She opened her mouth, closed it again and retreated with the air of one who had suffered only a temporary defeat. Griffin gave Mal a weary smile.
“I’m sorry about that little contretemps,” he said. “You shouldn’t be subjected to our family squabbles.”
“It’s nothing, really,” Mal said. “You should have seen me and my sisters.”
“I don’t enjoy such disagreements,” Griffin said. “She’s so much younger than I. She never knewour parents.”
“You had to raise her yourself.”
“Starke took care of us after the fire, until I was old enough to assume responsibility for the administration of our inheritance.”
“That’s why you call him Uncle Edward?”
“He was like a second father to us.” Griffin glanced away. “Afewyears later came theWar. After that, Gemma spent more time with governesses or away at school than with me.” He walked with Mal toward the door. “It’s my own fault if she doesn’t see things as I do.”
“It’s not your fault, Grif. Change is in the air. It’s not the way it was before the War. There are so many girls just like Gemma…girls who won’t go back to the way our mothers lived.”
Griffin stopped at the foot of the staircase. “Gemma won’t be that kind of girl, not as long as I have anything to say about it.” He gripped the newel post, tightening his fingers until they ached. “My life has no purpose if I can’t protect my sister.”
“No purpose?Your money does plenty of good in the world.”
“What I do is a drop in the bucket.” The newel post creaked under his hand. “Gemma has no resources to face the harsh realities of a mad and violent world. I intend to see that she reaches womanhood with her innocence unspoiled.”
Mal glanced at the floor and then back at Griffin, his expression guarded. “I hope it turns out the way you want it to, Grif, but don’t blame yourself if it doesn’t. Gemma isn’t an ordinary girl, and not even you can control everything.” He scuffed his shoe on the parquet floor. “I know it isn’t any of my business…”
“No. It isn’t.” He heard the harsh tone of his own voice and managed a smile. “Don’t worry about us, Mal. You have enough problems of your own, and I intend to help you as best I can.”
“You know I’m grateful.”
“There are no debts between us, Mal…not now and not ever.”
They continued on to the door, where Fitzsimmons could be seen waiting in the drive with the limousine. Griffin sent Mal off to Manhattan and returned to his study, his thoughts bleak and troubled.
Despite what he’d told Mal, he wasn’t at all confident that he could control Gemma. She had abilities far beyond those of a human girl her age. She was also far too inexperienced to fully grasp the consequences of employing them recklessly.
Griffin picked up the brandy snifter and swirled the liquor around and around, flaring his nostrils at the strong, sweet scent. Gemma would have been delighted to drink what Mal had left, but alcohol was the least of the dangers she faced. Maintaining Gemma’s respectability would be easy in comparison to holding her wolf nature in check. For Gemma, just like her brother, could become an animal in the blink of an eye.
And once the animal was free, there could be no certainty of restraining it.
The smell of the liquor went sour in Griffin’s nostrils. He’d been speaking no less than the truth when he’d told Mal that his life’s only remaining purpose was to protect Gemma. God knew, nothing else seemed very important. Any competent businessman could take his place administering the Durant estate, charities and commercial holdings. He had little interest in politics and even less in high society, beyond what was required to secure Gemma’s future.
And as for women…
He closed his eyes, drawn once again to the alley and his unconventional meeting with Allegra Chase. “You’re truly alone, aren’t you?” she’d said. “Is that why you spend your time rescuing damsels in distress?”
Her question had been intended as a gibe, but somehow she’d sensed that he’d cut himself off from the opposite sex, unwilling to embark on empty liaisons with the kinds of women who gave themselves freely for a handful of expensive trinkets or a few months of sexual gratification.
Allegra Chase was exactly that sort of woman, or would have been if she were human. She had her “obligations,” her powerful ties to the vampire who had Converted her, as well as to the rest of the clan—literal ties of blood even more binding than those that governed the world of the pack.Yet Griffin was still thinking about her, still remembering the fire in her eyes and the curves of her shapely legs. He’d dreamed of her last night, and awakened this morning hard and aching with need.
It was ridiculous. Allegra had been honest enough to warn him that the attraction he’d felt wasn’t real when he was too muddled to think for himself. She obviously had no more interest in him than she might have had in an African ape.
He should have been grateful. At the time, he’d thought she’d done him a favor. Allegra Chase was only a fantasy, and such visions eventually faded.
But this one hadn’t. If the attraction hadn’t been real, it surely would have died a quiet death by now.
Griffin scowled with self-disgust, nearly cracking the snifter in his hand. The only cure for these irrational thoughts and feelings would be time…time and the inevitable distance ensured by two very different lives.
Time and distance made no difference to Mal, he reflected. Once his friend had given his heart, nothing would shake him from his course. And that was why Mal deserved his happiness, he and the dreamers like him. No one—except for a few ambitious debutantes and their mothers—would notice or care if Griffin Durant cut himself off from the society that had kept him civilized.
Shaking off his grim mood, Griffin picked up the telephone receiver and gave the operator a number he hadn’t called in far too long.
“Kavanagh,” the man on the other end answered.
“Ross?”
“Griffin? Griffin Durant?”
“Hello, Ross. I know it’s been quite a while—”
“Hell, man. Far too long. How is life among the polo players and stuck-up debutantes of the North Shore?”
“The same as always. Nothing much changes here.”
“So I’ve heard. How is Gemma?”
“Her seventeenth birthday is just around the corner.”
“That old? You must be watching her like a hawk.”
“I do what I can.”
“And the pack? They aren’t giving you any more trouble?”
“No more than usual. I can handle them.”
Ross Kavanagh laughed, an edge to his voice. “Yeah. I’ll bet.”
“And you?”
“I’m dead to them. They leave me alone, and I don’t tell the other cops or my friends in the Prohibition Bureau about their little operation.”
“Good.” Griffin sat in the chair next to the telephone stand, forcing his muscles to relax. “Listen, Ross…I have a favor to ask.”
“What is it, brother?”
Succinctly Griffin recounted the situation with Margot De Luca. “Mal’s already been to see her father, and asked around every club he and Margot frequented, all with no success. If you could keep your ear to the ground, I’d appreciate it.”
“Sure. Mal’s a