“But you will tell me, won’t you, Cecily?”
“As your friend, I have no choice.” Cecily toyed with the cuff of her sleeve. “You fancy yourself a leader of Denver society, and I suppose you are—if only because your brother is one of the most important, influential, and wealthiest men in the West. No one wishes to offend him by offending you. But when the ladies come to your house for meetings and bully their husbands and brothers and fathers into making donations… do you think they do it out of sheer admiration and devotion? Oh, no. They pity you, Athena… and they have come to resent what you force them to do with your ‘gentle’ persuasion. You make them suffer guilt for not feeling as you do. And so they allow you to rule them in small ways—and go about the rest of their lives without you quite happily.”
All the breath squeezed from Athena’s lungs. “You are new to Denver society. You cannot know—”
“I am not such a newcomer anymore, dear girl. You have helped with introductions, and your brother’s partnership with my father has done wonders for my position here. The crowning touch was in giving me control of the Winter Ball which I have perfected in ways your dull sensibilities would fail to grasp. It will be a triumph, I will take the credit, and Denver will have a new princess to adore.”
Athena’s legs had gone beyond the point of mere pain and felt like blocks of ice. “I do have friends in Denver. They will come to realize what you are, and so will my brother.”
“Will they?” She clucked sadly. “Your brother is already convinced that I have been right all along in my warnings about you. He has had the evidence that you cannot be trusted to run your own life, especially not in Denver among so many unprofitable memories. I always knew that having a cripple underfoot would be annoying, but you have a will strong enough to oppose mine. Soon you will be gone to New York, and Niall will ask me to marry him. And as for your lover… I doubt that you need be troubled by him ever again.”
The doorframe bit into Athena’s palm. “Why did Niall return to Long Park?”
“It should be obvious. Once I told him what Holt is, he knew he must personally see to it that such a foul criminal—a man who killed his own father—is driven from Colorado. Permanently.”
Athena allowed her weight to sag against the wall. Morgan had killed his own father? It was unthinkable, inconceivable. One might as well accuse Niall of killing his beloved mother.
And yet Morgan was a werewolf. He was impelled by urges an ordinary man could not understand. Was it so impossible that a man with a wolf’s nature might kill more easily than one fully human, could lose control to the beast within him?
She shook her head violently, sickened by her doubts. Morgan was no murderer… and even to consider that he had committed patricide was absurd. Ludicrous.
Niall had gone after Morgan, believing such stories, already driven by rage. It would not be a simple matter of protecting Athena or society from a supposed murderer. Oh, no. This would be personal. How much of an excuse would he need for his hatred to become lethal? And how much would it take for Morgan to strike back with the same fell purpose?
“Do you know what you have done?” Athena whispered. “You’ve not only endangered Morgan but my brother as well.”
“Come, now. Do you have so little faith in your brother?”
Think, Athena. “Who told you? Who passed on these lies about Morgan?”
“They are not lies, I assure you. I have had the information from very reliable sources. As for who alerted me to the grave danger Holt presents… you remember that horrid snake-woman from the circus? It seems she has no more love for you than I have for that red-haired hussy who set her cap for Niall. We found ways to be useful to one another.”
Red-haired hussy. Who could she mean but Caitlin? Athena thought back on the times she had seen her brother and Caitlin together. If there had been an attraction there, she had been too caught up in her own problems to see it. But Cecily had not been so oblivious.