Chasing Midnight

Gemma pulled a face. “Tea.” She looked toward the sideboard. “Brandy would do her more good, or maybe whiskey…”

“You know very well that Miss Spires doesn’t drink.”

“Only because she’s an old—” Gemma bit her lip. “Don’t you think I should be allowed to try it, big brother? My birthday is in less than a week.”

“Out of the question.”

“Why?”

Mal stared at the ceiling. Griffin sighed. “You’re too young, Gemma, and alcohol is illegal.”

“It’s only illegal to sell it, not drink it. And anyway, you keep it here.”

“Only for guests. You know I don’t drink.”

“You shouldn’t keep the stuff around just for my sake, Grif,” Mal said.

“Thank you, Mal. Your concern is appreciated but entirely unnecessary.” Griffin turned back to Gemma. “I’m not going to argue the merits of the Volstead Act with you, Gemma. You aren’t to drink in this house.”

Gemma glared for a moment, turning undoubtedly rebellious thoughts about in her head. It was amazing how quickly she’d gone from obedient schoolgirl to willful young woman. Griffin could still remember the day of the fire, when he’d held a wailing two-yearold in his arms and watched, helpless, as their parents and elder brother were consumed by the flames. She had been so tiny then, so desperately in need of his protection…

“You can’t keep me locked up forever,” Gemma said in a deceptively calm voice. “In a few more years I’ll be able to make my own decisions, and then…”

“Gemma, Gemma—” Griffin cupped her chin in his hand “—why are you in such a hurry to face the world? It’s not as pretty as you imagine.”

She met his gaze. “I know how hard it was for you…in the War, I mean…all the things you had to do—”

He dropped his hand as if she had burned it. “You know nothing about it, and I never want you to learn. You’ll have a good life. Nothing will ever hurt you, Gemma. That I promise.”

“A good life.” She flounced away from him, banging her heels on the carpet. “You mean, a life among the stuffy, boring, proper members of New York society. You want me to marry an ordinary man and become a good, obedient wife who gives respectable teas and occasionally plays tennis with the other young matrons.” She swung back to face him. “What if I don’t want that kind of life? What if I want jazz and dancing and fast motor cars? What if I want to be free?”

“Gemma…”

“Don’t you see? We aren’t like other people, Grif! We can’t just pretend we are. What would happen if I married some nice, upstanding young man and he found out what I really am? Or will I have to hide it for the rest of my life?”

Griffin looked away, knowing she had hit on the one point he could not refute. He thought of anotherwoman who would probably represent Gemma’s ideal of the liberated, modern woman: a certain long-legged vamp with a black bob and aqua eyes and a throaty voice made for whispering seductive promises; a brash and brazen youngwoman who considered herself the equal of any male, human or otherwise—who’d made Griffin remember that he was still very much a man…

“Why can’t you just let me meet the others in New York?” Gemma demanded, cutting into his thoughts. “Why can’t we be with our own kind?”

“The pack would hardly permit you the freedom you crave,” he said.

“How do you know what they’d permit? You say you don’t trust them. I know it has something to do with what happened in San Francisco, but that was a different place. They aren’t the same!”

“They’re bootleggers,” Griffin said grimly. “They break the law every day.”

“But that isn’t—”

“Please go to your room, Gemma.”

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.