The Remarkable Miss Frankenstein (28 page)

“I realize that too.”

“And?” Ian asked, his fists clenching and unclenching.

“I respect Asher. But I respect and love you. Forever.” It made her feel good to know that Ian was so concerned about her well-being. He was part of her destiny. And that was a miracle.

Ian brought her hand to his lips, gently turning it over and kissing her palm. “Marry me, Clair. Now. Today. I can’t bear to lose you. I don’t care anymore about your research. If you want to work on your paranormal theories, I won’t complain as long as you’re with me.”

“About the research…” Clair tried to explain.

“I’ll support whatever you do.”

“About the vampire study—I got most of it wrong,” she admitted, looking forlorn.

Ian took pity on her. “You were right about Wilder from the start,” he reminded her.

“Yes, I was. But then I decided I wasn’t. And Asher wasn’t a werewolf. And I didn’t even suspect Lady Montcrief or those horrible Bears—although I did think Mr. Bear had terrible taste in whom he let into his bed,” she added thoughtfully.

Ian gave her a hug. “Clair, anyone can make a mistake. I’m sure that on your next project, your spectacular research will astonish us all.”

“You’re trying to placate me,” she accused.

“Is it working?” Ian asked with an incorrigible grin.

She touched his hand, needing to tell him that she had promised Asher to give up her vampire thesis. And after seeing injuries to both herself and Ian, she’d decided vampire sleuthing was just too dangerous. Wisely, she decided to add werewolves to the mix of what to avoid. “Ian, about my research—”

He interrupted. “I told you it was fine with me. Do whatever you want, as long as you’ll be my wife.”

Regretfully she explained, “I can’t reveal what I know about vampires. Asher revealed much to me. But it’s too dangerous letting the human world know that theirs and the supernatural world coexist side by side.”

Ian nodded. “No prestigious award?” he asked.

“I guess not. All my big dreams,” Clair said. She hesitated, gazing at Ian, wondering why she didn’t feel worse. Then, suddenly, a big grin split her face as she realized a fundamental truth. “ You are my award, the only prestigious and precious award I need.”

Ian could scarcely believe her words, but the truth was there for him to see, shining in Clair’s eyes. “I love you, Clair Frankenstein,” he repeated. “Marry me.”

On the other side of the bed, Clair’s aunt, who had slept through Asher’s confessions and Ian’s vow of love, awakened at the word “marry.”

“Marriage!” Lady Mary trilled. “How perfectly divine, and such a surprise! Truly, a marvelous surprise. We’ll have the wedding at St. George’s Cathedral in three months. That will give me long enough to plan the wedding.” Giving Ian a hard look, the woman added, “And you, young man, stay out of my niece’s bed. I’ll have no six-month wonder baby to present to my friends.”

Clair choked as Ian matched her aunt look for look.

“I hate to disappoint you, Lady Mary, but I am getting a special license. Clair and I will be married in three days.”

His statement got Lady Mary’s back up. She puffed out like a bantam rooster. “That cock won’t crow, young man. You’ll be married in two months with four hundred of our closest friends invited to the wedding.”

No, Ian thought, this cock won’t crow, but it will stand to attention. There was no way he was waiting two months to have Clair back in his bed. “One week,” he bartered.

“I haven’t said yes,” Clair interjected. Neither Ian nor her aunt paid her any attention.

Lady Mary ran on like a train on a one-way track, butting heads with the equally stubborn baron. “Seven weeks and not a day sooner. Victor and Frederick must come to London, and Frederick must get some new clothes. He takes forever to outfit, you know.”

Ian rolled his eyes. Just what he needed, a monster and a quack at his wedding. “They can wear what they have on,” he grumped.

“Poppycock.” Lady Mary snorted indelicately. “Pure poppycock. Whoever heard of the bride having no one to give her away? And a Frankenstein bride at that!” She was indomitable, her family stubbornness rising to the occasion. “Clair will need a dress befitting the grand occasion,” she went on, “and she will, of course, wear the Frankenstein veil. It has been handed down from bride to bride for over two hundred years.”

Ian heard Clair moan. Surprised, he patted her hand.

Clair’s moan wasn’t from pain, but from disbelief. The Frankenstein veil was a curse. It was so ugly, no self-respecting bride could possibly want to wear the hideous thing.

Oblivious to all but her wedding plans, Lady Mary continued. “I, of course, will wear a light shade of blue, I believe. It will take the dressmaker quite a while to sew all the little flowers I will need on my gown.”

Ian was not to be outmatched by the feisty little Tartar, even if he was surprised by her suddenly crotchety attitude. She was actually quite contrary when crossed. He wondered if Ozzie knew this less-than-attractive side to Lady Mary’s character. “Ten days,” he offered.

Tugging on Ian’s arm, Clair once again tried to gain his attention. “I haven’t said yes.”

Lady Mary was just as determined as Ian, and she intended to gain the time she needed to plan the wedding of the century. Her plan had worked out, after all; she deserved to benefit from it. “Six weeks,” she suggested.

Clair yanked on Ian’s arm again. “I haven’t said yes!” she shouted.

However, no one was paying the least attention.

“Two weeks,” Ian bargained, his expression blank. It was his poker face. And though these stakes were high, he wasn’t bluffing. And he was sure he would win. Though his Plans A and B had failed miserably, his Plan C had been a success. He was finally marrying Clair.

“Five weeks.”

Ian shook his head. Clair’s aunt was a Trojan, standing firmly against his formidable Huntsley will.

“One month. It is my last offer,” Lady Mary said. Inside, she was beaming. She had the crafty baron cornered. One month was what she had wanted all along. One month to plan the wedding. It was enough time for her to get everything ready, and also a short enough spell in case Clair was already with child.

Ian nodded, shrewdly judging his opponent’s joy. “You win, Lady Mary. One month.”

“I haven’t said I’d marry anyone!” Clair shouted for the umpteenth time.

In perfect unison, both Ian and her aunt turned to stare at her, both arching their aristocratic brows and making her feel like a child. Then, without further ado, they went back to discussing the wedding plans.

Clair would have stomped her foot if she could have gotten out of bed. She would have yelled some more, but she was so tired. She would just sleep a little and then argue with these two impossible idiots afterward. She had to admit, they were idiots she loved.

She fell asleep before Ian’s tender kiss, and so she missed all the discussion of her wedding. Thus she ended up wearing the Frankenstein veil, that veil guaranteed to make any bride cranky. When she woke, she would put it all in an update to her friend:

Dear Jane,

I wasn’t speaking to Ian, but now lam again. In fact, I am in love with him! We went to a house party at the Earl of Wolverton’s where I had hoped to get the evidence I needed to prove my hypotheses. Unfortunately, I almost got myself and Ian killed. The Honorable Christopher Wilder—who was not so honorable—is now quite dead. Truly dead and not just undead, for he was a vampire. So were Mr. Bear and his wife, along with Lady Montcrief. Aren’t you glad you weren’t at this house party with all these vampires? Imagine the stakings your father would have required !

Anyway, the Earl of Wolverton is not a werewolf and Ian is wonderful. Have I told you that before? I am in love, and we are to be married.

Oh, and the Duke of Ghent is really a chef, not a warlock, and he wishes he wasn’t a duke. He is courting Aunt Mary. Isn’t that marvelous? He was once a suitor for my aunt, before he had to marry into a great deal of money. Well, he didn’t actually marry the money, he married the heiress who had the money.

I wish you to attend the wedding—my wedding to Ian, not Aunt Mary to the duke. Although they may marry in the not-so-distant future. The wedding is in four weeks. (My wedding.)

With fondest affection,

Clair

P.S. Great-aunt Abby is giving me the city of Alexandria as my wedding gift. Yes, I knew you’d understand.

P.P.S. I am also being forced to wear the Frankenstein family wedding veil. Each night I am leaving it in the attic unwrapped, in hope that large rats will take a liking to the hideous thing and eat it. Wish me luck!

Today
was the day! Her greatest triumph. Her niece would be getting married in a matter of five hours, and Lady Mary rejoiced as she hurried down the staircase. Her bouncy steps made a pattering sound on the marbled stairs.

Today of all days, all things must go according to plan. Mentally checking her list, Lady Mary noted that Clair’s wedding gown was ready, as was Abby’s French gown, since Abby believed herself to be Marie Antoinette, the deceased queen of Louis the Sixteenth, this week.

The church was decorated with stuffed doves and lovebirds, courtesy of Lady Mary, of course. And the chapel was fair to overflowing with orange blossoms, jasmine, and gardenias. It was a visual as well as olfactory feast.

Now all she had to do, Lady Mary knew, was get Victor out of his lab—a major feat in itself—and find Frederick, who had been celebrating rather heavily the previous night with the groom’s cronies. Shaking her head, Lady Mary hoped that Frederick was getting his required eight hours of beauty sleep, which he most certainly needed.

On her way to her brother’s lab, she ran into Brooks. The butler politely handed her an envelope from Jane Van Helsing.

Opening the envelope and reading the brief letter inside, Lady Mary frowned. Jane was not going to be able to make the ceremony. Poor girl, Lady Mary commiserated. Going to Holland to care for her injured aunt and then coming down with the measles—as if Jane didn’t have enough on her plate already, being one of those eccentric Van Helsings. How Jane survived in that family of vampire-hunting lunatics, Lady Mary would never understand. Fortunately, she herself was a Frankenstein and removed from such things.

Glancing back up at Brooks, she asked, “Do you know where Frederick is?”

“In the library, asleep on the floor,” Brooks replied, stonefaced.

“He’s bosky, is he?” Lady Mary asked, shaking her head. “Well, I suppose boys will be boys—or in this case, monsters will be boys.”

Brooks looked heavenward, beseeching. Employed for over thirty years with the Frankensteins, he often wondered how he had remained sane.

“How late was he out?” Mary asked. “And can he be made to sober up before the wedding?”

Brooks replied, “He arrived home around four this morning, singing about graveyards and monster balls.”

Lady Mary raised her hands to her eyes. Of all the days for Frederick to be nursing a hangover! He would be very cranky when he awoke, and a cranky monster was usually one to avoid.

Brooks leaned in closer to her, confiding, “Master Frederick was with that bell-ringing fellow from Notre Dame last evening.”

“Heavens,” Lady Mary exclaimed. “That fellow is mad as a hatter. Running around bell towers and swinging on ropes!”

Suitably satisfied that Lady Mary would put the blame square on the humpbacked shoulder where it belonged, Brooks sniffed disdainfully and added, “That bell-ringer fellow took your nephew to one of those places for Frederick impersonators who like to play cards. Unfortunately, one of the young gentlemen decided to try and attain Master Frederick’s height with a pair of stilts, and he fell onto a stage where a person of suspect repute was singing. This enraged the singer, who threw a bottle of wine at the young gentleman and hit him on the head. Which upset that bell-ringing fellow, who grabbed up the singer and threw her over his shoulder, fleeing off into the night. Naturally Frederick and his impersonators were all asked to leave.”

Brooks leaned in even closer, almost whispering to Lady Mary as if the walls had ears—which of course in the Frankenstein manor could well be true. “You know how Master Frederick feels about rejection.”

Lady Mary patted the butler on the arm. “I know. Poor dear boy.”

At the first appearance of the Frederick impersonators, Lady Mary had worried that her adoptive nephew would get a swelled head from all the attention being focused upon him. And that wouldn’t do at all, since Frederick already wore a size-eleven hat. Instead, her nephew had grown more and more upset until Victor finally explained that the young gentlemen were seeking his approval. Victor’s words had finally settled Frederick down, which was a good tiling. A three-hundred-pound monster throwing a temper tantrum was not a pretty sight.

Brooks nodded regretfully.

“Well, there’s nothing to be done for it now, Brooks. Let us leave him to sleep two hours more. Then please wake him up and be sure to give him my tisane for overindulgence,” Lady Mary commanded. She peeped into the library. Inside, Frederick was sleeping as peacefully as a baby—well, as much of a baby as a six foot eight man with feet the size of Derbyshire could sleep. Mary smiled sweetly, noting that Brooks had gone to the stable and brought a horse blanket back to cover her nephew.

Studying Frederick, Lady Mary worried that he looked a tad greener then usual this morning. Her nephew really must have tied one on last evening.

She quietly closed the library door and, shaking her head, she headed in the direction of her brother’s lab. Victor too would be behaving inappropriately, working on the morning of his sister’s greatest achievement.

“Men,” she mumbled as she made her way down the basement steps to Victor’s laboratory. You couldn’t live with them and you couldn’t live with them. Of course, Ozzie might be the exception to the rule. Mary was certainly willing to find out.