Wolf in Waiting

by Rebecca Flanders

  I am for the most part a vegetarian—although Phillipe’s concoctions have been known to tempt me from my diet now and again—so the tradition seems as silly to me as it probably does to you. But it has its foundation in common sense. In ancient times, when most of our culture originated, the alpha leader was responsible for defending, sheltering and providing for the entire pack. If he himself were not well fed, we all would die. It’s really rather stirring, when you think of it like that.

  So these little rituals developed around food and status, especially where members of the opposite sex are involved. At a formal dinner, the order in which everyone is served is far more important than what is served; wars have been started over a mistake. During courtship, the gift of food is tantamount to a proposal of marriage; what is offered and how it is accepted determines precisely what kind of sexual liberties can be taken.

  As for the sharing of a meal between two members of the opposite sex of widely divergent status…well, nothing is as simple as it sounds. It depends, you see, on whether one is orthodox or reformed, culturally liberal or conservative. I myself am a well-educated girl from a good family and I knew perfectly well how to behave. My Aunt Lucille, the werewolf equivalent of Miss Manners, would have fainted dead away had she seen me so casually invite the heir designé to share a meal. But many of us of the younger generation, having dealt so much with humans in our everyday life, have come to adopt some of their ways. Obviously I am one of them, and sharing food seemed to me a friendly, sensible gesture, one I made without thinking.

  There was no way of knowing what Noel Duprey’s opinion on such matters might be, however. I held my breath for a sign I had given offense.

  He glanced at the plate in my hand. “It does smell delicious,” he admitted. “And I don’t think I had lunch.”

  I’m sure my shoulders sagged with relief. “Come then,” I said. “Would you like to dine before the fire?”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Noel

  All right, I probably shouldn’t have agreed to share a meal with Victoria. As I may have indicated, there are still some of the protocols and formalities about my new status that make me uncomfortable, and sometimes I forget. Besides, I was alone in a strange city, too tired to travel, and starving.

  Which covers every reason except the real one—Victoria St. Clare. She was fascinating, captivating, dangerous. I didn’t understand her, I couldn’t ignore her and I dared not trust her. But I was not ready to leave her.

  I drew up a small table before the fire and brought two chairs from the kitchen while she found plates and silverware. She made a salad and I poured more wine. I enjoy these quiet domestic evenings occasionally; I always have. When I thought of the alternative—the corporate condo with its chrome-and-black decor and its silent, shadowy servants efficiently programmed to anticipate my every need—the warmth of Victoria St. Clare’s fire was even more welcome.

  Of course I knew better than to let myself get too relaxed with her. She took far too many liberties, as it was. And it was becoming clearer by the moment that Victoria St. Clare was more of a force to be reckoned with than I had ever imagined.

  It had seemed so simple at first. Victoria St. Clare: a distinct annoyance, perhaps Sebastian St. Clare’s stooge, possibly even a minor-league spy. But surely not powerful enough to do any real damage. Now…the more I learned of her, the more worried I became. The woman who had created that graphic was talented, focused and self-directed. The mind behind the other campaigns that I had eventually discovered to be hers was brilliant.

  Knowing how she had been abused, ignored, passed over and stolen from during her tenure in the Montreal office, seeing what she was capable of accomplishing with almost no effort at all…well, frankly, the only thing that would have surprised me would have been if selling secrets was all she was capable of.

  At that moment it was clear that this case would either be solved in record time, or I had just stumbled into more trouble than I knew. Which was another way of saying that I didn’t know what to think. If Victoria could keep her genius secret from her own colleagues all these years, what other secrets might she be hiding? Just how much damage was she capable of doing?

  On the other hand, there was no real evidence against Victoria at all, and a great deal of cause to reserve judgment. It was entirely possible that Sebastian St. Clare had set up a devilishly clever trap into which it would be far too easy to fall. So I was proceeding very carefully. Innocent until proven guilty, and so on.

  There was, of course, always the possibility that Victoria was nothing more or less than exactly what she seemed to be: bright, capable, woefully underacknowl-edged and completely taken aback by all of this.

  There was a part of me that really wanted to believe that, and for absolutely no other reason than the fact that I have a weakness for beautiful women, whoever they might be and wherever they might be found.

  She didn’t make a fuss about lighting candles or breaking out the linen tablecloth, as some females would have done. She simply set the big bowl of salad on the table, along with a basket of crusty bread and a bowl of butter, and divided the contents of the platter between our two plates, although I noticed she took slightly less than she gave me. She had excellent manners, which shouldn’t have surprised me. She is a St. Clare, after all.

  The cat sat on the hearth beside her chair, and Victoria fed it bits of salmon from her plate. I was appalled. But my manners are excellent, too, when I remember to use them, and I said nothing.

  “Do you have a place to live?” she inquired, spooning a large amount of lettuce and carrots onto her plate.

  When she offered to serve me the same, I held up a staying hand. I do eat vegetables, but not when there is meat on the table.

  “I’ll be staying at the condo,” I told her, doing my part to keep up polite conversation.

  “Oh, you have an apartment in the city?”

  “No, the company does. It’s for visiting dignitaries or members of the board, didn’t you know that?”

  “Why should I?”

  She looked unconcerned as she fished out another piece of salmon from the soufflé on her plate and sneaked it to the cat. I averted my eyes.

  “No reason you should, I suppose.” And then I observed, “There are no werewolves in this building.”

  “Of course not. This neighborhood isn’t at all trendy enough for them.”

  “It’s nice,” I said. “The privacy.”

  She looked at me thoughtfully as she skewered some salad onto her fork. “Yes. I suppose it is.”

  Having made short work of the soufflé, I dug into the roulade. “This is very good. Your Phillipe is quite a cook, for a human.”

  She tore off a piece of bread and popped it into her mouth. She had pretty white teeth, small and sharp. “He finds you attractive,” she said.

  That amused me. “I’m sorry I can’t return the compliment.”

  Her eyes twinkled. “I think I speak for our entire population when I say I’m very glad to hear it.”

  I laughed. It felt good to laugh. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d done it.

  I took up my wineglass and leaned back in my chair, smiling at her. “And what about you?” I inquired. “How do you find me?”

  It was habit, nothing more. I appreciate females, I flirt with them, I enjoy them. Generally, they enjoy me, too. I may have mentioned I have something of a reputation in that area. I don’t mean to imply that the only way I know how to relate to a woman is sexually, but…I’m not sure I know how not to, either.

  I’m not really a jerk. I just act like one sometimes.

  She regarded me through cool gray eyes, her face as smooth and white as a glacier, absolutely expressionless. She said, lifting her fork, “You seem to have all the appropriate parts.”

  “I didn’t mean to offend you,” I said uncomfortably. “Sometimes I speak without thinking, especially where a pretty woman is involved.”

  She said, touching her napk
in to her lips, “You didn’t offend me.”

  That was all the encouragement I needed. I said, “May I ask you something? You needn’t answer if it’s too personal.”

  She said nothing, which I took to mean consent. So I blundered on.

  “Your condition…Have you been tested? What do the experts say? Is there nothing that can be done?”

  Her eyes were big and guileless. It was as though no one had ever before broached the subject with her in such a forthright manner, which, I supposed, was entirely possible. After all, how many others could possibly boast such natural tactlessness as I had just displayed?

  But she surprised me by answering with nearly equal candor, “They poked and prodded me until I stopped being pleasant about it, and discovered absolutely nothing, of course. They really don’t know what causes these cases, you know, and there’s nothing to be done about it.”

  I murmured, mostly to myself, “Yes, I know. And a pity.”

  She paused with her fork half lifted from her plate, an eyebrow faintly cocked. “Oh? Why is that?”

  I hardly knew what to say, although the response was obvious. However, having nothing intelligent to say has never stopped me from speaking, so I answered, blustering a little, “Well, you come from good stock, that’s evident. I would think you would have a great deal to add to the genetic pool.”

  Her lips twitched faintly with the corner of a smile. “Yes,” she agreed mildly. “A pity.”

  By then I was in too deeply to back away without looking the complete fool, so I held her gaze and I said deliberately, “And of course you are, on the surface, a very appealing female. To waste that…”

  Her eyebrow rose higher. “Ah, you noticed, did you?”

  “What?”

  “My appeal.”

  I scowled, searching for composure. “Of course I did. That is to say, just because you can’t…what I mean is, just because I’m not…” I was flailing about hopelessly and sinking fast. There was nothing to do but throw myself on her mercy. “Look,” I said, “I haven’t spent much time around…” I trailed off.

  Her gaze was unrelenting. She wasn’t about to let me off the hook. She said, “No, I don’t suppose you have.”

  So I plunged on. “What I mean to say is, I’ve never worked with an anthromorph before. I’m not even sure that’s an accepted term.”

  She lifted one shoulder. “There are crueler ones.”

  “Would you rather be called something else?”

  She held me in that cool gray gaze again. “I’d rather be called Victoria.”

  If there were a prize for giving the most offense while trying the hardest to give none at all, I suppose I would have won it then. I saw no hope for it, so I decided to abandon the subject entirely, casting about in my mind for something neutral to say. Victoria turned back to her salad.

  “I remember you when you were young,” I said at last. “At clan gatherings. You were one of the best fly-ball players in your level.”

  She finished chewing, swallowed, picked up her wineglass and sipped. And then, for some reason, she seemed to decide to forgive me. She said, “I’ve never worked with an heir designé before, either. So we can both be a little uncomfortable.”

  And she smiled. That smile could take away the breath of any male living, werewolf or human. I don’t think I’ve ever realized before that moment how cruel an arbiter fate can be. For all that loveliness to be wasted on one who would never know the wonder of taking a mate, the magic of the Change, the miracle of bearing young. It wasn’t fair.

  And perhaps the most unfair thing of all was how all of that loveliness—all of that useless, wasted exquisite loveliness—affected me.

  She said, “Actually, you’re the only person who’s ever been interested enough to inquire about my feelings on the subject, so I may as well tell you, I don’t mind talking about it. And to answer your original question…I think you’re very sexy.”

  I was taken aback and it must have shown, because she arched an eyebrow.

  “Just because I can’t do anything about it doesn’t mean I don’t notice,” she said.

  “Oh.” I didn’t want to let her know how much the subject fascinated me, so I took a sip of my wine and replied lightly, “In that case, may I return the compliment?”

  She smiled. “Thank you.”

  She thought I was just being nice. I wasn’t.

  She finished her salad and what remained of the salmon soufflé. She offered me her portion of roulade, and it would have been rude to refuse. I was glad I had stayed, and because of more than the roulade. She had given me a lot to think about.

  Victoria went to the kitchen and brought out a plate of ginger crackers and cheese, which I like very much. We sat there at the table before the fire, sipping our wine and nibbling on the cheese. The firelight made colors in her hair. The warmth and the wine seeped into my muscles and the knots of tension started to dissolve.

  “Will you tell me something?” I asked.

  “If I can.”

  We both reached for the cracker plate at once; our fingers brushed. She withdrew her hand first, casually but without a cracker.

  I asked, “What do the other werewolves say about me?”

  She looked surprised. “They don’t share confidences with me.”

  “But you hear them.” I spread cheese on my cracker, glancing at her casually. “I’d be willing to guess nothing goes on in the marketing division that you don’t hear.”

  Her lips tightened at one corner, though what that signified I couldn’t tell. She was debating, that much I could easily see, how much of the truth to tell me.

  “A lot of them don’t think it was right,” she said at last, “the way you took the legacy from the St. Clares. They’re waiting for you to do something, you know, to prove you can handle the job. I mean, it’s been six months.”

  That was not what I wanted to hear, but I wasn’t surprised.

  She added, “But there are others, younger ones, mostly, who think what you did was romantic and, well, splendid. They think it’s about time we had someone in power with energy and vision.”

  “Yet they’re waiting for me to do something, too.” My tone was dry, and the old frustration rose. I fought the urge to defend myself to her—how could I prove myself when I wasn’t given a chance to? I hadn’t wanted this job in the first place, and how could I do anything when I had no power…all the old arguments. I focused instead on the one important thing I needed to know. “Victoria, look at me, please.”

  She did. I made her hold my gaze.

  “If there was anyone in the Montreal office who meant me harm, would you tell me?”

  She thought about that, but she didn’t try to evade my eyes. “Do you mean physical harm?”

  “I mean any kind of harm.”

  “If you were in danger, I would tell you. Just because my name is St. Clare doesn’t mean I wouldn’t like to see some changes made, too,” she said with her big gray eyes firm and steady.

  Once again, she’d caught me off guard. It had never, ever occurred to me that Victoria St. Clare might be among my supporters. At best, I had imagined her to be indifferent to political machinations. Not, of course, that I accepted her statement at face value, but it did give me something new to consider.

  Then she said, “Now will you tell me something?”

  I nodded cautiously. “If I can.”

  “Am I still your prime suspect?”

  It would have been easy to lie. I’m very good at it. But that would have been such an unnecessary insult to a woman who had been so often insulted in her life that I simply couldn’t bring myself to do it.

  So I answered honestly. “Yes. You are.”

  She might have been enraged; she might have been hurt. But to show either emotion would have been undignified. So she looked at me thoughtfully, turning it over in her mind, following my logic. Then she said, “You have character, Noel Duprey. A lot of people would have been seduced by Phillipe’s ro
ulade.”

  That was, I think, the classiest thing I’ve ever heard anyone say. It almost persuaded me to change my opinion, but I found myself in the oddly perverse position of trying to live up to her opinion of me.

  She got up and began to clear the table. I sipped my wine. “Will you answer me one more question?” I asked.

  She gave me a look over her shoulder that suggested cautious acquiescence.

  “Why,” I asked, “are you wearing men’s underwear?”

  She laughed. It was a trilling, delicious sound that reverberated in the pit of my stomach with an almost sexual pleasure.

  And she said, “You are not at all what I expected, Noel Duprey.”

  That made two of us.

  I was growing entirely too comfortable sitting there before the fire, sipping wine, watching the alluring curves of Victoria’s closely clad figure as she moved back and forth between kitchen and living room. Finally I finished my wine, refused another glass and got up to replace the furniture we had rearranged for our dinner.

  When she came back from the kitchen, I said, shifting the tenor of our relationship back to the workplace as casually as I could, “You didn’t ask what the unique properties of Moonsong are.”

  She sank onto the sofa with one leg folded beneath her, picking up the sketch pad again. Her braid fell forward and caressed one breast, her lashes formed crescent shadows on her cheekbones as she began to make notes on the paper.

  “If you had wanted me to know, you would have told me,” she answered.

  “Everyone else asked,” I said.

  She shrugged. “That’s what executives do. They think they’ll be accused of not paying attention unless they ask questions. Of course,” she added almost absently, “what they don’t realize is that you’ll give each of them a different answer, the better to trace down the source of the leak when it comes.”

  God, she was quick. It was a little scary.

  “It’s important that we run a serious campaign on this product. Anything less will sabotage our entire effort.”