The Remarkable Miss Frankenstein (19 page)

On her way home from Ozzie’s, she had conducted an absolutely brilliant plan. She called it Plan B, The Sting. Ian was going to get pricked by jealousy, drown in his own perfidious nectar. Clair would pollinate the Earl of Wolverton with honeyed words, buzz around him, and cloud the issue of her research. Being the queen bee, she would not get stung and she’d be able to scout out London’s nest of supernatural predators. Yes, her Plan B was a masterpiece of Machiavellian planning. The idiot drone—that would be Ian—didn’t stand a chance.

“I don’t believe I like that look in your eyes,” Mary said. “It generally bodes trouble.”

“Mainly for Ian. He is such a… such a… man!” Clair had run out of insults.

“And thank heavens for that,” her aunt said, patting Clair’s arm again. “Where would we be without the silly creatures?”

“In paradise.”

“And very, very lost there, I’m afraid. Now eat your scone and drink your tea. You’ll feel much better.”

Clair sighed. Her aunt’s recipe for curing tragedy was stuffing one’s face until one felt much like one of her taxidermy subjects. But Clair wasn’t ready to eat her way out of her pique. “I would have been utterly mortified at mistaking His Grace for a warlock, except he was such a great sport. And an amazing cook,” she added as an afterthought.

“Yes, Julian was always a kind heart,” her aunt reminisced, expression melancholy.

Taking in her aunt’s demeanor, Clair speculated there must have once been something between them. “He told me to call him Ozzie, and he asked much about you,” she said.

“Ozzie, indeed. Such an undignified name for such a fine figure of a man.”

“He’s rather old. I’d say at least in his early fifties,” Clair said, probing for a reaction. She got one.

“The face may age, but the heart does not. In here,” Lady Mary replied, pointing to her chest, “in here, we’re all still beautiful young debutantes in our first season.”

Hmm, Clair mused. Live some, learn some. There was more here than met the eye, she decided. “I take it you knew His Grace well at one time?”

“My dear, you are prying.”

Clair laughed heartily. “That too must run in the family. I do believe I inherited that particular trait from you, Auntie.”

Her aunt blushed.

Clair continued her questioning. “Do tell. Was Ozzie one of your gentleman callers?”

Lady Mary smoothed her creamy lace nightgown, her expression one of woe. “I knew him when I was a debutante.”

“How well?”

“Little scamp! We courted for a while. Alas, it didn’t work out. He was quite the catch of the town, top-of-the-trees in his heyday.”

“What happened?” Clair was beginning to be concerned by the wistful look in her aunt’s eye.

“He was caught in a compromising situation with another young girl who was making her come-out that season. They were married a week later.”

Clair was shocked. “Ozzie has too much honor to compromise an innocent, I would think,” she said.

“Yes, he does and he did. The young girl and her mother engineered the compromise. Julian was trapped.”

Clair was upset to discover this secret anguish of her aunt. All these years, and she’d never known Mary had once been deeply in love. And apparently she still was. “Is that why you never married?”

“I never found anyone to compare. No matter the passing of the days or years, the memory of Julian still clove to me of wondrous days of long ago.” Lady Mary stared off into the distance for a moment; then, recalling herself, she said to her niece, “It’s another characteristic of our ancestry. It seems most of us Frankensteins only love once and always too well.”

Tears sparkling in her eyes, Clair hugged her dear aunt tightly, wishing she could ease this heart long broken. “I am so sorry. I never knew.”

“It’s spilt milk now, Clair, and has been for some time.”

“I don’t know. He asked specifically about you tonight, and more than once. Besides, hasn’t his wife been dead for over a year now?”

Mary nodded. “That may be, but Julian would never approach me. His honor would hold him back. He knew how badly he hurt me.”

Regarding her aunt’s downcast features, Clair smiled. “I hope you don’t mind, then, because I invited Ozzie to dinner in a few days.” She hadn’t, but that point could easily be remedied with a quick note on the morrow. Clair grinned. It appeared she had inherited another Frankenstein characteristic: the matchmaker gene.

Of
course it was the Friday the thirteenth, Ian groused. His luck had gone from bad to worse as the day progressed, beginning when he awoke to find his valet had fallen down the stairs dead drunk. This left Ian with no recourse but to polish his own riding boots. To make matters more difficult, there was not a drop of champagne in the house to put a spiffy sheen on the Hessians, since Ian’s valet had finished off the last four bottles in the wee hours of the morning.

Next Ian had discovered the upstairs maid was pregnant, and that the footman responsible was suspiciously on leave visiting his deceased grandmother.

Following that, Ian sat down to breakfast to discover that the cook had burned his kippers. A few inquiries confirmed his suspicions. His valet had had a partner in crime in finishing off the champagne.

With domestic matters so grim, Ian had wisely decided it would be prudent to take a ride in the park. Unfortunately, on the way his roan horse had thrown a shoe, clipping a little old lady’s shin. The early morning hours had ended with Ian being beaten over the shoulder with a reticule.

As luck would have it, his cousin Galen had been riding by and witnessed the whole affair. Ian knew well that there would be chortles throughout the Highlands when Galen went back and told the sordid tale to his brothers. All in all, Ian conceded dismally, it had not been one of his finer mornings.

But then came the icing on the cake to this unluckiest of days. Clair threw his dozen roses—he’d been trying to apologize for telling that smidgen of a white lie about the Duke of Ghent in order to protect her—smack dab in his face. Ian now sported a half dozen scratches on his cheeks from the thorns. His day’s luck was staying true to form.

Lady Mary witnessed the bristling Clair and her amazing throwing arm. She then watched as Clair stormed off in a cloud of ill humor. The gentle lady tried to explain to Ian that her niece had a smidgen of temper, but then was interrupted by Lady Abby, who entered the room in one of her bizarre costumes, complete with Roman toga and grape leaves for a crown.

Before Ian could say “Jack Frost” he was sitting in the Blue Salon listening to Abby’s plans to march on Rome. He was also having a tarot card reading, for all the good it did him. The three times Ian drew cards, he drew blanks, white cards in the tarot deck. Enough was enough. Tucking his tail between his legs, Ian beat a strategic retreat home to lick his wounds and doctor his scratches.

Which led him to now, when he was standing alone at the rout hosted by the Rogers family, wondering dismally how his Plan B had failed so miserably and hoping desperately to see Clair. He knew she was angry with him for his deceit, and he’d expected that, but he really hadn’t expected her to be so furious she wouldn’t let him explain. And to be honest, he really hadn’t expected her to be able to break into the duke’s domicile. He had been spectacularly wrong on both accounts.

Gloomily, he leaned against the wall. He spotted Clair flirting with a pink of the ton. As always, she was ravishing. Her hair was pulled high on her head in a Grecian knot, with floating tendrils around her shoulders, and it shone brightly in the light of a dozen candles.

She was wearing a gown of silver-blue satin interspersed with creamy lace. The lace circled the dress’s hemline and puffed sleeves, and edged the deeply scooped neckline, which more than showcased Clair’s splendid bosom. Ian wanted to worship at the shrine of those magnificent breasts. Bloody hell, he cursed to himself. The way his luck was running, he would be more likely to suckle a pig’s tits than Clair’s.

Scowling, he noted how the young buck with Clair was trying to stare down her dress. He was going to kill the stripling, and definitely planned a word with Lady Mary on her niece’s risque choice of gowns.

Feeling Ian’s gaze upon her, Clair looked up. She donned a mask of cool disdain and pointedly ignored him. But with lashes lowered, she observed him discreetly.

She hid a gleeful smile, silently congratulating herself on her luck. How delightful that Ian was staring at her, and from the expression on his face, he was no happy gentleman.

Yes, this was her lucky day. She had finally found the exact color of green ribbon to match her poke bonnet, which she had been searching for the past two months, and she had won ten quid while playing whist with Great-aunt Abby. She never won playing cards against her great-aunt; Clair reasoned it was because the woman spent so much time with tarot cards.

Risking another peek at Ian, who was staring at her grimly, Clair raised her chin in the air a notch higher. Yes, she mused, this was her lucky day. Ian was miserable—which he should be, the conniving, callous cad. He was a cad who had betrayed her, made her look a fool. He wasn’t fit to kiss the toe of her shoe. He wasn’t fit for human company. How dare he tromp on her precious dreams? How dare he make a mockery of her research? How dare he judge her aspirations to be less worthy than a man’s, and then play her false? The bounder! He probably didn’t share a single hope in her chest.

Brandon Van Helsing interrupted her silent ranklings. “Clair, how pretty you look tonight! Like a budding rose, picked fresh,” he flattered.

Clair smiled. “My thanks, Brandon. And you look quite the man about town yourself,” she praised, noting that his dark gold jacket went well with his dark brown hair. “I have written to Jane recently and am awaiting her reply.”

Brandon nodded. “I hope all is well with my younger sister.”

“Yes. I hope she quite enjoys her visit to Holland, although nursing the injured can be less than exciting. Still, I’m sure Jane will come back with some marvelous sketches of birds.” Clair noticed a slight tightening of Brandon’s jaw, knowing birdwatching was proscribed among the career-oriented Van Helsings, with their black capes, black bags, and cemetery fetishes. How dear Jane with her love of birds and artistic temperament had ever come from that deranged clan was a question Clair had asked herself more than once. Jane was truly a bird of a different feather.

“True. She has quite the talent for taking an object and making it appear to come alive on paper,” Brandon remarked, thinking how his sister’s bird-watching tendencies greatly disturbed their father, who would much rather Jane turn her bird-watching into vampire bat-hunting. “I will be visiting with Jane in a few days, for I am leaving for the Continent on the morrow,” he stated.

Clair cocked her head, studying him. The man was on the hunt. What vampires was he tracking? “Business, or making the grand tour?”

“The tour,” Brandon said, with only a slight hesitation.

Clair knew it for a lie. Rather than making the grand tour, as many of the sons of the aristocracy did— visiting museums, music halls, brothels and gaming halls—Clair would bet a quid that Brandon’s tour would include cemeteries and mausoleums. “I see you take after a certain baron here tonight.”

“Pardon?” Brandon asked, perplexed.

“Oh it’s nothing,” Clair remarked sweetly. Men could look a lady in the eye and tell such big fat lies. She wondered if it was inborn to the male nature or if they attended some class on telling fibs.

Before Brandon could respond, Claire’s bosom friend Arlene Garwood joined the group. Pleasant hellos were exchanged; then Brandon took his leave. Clair gave express instructions for him to tell his sister that she was missed.

As soon as Van Helsing left, Arlene commented on Ian’s and Clair’s locations—far apart. “So you two haven’t reconciled yet?” she asked. She kept glancing back and forth from Clair to Ian; she had heard the whole sordid tale of Ian’s treachery when Clair arrived on her doorstep at the unheard-of hour of nine in the morning. “After all, he did try to explain. And he gave you those lovely roses.”

“Hmmpf.” Clair snorted, unmindful of decorum. “No. And I won’t reconcile with him. Not yet. There’s more here than meets the eye. I’ll wager a monkey that Ian is keeping secrets from me. And if he thinks that his gift of roses was enough, old Baron Charming has another think coming. I’m going to show him no mercy.”

“Oh no, Clair. You have that gleam in your eye. That same gleam that almost got us drowned when searching for mermaids when we were young. That same gleam that got us locked in the attic for half a day when you decided the rats there were really ghosts. What are you up to this time?”

“Nothing yet,” she remarked as she dragged Arlene behind a group of large potted ferns. “Now Ian can’t see us.”

“Clair,” Arlene warned, shaking her head. “Not another one of your plans. Don’t do anything you’ll regret. You hold strong affection for the baron and he, I sense, for you.”

Clair pursed her lips, steering the conversation away from her plotting. It was a brilliant plan, as plans went, but knowing Arlene as well as she did, she knew her good friend would try and talk her out of it. She wrinkled her forehead in frustration. Arlene never appeared to notice how truly inspired Clair’s plans were. Still, Arlene was a good, loyal friend, even if she was a tad slow at some things.

“You know, I believe Great-aunt Abby is right about men. She said that they always bring indigestion and insomnia into a lady’s life while they are courting, while she waits for the gentleman to call. Then, after, they bring on crying jags and plate-throwing. I would be better off without Ian Huntsley darkening my doorstep.” But even as Clair said the words of pique, her inner voice was crying out, “No!”

“Great-aunt Abby has a point. But think how bloody boring life would be without them,” Arlene half-teased.

Clair sighed. Arlene was right. Her life had been really quite fine before Ian entered the picture with his debonair good looks, but Clair was still afraid that if he left, everything would be a shadow of its former self. Somehow the wretch had wriggled and squirmed his way into her heart. The worm! He really was a bad apple and deserved her Plan B, The Sting, even if Plan B included Asher, the proverbial fruit of the poisoned tree.