Miffed with Ian, Clair left him standing alone by a large faux-marble column. Her thoughts were in chaos. She was surprised her punch had affected Ian as it had. Perhaps he wasn't as strong as she thought. Of course, she had meant to punch him in the stomach, but he was so much taller than she was.
She was slightly sorry that she had punched him. But the man did make her lose her temper like no one else. He also made her feel beautiful, and her blood hummed whenever he was near. The attractive baron made her want to sing with joy, if only she could sing without everyone wincing.
In one way it was nattering to have Ian worry about her well-being. It showed that he cared enough about her to be concerned. Nevertheless, she was incensed that he didn't grasp the importance of her objectives or her work. She was no weak-kneed, faint-at-the-drop-of-a-garlic-clove female. How could Ian not recognize this? It was as if he, despite being a male member of the human race, could not be reasoned with. Or maybe because of it. He was too emotional about the whole situation.
"How dare he take me off my werewolf watch!" Clair grumbled.
With womanly wisdom, she decided to let him stew in his own remorse and guilt for treating her as less than the dedicated scientist she was. To teach him a lesson, she flirted shamelessly with those gentlemen of society who did not walk swiftly away when they saw her coming.
"Miss Frankenstein," a familiar voice said cordially behind her.
Turning, Clair found herself facing her friend Jane's brother. Brandon was not quite six feet tall, with light brown hair and greenish gray eyes. He had freckles and a long thin nose. He was not a handsome man, but he was not unattractive either.
Brandon Van Helsing was one of the Van Helsings, the world's foremost hunters of vampires. The family had been hunting the fiends since before Charles the Second was crowned. Normally Clair would have known nothing about the real occupation of the Van Helsings, since knowledge of their secret vampire-slaying society was on a need-to-know basis and shrouded in great secrecy. However, Uncle Victor had been admitted more or less reluctantly into the secret society upon the development of Frederick. Fortunately her uncle had confided in her, swearing her to secrecy about the scourge of bloodsucker society, which left Clair and Jane free to discuss various theories and questions regarding the otherworldly.
"Brandon, it's a delight to see you! Is Jane here in London with you by any chance?" Clair asked, peering about for a glimpse of her short, plump friend.
Brandon shook his head regretfully. "No. Father still insists Jane stay out of London, ever since the regrettable incident."
Clair frowned, recalling Jane's regrettable incident. It was when Jane fumbled a vampire staking for the second time, an unheard-of thing in Van Helsing history. But really it was not so remarkable when one considered that the sight of blood made her nauseous and dirt made her sneeze. Mausoleums and caskets were just filled with all kinds of smelly dirt, Clair thought morosely. Major Van Helsing, Jane's father, was a dictatorial tyrant. Jane deserved better than being entombed in the country for the past two and a half years for the slight mistake of fleeing the scene of a failed fiend-slaying.
"When will Major Van Helsing let sleeping dogs lie?" Or even sleeping vampires? Clair asked herself silently.
Brandon shrugged, his eyes dark with repressed indignation at his father's treatment of his sister. "However, Jane isn't at the country estate. Our aunt in Holland took a serious fall. Jane has gone over to keep her company and help nurse her back to health."
"When will she return?"
"Two to three months," Brandon answered.
Clair nodded thoughtfully. "Perhaps a change of scenery will do her good."
Brandon nodded. "My thoughts exactly."
"And you, Brandon? What are you about these days?"
"This and that," he replied mysteriously.
Clair shook her head. "You Van Helsings are always so secretive. All that cloak-and-stake stuff."
Brandon swiftly surveyed the nearby members of the ton, but they all seemed totally consumed in their own conversations, paying no attention to him or Clair. "Watch yourself, Miss Frankenstein. The walls have ears."
"True," she agreed, thinking of the Blue Salon.
"So, what are you up to now? No more ghosts in the cemetery?" he teased.
"Watch it, yourself," Clair warned. "You know how I feel about porcine humor."
Brandon snorted.
"Besides, I am involved in a new undertaking of quite significant value."
"Something to do with the Scientific Discovery of the Decade Award," Brandon stated.
"Yes," Clair replied, surprised.
"I saw Jane in the country not long after you wrote to her. She told me that you were trying for the award. But she didn't mention the subject material."
And she wouldn't, Clair thought smugly. Jane had been sworn to secrecy.
Seeing her sly expression, Brandon snorted again. "Keeping secrets, are we?"
She nodded. "We Frankensteins can be just as secretive as you Van Helsings."
Brandon laughed out loud. "Right. A seven-foot monster is certainly not fodder for gossip."
"Humph!" Clair responded, and she walked away. Sometimes Brandon Van Helsing was too big for his breeches. Really, Clair thought, at times men were such… men. They were infuriating, aggravating, unworthy, and irritating.
"Now where are you, Ian?" she muttered, trying not to care if he had noticed her in conversation with Brandon, who was an eligible bachelor if you didn't mind him out running around cemeteries poking the undead with sticks in the dead of night.
She spotted him a second later, leaning back against a wall and watching her. Smiling to herself, she went about her business of driving Ian crazy. Perhaps her friend Arlene could give her some helpful hints about making him pay for his crimes.
Ian watched Clair stoically, his arms crossed over his chest as he leaned back against the wall. He had noticed Clair conversing with the younger Van Helsing. He had watched Clair and her friend Arlene dance and flirt with various town fops. He would have been livid with jealousy if he hadn't known her heart really wasn't in this pettish display. He hid a grin. His Clair was an independent woman, rebelling against his masculine authority and the fact that he had spoiled her less than scientific fact-finding mission.
He wanted to ask Clair to dance, but he knew with an instinct born of years of experience with feminine pique that she would rather chew nails than comply. She was an entity unto herself, an odd angel whose fluttering wings breathed fresh air into a world which had long grown stale for Ian. Her sweet smiles gave balm to his wounded, weary spirit, just as her kisses sent him soaring heavenward. It was fascination, he knew, that old black magic she did so well, which made her unforgettable.
Ian recognized their relationship had little future, most especially if one or both of them ended up vampire food. The rational part of his brain sternly advised that he wasn't ready for a leg-shackle anyway—anytime, anyhow, and in any form. Marriage was a trap which, once well-sprung, could catch and capture his heart and tear it out if he ever lost Clair. Knowing Clair's penchant for trouble, the scenario was entirely too possible. Besides, he was too wily a hunter to see himself caught.
But then, he contemplated, when was he ever wily around Clair Frankenstein? When was he even rational with her? She could ask for the moon and, if he happened to be in one of his stupid modes, which was generally when he was staring at her breasts, kissing her lips, or even listening to her metaphysical prattle, he might just try to move heaven and earth to get the damn thing.
Yet he was being rational now. While he was drooling over Clair, Ian was also keeping a wary eye out for Asher, pondering what he could do about his conundrum. He hoped fervently that Clair hadn't already captured the crafty earl's nefarious attention.
As the night sky changed from the ebony darkness of midnight to the more somber hues of early morning, Ian received an urgent message. He had no choice but to leave, since the note called for his immediate and personal attention. Reluctantly he left, placing a well-advised word of warning in Lady Mary's ear to keep a close eye on her niece. The message thrilled Lady Mary's little matchmaking heart. Another was thrilled as well, but for different reasons. A figure standing in the shadows of the upstairs gallery's balustrade shrewdly watched Ian's departure. The tall man smiled fiercely, his sharp teeth glistening in the semishadow.
"Hold on to your hats. This could be a very bumpy night," Neil Asher gloated as he made his way down the staircase, his prey ever-present in his sight.
Oblivious to the earl's interest, Clair stood by the punch bowl watching Arlene dance, thinking that she had been remiss in writing to her friend Jane. It had been too long since the last update.
Unexpectedly, she felt a tingling foreboding. Glancing about, Clair felt her chest constrict. The Earl of Wolverton was beating a direct path toward her. He moved with a fluid grace, his hair the color of roast chestnuts, gleaming like copper in the soft glow of the chandeliers. His broad cheekbones and firm, square jaw hinted at his Germanic heritage, while his coloring was claimed by his English ancestry. Yes his exalted lineage was evident in his proud manner. And anyone who dared approach him was halted by the earl's disdainful sneer.
In an abstract way, Clair noted he was a good two inches taller than Ian, and Ian was a tall man. "Must be all that raw meat he eats," she murmured, the scientific part of her brain registering his flawless characteristics while the womanly part registered his magnificent sex appeal.
Asher smiled again, this time with unqualified carnality. His prey was near. He pounced.
"Allow me to introduce myself. I'm Neil Asher, tenth Earl of Wolverton."
Like quicksilver, Clair comprehended that the earl wore his exalted ancestry like invisible armor, girding himself against annoyance by the lesser beings of the world. "My lord, you must excuse me, but we haven't been formally introduced," she said stiffly, turning to leave. His words stopped her abrupt departure.
"Miss Frankenstein, I didn't think such formalities need exist between the two of us. In fact, I feel as if we are already on intimate terms. At least, you certainly know some intimate details about me."
Clair's curiosity got the better of her. "And those details are?" She noted that the color of his eyes was like chipped ice, with a darker blue around the edges. She also noted that he was watching her as if she would make a tasty treat. In a strange way, that was excellent. It was more fodder for her werewolf theory.
"Come now, don't play coy with me," Asher remarked patronizingly as he looked his fill. Clair Frankenstein was a rare beauty, exotic in spirit and unmatched in eccentric ancestry. Alone she would have interested him, but with Huntsley recently sniffing at her skirts, her value increased tenfold. He couldn't and wouldn't resist tweaking the baron's nose by stealing this lady out from under it.
"I assure you, I'm not," Clair rebuffed, looking into his eyes. Suddenly, she felt as if she were rappeling down the face of a glacier into the deep unknown. She blinked.
"Hmm," he said. "We'll see about that. It would seem that you know personal things: when I get up, go to bed, what I like to dine on…" He hesitated, building the suspense. "My illustrious techniques in the bedchamber. Indeed, tonight it seems you got a personal view of my seduction skills, with the Lady Montcrief playing a rather key role."
Clair gasped at his indiscretion. "You, my lord, are no gentleman."
Asher laughed, the sound chilling her to the very core.
"And you my dear, are no lady, in spite of the impeccable packaging." Pulling out his quizzing glass, he looked her up and down. Then he smiled lasciviously.
Clair's eyes flashed. Ha! The old wolf wasn't nearly as smart as he thought. She would soon see him howling at the moon. Haughtily she remarked, "And you, my lord, are a wolf in sheep's clothing. One with too fine of an opinion of yourself. In fact, you're so top-lofty, it's a wonder you don't tip over."
A flash of surprise crossed his features. Asher narrowed his chilly blue eyes. "Pardon?"
In spite of his irritation, Asher found that she fascinated him. He was used to being adored and feared, or having others fear him. This Miss Frankenstein was a different flavor altogether.
Clair wanted to pinch herself for stupidity. She needed to befriend the earl, not vex him. "Please excuse my ill manners," she apologized.
The earl continued to study her, his gaze leering. "I could excuse a pretty little morsel like you many things."
Good intentions forgotten, she snapped. "How nice. But I'm afraid I can't excuse you any."
"Ouch," he said, though he looked unmoved. "What sharp little claws you have. Perhaps you would like to try them out on me sometime—preferably soon," he suggested.
Clair ground her teeth, wanting to slap the fur from out beneath his skin. Years of her aunt's training, however, came to her rescue. "I must politely decline," was all she said.
Slyly, she dropped her silver charm bracelet on the floor by the earl's shiny boots. "How clumsy of me. Would you mind picking that up for me?"
Asher chuckled. "It appears closer to you than me. I must politely decline."
Just as she had surmised, he wouldn't touch the silver. Another piece of wolfish evidence. "Aha!" Clair retrieved the bracelet herself, hiding her smug smile. "If your august personage won't mind, I really will be taking my leave."
Asher grabbed her arm in a lightning-quick move. "My, my, you are a surprise. You have me all aquake with desire to see what you'll do next."
Clair looked pointedly at her arm. Slowly the earl released it, haughtily tilted his chin, and held his hands up in the air in a placating gesture, silently commanding her to stay. It didn't work.
"I think, my lord, you indulge your desires overmuch. It reminds me of a pig feeding at a trough," she retorted.
He laughed in spite of the insult. "You do me injury. But I must reply that desire is what separates us from lower beings."
Clair's early desire to flee fled. The earl had presented too good an opening to let her temper get the better of her. He was talking about being a werewolf, she felt certain. "Please, do go on."
"I am a something of a scientist myself. I believe in survival of the fittest. Those who lead in the world are born to do so. Those who are less superior and can't keep up are useless and disposable. After all, they are of no account in the grand scheme. This is a brutal world, where the elite are masters as they should be."
Of course! Clair reasoned that a werewolf would consider itself at the top of any food chain. That the earl was so open with his malevolent remarks surprised her. She wondered if he'd had too much to drink. Then she pondered if werewolves could get drunk. She contemplated: if a werewolf ate a human who was drunk, could that werewolf end up foxed?
"And you, being a noble, are part of this elite membership?"
Asher flicked a piece of lint from the cuff of his midnight blue jacket. "But of course, my child. I'm an earl. Centuries of good breeding—superlative breeding—are in my blood."
His tone was matter-of-fact, which was so much more than Clair Frankenstein had dreamed. In this man's heart lay a great darkness, where killing was no more immoral than eating an apple. Civilization and the centuries had reduced him to only feeding until his thirst was lessened, but it was never quenched. It didn't seem fair for a creature such as himself, a creature of unbridled passions and hunger, a species so savage few would knowingly dare cross him, and none of those would live to tell the tale. But this new century was very modern, and he was obviously too much the gentleman to kill for sport or for dinner. Otherwise she would know something of his crimes.
"How fortunate to be so far above us all," Clair remarked coolly.
After giving her a thoroughly dressing down with his eyes, Asher glanced around at the other members of society. He chuckled. "Without qualification."
Motioning to all the members of the ton, he added, "Look around you. These are cattle, existing merely for the sake of their own existence. They eat, drink, and seek their guilty pleasures, living and dying fast and furious. At the moment of their deaths they cry out for forgiveness, though the only regret most have is when they are caught raiding the cookie jar. I'll make no bloody bones about it. They're freaks in the circus of the damned."
"And you, my lord, are different? Don't you seek these same guilty pleasures for yourself?"
"Definitely," he professed, sending a heated glance at her breasts. "Would you care to help me obtain them?"
She cocked her chin and gave him an icy stare. His forwardness was not to be believed. "Again, I must decline. You are out of my league," she demurred frostily, feeling very much the fly to his spider.
"But Huntsley isn't," he said, an odd look in his eye.
"I fear you are too perceptive." She turned away, wondering what web he was spinning and how intricate the design.
"My pretty, don't play the blushing miss with me! You and Huntsley have become grist for the gossip mill."
She raised a dramatic hand to her breast and looked back. "I can't believe you would condescend to listen. You with your earldom and superior mind."
"Tsk, tsk. Such a sharp tongue. I wonder if your baron will be able to dull it. Well, he is an enterprising man, especially when he is on the hunt."
Clair smiled coolly. "You make me sound like a fox to be run to ground."
"And torn apart, depending on who catches you. Take my advice, my dear: Huntsley is a law unto himself. He's devoured more elusive prey than you before, and will most undoubtedly do so again." Asher wanted to toy with her, subtly coax her, wanted to poison her good thoughts of the baron.
"He has been all that is gentlemanly," she retorted, her eyes flashing. This puffed-up earl had no right to decry her Ian!
"Huntsley will do or say whatever to whomever in order to gain whatever his heart desires," Asher went on.
"And you know this how? He's never named you friend in my hearing."
"Nor would he. We are mere acquaintances who met by chance—competitors, if you will, at cards or in conquests of a more, shall I say, carnal nature?"
"Then you know him little."
Asher chuckled, shaking his head. "I know the type. Too well, I know what Huntsley is capable of to gain his ends. Right now he's playing a waiting game, cat to your mouse. In fact, he is playing the oldest game in the book."
"And what, pray tell, is that?" Her scorn was obvious. Clair didn't like what the earl was saying about Ian. She didn't like the earl's snobbish philosophy. Mainly, she didn't like the earl.
Although, in all fairness, before she met him, she had been prepared to give the earl the benefit of the doubt, since he was a werewolf. In her logical manner, Clair had diagnosed that it must be a difficult life as a wolf-man: never eating apricot tarts; always having to watch out for steel traps: always having to keep wolfhounds rather than her personal favorite, the spaniel. And then there was being genetically disposed to such big teeth, which would cause a person to bite their tongue a great deal whenever they shape-shifted. Or having to bear the indignity of ending up naked as the day they were born after shifting, and having to constantly hide clothes all over God-knew-where to prevent any tricky nude situations from occurring.
However, now that she had met the toplofty earl, she decided he was a dog of a different color.
"The oldest game besides 'hunt or be hunted' is much the same—the game between man and woman. Woman and man. The same game I'm playing now. I want you," Asher stated boldly, his chilly blue eyes appraising Clair hungrily.
"Then you're a muttonhead, even if you are an earl and one of your supercilious few. I know you're quite accustomed to getting everything your heart desires, but this time you're off the mark."
Asher shook his head, a lazy grin on his face. "Nothing is beyond my grasp, nothing in this whole bloody world." Amusement was clear on his cold but magnificent visage. He knew he had scored a hit or two with his poisoned-dart comments on Hunstley He had also enraged Clair Frankenstein enough to make sure the fiery lady would remember and think of him.
"I am," she remarked adamantly. Then she strode off regally, leaving him to his own company.
Clair Frankenstein was much more complex than he had first thought, Asher realized. She was also a stunningly beautiful woman with a voluptuous body and a spirit to match. A female who was indifferent to his regard, which set Asher's predatory instincts into overload. And to make matters even more interesting, Huntsley owed him a lover, for stealing that opera singer out from underneath his nose. Yes, Huntsley owed him that dark debt.
Asher cursed under his breath. He would have Clair Frankenstein come hell or high water. And Huntsley be damned, if he wasn't already.