SECRET OF THE WOLF Page 7

  "I doubt very much that the doctor compares herself to you," he said.

  Irene fluttered. "I should warn you, Quentin—do not fall in love with me. It is simply too dangerous. I am devoted to my art. But I will receive your homage."

  "I shall be glad to give it." He bowed.

  "I know it is cruel of me to forsake you," she said, "but I must have my rest." With that, she made her exit stage left.

  Johanna was regarding him with a slightly raised eyebrow. "Now you have met Irene," she said.

  "And I'm not likely to forget her." He sat down and crossed his legs. "She actually was an actress, wasn't she?"

  "Yes. I believe she had a brief career with some modest potential. But she chose to accept the protection of an admirer who promised great things and delivered none of them." She hesitated, obviously thinking better of confiding further in him. "He abandoned her. Eventually, she became as you see her now. She has been with us, here and in the east, for ten years—one of my father's more recalcitrant cases. She does not truly wish to emerge from her delusional world."

  "And one must want to be healed," Quentin said.

  His insight surprised her. It was not what she'd have expected in his sort. "My father believed so."

  "Her behavior doesn't trouble you?"

  "Because she insults me?" Johanna smiled. "She can't hurt me, Mr. Quentin. I am her doctor. My only concern is for her welfare. And she is by no means the most ill of our residents."

  The sound of water rushing from the pump in the kitchen interrupted her words. "Ah. I believe that the Reverend Andersen has come in from the garden. Shall we go see him?"

  Quentin followed her into the kitchen, where a thin, raw-boned man with sandy hair bent over the washbasin, furiously pumping water over his hands. As they watched, he picked up a bar of soap and lathered his hands until they were completely submerged in suds, and then rinsed them off again. He repeated the action five more times before Johanna spoke to him.

  "Lewis," she said. "May we have a moment of your time?"

  He spun about as if startled, hands dripping with soapy water. His gaze twitched from her to Quentin.

  "Pardon me," he said. He returned to the basin, reached for the soap, stopped, and rinsed his hands instead. He dried them thoroughly on a towel hung beside the basin and pulled on a pair of white gloves. Only then did he turn his attention to Quentin and Johanna.

  "I was working in the garden," he said in a clipped, irritable voice, not meeting their eyes. He lifted his hands and stared at them, as if he could still see specks of dirt invisible Jo anyone else. Quentin couldn't smell anything on him but the residue of soap, the cloth of the gloves, and well-washed human skin. The man's spotless clothing bore the faint scent of growing things, but no telltale earth. If he had been in the garden, Quentin doubted that he'd touched the ground with anything but the soles of his shoes.

  "I am sure the garden is in much better condition for your labors," Johanna said. "Lewis, this is our new resident, Quentin Forster. Quentin, this is the Reverend Lewis Andersen."

  "Not now," Andersen muttered. "I must cleanse—" He held his arms out from his sides and looked down the length of his body. "So much sin, filth…"

  Johanna didn't react to his curious pronouncements. "Would you care to join us for tea in the parlor?"

  "The china… it is not clean."

  "I assure you that it is," Johanna said gently. "Please trust me, Lewis. You have nothing to fear."

  He finally looked at her, hunching his bony shoulders. "Very well. A few moments." He started for the door just as Quentin turned to follow Johanna, and their sleeves brushed in passing. Andersen flinched as if he'd been struck.

  "Pardon me," Quentin said. Andersen scuttled past him into the parlor and up to the vast stone fireplace at the end of the room, where he stared with horrified fascination into its dark recesses. He shuddered, backed away, and sat down in a chair in the farthest corner. He no longer seemed to notice the presence of anyone else in the room.

  "Mr. Andersen has been with us for five years," Johanna said quietly. "Lewis, what do you think of the roses this summer?"

  He huddled in his chair, turning his hands back and forth in front of his face. "I have tried and tried to make them perfect, but I fail. I fail."

  "If you'll forgive me, Mr. Andersen," Quentin said, "I caught a glimpse of the roses. I've never seen any so beautiful. Your cultivation of them is quite extraordinary."

  Andersen stared at Quentin. "You are British." His thin lips stretched in an expression of aversion, and Quentin felt as though he were being judged from the high pulpit of some vast London cathedral.

  "You are a sinner," Andersen said abruptly. His eyes bore a hint of fanaticism, but it was more distressed than threatening. "What is your sin?"

  The jokes that came so naturally to Quentin's mind seemed very wrong under the circumstances. This man wouldn't understand his levity. "All men sin," he said. "I'm no exception."

  "You run from them, but you cannot escape. I know." He locked his fingers together in a grip that must have been painful. "You cannot run from God."

  "I doubt very much that God wants to find me," Quentin said, biting his tongue on the impulse to ask the reverend why he'd left his calling. "But I don't pretend to know His mind."

  "He will find you. He found me. He found me." He cast a wild look at Johanna and jumped up from his chair. "I must go."

  "We'll talk again," Johanna said.

  Andersen fled the room with his hands pulled close to his body, careful not to touch any object in his passing.

  Quentin blew a breath from puffed cheeks and sank lower in his chair. "If one looks beyond his affliction, he puts me in mind of a vicar I once knew. He wasn't terribly fond of me."

  "Lewis has much improved from the early days in Pennsylvania," Johanna said. "When he was brought to our asylum by his family, he was unable to function normally. He spent half of each day washing himself, refusing to touch or be touched. He ate almost nothing. He was no longer able to attend his congregation or give sermons. And he spoke constantly of God's condemnation, of his own sin and worthlessness. He was determined to wash his sin away."

  As if that were possible, Quentin thought with a bleak inner laugh. Aloud, he said, "But you've helped him."

  "His washing is much less extreme, and on good days he is able to hold rational conversations. His distorted ideas have gradually lessened in their influence. In fact, he curtailed his usual cleansing ritual when we interrupted him—something he would not have done a year ago."

  If Andersen had been worse before, Quentin could scarcely imagine his state upon arrival. "What causes him to… act as he does?"

  "I have come to believe that certain elements of his past experiences caused his mental collapse some years ago. By uncovering them through hypnosis, we have begun to confront them. By confronting them, we cause them to lose their power."

  Uncovering the past. A deep chill penetrated his heart. "Another of your father's theories?"

  "One of my own." She met his gaze without false modesty. "I am still developing this method of treatment."

  He forced the fear aside. "I look forward to observing your technique."

  "You shall have your opportunity very soon." She looked in the direction of the hallway. "There are only two others you must meet—May, our youngest, and Harper Lawson. I've seen little of May since you arrived, and she may still be in hiding."

  "She's afraid of me?"

  "She fears many things. In some ways, she is younger than her age. She came to us two years ago, in a state of hysteria. Her mother left her with us for treatment. Only Oscar and I have been permitted to come close to her. She has greatly improved but, as with the others, progress can be slow."

  "What caused her hysteria?"

  Once more Johanna hesitated. "I cannot give you details—that must remain confidential between physician and patient. Suffice it to say that her home life was not a happy one."

 
A leap of intuition, and a subtle change in Johanna's expression, told Quentin what he wished to know. His lip curled over his teeth, almost without his realizing it. "A child who has suffered at the hands of those who should have cared for her," he guessed. "Like Oscar."

  Johanna looked down at her folded hands. "This is why my father and I believe so strongly in what we do. To abandon such people to life in an asylum, or as prisoners in their own homes, is unconscionable if there is any way to help."

  Under Johanna's dry tones and scholarly speech Quentin heard the ardor that made him so powerfully aware of her. She was devoted to these people, odd as they were. She accepted them. As she might accept him.

  "You have a very generous spirit," he said with complete sincerity. "The world is fortunate that you chose this profession."

  The palest stain of pink touched her high cheekbones. "Some members of the medical community might disagree. Our methods and ideas are controversial among neurologists and asylum directors." She rose and smoothed her skirts. "Come."

  He was about to follow her from the room when he heard a muted sound outside the window overlooking the garden. He pushed back the lace curtains just in time to see a girl with short, dark hair tumbled about her face and a book clutched in her arms, dart behind a vine-covered trellis. She held very still, but he could see her brown eyes, wide with alarm.

  May. She reminded him very much of a wild creature, not unlike his elder brother Braden's young American wife, Cassidy. But Cassidy hadn't been afraid of anything. This one would bound away like a fawn at the first perception of danger.

  Johanna appeared at his shoulder. "You've found her," she said. "May spends most of her time in her room, reading, or in the woods. I don't deny her that freedom. She always remains close to home."

  "I have some acquaintance with wild things and places," Quentin said.

  "Do you?" Johanna tilted her head to search his eyes. "Perhaps, then, you will understand May."

  "I am always in favor of understanding." He lifted his hand, allowing it to graze hers. Unobtrusively she swept her hand behind her skirts and made haste to walk away.

  What game are you playing? he asked himself. What will you do if she begins to respond to your advances?

  He shrugged off the question as he did so many others and trailed after her into the hallway.

  She paused outside a closed door. "This is Harper Lawson's room. He seldom leaves it, even for meals." She drew a breath. "Harper was a soldier in the War, fighting with an Indiana regiment. My father had only begun to work with him when he suffered his apoplectic attack. I have since determined that Harper's insanity has its origins in his service, though he was able to live a normal life for some time following the war. I have read other cases in which soldiers such as Harper…"

  A soldier. Quentin lost the thread of her words, gripped by a sudden wave of dizziness. She'd said the War had made this man insane.

  War.

  He clutched at the wall, fingers curved into claws. A choking fear rose in his throat. His nostrils flared to the rank smell of smoke, of blood, of sweat and unwashed bodies. The hammering of gunfire reverberated in his ears until he could hear nothing else…

  Bodies falling. Ambush. Captain Stokes collapsed beside him in midshout, missing part of his face. Blood drenched Ouentin's uniform. Young Beringer's legs were shot out from under him. He screamed in a high-pitched wail of pain and terror.

  Quentin's vision clouded, narrowed, fixed on the enemy among the rocks above. He could smell the outlaws in their hiding places, carrying out the slaughter from complete safety. There weren't enough men to take them on. This was supposed to have been a simple police action, to capture a minor Pathan bandit who'd been harassing the more amicable Punjabi villagers. Lieutenant Colonel Jeffers couldn't have known that he'd sent them into a trap.

  Untouched by the whizzing bullets, Quentin dropped his pistol. He felt nothing. Nothing was the last thing he remembered, until he woke in the hospital tent…

  "Are you ill?" He sprang back, heart pounding, before he recognized Johanna's voice. He focused on her grave blue eyes until the trembling had passed.

  Blue eyes like still, deep water. Calming. He floated away with them, into a land of peace. Nirvana, the Buddhists called it.

  "Quentin," she said, drifting somewhere alongside him. "Do you hear me?"

  He heard, but he couldn't speak. He didn't know what caused his pulse to beat so high, or why she thought him ill. She had been speaking of Harper, and then…

  Nothing. Blankness. Moments and words lost to him—then Johanna's voice, her eyes. That was all.

  Another one. Another episode of "disappearing," though he hadn't touched a drop of alcohol.

  "You were somewhere else just a moment ago," she said. "Do you remember?"

  Somewhere else. A place of blood and heat and fear. A narrow defile between jagged cliffs—a trap. Rocky walls closing in; a room of damp stones. Darkness. Hours and hours of darkness, and hunger, and pain. The images bled together in confusion.

  And then the orders. Orders that came as hard and deadly as bullets. He threw up his arms, casting the images away. Staggering. Falling.

  He found his weight supported against a solid, sweetly curved body.

  "You had better sit down," Johanna said. "You have pushed yourself too hard."

  Her words pierced the fog in his brain. Johanna. She held him. Her arms were strong and sheltering, but soft as a woman's should be. Warm. Comforting.

  He gave up all thought and allowed himself the sheer physical pleasure of feeling her body pressed to his. Snug bodice and underclothing couldn't disguise the fullness of breasts that so generously fit the crook of his arm. He rested one hand on her waist, just where it joined the flare of her hips. Her simple dress was a great advantage under the circumstances: no flounces and layers and furbelows to get in the way. Just a bit of cloth and the heat of flesh beneath.

  And her scent. Clean, smelling slightly of soap. The scent of woman. A woman who wasn't indifferent to the man she held. Her body was becoming aroused, even if she didn't know it.

  He settled his face into the cradle of her upper shoulder, his cheek brushing her neck and jaw. With just a slight tilt of his head, he could kiss the skin above the edge of her collar.

  "We shall postpone your introduction to Mr. Lawson," she said, her words muffled in his hair. "I will help you back to bed—"

  "Only if you join me in it," he whispered.

  "I beg your pardon?"

  "I still feel quite… dizzy," he said, tightening his hold about her waist.

  "We shall take small steps," she said, and began moving him firmly in the direction of his room at the end of the hall. The movement felt very much like an extremely intimate waltz.

  "Do you dance, Johanna?" he asked, spreading his hand over the small of her back.

  "Seldom, and not with my patients." Her pulse beat erratically, loud enough for Quentin to hear with no effort.

  "Such a waste." He stumbled, and his hand slipped lower to cup her buttocks. There was no bustle to impede his progress.

  She went stock-still and forcibly pushed him away, turned him about, and marched him with a soldier's tread through the door of his room. Without ceremony or excessive gentleness she let him fall to the bed.

  "I had thought," she said, facing him with hands on hips, "that you might join us for dinner tonight. But I think, upon reflection, that you should remain in bed."

  Quentin's protest died with the appearance of a rampaging headache. He might as well have been drunk, and earned it. He rolled sideways and stretched out, shielding his eyes from the light.

  Johanna's hand settled on his forehead. "You are not feverish," she said. "Good."

  Along with the pain in his head had come a very prominent swelling in his nether regions—which Johanna, doctor that she was, could not have failed to observe. Unfortunately, she didn't offer to lay her healing hands on his aching member.

  "Do you know wh
at happened to you outside Harper's room?" she asked, dousing his less-than-idle fantasies.

  "Nothing," he said. He patted the mattress beside him. "Care to join me? I should like to sample more of your bedside manner."

  This time he couldn't even raise a blush in her. "I believe," she said, sitting down in the chair, "that you briefly entered a spontaneous hypnotic state. Quite unusual, but not impossible. It bodes very well for our work together."

  Their work. She meant the techniques she wanted to try on him, the cure for his drinking.

  "Why did you ask me… if I was somewhere else?"

  "I thought that you were reliving some episode in your past. As I mentioned before, this can happen in the hypnotic state—"

  Reliving the past. His ribs seemed to contract around his heart, pressing down so that he couldn't breath. Was that how it would be, this hypnosis? Going back to the heat and blood and darkness, memories torn from some hidden place he hadn't visited in a decade?

  Or worse, deliberately surrendering to the blankness, the nothingness?

  "No," he rasped. "I think I… I don't think you can help me. I'm sorry, but I must leave." He began to sit up, but her hand stopped him. That capable, gentle hand, fingers spread as if she would capture his heart like some small wounded creature.

  "I will not yet ask you what you saw there in the hallway," she said. "I have seen that look on Harper's face. But I can tell you that it is normal to be afraid." Her blue eyes were filled with compassion. "Every man has his reason for drinking. Perhaps your reason is not one you wish to face. But you have the strength and courage to do so."

  "No." He laughed hoarsely. "I am a coward."

  "No more than any other human being."

  The irony of her words stopped his laughter. "And what if you're wrong? What if we start something we can't finish?"

  "We will work together to find the answers, Quentin Forster."