The Reluctant Miss Van Helsing (17 page)

Jane nodded woodenly.

“Why did you try and stake him now—at our house party?”

Jane looked away. “Actually, I have been trying to get rid of him for the past ten days. I’m a dismal failure as a Van Helsing. I’m the butt of all the family jokes. My cousins can be most cruel at times. Still, I didn’t want to come here to do it, but my father insisted. I longed to tell you, but I took that horrid blood oath.”

Clair nodded solemnly. She knew how important that was—and how sick Jane always got after taking the Van Helsing blood oath.

Jane continued speaking, tears sparkling on her eyelashes. “The major is fearful that my uncle Jakob will discover who Asher really is, stake him and steal all the glory. He made me an offer I couldn’t refuse. He said that if I failed to come to your party and do my duty, he would give both Orville and Spot away— Orville to the butcher. All I could imagine was Orville lying on some great block with his head cut off.”

Clair felt a little concerned. She knew that Major Van Helsing was just mean enough to do what he said if Jane didn’t follow his strict commands. He truly was an old stick in the mud.

“So I had to stop the evil from spreading. You do understand?” Jane begged, wringing her hands.

“You mean, Asher being a vampire?”

Jane shook her head. “Pay attention here, Clair. Asher is not only a vampire, but Count Dracul—the Prince of Darkness! He’s a truly terrible monster of such nefarious evil that the world would be much better off with him not walking the face of it. Even if he is—or maybe especially because he is—dead.”

Clair’s mouth made a perfect O. “You think our Asher is Dracul?” She tried not to laugh. Last year she had accused Asher of being a werewolf. Now he was being confused with an evil vampire prince? What rotten luck. She said, “Asher may be a rake, behave rather pompously at times and have a certain reputation among the demimonde, but he is not this Dracul character. I know Asher. He has saved not only my life, but Ian’s as well.”

Jane sighed. “I truly didn’t believe it. That was probably why, when the moment came, I got stuck and couldn’t strike that place most vampires get staked.”

Clair nodded. She understood perfectly. “Yes, you struck low, rather than strike the spot where vampires are staked to make sure they’re struck dead.”

Jane managed a faint smile, relieved to have a friend who understood her. “I didn’t believe it about Asher,” she repeated. “Especially tonight.” Jane kept thinking of Asher’s kisses. “Even though the major’s spies were quite convinced that the Earl of Wolverton is Dracul.”

Rubbing her forehead, she remembered the warmth she had glimpsed in Asher’s eyes when he had kissed her—kissed her like she had dreamed of being kissed.

Well, actually it had been better. No dream could compare with the reality of Asher.

Yes, Jane had felt his hunger, but not evil. No, Asher might be many things, but he wasn’t the malevolent force that was the legendary Count Dracul. She added thoughtfully “No, I don’t believe Asher is the Prince of Darkness, but he is a vampire. The major compelled me strongly to remove the earl. What shall I do? You know the major hates Orville with a passion.”

Clair wanted to roll her eyes. That bloody ostrich again! Jane needed to get her priorities straight. “Famous last names are hard to live up to. I should know. Take me, for example. After your uncle creates a human monster out of spare cadavers… well, how can I ever top that?”

Jane’s face lightened. “Marry a werewolf, I presume.”

Clair laughed.

“I have been meaning to ask, do you ever get fleas in your bed?”

Clair laughed even harder, holding her sides. “No! Only muddy footprints—in the most unusual places.” She grinned mischievously, remembering one of her gowns with paw prints all over the bodice. Ian got a little frisky, especially in wolf form.

Jane sighed. “Sometimes I despise being a Van Helsing. I despise the sight of blood. I despise spiders, and I’m not very fond of dirt. And now I’ve been forced to attack an important member of the nobility in your home. I am so sorry, Clair.”

Reaching over, Clair patted her hand. “Jane, of all people, I know too well the burden of family loyalty. I am a Frankenstein, so how could I not? We too haunt cemeteries at night and do odd things. Who am I to cast stones? Some of my earliest memories are of robbing graves or mixing potions in Uncle Victor’s lab.”

“But you enjoy the graveyard robbing and potion mixing.”

Clair smiled. “True. One of my fondest memories is when Uncle Victor made Frederick and came running down the stairs screaming, ‘It’s alive! It’s alive!’”

“A moment to live in history,” Jane said sincerely.

“That it was,” Clair agreed brightly. “As tonight will probably be. Asher will never live this down. Whatever else happens, Jane, you have my backing and Ian’s.”

Jane hung her head, placing a hand against her forehead. “What have I done? The major is going to be so disappointed in me. Not only did I not succeed with Asher, I have gotten myself compromised by him.” She burst into tears again. “If Asher doesn’t marry me, I’m ruined. If he does marry me, I’m ruined and probably dead, along with him. My father will get rid of both Asher and me—if Asher doesn’t get rid of me first.”

Jane sobbed, her nerves finally getting the better of her. “Maybe we can share the same coffin,” she sniffled.

“Now, now, nobody is going to fit you for a casket. Instead we’ll fit you for a wedding gown,” Clair soothed Jane, holding both her friend’s hands. “This will all work out.”

“Impossible.”

“There’s no choice, and I am not one to beat about the bush. You are compromised. You have done what many a female set out to do and failed: bringing Asher to his knees. He will propose. You must accept, and your father must concede to the match for honor’s sake.” Clair hid her elation. Her Plan Z had changed dramatically, but the end result was the same. She would see these two married or her name wasn’t Clair Elizabeth Frankenstein Huntsley.

Jane shook her head fiercely. “My father will never agree. He’d rather see me a corpse than married to one. Besides, Asher hates me. I imagine he wants to suck me dry for this.” Jane wailed, “I should just roll over and play dead now.” A sense of dread began rolling over her.

“Now, now,” Clair remonstrated, patting Jane’s hands. “It’s not as bad as all that.”

“But it is,” Jane argued, nodding vigorously. “Even your husband wants to kill me for this fiasco.”

Clair stared in disbelief. “Ian said that?” Her husband was a puppy dog—when he wasn’t a big, scary werewolf.

“No. But I can tell murder when I see it in someone’s eyes. I have embarrassed you, your husband and his guests. I have abused his hospitality. So Ian will want me dead too.” Wound up, Jane continued, big fat tears rolling down her cheeks. “Just what does that say about me—that everyone I know wants to murder me?”

She held on as though Clair’s hands were a lifeline. “I’m not a bad person. Not really. I go to church. I feed my birds and take in stray dogs and cats, in spite of the major’s many protests. Grandfather Ebenezer and I deliver Christmas gifts to the street urchins from the lists my grandfather makes all year. I even pull the weeds from neglected graves when we are hunting in the cemeteries,” Jane said sadly. “But don’t tell my cousins that last bit, especially Dwight. He’s an odious toad.”

“I know. You’re a fine person, Jane. Why do you think you are my friend? I wouldn’t have just anyone. And no one will touch a hair on my bosom friend’s head,” Clair asserted firmly.

Standing, Jane pulled away from the warmth of Clair’s comfort and began to pace back and forth and back and forth across the thick Persian carpet. Watching her, Clair felt as if her eyes were crossing.

“No, I’m not a fine person,” she said. “I am pulled in two different directions. I’m formed into a shape I don’t even recognize at times. My Van Helsing duty lies one way, but my heart and dreams lie in another.” Jane’s features contorted with anguish. “I didn’t want to stake Asher. I don’t want to stake any vampires ever. Blood is just so… bloody! Dirt is just so dirty. And spiders—well, they have eight legs and crawl all over you. I think I want a large marble angel to decorate my headstone,” she finished in another torrent of sobs.

Trying to commiserate and read between the lines was not an easy feat when Jane was upset. And Ian thought Clair was hard to follow! Ha! Still, Clair persevered. Her brilliant plan was not going to go awry. Determinedly she asked, “But most especially Asher. You wouldn’t mind being married to Asher— although it is a little late to worry about that particular point now. Marrying Asher is the only solution for you after tonight.”

Jane stared at Clair for a long moment, then quietly said, “Yes. But he loathes me now.”

“All husbands hate their wives every now and then. It’s just the nature of the beast. Nobody can be blissful all the time. If we were, we wouldn’t know what true bliss is. And nobody can be likeable all the time. Not even Ian.”

Jane stared hard at Clair, trying to reason out what her friend had just said. “Bliss isn’t bliss, unless we are sometimes unhappy?”

“Yes. You’ve got it,” Clair remarked happily. “Besides, between husbands and wives, making up after a jolly good fight is invigorating.” Clair remembered Ian making love to her in the pantry after their most recent argument—one about serving the truffles that Mr. Warner had gathered on his last hunt.

“Who wants pig drool on one’s food?”

Jane stopped pacing for a moment and looked at Clair, confused.

Undaunted, her friend went on. “Be thankful Asher is upset with you. If he wasn’t, he’d be touched in the head. Imagine, not being upset with the person that stuck you in the fanny! I couldn’t allow you to marry a raving lunatic, now, could I?”

In a bizarre way, that made sense. But there were so many problems with a match between Jane and Asher, such as their domestic arrangements—what time they would sleep and where. She certainly would never be caught dead in a coffin. (Or at least alive in one.) And her husband would never be able to take a walk in the sun with her, unless she wanted him to be a dried-up raisin. How could she want that? Her husband was a beauty if a beast, and a plain Jane like herself would never waste such a thing.

But then reality set in, and she said, “Asher is a great connoisseur of beauty. He buys only the finest things and courts the loveliest women. I’m no beauty. I can’t believe he will offer for me.”

Clair waggled her index finger at Jane, her brows arched. “Tut-tut. Never judge a vampire by his coffin.” She went to stand before her friend, put her arms on her shoulders.

“Jane, you are pretty. You have just refused to see it all these years. You have the most remarkable greenish eyes I have ever seen, and a very good figure—a fine figure, indeed. Asher will be most impressed. But more importantly, you are intelligent, compassionate and have a core of iron. You also have a sense of the ridiculous, which you will need in dealing with our toplofty earl,” she added with a laugh.

Jane shook her head. “But… how can I endure being married to a vampire when I am a Van Helsing? If I am torn by duty now, what will happen when I wed?”

“When you marry, your duty will be to your husband first and foremost. You can retire permanently from slaying.”

Clair’s words struck Jane like a #3 mallet. She was perfectly correct, and wasn’t it marvelous? Wedding vows before God superceded family vows—at least Jane hoped that was so. No more midnight stakeouts!

“No more of this vampire cloak-and-dagger stuff. I can live a normal life. Well, as normal as anyone can whose husband has both feet in the grave.” For the first time since Clair arrived, Jane smiled, a wistful smile of hope. Then reality intruded again, and her features darkened. “No, the major will never allow it.

He will have me drawn and quartered. And he’ll have Orville served for Christmas dinner.”

Clair laughed, the sound light in the dismal room. “I think they quit doing that in Shakespeare’s day,” she said.

“Serving ostrich?”

“Drawing and quartering.”

Jane’s lips quirked. “And what a fine time the bard would have had with this. A vampire hunter married to a vampire! What a farce.”

“Yes, your life is like a play! Rather like Romeo and Juliet.”

Jane pursed her lips, deflated. There were many problems with that analogy. “No. Romeo was in love with Juliet.” She wondered what would have happened if Romeo hadn’t died. Would he have ever loved again? Could she herself marry a vampire who was in love with her friend? No, even Shakespeare’s plots weren’t this convoluted.

Looking at her friend, Clair smiled a secret smile, thinking that with a little time and luck, the earl would fall deeply and forever in love with Jane. He might be sorely angry right now, as well as sore, but soon he would be focusing on a different bottom than his own: the pert one on his soon-to-be bride.

“Well then, Jane, what about The Taming of the Shrew?” she suggested. Clair shook her head. “No, you’re no shrew. A shrew couldn’t hold a stake,” she teased. “Not with those mousy little paws.”

Jane knew her friend was trying to cheer her up. She appreciated the effort and didn’t want Clair to feel bad, so in a lighter manner she said, “All right, I have it. My life could be the play Hamlet—all of us doing our familial duty.”

Clair waved the suggestion away. “No, too gloomy. Everyone dies in Hamlet. Your ending will be a happy ending.”

“ ‘To sleep, perchance to dream,’” Jane quoted. And dream she did. Of a world where love reigned and she was queen. Of a father who adored his daughter, whose only duty was to love and be loved. Of a vampire with a rakish smile and a heart that beat just for her.

Clair grinned. Yes, Jane was perfect for Asher; she knew more than enough Shakespeare. “All’s well that ends well,” she joked. Now, if Ian would go have a talk with the piqued Asher and get quickly back to bed, she had a few dreams to come herself.

“Somehow I doubt it,” Jane remarked. After a moment she added, “Well, at least Orville can be happy.”

“Hmm?” Clair asked, distracted.

“He won’t go to the butcher,” Jane told her. “Just a vampire’s lair.” But then a look of horror crossed her face. “Good grief! Does Asher like pets? Vampires don’t drink bird blood, do they?”