"Blast you to smithereens, you bounder! What in the bloody hell do you want?" Eve demanded.
"I already have it," Adam replied. The little imp within him couldn't help but enjoy the spectacle of vexation that flowed over Eve's beautiful face. Her dark blue eyes glittered like stars in the sky, her cheeks were flushed a becoming peach, and her bosom was heaving. He very much liked how it heaved.
She was magnificent in her fury. Hopefully, he would soon have her beneath him. Perhaps not this night, but soon, very soon. His world had tilted the moment he had seen Eve. She had set his bachelor life to sinking.
"Who told you about me? Who else knows?" Eve questioned, a ruthless gleam in her eye. Her heart was thundering in her chest. Who was this man, and exactly what knowledge did he hold in his grubby little hands? Would he reveal her hoax? Would all and sundry soon know of her deception? She needed to analyze the situation and stop imagining the worst. "Is this blackmail? What exactly are you after—money? If so, you're extremely foolish." No one blackmailed a Bluebeard.
"It's not blackmail, and how utterly insulting an accusation," Adam retorted with disgust. "I have seen and done many illegal things, but blackmail isn't one of them."
"Who told you about the nonexistent Adam? How in the bloody world did you get here?" she pushed, even though deep down inside she knew the answer: her fiend of a father and his infernal interference.
He batted not an eyelash as he answered, "By carriage."
Infuriated, Eve grabbed a porcelain figurine off a shelf and threw it at the brigand. "How did you know to come to the Towers, blast it? How did you know a real husband might not be lurking in the shadows to call you out? I could have a husband waiting in the wings to duel you."
"Ouch." He laughed as the figure caught him on the shoulder. "Play nice. Wives don't throw things at their husbands. And I wasn't worried about being called out to duel—though maybe I should have been. Ghastly prospect, really. All that cold, damp air and people shooting or jabbing at you with very sharp swords. But I wasn't worried, because I knew that you have no flesh-and-blood husband. He's only a figment of your very active imagination. Or so I was told."
"Yes!" Eve shouted. "I know! You were told about me!" And she knew just who the twisted old tattletale was. Her irascible father and his impossibly silly suggestions of grandchildren were enough to drive her around the bend at a maddening gallop.
The fire in the fireplace crackled, and a log broke apart, ominously loud in the sudden silence of the spacious study. Both Adam and Eve knew that the tide had turned and an ocean of revelations was at hand.
He wanted to kick himself in the backside for letting her goad him into revealing himself too soon, but there was nothing Adam could do but watch Eve carefully handling another, heavier figurine. It was a bust, and not the bust he wanted her fondling. The cat was out of the bag, the Bluebeard was out on the prowl, and he might soon be out on his arse.
"Who told you?" Eve asked. She wanted definite proof for when she threw her father's perfidy back in his face. Otherwise, he'd deny it until he was blue in the beard.
"Would you believe a little bluebird wearing a gold earring and a pirate's hat?"
"That backstabbing buccaneer!" Eve swore. "I'd serve my father's liver to the eels, but I hate to give the eels indigestion. I knew it was the Captain. The maddest meddling menace of the seven seas." She threw the heavy porcelain head in her hands, but missed as he dodged.
"My, what a bloodthirsty little vixen I have for a wife," Adam said. "After all that hard work in Transylvania, it appears my wife had greater need of my services here." He gazed at her breasts, greatly admiring the view. At least she wasn't near any more knickknacks to throw, for she plainly intended to do him bodily harm. But what jolly good fun, he thought. He would be the first to admit that he loved a duel at the door of every boudoir. Easy conquests were boring and predictable, and he did so dislike the ordinary.
"What if the good doctors could see your temper tantrum right now?" he asked, glancing down at the broken figurines. "What do you think they would say?"
His words only incited her ire. "That's something else I wish to discuss! How dare you pretend to know what to do with a blood-crazed vampire with an obsessive oral fixation? Your theory of behavior-changing bloodletting of fledglings to relieve fears of the graveyard—pure nonsense!" she snapped, her blue eyes blazing. "And to say that you stuffed that undead coffin with locusts and worms to give them snacks—snacks!—to keep their bloodlust in line was positively idiotic lunacy of the first order. And music—violin music and opera singers to sing them to sleep? Rubbish! It's beyond belief. You're telling tales from the crypt, and I won't have it!"
"Ah, the plot thickens. You're angry because I stepped on your dainty professional toes. My theories were absolutely brilliant, and your nerves are too overset right now to comprehend the genius of the scheme. Besides, it was better than telling them to take two cups of rum and call me in the morning."
"Brilliant? Shiver me timbers! It was ludicrous twaddle. How anyone could swallow that cockamamie tale is beyond my ken. And I so respected Dr. Sigmund before this hideous night."
"I don't know. Most of your doctor friends appeared to be fascinated with my little pretense," Adam said, his hazel eyes twinkling. "But by the way, couldn't you come up with a more original name than Adam? Adam and Eve? I feel like I'm in some farce called Original Sin in the Garden. Now all we need is the forbidden fruit." He gave her a wink.
Looking to the high vaulted ceilings, as if for divine intervention, Eve said, "You might have ruined my plans, and I could lose my funding. For that alone you should be walking the plank." But inside she was a cauldron of messy emotions. She was furious at her father, scared that he had learned her secret. And she was hurt that he'd deviously used it against her for his gain. And Adam—the man not only made her see red; she felt all hot and bothered whenever he gave her that pirate grin.
"I didn't ruin anything. I only added to your dull dinner party with my witty comments and dashing good looks."
"You can't just waltz in here and start ordering me about. I'm not a child!" Eve stamped her foot to punctuate the thought.
"Oh, I beg to differ," Adam remarked. "I have waltzed into your life with a zest that is, I must say, most inspired. It was probably those dance lessons. Of course, they got me into a tight spot in Strasbourg." Tight spot was an understatement, he conceded wryly. Due to an empty stomach and an emptier purse, he had been giving dance lessons to the Baron of Eudall's daughters, and the eldest had taken a fancy to him. She had picked up his steps with ease and later led him a pas de depux into a corner, giving sugary, hot kisses and a blatant treatment of his ront de jambe. Luck had been in short supply back then—else he would never have been teaching dance to tedious debutantes—and the baron had interrupted the impromptu waltz. Adam had managed to flee Strasbourg with his private parts intact, but just barely.
He managed a faint smile. "Isn't it fortuitous for all that I'm quick on my feet?"
Pointing to the door, Eve ignored the impostor's boastful manner. "Well, Mr. Lord of the Dance, why don't you take your braggart self and waltz right back out of here. I'm sure someone in London must be dying to give an aging rogue a chance to two-step. Just do it anyplace but here."
"Shrew," Adam teased, enjoying the battle. He also appreciated his luxurious surroundings. He liked beautiful things, and expressly enjoyed the easy life. Although, his wife wasn't exactly easy. He didn't mind some physical labor, especially when it came to fixing broken things. His wife liked to take broken minds and heal them, which meant that they were a match made in heaven. If only they didn't burn out before the true fire was lit.
"If I left tonight, people would say you drove me to it. They'll say your ill and vicious temper is why I stayed in another country for so long. That I'd rather deal with a blood-crazed vampire than my own wife. I couldn't do that to you, my little jewel."
"Read my lips! I am not your wife," Eve spluttered. She dropped her hands to her hips and stuck out her chin. Thieving pirates could be such stubborn louts, especially when they were after booty, but she didn't understand his tenacity. The man was like a bulldog. No matter how she denounced him, defamed him and demanded that he leave, all was to no avail.
Blinking, she noted nastily that he was still there, standing stolidly in her study like some lighthouse perched upon a rocky shore, enduring through the ages regardless of wind, waves, and storms. "Adam Griffin is nothing more than an illusion, a wisp of smoke—bad grog I had on a winter's night," she accused.
"I know that and you know that, but your servants don't. Neither does anyone else," Adam remarked as he leaned against the closet, legs crossed at the ankle, arms in front of him. "And I told your honored guests that I was back, that I would be treating our patients with you loyally by my side—like a good little wife should be."
Eve snarled, "Oh, no. You aren't coming near my patents, Mr. Whatever-your-name-really-is. You aren't a doctor. You haven't spent years studying the diseases of the mind. My patients walk a fine line, and I won't have you pushing them off it with half-baked theories and treatment."
"You're lovely when you're bossy, little admiral."
"Oh, go away."
"Like I said, what will you tell people? Here tonight, gone tomorrow?"
Eve had a ready answer. "I'll tell them that you had an emergency to attend, and had to make haste. Haste to Hades, if I had my way."
Adam snorted. "Now, now. Good little wives don't tell their husbands of just a few hours to go to hell." He lifted her chin with his hand and stared deep into her eyes. While only fools rushed in where angels feared to tread, still, he thought smugly, he was in good company in a madhouse. The place was jammed to the rafters with fools.
"How could you think I would leave you again?" he asked. "I've just returned to you, my darling. We need quality time together, and a quantity of it. We have merrymaking to manage and beds to muss. I say we start now!"
"Argh!" Eve's pirate growl burst forth in full force as she shoved him backward, losing all sense of propriety. "You impossible impersonator! Have you no shame for the sham you have perpetrated tonight? You are a villain of the worst sort, a seeker of booty and ill-gotten gains. And your acting abilities are far from laudable—they're laughable." She brandished a fireplace poker like a rapier, all agility and grace.
But in a lightning-quick move, he took it away from her. "How dare you disparage my acting? Not to boast, but I thought I was rather brilliant as your husband," he said.
He cast a wounded expression at her and placed a hand over his chest. "And I did dress to please you," he added. After a moment he said, "And by the way, I'm not immune to flattery, should you decide to try it."
She glanced at the fireplace poker in his hand. Reading her thoughts, he shook his head.
"I wouldn't try it. I'm bigger, badder, and faster than you are."
"You're an actor? My father hired an actor? We're doomed. Someone will recognize you."
"Now, don't worry your pretty little head. Only once or twice have I trodden the boards—when I needed a quick infusion of coinage. It really wasn't my style, all those dreary road trips into backwaters. Of course, there were legions of fawning women. And I did get raves for my performances. Tonight I outdid myself. No woman dead or alive—or undead—could have asked for more."
"Oh, what utter rubbish! You are far from perfect. No man is perfect," she stated emphatically. "Believe me, I lived with men on the Jolly Roger for twelve years, and it was far from jolly or perfect!" Eve felt like she was floundering in deep water, not unlike what she often felt when arguing with her father. "I won't have you for a husband. I positively refuse."
"You can't escape. If your fraud is discovered, you'll see no funding. Come now, Eve, you don't really want people to know what a little charlatan you are. You would be ruined, and all your woolly-headed schemes would have been for naught. Admit it. You're truly caught in the net, my dear."
Narrowing her eyes, Eve quietly despised him. Her fall from grace had plunged her into matrimony, and she wished her husband to the bottom of the sea. "Me, the charlatan? What nerve you have." But he spoke the truth. She could not dispute Adam's presence, and she knew it.
So did Captain Bluebeard.
And so did Adam, whatever his real name was. They had hoist her by her own petard.
Adam studied her closely as a myriad of emotions sluiced through her, from rage to hostility to culpability to irate resignation.
"I suppose he paid you well, my father?"
Her husband grinned. "But of course. And aren't you relieved to know that you aren't married to a fool? Of everyone he could engage, you should count your blessings that it was someone who didn't come to you with my pockets—or skull space—to let." Then he quieted, apparently believing he'd yanked her chain enough.
Counting to twenty to regain her composure, Eve drew a deep breath. She wasn't going to let him get another rise out of her; she was beginning to see how he teased her dreadfully just to get her dander up. "That remains to be seen," she grumbled.
Unfortunately, an infernally feminine part of her couldn't help but note how his hazel eyes twinkled and his lips curled up rather sweetly, while he was teasing her. She even reluctantly admitted that he would be quite handsome if he weren't her hoodwinking husband. She didn't want to find him attractive; not one whit.
He spoke again, apparently ready to go another round: "I must insist that next time I choose the guest list. That count was a pompous bag of wind, Dr. Crane is a yahoo if I ever saw one, and Dr. Sigmund is all ego."
Eve sank into a chair, her head in her hands. "I will never, ever forgive my fiendish father," she said.
Adam knelt before her, prying both her hands away from her face. "Come now, love, it's not that horrid a fate. Captain Bluebeard simply wants grandchildren to spoil in his old age." Rubbing her hands with his thumbs he added, "And I'm just the man for the task."
She wanted to yank her hands back, but the gentle rubbing motion on her palms was calming. She, better than anyone, knew what overwrought nerves could do, being both a psychiatrist and a child of a Bluebeard. "He'll be Captain Graybeard before I present him with one," she stated firmly. She had no intention of giving in to this slight attraction.
Adam chuckled. "And I was so looking forward to the begetting."
Shoving him hard, she snapped. "Oh, go away and leave me in peace!" She frowned, tempted to offer him a bribe in place of a bride, but she couldn't spare any coin. Every last one was engaged in taking care of the asylum. Besides, no booty she had could match the booty her father had already promised.
"Afraid I can't do that, my sweet. I gave my word to your father, and I am a man of honor," Adam replied. "Although, I must admit that when he approached me I thought he was stark raving mad. But after listening to the Captain's plan, I recognized its brilliance. Pretending to being Or. Adam Griffin is just what the doctor ordered."
"Honor, my fanny! You wouldn't know honor if it jumped up and bit your arse," Eve growled.
"Ah, but I do. And because of this honor, I could never betray your father. I have reason to be indebted to Captain Bluebeard. Besides, he'd have me filleted if I ever crossed him. Therefore, without further 'I do,' I'm here to stay."
Eve knew her father's vengeful nature, and she wouldn't wish it on her worst enemy, who just now happened to be this handsome impostor. Without a fortune to tempt the so-called Adam, it appeared she was stuck with him. For now. Still, husbands had been known to disappear. And she was too tired to squabble any more tonight. She had concerns to take care of before finally being able to lay her head down on her pillow for the night, so she said, "Without further ado, I've got a patient to see." And she began to leave the room.
"It's rather late to be seeing patients."
"Not when you're a psychiatrist and and the patient is a vampire."
Adam's brow furrowed. He opened his mouth to say something, but thought better of it, saying instead, "Be careful out there."
She ignored his face and words, as well as the hint of concern in his voice. She was just plain weary, and still had a patient to see. Tomorrow she'd start planning the impersonator's departure. She could outwit this rogue or she wasn't Bluebeard's daughter.