The Reluctant Miss Van Helsing (13 page)

Clair again slapped him briskly with her fan. His swaggering boasts were in character, and she couldn’t help but be amused by them.

“Clair, you truly are a beautiful woman, inside and out, with a love of life that’s contagious,” the vampire remarked. She was a hard woman to forget. Asher found her to be a ghost in his mind that sometimes haunted the early hours of his mornings, especially when he lay cold and still, waiting for the sleep of the dead to overtake him.

“I am afraid you won’t live to see another sunset if you keep flirting with me so outrageously,” she warned, smiling at her husband, who was watching Asher grimly.

Asher shook his head, theatrically moaning. His teasing words must hide the longing in his heart and the deep ache that accompanied it, for he would have no pity from Clair, and most certainly not from the werewolf. Asher’s cold heart might be breaking, but the Huntsleys could never know. “What you see in that big bag of fur is beyond me. Yes, love is surely blind.”

“Perhaps you might pay attention to those who are single,” Clair suggested. “No one likes to be a wallflower.”

“And who is your soft heart concerned for?”

“My dear friend Jane.”

“Ah yes. Plain Jane Paine.”

At the earl’s tone, another, less formidable person might have been daunted by the task Clair set herself. But “Never say never” had been the bywords of the Frankenstein clan for years.

“Perhaps due to your advancing years, you can’t see that Jane is not plain at all,” Clair admonished gently, glancing across the room to note that Jane was speaking with Lord Graystroke. Her friend’s face was animated. “Jane might not be a beauty in the traditional sense of the word, but she has her own quiet loveliness—and wondrous green eyes that are rarely unkind or watch idly as an injustice is done to those less fortunate.”

Asher shrugged, his face expressionless. “I am not old,” he said.

Clair hid a smile behind her fan. Her plan, Against All Odds, was still on course. Jane would drag this haughty vampire down a peg or two and make a man out of him. Well, as much of a man as she could, when the man in question was really a vampire.

Yes, Jane would soon have a husband who would cherish and delight her, give her a woman’s confidence—rather like Sleeping Beauty, as, with the kiss of eternal love from a vampire, she would be brought to life. It would be a fairy tale come true, with Clair as the orchestrator. Perfectly brilliant, she decided cheerfully.

Unaware of Clair’s Plan Z, Jane chose to get a breath of fresh air. The ballroom had grown slightly stuffy with so many people in attendance, and so she strolled out the large French doors to the stone terrace overlooking the gardens. Sighing, she focused her eyes on the people dancing inside, twirling in a kaleidoscope of colors. She felt completely alone.

“Couples. This is a world of pairs, and I’m solo. Even Noah paired animals on the ark!” She was standing outside the gaiety of life, alone again as usual.

“Humbug,” she grumbled. Then, shaking herself loose from her self-imposed pity, she began to study the people inside.

Over the years, Jane had quite grown accustomed to sitting out more dances than she was asked to stand for. Gentlemen generally preferred to court great beauties or heiresses; since Jane was neither, she had developed a game to amuse herself at balls and routs while she was stranded alone or with the other less popular ladies. She called it the Who’s Hoo Bird Game. Taking a gander at Lady Daffney, who was just then dancing past in the arms of a tall country squire, Jane instantaneously knew what fowl Lady Daffney resembled.

“With her wispy golden hair and bounteous backside, Lady Daffney looks like a plump duck. And her husband, Sir Donald, with his feathery brown hair and prodigious lips, can be a mallard.” Jane stifled a laugh as an image came to mind, of Lady Daffney and her four children traipsing across the Huntsleys’ lawn, all quacking.

The squire Lady Daffney was flirting with looked rather like a hawk with his fierce features and beaklike nose. Of course, at a ball with a house full of shape-shifters, it was possible that the squire truly was the bird in question.

“Hmm. Do werehawks feather their nests? And I wonder if Clair is serving poached eggs and kippers for breakfast?” Jane hoped so, since that was one of her favorite dishes.

Next her attention settled on Asher, and she observed him through the open balcony doors. He was watching Clair and Ian waltzing. For just a moment the earl’s cold facade slipped, revealing a tiny glimmer of hidden pain. Jane felt a sharp jab of pity as she wondered how he could stand to watch his true love dance adoringly in another man’s arms. “His unrequited love must prick him greatly. Maybe even through the heart.”

It was strange how both humans and vampires could fall in love with the wrong person. How much simpler life would be if all men and women were born knowing just whom to love.

Scrupulously observing her foe, Jane felt surprise: She wouldn’t have thought vampires had the hearts to love. The major would say she was being ridiculous, felled by ideas of sentimental claptrap and folly. But Jane knew that wasn’t true, for she was watching Asher watching Clair.

And, monster that he was, Asher surprised Jane by doing nothing but standing and watching the happy Huntsleys together. This strange scenario did not fit with the callous Count Dracul’s reputation. Perhaps the Earl of Wolverton, alias the Prince of Darkness, had devious plans for the happily wedded pair yet to be revealed. But if he did have rotten, foul plans, then why hadn’t Baron Huntsley discovered them? Jane well knew that no one was better at sniffing things out than a werewolf… with the one exception of a weredog.

She found herself again bemoaning her situation: “How can I turn Asher to ashes? How can I not?” If Asher was Dracul, then Clair was in deadly danger—as were Orville and Spot—if Jane didn’t do the major’s burdensome bidding.

“This is all a grave humbug,” she muttered, her conscience fighting her familial duty. She winced, the turmoil in her heart giving her a slight headache.

Deciding a walk along the cliffside below the house might relieve the ache between her eyes, Jane hurried down the stone steps and to it. A pathway had been cut into the dark gray stones, which rose in rocky four-foot walls on either side of her, with planted rosebushes scattered here and there. Their fragrance was sweet perfume added to the night’s own brisk, salty scent.

Breathing deeply, Jane started down the path, thinking hard truths. Clair had two men who loved and worshipped her, while she herself had none. Pursing her lips tightly, Jane fought her envy of her best bosom friend, but the green-eyed monster tried to wrap icy tentacles around her heart. She felt a moment of pettiness and thought that, even though Clair had two men in love with her, the two men in question were really monsters. Of course, they were remarkably handsome monsters—and both looked at Clair as if she hung the moon, which was saying something for both werewolves and vampires.

Cocking her head, Jane wondered what special quality some women had that caused men to lose their heads. What magic did these mortal women possess in order to bespell males with a look or a smile? These seductive sirens caused men to fight for them, to lay the world at their feet and to chart new territories. These fortunate females drove men mad with desire, caused them to beat their chests, crash through balcony windows or howl at the moon. And Jane couldn’t even get a gentleman to ask her to dance. Life was terribly unfair.

She frowned in frustration. Why couldn’t she stir men in the same way? What was she lacking? Was it some flaw in her makeup, some lack of chemical reaction? Was it due more to her lack of looks, or was her personality somehow at fault? Why did it seem that all men had a failure to appreciate her? Why couldn’t Asher look at her in the way he looked at Clair?

Jane sighed in resignation. Truth, though beautiful in itself, could be quite ugly. Even if Asher suddenly became insane with desire for her, it wouldn’t matter; she had her marching orders. She could still hear her father’s parting words: “You will fight on the beaches, you will fight in the fields, you will fight in the cemeteries, you will fight at the Huntsleys’. You will not quit! As that treacherous dog Bonaparte once said, ‘Victory belongs to the most persevering.’ You will persevere this time, Jane! Yes, you will, or my name isn’t Major Edward Abraham Van Helsing!”

The major’s words haunting her, Jane grimaced. She must do her deadly duty in the dead of night. She would make sure that the walking dead were soon truly dead, both to the worlds of both daylight and darkness, even if she must deaden her conscience until it died a final death. Poor Asher, he would not be dead just until dark anymore; he would just be dead. He’d join the pool of vampires whom the Van Helsings had proudly caused to swim in the sea of the dead. Asher would never see another sunset, nor smile another smile full of wicked promises of dark pleasures late in the night. His attractive countenance would no longer grace balls or routs, and he would join the ranks of the eternally and permanently dead.

As Jane woefully drew her dreaded conclusions, guilt earing holes in her soul, she stopped walking and rested under the branches of an oak tree. The gnarled and aging trunk was so large that it cast her in shadow. Deep in thought, she did not hear the approach of the intruder until it was too late to flee.

Asher
grinned. He had needed to expend barely any effort in his seduction of the beautiful Lady Daffney. The woman had given him heated encouragement, her gaze flicking from the top of his breeches to the terrace and then beyond, and now here she was not ten minutes later standing among the dark gray, monolithic stones of the Huntsley property. Tonight, it seemed, he would have his drink on the rocks.

Suddenly the thick cloud, which had half hidden the crescent moon, shifted, revealing not Lady Daffney but Jane Paine in her pale green silk gown. Asher’s grin faded. Miss Paine seemed to appear wherever he did, again and again, rather like the ten plagues of Egypt.

He hated having his plans for a moonlight tryst with a skilled female interrupted, especially by a silly virgin.

And especially when he was so thirsty.

Cocking his head to one side, he studied the forlorn figure, noting how her abundant cleavage was visible in the pale glow of the moon. After a moment he shrugged philosophically; it appeared fate had different ideas for him than he’d had for himself on this dark night. His stomach was beginning to growl, and that meant it was time for dinner.

Jane didn’t hear his approach. She was quoting to herself, “ ‘What in me is dark, yet from those flames, no light, but only darkness visible. The mind is its own place, and in itself can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven.’”

Asher stepped forward. “Dante.”

Startled, Jane gasped. She quickly glanced up at the tall, formidable figure, but immediately she knew it was the earl, which eased her fears. Somewhat. Foolish, yet she really wasn’t afraid of being alone here with the Prince of Darkness. Partly it was because she knew Clair would exterminate Asher if he exsanguinated her. Of course, Clair might also scotch Jane if she slayed Asher.

“It’s Milton,” she corrected.

Asher looked stung. “I beg to differ. I believe that particular quote is Dante,” he remarked curtly.

Jane squared her jaw. “Milton,” she repeated quite firmly, annoyed. She was something of a scholar, and knew her quotes backward and forward. And the earl was just a little bit too smug.

“No, it’s Dante. I know it’s Dante. And I’m never wrong,” he argued.

“Well, this time you are!”

“No, I’m not,” he replied tersely. Who did this country-bred chit think she was, Plato?

“Yes, you are,” Jane said waspishly. Who did the toplofty earl think he was, Socrates?

“It’s Dante.”

“It’s Milton—and we sound like two nursery children arguing over who gets to play with which toys.”

“I am never childish. And it’s Dante.”

Jane snorted in disbelief. Then, very quietly, she muttered, “Milton.”

Asher’s patience was fraying fast. He said, “I am extremely well-read, Jane. And I recognize that quote from Dante.” He growled, losing his last modicum of civility.

“Then you recognize it incorrectly,” Jane repeated stubbornly, her smile fixed. The man might be an earl and a vampire, but his knowledge of the classics was a comedy. A divine one. “It’s from Paradise Lost.”

Asher’s brow furrowed. The little Philistine was standing up to him, telling him that he was in the wrong! What was wrong with her? “Don’t you realize that you’re arguing with an earl?” He took a posture of extreme arrogance, his feet braced apart and his broad shoulders squared.

“Earl, shmearl. I have many faults, but timidity isn’t one of them. When you are wrong, you are wrong. You can battle with me over the quotation for a decade and will still be in the wrong. And I would argue with the king himself if he were silly enough to say Milton was Dante, when anyone with half an education can tell the difference.”

Asher’s heart stopped. As much as an undead heart could. This chit was unbelievable! Didn’t she recognize his august personage, and always-correct nature? He didn’t think she did, not by the way she was glaring at him. Her green eyes sparkled like emeralds with silver fires inside. Miss Paine was a thorn in his side. No, make that a stake. Yet she was certainly pretty out here in the moonlight. There was much more to Miss Paine in the Neck than first met the eye, it seemed.

“My, my, a bluestocking—how intriguing.”

Jane frowned. “I know it’s not the thing to be: a woman with intelligence.” She shrugged. “But I won’t hide the fact.”

“And well you shouldn’t. Stupidity bores me greatly.”

She smiled. “What an enlightened attitude.”

“Of course. I’m an earl. What did you expect?” he asked, surprised that he had repeated his thought out loud.

She moved out of the shadows into the direct glow of the moon. “Pomposity does not become you.”

He grimaced. “Bloody hell, did your mother teach you nothing of ladylike manners?”