The Reluctant Miss Van Helsing (27 page)

Seeing the distress on her friend’s face, Clair turned her attention to the box. “Drat! Drat! And double drat!” she exclaimed. Nudging her husband none too gently in the ribs, she indicated that he look across the crowded theatre.

“What the bloody hell is Asher doing with that wicked bitch of the west?” Ian asked.

“I thought she was being punished,” Clair retorted.

“She is supposed to be locked in her coffin,” Ian agreed in a bewildered tone. “I like this not.”

Regaining her composure, her hands fisted in her skirts, Jane asked, “Who is she?” But she knew: The woman was an encroaching tart, and her husband was a contemptible cad.

“An old friend of Asher’s,” Clair answered. “Lady Montcrief.” Her lack of elaboration spoke volumes.

Jane read between the lines. “You mean his old mistress.”

Clair remained silent, but Ian nodded.

“She is very beautiful. And, I take it, she is one of the undead?” Jane recognized the pallor and predatory look that some vampires could not hide from her expertly trained eyes.

“Yes,” Clair said, her eyes blazing. “And at one time she tried to kill Ian, Asher and myself. What the fool is doing with her now is beyond me.”

Glancing in the direction of Asher’s box, Jane saw her husband leaning over the voluptuous lady, staring down her gown. “He appears to be looking into her heart,” she remarked, hoping her droll wit would cover the sound of her own heart breaking into a thousand pieces.

Ian gave a sharp bark of laughter, but quieted when Jane and Clair glared at him.

“He also appears to be trying to humiliate me before the tow,” Jane went on coldly. And he had. She was hurt, humiliated and angry that Asher would bring his old lover to such a public place where all eyes would be upon them. Especially since he was so newly wedded.

She wanted to pull out the brunette’s hair by the roots. She wanted to claw her tooth and nail. She wanted to wipe that lascivious smile off her arrogant face. She wanted to plant a fist in his.

Frowning, she looked away. Lady Montcrief and Asher made a very handsome pair. The vampiress was very beautiful. Again, jealousy raged through Jane’s system, making her want to kill her opponent. It wasn’t fair for the vampiress to be so lovely, while she was nothing more than plain. Where was a Van Helsing model-four when you needed one?

Breathing deeply, she fought the feelings of betrayal, anger and jealousy that made her want to screech like a fishwife and act like a true Van Helsing. But just because she was married to a monster didn’t mean she had to act like one. One soulless fiend per family was more than enough.

“Perhaps I should go to Edinburgh and buy a love potion from Dr. Jekyll,” Jane muttered morosely.

“All the way to Scotland for a love potion is a bit extreme—even if Henry Jekyll is quite brilliant with magic potions,” Clair said. “Besides, you don’t need magic potions to win Asher’s love. All you need is your big heart and a lot of patience. The idiot.”

Just then Asher threw back his head, laughing at something his companion said. Jane gritted her teeth. She was so furious, she could chew Neil. She wanted to scratch out his leering eyes. She wanted to lock him in his coffin for a month.

Taking another deep breath, she tried to calm herself, to recall her mother’s lessons in deportment. If she were a true lady, she could pretend that nothing had happened. If she were a better Van Helsing she would go home and make good on her threats.

“Smile,” Clair warned, glancing around the theatre . and noting that the members of the ton were craning their necks for a better view. They looked from this box to Asher’s and back again.

Taking Clair’s advice, Jane managed a passable smile. She couldn’t let society know how hurt she was; they would rip her to shreds. She couldn’t let her husband know how much his actions had done to wound her, either. She bravely faced Ian and Clair, whose eyes held a wealth of sympathy as well as anger.

“I am fine,” she stated firmly.

Across the theatre, one of Lady Montcrief’s followers, Sir Rowton, had joined Asher and Lady Montcrief in the box. “I say, Asher, isn’t that your wife over there?—the Van Helsing chit?” he asked with his usual hint of ennui.

Asher nodded curtly.

Sir Rowton shook his head. “She isn’t your usual style. Pity.”

If Asher hadn’t spent the last two centuries being civilized, he would have snapped Sir Rowton’s fat neck. Instead he gave the man a glare filled with fires of hell. No one insulted his wife. “She is Lady Wolverton to you!” he snarled.

Turning toward the box where his wife sat, Asher regarded her closely. She was dressed in a gown of deep green. He knew that up close it would enhance the beauty of her eyes. The gown fit to perfection and displayed her great assets. He scowled. Her breasts were exposed to the view of other men of the ton. He made a mental note to himself to have some new gowns made up for her, with the neckline raised at least several more inches.

His wife seemed oblivious to his scrutiny, looking around the rest of the theatre. He would have the dressmaker raise her neckline a good three inches. No, make that four.

Seeing Ian Huntsley, Asher nodded in the man’s direction. Briefly and stiffly the baron acknowledged the gesture, then quickly turned back to the two ladies he escorted. But Asher had seen disgust in the werewolf’s eyes.

Slightly chagrined, Asher admitted he deserved it. He had seen his wife the moment he sat down. He berated himself for not asking what her plans for tonight had been.

Despite what Ian obviously thought, Asher would not have escorted Lady Montcrief here if he had known the Huntsleys and Jane were coming. He could easily have taken the scheming tart someplace else to work his seductive wiles upon her, to find out just who had released her months early from the silver-chained coffin into which he had forced her after her attack on Clair. He had to know who was brave enough, or foolish enough, to release Lady Montcrief from her just punishment. There were few vampires strong enough to break the spell placed upon the coffin, and none of them should be in London—not without letting him know that they were visiting his territory. It was a serious breach of etiquette, and a deadly one, that he’d only discovered last night upon spying Lady Montcrief out feeding.

He feared he knew who the dark intruder was. It was his archenemy, Dracul.

At that moment, Lady Montcrief broke into his dark thoughts by stroking his thigh, her long red fingernails tracing erotic patterns on his leg. Asher ached to remove her treacherous hand, but knew he must play the part of devoted lover to entice her into revealing the name of her rescuer. It was a delicate game of cat and catty mouse, one which Asher had played a hundred times before.

“I really can’t believe you married that creature,” Lady Montcrief commented, pertly pursing her lips. “She is so common. And then there is her unfortunate heritage. But perhaps she is good enough in bed to compensate. I would not have thought it, but then Van Helsings would make strange bedfellows.”

Asher smiled, hiding the blow she’d dealt to his pride. “I find special delights in my wife that you might not understand.”

Lady Montcrief leaned closer, her breath whispering on his face. She smiled. “She could certainly not be better than me in the bedchamber, mon ami? Or perhaps you play those games with whips, stakes and silver chains. That would explain why you married one of those horrid Van Helsings. Strange, that type of bed-sport was not to your taste before.”

“You know I like pleasure more than pain,” he agreed coolly, hiding his anger. How he hated this scheming jade!

Unconsciously, he searched the other side of the theatre with his eyes, watching his wife become paler as Lady Montcrief caressed his arm. But he had no choice except to ignore the brief flash of hurt he saw— just as he ignored the slight pain in his stomach that felt like guilt. He was probably just hungry; he hadn’t fed tonight. Why should he care what his wife felt or thought? She was a burden forced upon him.

Yes, he should feel relieved and proud that he had humiliated his wife by not presenting her to society before being seen with his ex-paramour, he told himself. She would be on the tongues of all the gossips tonight, and tomorrow too the vicious tongues would be wagging, all making sport of the new Countess of Wolverton. Just as the few vampires he had encountered recently had spurned or made sport of him. One of those vampires was still at home recuperating, while the other two had fled to Paris, intending to wait until Asher’s temper had cooled.

Jane deserved this treatment, he argued silently. She, her dog and her big bird were albatrosses around his neck. Yet, he couldn’t help but admire her fortitude. She was laughing with Clair and Ian now, ignoring him completely, and acting as if he were no more than a fly upon the wall. She was magnificent, not showing the ton any hint of vulnerability.

Surprising himself, he leaned over and whispered something to Lady Montcrief. Angrily, her red lips clenched tight, and she got to her feet and followed him from the box, leaving a trail of whispers in their wake.

“Well, I’ll be damned,” Ian said to Clair.

“Never,” Clair teased, watching her husband watch Asher exit. “Why?”

Noting that Jane was also watching, Ian whispered, “I concede that you might be right about Asher’s feelings toward Jane. He has left the theatre tonight before the play even started. I might also add, he had a slightly guilty expression on that arrogant face. Asher never feels guilt. I wasn’t even aware he knew what the word meant.”

“Good!” Clair stated harshly. “I hope he drowns in guilt.” Then, thinking on her words, she asked her husband curiously, “Can vampires drown?”

Jane answered. “Only in their own blood,” she said, clenching the highly polished wooden armrests of her chair like she would a Van Helsing model-three stake.

If only she had a real one.

Sleepy
and grumpy were only two of the things Jane was feeling as she shut the seventh drawer of her large oak chest. Sneezing softly, she doctored her red nose with a handkerchief.

Walking back over to her dressing table, she sat down, slowing unbraiding her long brown hair. She frowned, wondering if Asher was coming home, and if not, just whose coffin he was sharing. Her mind was poisoned by visions of her husband cuddled up with the beautiful Lady Montcrief, their snow-white bodies locked in carnal acts—acts Jane had only bashfully dreamed about, never experienced. Envisioning the two vampires entwined, Jane hoped the coffin lid came crashing down on their heads in the middle of whatever men and woman did in the privacy of their caskets.

“I would kill him myself, if he weren’t already dead,” she muttered to herself.

Briskly she began to brush her hair, staring into the oval gilt-framed mirror. She knew she wasn’t pretty. She knew she could never match the sly, seductive vampiress. But she, not Lady Montcrief, was married to Asher. She should be the one receiving his soulful looks and scorching smiles, not his ex-paramour, who was now his paramour again and no longer an ex.

Once again, someone was rejecting her. He was placing her in a preconceived box upon a shelf, without really coming to know her.

Her childhood had been spent knowing she was not what her father wanted. Now she’d found herself a man who felt the same way. What Asher had done tonight cut deeply, ripping open old wounds that had barely begun to heal.

“I can’t believe he’s with that vamp,” Jane muttered indignantly. Tonight Asher had not only rejected her; he had humiliated her as well. Tomorrow everyone in the ton would know that he preferred his ex-mistress to his wife. It was unfair and cruel. The only saving grace was that Asher had had the decency to leave the theatre before the play began. That was something for which to give her cad of a husband credit.

Still, speculation in the theatre had run rampant, forcing Jane to wear an emotionless mask when all eyes turned upon her. Fortunately Ian and Clair had fended off the worst of the gossipmongers. Jane had made it home before she burst into tears in the privacy of her room.

Staring at the ravages of her face, she could still see the results of her crying binge in her puffy eyes and red nose. No, she would never be a beauty.

“‘Mirror, mirror, on the wall, who’s the fairest of them all?’” Asher’s voice echoed from the doorway into her bedchamber, startling Jane, who hadn’t even heard him approach.

He could tell that Jane had been crying. A stab of guilt pierced him. Scowling, he brushed a piece of lint from the cuff of his jacket. He hadn’t felt guilt in at least a century. It was an uncomfortable feeling, and one he seemed doomed to experience since meeting and marrying this infernal Van Helsing chit.

Staring at her husband’s reflection in the mirror, her green-silver eyes hard, Jane retorted, “Fairest? Why, you of course. Or Lady Montcrief, if she were here.” She turned. “Certainly not me. My looks could curdle milk to hear you tell.”

Her words hit Asher square in the heart, worse than a well-aimed stake. “Jane, I never said your looks would curdle milk. You… mistake my words.”

“I mistake nothing. How could you escort your former fling for all the ton to see? How could you so humiliate your wife in a public setting?”

“Unwanted wife,” he reminded her.

“And now all society knows it,” Jane spat. “I could box your ears—or box you in your box! How could you prefer that predatory, murderous creature? I thought you had better taste.”

“I have excellent taste,” Asher retorted. He hated feeling guilty! He was a superior being, far above such petty emotions, being both vampire and one of the most highly titled men in the realm. And if he couldn’t be married to Clair, he hadn’t wanted to be married at all. He certainly hadn’t wanted to be married to a Van Helsing. It made him cruel. “Except in wives. So, Lady Montcrief is none of your business.”

Her temper ignited, Jane stood abruptly, shoving her husband back with a strength that surprised him. “You find her interesting even after she tried to kill you and Clair. Tell me what she possesses that could make you find her attractive after such a betrayal? I want to emulate her, so that you might condescend to take me to the theatre. Perhaps I can dance a jig around the room naked, a rose in my teeth. No, it would have to be blood, wouldn’t it? I shall kiss and nibble around your man thing like a goldfish. Or bite your thigh.”