“And then?”
“I… don’t remember.” His throat closed up, trying to lock the words inside. That had been the first of the blank times, the beginning of a life of constant motion, desperate escape. “I woke up in hospital at the post, barely hurt. They said most of the men had been saved, the rebels destroyed. They gave me a commendation, but I didn’t know what I’d done to earn it. My friends wouldn’t tell me. They avoided me, and I didn’t know why. I don’t remember.”
“What do you think happened?”
He shut her out, her and her ugly questions. He drifted back to that agreeable place of nothingness where he simply existed, free of ties and emotion.
“Quentin, are you listening to me?”
“Go away,” he muttered.
“We won’t talk more about India for now. I would like you to think about something else instead. Remember when you were a child, with Rowena and Braden, before you ever thought of becoming a soldier.”
Like a relentless Pied Piper, Johanna seduced him out of hiding. He couldn’t help but follow where she led—back to a past that felt less real than a dream.
“Where did you grow up, Quentin?”
His mind went vacant for a moment, and then the words came to him. “Greyburn. My brother’s estate in Northumberland. Only it wasn’t his then. It was my—my grandfather’s.”
“And your father?”
“He died when I was a child. So did my mother.”
“I’m sorry. That must have been very difficult.”
“I was… the black sheep.” He tried to chuckle. “Always in trouble. The peals Braden rang over my head…”
“Your grandfather raised you?”
“He—” His throat closed up again. “He was the earl.”
“Did you get along well with your brother and sister?”
“Ro—we were twins. Very close. She could tell… what I was feeling, sometimes.” He recalled Rowena’s fair, piquant face and plunged into a profound sense of loss. “Ah, Rowena—”
“And Braden?”
“He was my elder brother. He did his best, even when he didn’t know—”
Seething darkness descended like a curtain over his thoughts, cutting off words, intention, memory..
“Didn’t know what, Quentin?”
No. No. The answer wouldn’t come. He caught at the first safe thing that came into his head.
“There’s something you don’t know about me,” he said. “A secret.”
“Can you tell me that secret, Quentin?”
“Of course. I trust you.” He felt himself float up from the chaise and circle her chair like a disembodied spirit. “Have you ever heard of… werewolves?”
“Do you mean a… man who becomes a wolf?”
“Yes. Running about on all fours. Howling at the moon.” He hummed under his breath. “That’s exactly what I am. A werewolf.”
Chapter 8
Johanna had thought that she was prepared for just about any sort of revelation. She certainly should have been; as she’d told Quentin, the human mind was an organ of great complexity, capable of almost anything the imagination could devise.
Even of believing its owner to be a creature out of myth and legend. A shape-shifter. A… werewolf.
The word she’d heard used for the delusion was lycanthropy, but she’d never encountered it herself, nor read of any contemporary doctor or neurologist who had done so.
Suppressing her reaction, she took stock of Quentin. He was still relaxed, in a deep trance. He’d responded to hypnotism with relative ease—one of those rare men who required virtually no groundwork. He’d already given her much to work with.
But this… this she truly hadn’t expected.
“Let me make sure I understand,” she said. “You are a werewolf.”
“Or loup-garou. Some of us… prefer the French.”
“Us?”
“You don’t think I’m the only one, do you?”
“I see.” She leaned back in her chair, steepling her fingers under her chin. “Then Braden and your sister are also of these loups-garous?”
“It… runs in families.”
He spoke with complete confidence, at ease with his “secret” identity. If his belief in lycanthropy lay at the root of his drinking and other fears, he showed no indication of it.
The temptation was very great to pursue this extraordinary turn of events to its natural conclusion. What would he do, if asked to actually become a wolf? She’d read of men and women, under hypnosis, reacting to suggestions that they were something other than human, mimicking the sounds and actions of various animals. Would he do the same, howling and growling, perhaps turning savage?