SECRET OF THE WOLF

by Susan Krinard

  "I'll do it… for you, Quentin," Irene said, leaning into him. "Ordinarily I don't sully my hands with a seamstress's work."

  "I shall be honored," Quentin said.

  Lewis, who'd eaten little more than Johanna, scraped back his chair and walked out the back door, tugging repeatedly at the fingers of his gloves.

  "I'm gonna see the new calf," Oscar announced.

  "Best you all get along," Mrs. Daughtery said, wiping her hands on her stained apron. "I got cleanin' to do. Here's yer trays, Doc Jo."

  "Come walk with me in the garden, Quentin," Irene said with a seductive smile. "I have so much more to tell you."

  "I regret the necessity of refusing such a flattering invitation, but I believe I must consult with the doctor," Quentin said, slipping free of her hold. "Later, perhaps?"

  "I'll leave the clothing in your room, Irene," Johanna said.

  The long habit of deferring to Johanna's authority finally sent Irene flouncing off to her room. Oscar marched outside in search of Gertrude's calf. Johanna fetched Harper's tray, but Quentin intercepted her.

  "Allow me," he said. "I think it's time I met Mr. Lawson."

  "He is unlikely to notice you," she warned. "Harper suffers from severe melancholia and episodes of mania. The former has been much more frequent. He reacts to very few stimuli." After what had happened yesterday with Quentin, she had reason to be cautious. "If you feel ready—"

  "I'm fine."

  She took leave to doubt it, but this was as good a way as any to see if that episode would be repeated.

  "Very well," she said. She led him to Harper's door and opened it. He was where she'd left him, still gazing at drawn curtains as if he could see through them to the world beyond.

  "Harper," she said, motioning Quentin to set the tray down on a small table beside Harper's chair, "I've brought your breakfast. I hope you'll try to eat."

  Harper's left eyelid twitched. It was acknowledgment of a sort—more than she often received. His thin fingers stretched on the arm of his chair.

  "We have a new guest staying with us," she said. "Quentin Forster. He'd very much like to meet you."

  Harper turned his head. He looked at the tray, at Johanna, and at last toward Quentin.

  "I am pleased to meet you," Quentin said, extending his hand.

  Unmoving, Harper gazed at the offered hand while his own fingers continued to twitch. Then, slowly, he lifted his arm from the chair. His hand reached halfway to Quentin's and seemed to lose its purpose. But his gaze rose to meet the stranger's, clearing to lucidity for the first time in many days.

  "Sol-jer," he said, his voice rough with disuse.

  Quentin glanced at Johanna in surprise. "Yes," he said reluctantly. "Years ago."

  Harper shuddered. When the shivers passed he sat still for a long moment, until Johanna was sure any further chance of communication was gone. But he surprised her. He reached clumsily for the spoon on the tray—she never left him any sharp implements, even for eating—and scooped up a helping of egg. Most of it made it to his mouth. He continued to eat, without Johanna's help.

  She touched Quentin's arm and led him from the room, amazed and gratified. It appeared that his affinity with May was not a singular occurrence.

  "How did you do it?" she asked when the door was closed again. "He has not responded so well in weeks. I have not seen him show such interest in anything since I brought a neighbor's dog to visit—he seems to have a great affection for dogs. But he seldom responds to people." She realized that her hand was still on his arm and let him go, striving to modulate her tone. "He actually acknowledged you, and spoke."

  "I'm afraid I can't claim any miraculous technique," Quentin said. "I'm no doctor."

  "I wonder how he knew that you were a soldier." She shook her head. "You have a way with people, Quentin—with those who are troubled. It is no small gift."

  He half turned away. "Perhaps it's because I am one of them."

  She had an almost overwhelming desire to touch him again, to embrace him as… yes, as a kindred spirit, like her father had been. More—as a man who desperately needed human companionship and affection.

  Was that what she felt for him? Affection?

  The truth stole into her heart as if it had been there all along. She liked Quentin Forster. She wasn't merely intrigued by him and willing to treat him—not simply attracted to his charm and good looks on a purely physical level.

  She liked him, and wanted him to like her.

  It had never been vital, in the past, that a patient should like her. Indeed, such expectations were detrimental to treatment; her own feelings were quite unimportant. Quentin's appreciative behavior might not even survive what she had in mind for him. He might hate her in the end, if she made him relive what he wished to forget.

  Better that he should hate her than the rest of the world.

  "I believe that your insight will help our work together," she said, recovering herself. "I planned to begin this morning, if you feel ready."

  He shrugged. "Why not? I am rather curious."

  "It's no subject for levity," she said. "The treatment may not always be pleasant."

  "Thank you for the warning." He caught her gaze. "And for your honesty, Johanna."

  She backed away. "I shall take in my father's breakfast, and make sure the others are settled. Shall we meet in my office in one hour?"

  "I'll count the minutes." At first she thought he was going to take her hand and kiss it as he had Mrs. Daugherty's, but he only gave her a shallow bow and turned for his room.

  Well, then. It was all proceeding as smoothly as she could hope. Her judgment had proved sound. She had matters—and her own emotions—under firm control.

  She took the tray to her father, and readied her mind for the battle ahead.

  Chapter 7

  If ever Quentin had doubted his cowardice, he was absolutely sure of it now.

  He waited for Johanna in her office, perched on the edge of the faded chaise longue that sat across from her desk. He could see a little of the view outside the window opposite; he had a very strong desire to climb through that window.

  Instead, he got up and paced a nervous circle about the room, ending at her desk. The polished oak surface was spotless, dust-free, and neatly laid out with a minimum of clutter: a stack of papers or notes, an inkstand and pen, a metronome, a pair of medical books taken from the alphabetized rows in the shelf against the nearest wall… and a small vase of wildflowers, similar to those May had brought him at breakfast.

  The desk was like the woman herself: orderly, pragmatic, its seeming severity moderated by the homely beauty of a handful of flowers.

  Quentin was tempted to upset the perfect balance of the desk: scatter a few papers out of order, or stick a wildflower stem in the inkwell. Just as he had been tempted, more than once, to loosen the tightly bound strands of Johanna's light brown hair.

  It wasn't too late to do something just outrageous enough to make her toss him out on his ear, reject him as a patient. He didn't have to go through with this. If Johanna's hypnosis was what she claimed, he wasn't going to be able to hide himself. Not any part or portion.

  He sat at Johanna's desk and picked up her pen. The scent of her hands lingered in the glossy wood of the handle. He drew it slowly along his upper lip, thinking through what he'd already debated with himself a hundred times or more.

  He was crazy, as crazy as any of the other residents of the Haven.

  Because he trusted Johanna. He trusted her to help him, she alone of all men or women in the world. He trusted her not only with his uncertain memories, but with the one fact she surely could not accept—she with her logical mind. What would she do with that secret, once she received it into her keeping?

  She thought she could cure him of dipsomania. He hadn't told her the rest, the thing he feared, the shadow he never saw except in nightmares and cloudy recollections of conflict and violence. He wasn't even sure it existed except in his imagination.<
br />
  If it did exist, Johanna would discover it.

  The pen snapped between his fingers, driving a splinter into his thumb. He watched a tiny bead of blood well up from the wound. In a few minutes no one would be able to see that the flesh had been broken.

  Would he be dead by now, if not for the healing power of his body? Lying in some alley, perhaps, poisoned by alcohol or murdered by cutthroats?

  The point was moot. His flesh, his bones, his organs—they all mended in time, barring a fatal stroke to the heart, spine, or brain. Only his mind didn't heal. He understood his mind least of all.

  His elder brother, Braden, Earl of Greyburn, had once told him that he'd wasted a good mind in the pursuit of pleasure and frivolity. Braden didn't know about the Punjab, or the shadow that followed Quentin, haunting him from the corner of his vision. The shadow had gone away while he'd lived a fast life in England, unable to match the frantic pace Quentin set. It had returned five years ago, at the Convocation, and ended the life Braden had so disparaged.

  I ran out on you, brother—on you and Rowena. I had to. What would you think to see me now?

  He glanced at his hand again. The skin was almost smooth where the splinter had pierced it. Yes, his flesh had mended, but what of Johanna's pen? Wasn't it a metaphor for what she was—sound enough in average hands, but so easily broken in the wrong ones…

  "I see that you are ready to begin."

  Johanna stepped into the room, her arms full of books. Quentin jumped up and took them from her, setting them down on the desk.

  "I must apologize," he said. "I fear I broke your pen. I'll replace it, of course."

  She glanced at the broken pen and then at his face. "It doesn't matter. The pen was of no great value, and I have others." She began to replace the books in their proper slots on the shelf. "Would you please close the door? We shall not be disturbed for the next two hours."

  Quentin shut the door and leaned against it. "The other patients?"

  "Each has his or her own schedule of chores and rest periods, and we generally have our exercise in the late afternoon, before dinner."

  "All very… systematic."

  She turned to him, propping her arms on the desk. "I find it works best with the mentally afflicted. Order is soothing to the troubled mind."

  And to yours, Quentin thought. At the moment, he'd gladly take a little of that soothing himself. He left the safety of the door as if he were walking into the mouth of hell. "How does one go about this hypnosis? Does it involve the laying on of hands?"

  "No touching is necessary. It is not mesmerism, with the making of passes over the body."

  "A pity." His hands dangled like useless things at his sides, and his mouth was cotton-dry. "What do you want me to do?"

  "I have found that a subject is in the most receptive state when fully relaxed," she said, drawing the drapes at the window. The room dimmed to twilight. "Please make yourself comfortable on the chaise longue."

  Quentin sat down, hesitated, and swung his legs along the length of the chaise. Johanna pulled her chair from behind her desk and set it a few feet away from the foot of the chaise.

  "I will briefly explain what we are about to do." She sat in the chair as straight-backed as the most rigorous arbiter of propriety, hands folded in her lap. "The man who first recognized the science of hypnosis was a Scottish physician by the name of Braid, who wrote that the hypnotic trance, into which I am about to induct you, is the result of a mental state of concentration in which all external distractions are excluded. In this state, the mind is receptive to ideas, even memories, that are ignored or forgotten by the conscious mind. As I explained once before, my father learned that it is possible under these conditions for the physician to introduce corrective thoughts and suggestions the mind would not routinely accept." She drew in a deep breath and clasped her hands. "I shall guide you into that state with the use of specific techniques."

  It sounded a trifle too much like the sort of thing Braden had been known to do with the servants at Greybum, the Forsters' ancestral estate in Northumberland. But that was no "science of hypnosis," not something an ordinary human could manage. A man like Braden could overcome the very will of another, force him to forget rather than remember—a werewolf skill Quentin had lost somewhere along the way.

  "Hypnosis also requires a kind of partnership between the doctor and the patient," Johanna said. "There is nothing to fear in it."

  "Do you mean that you can't order me to do something against my will?" Quentin asked lightly. "Perform Hamlet's soliloquy while standing on my head?"

  She smiled. "That is correct, as far as I have observed. That is why you must wish to be helped. Not all can be hypnotized. But your ability to go into a spontaneous trance, as you did yesterday, is an excellent sign." Her smile faded. "If you trust me. You must trust me, and give yourself into my hands. Can you do that, Quentin?"

  Wasn't that what he'd been asking himself all along?

  He met her gaze, all levity gone from his voice and his thoughts. "Yes, Johanna. I believe I can."

  She blinked, as if taken aback by his sincerity, and he let himself become just a little intoxicated by the remarkable clarity of her eyes. Like a quiet ocean, they were—never troubled by more than the gentlest of waves. How would a man go about awakening their first real storm?

  Surely it wasn't his imagination that she looked back at him with the same expectant wonder…

  "Very well, then," she said. "Have you any further questions?"

  "What is your battle strategy, Johanna?"

  "I beg your pardon?"

  "Your plan to fight my demons of dipsomania."

  "It is quite simple. Once I have put you into a hypnotic state, when your mind is open, I shall ask you a few basic questions to determine the depth of your trance. If that is sufficient, I shall ask you more specific questions that have a greater bearing on your condition."

  "Such as what drives me to drink. Can't you ask me that without my being in a trance?"

  "A part of your mind is in hiding, Quentin," she said slowly. "It protects you from those things you do not want to see… or remember."

  Quentin gripped the sides of the chaise as if it were a flimsy raft floating in the midst of a sea of hungry sharks. "Perhaps there's a good reason I don't remember."

  She gazed at him earnestly, the passion bright in her face. "Can the reason be good if it causes you pain and suffering? If it drives you to risk your life? No." She shook her head. "There is still so much we do not comprehend about the mind, and how the brain and body work together. But I believe that much insanity is created by a kind of… separation from one's own true self. If we could only make the self whole again, insanity would be cured. If a man can see himself clearly in the mirror of his own mind, and accept what he sees, he is free."

  She spoke with such conviction, such utter certainty. "You'll… plunder my memory like an archeologist digging for ancient pot shards," he said with a laugh. "I hope my brain is filled with more than earth and fragments of crockery."

  She didn't return his smile. "It contains more than you or I or anyone could ever know. But it may reveal, under hypnosis, what it cannot do when you are fully conscious."

  Surely she couldn't perceive the depth of his fear, or hear the drumming of his heart? A woman of her strength would find little to admire in a coward, a man without the courage to overcome his weaknesses—no matter how tolerant she was of the truly mad.

  Quentin widened his eyes in an absurd pantomime of terror. "You'll know all my secrets," he whispered. "I shall be overcome with chagrin."

  "As your doctor, I would never reveal what I learn to anyone. I shall be honest with you, always." She paused and looked down at her hands. "The choice must be yours. I might simply attempt to convince your mind that you have no need for drink, and go no further. My father was very successful with such techniques… in effect suggesting to the open mind that its incorrect assumptions are mistaken, and lead it to change
the behavior of the body."

  Quentin braced himself against a premature wave of relief. "But?"

  "But even if I succeed, the thing that causes you to drink will still be there, untouched." She held his gaze. "Do you understand?"

  He thought he understood all too well. He'd have to give up on himself, for Johanna never would. She was that generous, and that remarkable. But he'd recognized that from the beginning.

  "If nothing else," he said with false bravado, "I can help you develop your new methods."

  Her cheeks reddened. "I am sorry if you think my motives are—"

  "No." Impulsively he slid from the chaise and went to her, knelt before her chair and took her hands in his. "I have nothing to lose, Johanna. I'll be your willing subject."

  The color in her face remained high, and her hands tensed under his fingers. "Quentin—"

  "Shhhh." He kissed first one hand and then the other. "You might as well turn my brain inside out. You've already done it to my heart."

  She sucked in her breath. He could hear her heart hammering against her ribs, feel the pulse throb in her wrists, blood and body giving the lie to her mask of composure. "Quentin, you are my patient. We have known each other only a few days. It is not uncommon for patients to think themselves… fond of their physicians, particularly when they have come close to death."

  There. She'd given him an easy way out. He could laugh it off and beat a prudent retreat, knowing he'd made too reckless a move in the game. A move even he hadn't expected.

  Because he hadn't been speaking entirely in jest.

  He looked up at her lips, slightly parted as if she'd thought better of further conversation. They were full, naturally rosy without a trace of paint. Had they been kissed before? Had she ever found time in the midst of her doctor's theories to let a man hold her in his arms? In that feminine brain, seething with frightening intelligence and devotion to the study of the mind, had she any conception at all of the pleasures of the flesh?