This was the Rowena Cassidy knew, faintly mocking under her precise and soft-spoken words. But Cassidy wasn’t fooled. Rowena was hurting, so much that Cassidy could feel the constriction in her own heart.
“What didn’t he explain?” she asked. “What is it about the letter that you don’t want him to know?”
She thought Rowena wouldn’t answer, that she’d just walk away and leave her comments a mystery, her sadness unshared.
“I don’t know if I can help,” Cassidy said. “But I’d like to try.”
Rowena seemed on the verge of laughter again, but the laugh became a stifled sob. Abruptly she tossed her head, an extravagant motion for someone so controlled, and looked at Cassidy without a hint of mockery.
“Very well,” she said. “You can’t help me, but perhaps…” She gestured for Cassidy to follow, and led her to an ornate cast-iron bench behind a turn of the path. They sat down, surrounded by the fragrance of flowers that didn’t hide the feral scent of the woods, just as Rowena’s lofty reserve could no longer hide emotions she didn’t want to reveal.
“You came to Greyburn of your own free will,” Rowena said. “Is that not so?”
“Yes.” Cassidy said. “I wanted to come. To find a home. My family.”
“Once, long ago, this was my home. But I did not wish to return.” She clasped her hands in her lap, fingers tightening against each other. “The letter… was from a gentleman in London, a fine, respectable man who wishes to marry me. As I wish to marry him.”
Cassidy guessed what it must be like to receive such a letter, so full of lovely phrases. To have a beau, like most ladies did. But when she tried to picture a face to go with the letter, it was Braden’s that came to her. Braden, whom she couldn’t imagine ever writing something like that. Feeling like that…
Rowena’s voice slashed into her wistful thoughts. “I was not allowed that choice,” she said. “Braden had already made plans for my future. I am to marry a man I’ve never met, a man I cannot respect. And all to serve Braden’s Cause.”
The Cause. Cassidy stared at Rowena. “You mean… he won’t let you marry the man you love?”
Rowena sighed. “You are a romantic, Cassidy. Once, I was like you. Once I believed that I could be whom I chose to be. And I chose to live as a normal person, a human being, not as a beast.”
A beast. She meant a loup-garw. A werewolf. “You don’t want to be—”
“Did you know that once the Greyburn Forsters were great county hosts?” Rowena said. “We mingled with all the best northern families. We were known in London, in the most distinguished society. We hid our curse. Not all of us wished for the ‘gifts’ my brother so prizes. My own great-aunt married an ordinary man.”
A human. Like Cassidy’s father. “So did my mother,” she said softly.
Rowena gave her an earnest, almost pleading look. “Then perhaps… you can understand. Our cousins the Sayerses have lived free of the curse ever since my great-Aunt Grace made her choice. That is all I’ve ever wanted. To marry an honorable man of refinement, keep his home… raise children who are not half-animal.”
Cassidy flinched. Less than an hour ago Braden had been declaring his contempt for humans. Now his sister spoke of the loups-garous as if they were monsters.
“I don’t understand,” she said, “how you could want to be… less than you are.”
“Because I have no desire to take the shape of a savage and unnatural creature? One that wasn’t meant to exist except as a tale to frighten children? I refuse to perpetuate—” She broke off, breathing fast. “But you want it, like Braden.”
Yes. She wanted it. She wanted to know what it was like to be what her mother had been, what Braden was. She yearned for it with all her heart.
Rowena was wrong. It was a gift, the Changing. It couldn’t be bad, not if Braden—
“Did he tell you of his mission?” Rowena said. “His great plan to restore the werewolf race to new glory? Yes, I see that he has. But he did not tell you everything, did he?” She looked down at her hands. “Once, I believed there was hope for him. For all of us. When Milena was here…”