The Daughters of Nightsong. V. J. Banis

she shut her eyes and tried to put Raymond and her mother out of her mind. What did they matter now? Hadn’t David given her his word that they’d be married soon and that he’d take her home to her father and to China?

      Let them have their expositions and their steel towers and their dreams of money and success. David was making the final arrangements; she was to meet him tomorrow night and after that nothing her mother did would ever matter to her again.

      * * * *

      Lorna MacNair’s face was creased with agitation as she knocked impatiently on her son’s bedroom door. When he didn’t answer she knocked again and said, “You’re not asleep, David, don’t pretend to me that you are. I want to talk with you, so kindly open the door this instant.”

      She was about to knock again when she heard the latch being unclasped and the door opened. David stood looking sleepy as he pulled himself into his robe. “I was asleep,” he insisted. “What time is it?”

      “It isn’t late and whether you were asleep or not makes no difference to me. I will have words with you, young man.” She put the flat of her hand against the panel of the door and pushed it wide. “Sit down, David,” she ordered, nodding to the leather tufted chair under the reading lamp.

      She started to pace back and forth at the foot of his bed. Suddenly she stopped and whirled on him. “How dare you do this to me?”

      David’s eyes went wide as he stared up at her. He knew what she meant. One more day and he and April would be away. Why had she found out now? Where had he slipped up?

      “What are you talking about, Mother?”

      “Don’t you dare anger me any more than I am by pretending ignorance,” she warned him. “April Nightsong. You’ve been seeing her.”

      She knew, he could see it in her face. His only defense would be the truth—but it needn’t be the whole truth, he told himself. “All right, so I’ve been seeing April, Mother, what’s the harm in that? We meet sometimes in the afternoon.”

      “She’s Chinese!”

      “So?”

      Lorna started pacing again, running her hands through her hair. “Good God, David, have you completely lost your senses? How can you possibly humiliate me this way by running around with such trash?”

      He knew he was wrong to lose his temper but it was unavoidable. He would permit no one, not even his mother, to insult April. “Humiliate you?” he spat. “April is the finest, most decent girl I’ve ever met.”

      “She’s Chinese, for God’s sake!”

      “I wonder, Mother, if it is so much that she’s Chinese as that she is Lydia Nightsong’s daughter.”

      Lorna turned abruptly, pulling off the spectacles she only wore in the privacy of her home. “What is that supposed to imply?”

      “April told me all about her mother and my father.”

      “What about Peter and her mother?”

      “Now it’s my turn to warn you not to play the innocent, Mother. When I first met April she didn’t know who I was and when I told her we laughed about her having met Father. He used to come to their house on Van Ness to see her mother. She’d been too young to think, at the time, that they were anything but just friends. Then a man started watching her house. He even talked to her once, asked her questions about Father and how often he came to visit and whether he stayed all night.”

      “I forbid this!” Lorna said, the color draining from her face. She didn’t want to think of the payment Mr. Ramsey had demanded of her for his reports. She put her hands over her ears. “All right, so your father was on more than friendly terms with Lydia Nightsong. That was over and finished long ago and it has nothing whatever to do with you and this Chinese girl. I forbid it, David! Do you hear me? I forbid it!”

      One moment she stood as stiff as a rail, the next she wilted, like a flower hiding from the sun. “Oh, David,” she said coming behind his chair and putting her arm protectively around his shoulders. “Why can’t you be more like your sister and brother?”

      “Susan’s all business, just like father. And even at eleven, Efrem’s still a boy. Which would you prefer I be like?” he asked sarcastically.

      “At least they know what society expects of them.”

      “Society?” David scoffed. He stood up, feeling uncomfortable under the touch of her arm. She had never been particularly demonstrative and the falseness of it now made him uneasy. “Holy cow, Mother, this is 1887. The world is changing. A whole new century is coming up. A guy’s got to be modern if he’s going to get along.”

      “Paying court to a Chinese is not what I would consider being modern. Taboos will always be with us and a liaison between a Caucasian man and an oriental girl will always meet with disapproval from both sides. Her people will no more welcome you than we will welcome her.”

      He thought about the scene he’d had with Mrs. Nightsong. He knew it was useless to argue with these closed minds. What did they know about love? They were far too old to understand this blind, raging obsession he had for April. Every second he was away from her was torment.

      Well, tomorrow night things would be different. They would be away where no one would ever find them and once they reached the protection of April’s father’s palace in Kalgan, they need never have to worry about anyone keeping them apart again.

      “Very well, Mother,” David said, feigning resignation. “If you forbid my seeing April ever again, there is very little I can do about it.”

      “Then you will stop seeing this girl?”

      David shrugged. “What choice have I? I will see her tomorrow, of course. It would be the gentlemanly thing for me to do.” He put on a beaten expression and hated himself for the sham.

      Lorna smiled sadly and patted his head. “One day you will thank me for all of this, David.” She went to the door and opened it. Before leaving she stood with her hand on the knob and looked back at him. His head was down, his shoulders slumped. Her heart went out to him; but it was all for the good, she told herself as she closed the door.

      Outside, as she went toward her room a slow smile curved her lips. Lydia Nightsong hadn’t gotten her husband and neither would she have her son.

      She shivered slightly as she thought of the payment Mr. Ramsey would again expect of her for his information about David and the Chinese girl. With a deep sigh she squared her shoulders and told herself that it would be worth it.

      “What was all the loud talk?” Peter asked when Lorna came into his bedroom. It had been a long time since they shared a bedroom and whenever Lorna came to him, which she did all too often, it lowered her even further in his esteem. To the world she was a tower of strength and of social decorum. To Peter, his wife was little better than a moneyed tramp. He knew full well that his appeal for her had always been physical. He had used that fact to his advantage—and still did—but it did nothing to increase his respect for either of them.

      “A misunderstanding with David,” she replied. “It’s all straightened out.”

      She gave him a seductive smile, putting her spectacles on the nightstand. “I thought perhaps you would like some companionship,” she said.

      “Not tonight,” he answered sharply. He threw back the coverlet and slipped into a robe. “I have some reports to do.”

      She watched her husband go out of the room. It was a blatantly masculine room, all leather and brass and mahogany so dark it was nearly black. Such a room could easily have overpowered a man, but it paled before Peter MacNair. The sight of him, his long legged stride, his splendid body, never ceased to stir up those tantalizingly sensual urges that churned inside her. Despite the coldness of her manner, Peter inevitably roused a desire within her, a desire she was often at pains to keep concealed until her natural demands grew unbearable.

      Afterward,