Page 6 of Master Wolf
Did she have news?
It was that last possibility that caused his heart to race and the unsettled feeling that had been plaguing him for weeks to surge hard within him. Was that why he’d been feeling this way? Was something wrong?
Was it Lindsay?
For the last few years, it had seemed to Drew that he was finally getting more in control of his wolf and the tyranny of his bond to Lindsay Somerville. The constant, if distant, awareness of Lindsay that had niggled at Drew, even when they were apart, had begun in the last year or two to ease. As though Drew had finally managed to evict him from the space he took up in Drew’s mind.
But then, quite recently, that unsettled feeling that had troubled him at his office earlier had begun bothering him. He hadn’t connected it to Lindsay, but now that Marguerite was here, he wondered.
He squared his shoulders and headed for the parlour.
She was standing at the window when he opened the door, gazing out. At his entrance, she slowly turned.
“Drew. Mon cher,” she said softly. Her face remained grave, but her dark eyes smiled at him. “You are looking well.”
He stepped fully into the room and sank to one knee, bowing his head formally. She stepped forward and laid her right hand on his bent head, resting it there. He felt her power and approval wash over him, soothing as a blanket. A half minute passed, then she drew her hand away while Drew slowly got to his feet.
She was, as ever, nothing short of exquisite, with her shining sable hair, luminously pale skin and matchless elegance. Today she wore a bottle-green pelisse with military-style frogging that was tailored to show her figure to its best advantage. She had taken off the tiny, frivolous bit of a bonnet she’d been wearing—it dangled from the fingers of her left hand by its jet-black ribbons—and her hair was simply dressed.
“It has been too long,” she said. “We missed you in Amsterdam last year.”
“It was difficult to get away.”
Her raised brow said she didn’t believe him, but she did not challenge him. Instead, she tossed the bonnet onto the sideboard and held her hands out to him.
“Come. Greet me properly.”
He took her hands and let her draw him close. She pressed a soft kiss to his cheek and inhaled his scent with a contented sigh, and he inhaled hers in turn, deep into his lungs.
Violets. Green shoots in spring woods. Sap rising.
He saw her wolf in his mind’s eye as he inhaled her scent. Despite her dark hair and eyes, she was a white wolf with eyes like liquid silver. When he closed his eyes, he could see her in the dusk, weaving between the trees, like a ghost.
The urge to follow her where she led was strong.
At length, she released him and he drew back from her. The look she gave him as he retreated was rueful, exasperated and strangely fond, all at once. It made him feel cared for and a disappointment both.
“I do send you regular reports of what I’m doing,” he said, a little defensively. “And it’s all going rather well, I’m sure you’ll agree. I’m making money hand over fist.”
She laughed softly. “Well, I cannot deny that. You have quite the Midas touch. But I have not come all this way to congratulate you on your business acumen.”
“Why have you come, then?”
She laughed. “I wanted to see you, of course. We do think about you, you know, and miss your company, even when you are you a… sobersides.” She laughed again at that. “My English is good, no?”
Ignoring that, Drew asked suspiciously, and a little breathlessly, “Who is ‘we’?”
She regarded him steadily, her dark gaze grave. “Francis and me. Why, who did you think I meant?”
He shrugged and contemplated the toes of his boots.
“Did you think I was referring to Lindsay?”
Drew’s gut clenched, just to hear her say his name, but he didn’t say anything—didn’t even glance up. He didn’t trust his own voice.
Several moments passed, then Marguerite sighed. “Well, it certainly does not include Lindsay, if you want to know. I have seen you more recently than him.”
Drew’s head snapped up at that and he frowned. “But that’s—it’s been almost three years since you and I last met.”