long ago? You were only a boy."
"I was not a boy for long."
"But you loved them. Something kept you apart from them. I know what it is to lose—" The corner of her mouth trembled. "I loved my father."
He did not pursue the path she offered. "They are gone," he said. "Life continues."
"Yes." After a time, she smiled. Always the smile, fore-bearing and generous, covering what she did not want the world to see. "I still have Niall, and my work."
Niall Munroe—arrogant, confident… and human. "Your brother knows what you are, and doesn't care?"
"As I said, he is my half brother. He has known since the first time I—for many years."
And he was undoubtedly glad that she kept her secret from anyone else. Few humans were so tolerant. "Your father was married twice?"
A faint blush came to her cheeks. "No."
So. Either she or her brother was what humans called a bastard—illegitimate, bom to a mother without the status of a wife. Such things meant much in her world. When werewolves mated, it was for life… unless one of the pair was human.
"You have never tried to Change again?" he asked, eager to escape the subject.
"Not since the accident." Her smile was achingly brave and thoroughly fraudulent.
"Were you afraid?"
He had not meant the question to be so challenging. He did not expect an answer, but she gave it anyway. "I did not know what would happen if I tried to Change after I recovered from my injuries," she said. "It happened in the mountains, in wintertime. I was in wolf shape just before the accident happened, but I Changed back when my legs were hurt."
Then she had known what it was to run free. Once more he was forced to amend his assumptions about her. From his own experience, Morgan knew that an injury was not always the same in both shapes. It was risky to Change when severely wounded, for the great effort could lead to death. But a minor injury could be healed by the Change itself. What crippled the woman might not cripple the wolf.
But he couldn't be sure. If she tried to Change and became a wolf with two useless legs…
That was what she feared. That was why she tried to forget her dual nature—until he reminded her of it. Better to live half a life than become a mockery of nature.
But she had said some part of herself could not forget.
"The past is the past," he said. "I can't help you, Miss Munroe."
She dropped her gaze, seemed about ready to reply, and gave her head a small shake. "You have been most helpful, Mr. Holt. You saved my life, and answered my questions willingly. I can ask no more. Now, if you would be so kind as to bring my chair…"
The courteous wall was back in place, vulnerability banished behind the boundaries of propriety and status. "You owe me nothing. But I do… ask… that you not blame Caitlin or the troupers for what happened. It was an accident."
"You do care about them, don't you?" she said softly. Her eyes warmed, and for an unbearable moment she looked as though she might reach out to him. She regained her senses quickly enough. "Never fear. I intend to go ahead with the performance. I am sure Miss Hughes will make sure the horses are safe for the children. Please thank Mr. French for a most enjoyable visit, and reassure him of my goodwill."
Morgan recognized the dismissal. She had spilled out her heart to him, purged herself of doubts, and now she was ready to return to her life. He could banish any thought of a mysterious bond between them.
"One last piece of advice, Miss
Munroe," he said.
"Give your trust sparingly. Do not mistake enemies for allies."
He started for the exit before she could respond. Caitlin blocked the way just outside, pushing Athena's chair before her.
"Is she all right?" the girl asked, peering over his shoulder. "I was so worried, but I had to quiet the horses… I can't believe that Pennyfarthing bolted like that. It is not like him, and he couldn't tell me what was wrong. Harry is beside himself, but he thought we ought to leave you two alone. She is all right, Morgan?"
"She isn't hurt."
"Was she terribly afraid of you?"
He wanted to laugh. "She accepted it quite… well."
"Then she didn't think she was going mad? She won't tell anyone?"
"I doubt it."
Her eyes narrowed. "Something else is wrong, then. Is she angry at us? Will she withdraw her support?"
"She said she wouldn't."
"Did you quarrel?"
"Strangers seldom quarrel."
"Especially when one stranger has saved the other's life, and reveals his deepest secret."
He avoided her too-knowing gaze. "See for yourself. You can show her to Harry and take her back to her carriage."
"That is all?"
"What more do you want, Firefly? Her pledge of undying devotion?"
"Has it gone so far already, Morgan?"
"The lady is waiting."
"But not forever. Don't make that mistake, my friend."
He growled at her and bolted. Her low, taunting chuckle chased him halfway across the lot.
Chapter 8
Athena Munroe was very quiet when Caitlin went to fetch her. She smiled at Caitlin graciously enough, but it was the sort of automatic smile that meant her mind was elsewhere.
Caitlin knew the name of that "elsewhere." Something was definitely going on between Morgan and Athena, only Morgan would probably rather die than admit it. Caitlin had a good idea that she wouldn't be any more successful prying information out of Athena.
TO CATCH A WOLF Page 10
