I turned again to Victoria, raising an inquisitive eyebrow as I offered her my arm.
She lifted a dismissive shoulder and murmured, “You just have to put it in terms they can understand.”
There was a great deal more I would have liked to have said to her on the subject, but within moments we were separated by the demands of good party behavior. I didn’t hover or force my presence on her; to have done so would have been to suggest Victoria St. Clare couldn’t take care of herself—which, as I had just seen, was patently absurd. Besides, selfish as it was, I couldn’t be everywhere at once, and I did need her ears.
I remember that the roast beef was excellent and abundant, so rare it could have walked away with a little encouragement and served with a flavorful Cabernet Sauvignon, of which I drank rather much, I’m afraid. There were many things of interest going on around me, I’m sure, but I paid them little attention. I was far too concerned with Victoria.
To their credit, once instructed in how to behave, the werewolves at the gathering conducted themselves suitably. They were careful not to snub or denigrate Victoria in any way, though neither did they go out of their way to make her welcome. Whether or not Victoria was hurt by this, I couldn’t say. She sat beside me at dinner—at least Avril Stillman had gotten that much right—and responded politely when I addressed comments to her, but otherwise she was so unobtrusive as to almost blend into the woodwork. How this could be I couldn’t imagine. Victoria St. Clare was the most beautiful woman present. How could anyone fail to notice that?
On the other hand, the ability to become invisible was a very useful characteristic for a spy. I supposed I should be grateful that, tonight, she was working for me.
After dinner, we drank port and nibbled on Stilton cheese and sweet biscuits before the fire in the small parlor, which was one half of the grand parlor, with the pocket doors closed to create a more intimate atmosphere. I was just trying to decide how soon I could make my escape, when Stillman said boisterously, “What a fine moonless night! The snow is hard frozen in the woods, I checked it myself only this afternoon. Shall we run?”
The Run is a necessary ritual among werewolves, celebrating our uniqueness, our sense of play, our exuberance for life. The essence of it is exactly what it sounds like—except that it involves nudity, the transformation from human to wolf form and back again, and, more often than not, the expression of natural affection and high spirits which doubtless could not be understood by anyone outside our species.
The Run is a form of recreation, of exercise, of self-expression and stress reduction; it is also essential to our physical and mental health. To be perfectly honest, after an evening such as this, with the cold clear air beckoning and a black sky sparkling with stars close enough to catch in one hand, a run was exactly what I needed. And it seemed to me the height of bad taste for Stillman to suggest it in front of Victoria, who could not participate.
On the other hand, it would be wrong of me to deny the pleasure to the others, so I stood and said, “Thank you, I wish I could. But I have an extremely early conference call from Japan, and I’m afraid I must take my leave.”
I turned to Avril. “Madame, the dinner was excellent. Thank you for your hospitality.”
She colored prettily and offered me her hand. “You honor us, sir. You are, if I may say, more than I ever expected.”
I wondered what she meant by that.
Stillman walked me to the door. I caught Victoria’s eye across the room and beckoned to her.
“I’ve wanted to ask,” Stillman said, “whether you’re finding everything to your liking at the office. You want for nothing?”
“Everything’s fine, yes.” I wanted only to be away from there, and alone with Victoria.
“You know if you need anything at all, all you have to do is ask.”
“I know.”
“I was wondering…” Now he spoke a little more slowly, choosing his words with care. “Whether you have any notion yet as to how long you will be gracing us with your presence here in Montreal.”
Ah, now I understood.
“Not yet,” I said. We had reached the foyer, where the butler was waiting with my coat. Victoria was approaching from the right.
I held out my arms and the butler slipped the coat onto my shoulders. “However, I do appreciate your generosity in giving up your office. You’re finding the new accommodations satisfactory, I hope?”
“Oh, eminently, eminently.”
Everything about his body language declared him a liar. His smug smile grated on my nerves.
“I hope you’re not finding your staff too much of a trial,” he went on. “I’d be happy to advise you if you decide to make changes, or I would be happy to serve as your assistant myself. No job is a small job if it makes your job easier, sir.”
The man had brass-plated gall, I’ll say that for him. Victoria had arrived by then, and was slipping into her coat. I couldn’t be away from there soon enough.
“Thank you for the dinner,” I said again. “I appreciate your efforts.”
And Victoria echoed sweetly, “Yes, it was delightful.”
The look of contempt he cast her when he thought I didn’t see made me want to backhand him across the room on my way out.
The night was cold and dark and as clear as crystal. I ached to run. Holding Victoria’s arm lightly as we descended the stairs, I felt a brief and surprising prick of resentment, accompanied almost immediately by a surge of shame. I could run anytime I chose. She could never even know the desire.
We did not speak until we were in the back of the limo with the privacy screen up and the white noise on. Then she said breathily, “Well, what an evening!”
I wanted to apologize to her. I didn’t know where to begin.
She went on with a kind of subdued eagerness, “First of all, you may have noticed, Greg Stillman is absolutely furious about losing his office…and humiliated over the fact that he lost it to me. What puzzles me is why he hasn’t made a bigger fuss over getting his computer back. I know he has an identical unit now, but a computer is a personal item and it just seems to me like the kind of thing he’d take a stand on…Is that coffee I smell? Could we have some?”
I stared at her. “Victoria…did you have a good time tonight?”
She seemed surprised by the question. “Was I supposed to?”
I didn’t know how to answer that so I concentrated on trying to figure out how to work the coffee dispenser, and on finding cups.
“Go on,” I invited briskly.
She gave me an odd brief look, then resumed her report. “Well, that PR man from the U.S.—what was his name? Singleton? He doesn’t like you in the least. He thinks you’re far too liberal and potentially dangerous. The others were a bit kinder, though it was probably because they knew you were listening. On the whole, I have to say bringing me to the party did you more harm than good, though it did throw quite a few people off-balance.”
I handed her a cup of coffee, black, and settled back into the shadows of the seat with my own cup, fascinated by her.
“No one, absolutely no one, talked about Moonsong, did you notice? That in itself seems odd to me. I mean, what else were they there for? However, I did learn several interesting things. Mikail Salinski went to school with Alvin Rolander, head of R & D at Pavlova Perfumes…and they ended up with one of our formulas, didn’t they? Their wives keep in touch—the recipe for the crab dip came from Marissa Salinski who got it from Sandra Rolander only last week—so one can assume the husbands do, as well.”
I was amazed. “And you think more than recipes could be changing hands?”
She shrugged. “Then there’s Pierre Tuscan, who seems to be very afraid for his job for some reason. His wife told Leanna Devlin they canceled their ski trip to Europe this year because—and I quote—their financial future is so uncertain.”
She sipped her coffee. “In fact, half the executives on the Moonsong team are more than a little uneasy about the
ir futures, mostly just the natural nervousness that comes with a change of administration, I think. I mean, they’ve modeled themselves all these years to please Michael St. Clare and now everything they’ve done could end up being for nothing. Anyway, it occurred to me that the thefts seem to have begun right about the time your succession was announced, and I couldn’t help wondering if there was a connection.”
“Well,” I murmured. “I’m impressed.”
She gave a small deprecating lift of her shoulders and sipped from her cup again. “I didn’t learn much, I’m afraid. Some possible motives, but no real suspects. And, oh, this was interesting…I almost forgot. Did you know Greg Stillman has a direct line to Castle St. Clare? I noticed it in his study.”
“You were in his study?”
I saw the flash of small white teeth as she grinned in the shadows. “People are used to overlooking me. There aren’t too many places I can’t go. It was scrambled, too.”
“What?”
“The line. Is that routine for department heads?”
“Oh…yes, I suppose.” I was still marveling over the fact that she had gained entry into Stillman’s study—a werewolf’s most private den—without notice. “You are really quite remarkable. I’m beginning to suspect we’re not paying you nearly enough.”
She chuckled throatily and crossed her legs. My eyes were riveted on the shapely knee as her coat fell open, the curve of thigh. “That,” she said invitingly, “sounds like something we can discuss.”
I can’t explain what happened next, not even, adequately, to myself. I put my coffee cup aside. I leaned forward until our knees touched. I framed Victoria’s face with the thumb and forefinger of one hand and I kissed her, tenderly, on the mouth.
It was a gesture of affection, of friendship, of gratitude, even of apology. Or that’s what I intended it to be. That’s how it started out. That’s what it was until I drew her fragrance into my nostrils, tasted the satin of her lips, felt her softness, heard the leap of her pulse and the catch in her breath. And then I started to melt into her. I could feel my very soul swirling round and round in the sensations that suffused me, caught in the essence of her, drowning in her. She was a drug, swift and potent and thoroughly unexpected, soaring through my bloodstream. She was a fever, slow and long. She was overwhelming, consuming, absorbing. She was everything I had expected and nothing I was prepared for.
My mouth opened on hers, helplessly, and her lips parted to my insistence. I pressed the flat of my tongue against hers, tasting her with all my senses. My skin ached to open itself and draw her in. Pleasure? Ah, it was so much more than that. It was a universe of sensation and discovery, an entirely new dimension of wonder; a moment in time that spanned all time, as though nothing had existed before us and nothing would exist after, only this kiss, only this marvel.
When at last we parted, we both were dazed, I think. At least I like to think she was as bedazzled as I. I could hear her heartbeat, rushing and loud, but only a little more so than my own. I could feel her heat, enveloping me like a shawl, even as I sat back against my own seat, and see the light caught in her eyes. And she murmured, “I hope that’s not in lieu of a raise.”
I adored her at that moment. I truly did.
I realized then that the car had come to a stop in front of her building. “I’ll walk you up,” I said.
She lifted a hand to stay me. I noticed a slight unsteadiness, which gratified me. My own hand had been none too steady as I reached for the door. “Please don’t,” she said. “Phillipe will want to gossip, and it will be much easier if I know you’re not listening.”
I smiled in the darkness. “Then I promise not to linger.”
I pressed a button on the console and heard the driver get out to open her door. She turned to leave.
“Victoria.”
She looked back, all swathed in white and glitter, looking like a Russian princess about to embark upon some mythical, magical journey. My heart caught.
There were things I should have told her. Things that, to be fair she deserved to hear. In my own defense I can say only that I wanted to tell her. But the future of our race was in my hands, and the responsibility weighed heavily on me. Too heavily.
So I merely smiled and said, “When you speak of me to Phillipe, and you will…be kind.”
The smile she returned lit up her eyes and completely captured what was left of my heart. Donning her role like an elegant cloak, she kissed her fingers and waved them at me as she got out of the car.
I instructed my driver to see her safely inside, and then, true to my word, did not linger. As soon as we were under way, I put on the white noise again and made a long-overdue phone call.
Robesieur answered on the second ring.
“Jason,” I greeted him. “Noel Duprey here. I hope I’m not calling too late. I wanted to thank you for planting that story with Victoria. I know you were reluctant at first but she behaved just as you predicted, and it was important that I know who I could trust.”
I wanted to tell her, honestly I did. But I couldn’t.
Hell, I guess I’m really not such a nice guy, after all.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Victoria
Of course I figured out that entire lunch with Jason was a setup. How? Elementary. First of all, it was entirely too convenient, don’t you think? Noel holds a top-secret meeting to announce a revolutionary new product and the very next day my friend and competitor, about whom Noel had known in advance, offers to buy it from me? Furthermore, it didn’t really seem like something Jason would do. There was something about the entire thing that just didn’t ring true; perhaps it was in Jason’s body language.
But most telling of all was the way Noel reacted—or didn’t react. I had just given him the perfect lead to crack the case, as they say on American TV, and he’d ignored it. He’d barely even acknowledged it. How do I know? I called Jason and asked him. Jason, bless his heart, broke down and told me the truth.
This was of course several days after I had, like a good little werewolf, reported everything to Noel.
“Well, I think he’s a beast, tricking you like that and then having the liver to put the heavy hands on you.” This was from Phillipe, after I had finished unburdening myself to him.
“Gall,” I corrected him absently. “He had the gall to put heavy moves on me, not hands.”
“As I said.”
It was Sunday afternoon after the party. Phillipe and I were finishing a bottle of wine while I did my nails and he braided my hair. Snow pelted lightly against the windowpane; Socrates snored before the fire. It was a perfect lazy Sunday.
“I don’t understand why you tolerate his attentions after that,” Phillipe went on, tugging at my hair with the comb. “I would be showing him the back side of the door if I were you. He’s not that good-looking.”
Here is where the differences between humans and ourselves are most pronounced. Noel had behaved in a devious, underhand, two-faced way; he had lied to me in deed and fact, attempted to entrap me and used my own friend as the bait, and he did it all without once blinking or displaying even a shred of remorse, completely discounting my feelings while he served the best interests of the pack. How could I help but admire that?
Phillipe expected me to be angry and insulted; I was impressed. In fact, when Jason finally confessed the scheme to me, I was delighted. It was a relief to know it was cunning, not stupidity or lack of ambition, that had caused Noel to ignore my information about Jason’s offer.
But how could I explain this to Phillipe? I chose instead to address the last part of his statement. On the subject of the battle of the sexes we all speak a common language.
So I gave a little shrug and said, “I don’t take his attentions, as you call them, seriously. He’s not interested in me…as anything other than a possible spy, that is.”
But oh, how his kiss had thrilled me. Was it possible for me to feel passion? I had never been sure until Noel had touched me, until the h
eat from his body had flowed through my veins and the pulse of his heart had taken control of mine. Passion, adoration, surprise, wonder, the dizzying heights and depths of unexplored sensuality all in the space of mere seconds, all from the press of mouths and the mating of tongues. This is what he had shown me and, in the showing, had changed my world.
So you can perhaps imagine how difficult it was for me to adopt so casual a tone when referring to that event, to dismiss its significance so easily. I appreciated Phillipe’s outrage on my behalf.
“And why, may I ask, not?” demanded Phillipe with such indignation that I had to smile.
“Well for one thing,” I replied, examining my nails from the distance of an arm’s length, “he has a reputation for being free with his favors, if you know what I mean.”
True enough. I had spent the weekend reminding myself of all the known details of Noel’s reputation with the opposite sex. Again, this is a matter for admiration among our kind, not condemnation. There is a reason, you know, that a certain kind of human male is referred to as a “wolf.”
A male is expected to be experienced in the sensual arts before he chooses a mate. It is not enough, after all, to merely captivate a female, one must also hold her for the family unit—and therefore, our species—to continue.
Phillipe sniffed expressively. “You missed a spot, dear, there on the thumb.”
“And for another…” I carefully touched up the spot he had indicated with passion pink. “He’s an important man. He has no reason to be interested in me.”
How to explain to Phillipe the issue of status, much less the inviolate imperative that Noel beget an heir? His would be a royal match, and as such, monitored by the entire werewolf community. There was simply no possibility of a serious courtship between us. Even pleasure games between us would be frowned upon if anyone should ever find out.
Yet he had kissed me. Me. Noel Duprey had pressed his lips to mine and set my head to spinning and could I possibly pretend that anything would ever be the same after that?
“My dear, this is Montreal, gateway to the world!” Phillipe exclaimed. “This city is practically rolling with important men! Why, off the top of my fingers, I could put you together with—”
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