The Remarkable Miss Frankenstein (22 page)

“This will be our little secret.” The warning was a command, one that Asher’s valet could not willingly break.

“I hope the baron doesn’t get wind of this. Won’t he see the bite on her neck at the houseparty?” Renfield asked worriedly. “And Miss Frankenstein strikes me as a rather independent sort of lady. I don’t think she will go gently into that good night. I take it, my lord, that you will be using your mesmerism talents?”

“You are a master of strategy, Renfield,” Asher quipped as he placed his wolfhead ruby ring on his finger. “I won’t be biting her neck this time, although that is my favorite place. I will choose a less obvious spot, since Huntsley and Clair have not copulated yet. Perhaps those delicious breasts.”

Facing the mirror, he scrutinized his reflection, a look of cold pleasure on his face. “What do you think, Renfield? How do I look? Shall I make the fair maiden swoon?”

“You are a god. Miss Frankenstein will be overcome by her good fortune,” the valet remarked stoically.

“I don’t pay you enough, Renfield. Remind me to raise your salary in the morning.”

“Beg pardon, sir, but you will be asleep in your coffin in the morning.”

Asher ignored him. Studying his reflection in the mirror, he suddenly considered vampire myths. In reality, the Nosferatu could see their reflections. They were physically strong, but only twice as strong as mortal men. Their hearing was average, along with their eyesight, although their night vision was exceptional.

“I am glad some of the myths of the vampire have been greatly exaggerated,” he said. He gestured at the mirror, indicating his reflection. “To think all this would be wasted if I could not view my own person.”

“A disaster of epic proportions,” Renfield agreed, keeping his face straight.

Asher grinned. His fangs glinted in the candlelight. “Do you know Clair called me top-lofty?” he said.

“Hard to imagine.”

Asher sighed. “I wish that some of the old myths held true. I would like to turn Clair tonight, in one go. Still, if all my drained dinners turned, think where that would lead.” He shuddered. “The entire unwashed population would be undead. What a perfectly ghastly thought. All those plebeians in caskets trying to turn into bats or wolves.”

Renfield wore a look of distaste. “Impossible. Vampires can’t shape-shift.”

Asher gave his valet a piercing look. “Yes, Renfield, I know that. And you know that. But they don’t know that. Their knowledge of the Nosferatu is still in the Dark Ages,” he sneered. “By the deuce, they think we fly off at night on those little bat wings, eating bugs. Bugs! Or they think we shift into furry dogs. As if I would ever lower myself to become a wolf, running about on four legs in all that mud. The whole thought is revolting!”

Renfield nodded. “Yes. To be a werewolf would be a curse. There isn’t much dignity in becoming hairy every full moon,” he went on, tidying up the bedchamber now that the earl was dressed. “I certainly would find no pride in being the human servant of a flea-bitten master.”

“Well, let us be grateful our dignity is intact,” Asher said. “And be grateful that the only shape vampires metamorphose into is mist. One of my favorite inherited characteristics.”

A movement in the corner of his eye caught his attention, and Asher whirled around, glaring as Wilder strolled into his private sanctuary.

“What is your favorite vampire trick?” the man asked, his interest obviously piqued.

“Dematerializing into mist or fog,” Asher replied, his gaze narrowed on Wilder’s sudden frown. “I forgot. You’re still a hundred years too young to turn into mist,” he mocked. “Now, why have you invaded my sanctuary? I have an appointment shortly.” He made his voice like ice. He didn’t like anyone in his lair unless he had personally invited them, even members of his own vicious nest.

“I came to discuss the Frankenstein problem. She is a danger to our race.” Wilder’s expression was cruel.

“I told you it has been taken care of,” Asher warned, his eyes glittering with fierce impatience. “When she sees me waltzing the night away under the full moon and remaining both upright and devoid of fur, Clair will know I am not a wolf man.”

Wilder paced the room anxiously. “What if she then decides you’re a vampire, like she did me?”

“She won’t. Her mind is on wolves. Now leave it be,” Asher hissed, not wanting to reveal his plan to make Clair his vampire queen. It was too dangerous to let anyone know until he had the high council’s approval. A master vampire was only allowed to turn two mortals every century. He had filled his quota over eighty years earlier. One result had been disastrous, the other not as bad.

The council would give their consent, Asher believed, due to the unusual circumstances, but he wasn’t a hundred percent sure. He was also shrewd enough to realize that Wilder would be jealous. As master of the nest, Asher had turned down Wilder’s request to turn a human female only a few scant years ago in 1795.

It was a decision Asher didn’t regret. Wilder was too selfish to nurture a fledgling vampire. He was also extremely moody and extremely cruel, sometimes exhibiting a ferocity that bordered on insanity.

Wilder shook his head. “She’s a Frankenstein, for deuced sakes. They don’t quit once they’ve got the bit between their teeth.”

Asher growled, his blue eyes beginning to burn with golden flames, his fangs elongating. “Are you challenging me?”

Nervously, Wilder backed up a step. “I am many things, Asher, but a fool is not one them.” He retreated to the door, his features frozen in a mask of rage, his fingernails needlelike points. “I’ll leave you to your appointment. I just hope Clair Frankenstein isn’t the end of us all!” And with those parting words, Wilder was gone.

Asher shook his head, the flickering fires in his eyes damped. “Ah, Renfield, the foibles of youth.”

His valet only nodded, still staring at the door where Wilder had disappeared. “You must take great care, my lord,” he said. “That one will rip out your throat. And I noted last night that Lady Montcrief was not well pleased with your interest in Miss Frankenstein.”

“Were you spying on my boudoir playmates, Renfield? Shame on you.”

Renfield sniffed. “Of course not, my lord. I was merely passing to refill the brandy decanter.”

Asher smiled as he picked up his many-layered cape. “Now let us hope my bewitching Clair will soon be arriving at the cemetery.”

“She is a most unusual female,” Renfield agreed. “Most ladies,” he said, stressing the word “ladies,” with a doubtful look in his eyes, “would do anything to avoid meeting a man alone. A man they believe to be a wolf, and in a cemetery… ?”

“Most ladies are not Clair Frankenstein,” Asher replied.

“The world must rejoice,” Renfield snipped, thoroughly vexed at his master. “And please, my lord, do try not to spill your dinner all over your cravat again. Bloodstains are terribly hard to soak out of white linen.”

The earl arched an aristocratic eyebrow. “Renfield! You try my patience at times.”

He descended the stairs, a tiny doubt in the back of his mind. Clair was a lady, and meeting him alone at night as his note requested would put her in a compromising position. Would she come? His eyes flamed. She was a Frankenstein through and through. She would be there with her pulse racing. And if her heart wasn’t racing when he arrived, it would be after just one kiss.

Clair
shivered as a cold blast of wind whipped her cape around her and rustled the skeletal branches of the trees above. It was pitch black at the Eternal Sleeps Cemetery, with the exception of her lantern, which cast a small halo of light to hold back the inky shadows.

Clair was cold, a little frightened, and very curious about Asher’s mysterious note. She stood frowning, tapping her fingertips on the tombstone where her lantern rested. Ian would kill her if he knew what she was about. If she were fortunate, he wouldn’t find out. She had used all of her persuasive powers to convince Aunt Mary of the need for secrecy, just as the note warned. Asher had stated he wouldn’t tell her what he knew if Huntsley were involved.

Clair wished she could have told Ian, but he would either go off half-cocked or else have forbidden her to come. For a brief time she had thought Ian was coming to value her research, but his lie about the Duke of Ghent had proved that theory false.

She sighed, supposing she should be scared of meeting a werewolf in a dark, silent cemetery at night. Luckily for Clair, her many grave-robbing trips with Uncle Victor had prepared her for a scene such as this.

Asher appeared out of the grayish fog as if he had simply materialized in front of her. “You look frightened,” he said.

She started at his approach, then raised her chin firmly in the air. She would show no fear. “Frankensteins are never scared. It’s not in our blood.”

Asher chuckled. “What is, then? Ghoulies, vampires and late-night walks in the cemetery?”

“Apparently so.” She smiled slightly.

“I am glad you’re here. I wasn’t quite sure if you would come to our little tryst.”

“How could I not? You knew your note would lure me. Now, what unusual activities have been going on here?”

“My, my, you do cut to the chase,” Asher remarked, his eyes drinking in the beauty of both her face and her soul. Noting her impatient sigh, he spoke. “I have heard of some strange activity here at night. Unearthly noises and graves without bodies.”

“It could be simple grave robbers,” Clair replied cautiously, wondering what exactly Asher knew about her research.

“Or something more nefarious.”

“And what would that be?”

“Those blood sucking fiends of the night—vampires. What else?” He waited for her reaction, noticing her fingers twisting in the folds of her cape.

“I see,” she said, but she didn’t. What was Asher’s game? He was talking about vampires. She knew he must believe in them; after all, he was a werewolf. And she knew in a roundabout way they all belonged to the same preternatural club.

Cocking her head, Clair examined the Earl thoroughly. Maybe he was a werewolf trying to pretend to be a vampire trying to pretend to be human. It was a complex riddle, one worthy of the Sphinx. Or was Asher trying to gammon her like Ian had, leading her down a false trail with a false scent? “Vampires. Here at the Eternal Sleeps Cemetery?” she said.

Asher shrugged. “I thought it was a subject close to your heart. Your research into matters of the paranormal, I mean.”

“It is.”

“It is a very dangerous subject,” Asher warned, stepping closer, Clair’s spirit drawing him like a moth to flame. He felt his incisors begin to lengthen.

“It’s not just my work, it’s my calling, my destiny,” Clair tried to explain, her voice filled with grim determination. Everyone was always trying to warn her away from what she knew to be right, what she knew to be essential to her mental well-being, what she knew she had to continue to do in order to be who she was and what she wanted to be in the future. She had to win the prestigious Scientific Discovery of the Decade Award.

Asher glided closer. “No, there is no escaping destiny.” And you are to be mine, mine, mine, Asher repeated in a silent litany.

Cocking her head, Clair studied him, a slight smile forming as she decided what to say and what not. “Perhaps you do understand. ‘The moving finger writes; and, having writ, moves on; nor all thy piety nor wit shall lure it back to cancel half a line, nor all thy tears wash out a word of it.’”

Asher was moved by the glimpse of sorrow, bliss, and joy she revealed. It was a gift he would always cherish. “Omar Khayyam,” he said.

She nodded, raising her face to his. “I have been and will always be Clair Frankenstein, be that a blessing or a curse. I would not change it for all the serenity or ladylike manners in the world.”

Moved, Asher turned partially away. Placing his boot upon a tombstone, his eyes searched the night and he changed the subject. “There are shadows dark and low here. The secrets of the graves are echoes of the dying… dying… dead,” he remarked softly. “So many dead. So many lovers lost to each other’s embrace. So many mothers with hearts turned to dust. Laughing friends whose laughter has been silenced.”

Clair focused on the sorrow evident in his eyes. She understood from her research that werewolves were not immortal, but they lived for over a century. It was an intriguing thought, but a melancholy one as well: they knew more than a hundred years of joy and grief, of birthing babies and bidding friends farewell on the journey to the unknown.

Asher turned to Clair, carefully studying her reaction to his next words. “Do you think that creatures of the night could be lonely?”

“I would say we are all prisoners of ourselves, loneliness being one of our worst jailors. If humans can shed tears, why not the supernatural? Yes, I imagine they know a great loneliness, perhaps more than any other.”

Asher lifted her chin with his pale hand. He stared into her eyes and gently bent down to kiss her lips. He kissed her tenderly, hiding the raging hunger filling his veins. The kiss stirred his dark soul, reaching into recesses he had long since thought shriveled up and dead from lack of warmth.

Her breath was the sweetest of scents, her taste a tantalizing hint of incredible delight. In the blink of the eye, Asher fell completely in love. Consequent with that love came knowledge. He would not make Clair immortal and risk the warm, generous essence of her human soul. She was too special to make into the chill undead. Although he doubted he could let her go completely. Perhaps if the Fates were kind they could be lovers. And Asher knew, with a smile, he would help Fate along in whatever manner he could.

Stepping back, Clair lifted her hand to her mouth in startlement. That kiss had been riveting. It was lucky she loved Ian, or else she might find herself involved with this attractive arrogant Wolf man of London.

Gently taking her hand from her mouth, Asher pressed a quick kiss to Clair’s heated palm, wanting to do much more, when he heard the sound of rapidly approaching footsteps. Jerking his head upright, he scanned the darkness. “Expect any minute to have a mad dog at your door,” he predicted in annoyance.