The formal garden was filled with lush, rich vegetation. The strains of a waltz filtered through the large stained-glass balcony doors, and from the ballroom soft golden light spread out across the deep green foliage.
Ian lifted his head and sniffed the air. It was filled with a myriad of smells, but one scent in particular: Clair. Surveying the darkly shadowed areas, he spotted a very shapely bottom stuck into the air. He would know that derriere anywhere.
He knew it, had dreaded it, had been prepared for it, but still her unrelenting audacity made him grit his teeth. She was like a feisty terrier with a particularly juicy bone.
Ha! he thought. When Clair Frankenstein got the bone between her teeth, she was off and running, leaving everyone else behind. But he had no choice except to follow.
He stepped lightly, approaching his unsuspecting victim as silently as death. Clair never heard him coming. Leaning over, he seductively breathed on her neck. "Boo!"
"Ouch!" Startled, she banged her head on the shrubbery under which she was halfway hidden, tangling her hair in its limbs. Frustrated and a trifle wary, she complained gently, "You scared the life out of me."
"Better me than some other villain lurking in the shadows," he remarked sternly. He began untangling her hair from the boughs of the bush.
As he did so, Clair motioned Ian to squat down by her side. "Be quiet."
Ian gritted his teeth. "Who, or should I say what, are we spying on now?"
"I resent that."
"No. You resemble that."
"I am not spying, I am merely on a scouting mission," she hedged.
"Who is your victim this time?" Friday-faced, he tried for a modicum of civility. It was not an easy feat, as he was fast being driven around the bend by Clair's scampish antics. And she was driving at a fast clip.
She narrowed her gaze at him. "Really Ian, you would think I was committing a murder or something."
He bared his teeth. It was not a smile. "No, but I might be. Clair, how many times do I have to warn you?"
"Four thousand, five hundred, and two," she said impishly.
At odds with his annoyance, he felt a desire to kiss her. "Very amusing." The twitching of his lips turned into a lopsided grin.
"It made you smile."
The wily rogue was just too tempting for his own good. Or hers. Clair had no time for romantic nonsense right now. She was on another investigative quest into the unknown. Who knew what earth-shaking discovery she might make tonight? She was due. Who knew what hideous fiend lay hidden in the guise of nobility? Who knew what salivating beast she would reveal, what scandal so spectacular that the world would take note. Not to mention what scientific theory she could prove to awe the judges of the prestigious Journal's award. The world was at her fingertips—or rather half a garden away, lurking in the guise of humanity.
Dragging herself out of her thoughts, she grinned up at Ian. "Yes. I most certainly made you smile," she noted.
"Better than crying, I guess." Ian sighed wearily. "You know, Clair, I might be a fool, but I am not a stupid fool."
She cocked her head, studying him like some lab specimen. "Pray explain."
"Look around you, Clair." Ian gestured to the night.
Excitedly, Clair asked, "Is it a vampire bat?"
Ian sighed louder. Taking her chin in hand, he lifted her head, positioning it. The moon was hard to miss, way up in the sky.
He said, "The moon in all its silvery splendor, its glistening remnants of moonglow. Some say that on a night when the moon is blue, all those couples who gaze upon it are struck… moonstruck."
"Is that like a disease?" Clair asked.
Ian shook his head in resignation. "No, Clair. They are struck by love." Putting a hand to his ear, he continued with his lesson in romance—as much romance as one could try for when one squatted behind some yarrow bushes. "Listen to the music of the night. It has a cadence, a rhythm all its own. A romance all its own. And here I am, and here you are, male and female all by ourselves, alone in a garden. I am with a most beautiful woman and I am watching for… vampires. You do see the irony in the situation, don't you?"
Slowly, he leaned over and kissed her. She tasted wet, spicy, and yet sweet. Her lips were the softest velvet, her sigh a song of beauty. She had a scent all her own, like just before a rain in the Welsh mountains. It was a smell he distinguished from a thousand other females. Clair stirred his appetites and made him ache with want.
Clair breathed Ian's smell, too, a smell like dusky autumn leaves and tart apples. He tasted feral and fierce and made her blood hum. She sighed into his mouth, again feeling that unfamiliar throbbing between her legs. She released another breath, this time from vexation. Ian was turning her into a terrible trollop, a hopeless hussy. However, it was a heady feeling.
With regret, Ian broke off the kiss, knowing this wasn't the time or place for seduction. Frustrated in both body and spirit, he stared at Clair's wet, pink mouth, carnal cravings eating at him. "Be glad I have overcome my regrettable tendency towards cannibalism," he said.
She smiled, a bemused expression on her heart-shaped face. Yes, she and Ian clearly had an intense gravitational pull towards each other, like the sun and the moon. The attraction was definitely changing her into a helpless harlot.
"You are vampire-hunting again, I take it," Ian said.
"In a manner of speaking," Clair replied sheepishly.
"You know, Clair, someone should have told you a long time ago that you shouldn't count your vampires before they hatch."
"How silly of me," she teased. "And all this time I thought it was chickens."
"If only it were," Ian remarked regretfully.
"Shush," she warned, staring through the shrubbery at the opposite end of the garden, where a small rose arbor covered in red and white rambling roses stood reposed in half shadows. Tiny lanterns filled with candles flickered overhead, and a tall brown-haired man was escorting the charmingly lovely and charmingly lewd widow Lady Montcrief into its depths.
"My, she does get around," Clair observed dryly.
Ian's eyes widened at the sight before him. He glanced in horror at Clair. "Oh, no! Not Asher. You couldn't possibly be idiotic enough to be spying on the Earl of Wolverton."
"Hush. I told you I wasn't spying," Clair whispered.
"Bloody hell! The deuce you're not. Just lurking in the shadows like a spider waiting to pounce?"
She punched him in the arm, all semblance of decorum fled before the winds of her ire. Ian was making her furious with his unreasonable attitude. He knew she was a scholar of the supernatural—unpublished as of yet, but a scholar nonetheless. This was her mission of scientific discovery, and Ian had no right to make her feel like a Peeping Tom just because of a few hair-raising kisses. He had no right to dictate to her.
"If you're so concerned about being seen, you can leave."
Ian scowled furiously. "If I left, I am sure it would improve my humor. But unfortunately I can't. By God, Clair! You are in way over your head. This is no small thing. The earl is a thoroughly ruthless, cunning adversary. You don't want to make an enemy of the man."
He trembled with anger. Clair was rushing in where only fools would tread—which, come to think of it, described her perfectly. She was a bluestocking kook. And yet, to his grave misgivings, he was crazy about her. Now his queer bird was going to try and dissect Neil Asher, the Earl of Wolverton. The man would chew her up and spit her out without a twinge of conscience. Asher had no soul and hadn't for a very long time. He was infamous for both lechery and just retribution, a man both revered and reviled. And for bloody damn good reason.
"I am not making an enemy out of him, only a supernatural predator!" she explained.
"I'm sure he'll be delighted with that distinction," Ian said. "I can hardly wait for the end of this farce!"
"You pig!" Clair snapped. "I'm not wrong this time. I am absolutely, positively sure. Beyond a reasonable doubt, any doubt. The earl is a bone-crunching, marrow-munching fiend of a werewolf. And I shall prove it!"
"Damn, Clair. Keep your voice down. Do you want him to hear?" Ian warned. He lifted her chin to meet his burning gaze. "How in bloody hell did you come upon this remarkable lack of deductive reasoning? What dubious fodder did you glean from the rumor mills?" He was enraged. She was treading in deep water and he, Ian Huntsley, was forced to drown her or save her pretty neck. "Clair, I'm waiting for my answer."
Glancing up at Ian with a rueful smile on her face, she explained. "It was staring me in the face all along. Indeed, I feel rather foolish about it. It was rather elementary. He is the Earl of Wolverton. I just assumed that was too easy."
His patience at an end, Ian snapped. His eyes a furious shade of green, he grunted, "What does the Earl of Wolverton being the Earl of Wolverton have to do with werewolves?"
Clair looked at him as though he were a loaf short of a baker's dozen. "Pay attention, Ian. Wolverton. Wolf. Werewolf. Good grief! His coat of arms has a wolf on it. I must have been blind. Wolverton is the werewolf of the vampire nest." Her eyes gleamed with smug satisfaction. "I reasoned it out last night."
"The Earl of Dover has a dragon crest. You don't see him out and about breathing fire and eating innocent maidens," Ian snarled. Then, recalling some of the old earl's proclivities, he wanted to kick himself. Bad example. The Earl of Dover did eat maidens—the fairer, the better. "I take it you have more than his coat of arms and family name to condemn the man to his furry fate?"
Nodding, Clair began to tick off the points on her fingertips. "Number one, he's never seen on the night of the full moon, which makes perfect sense since werewolves can only transform into their animal form on full moons, regardless of provocation or predilection. You know they absolutely have no choice in the matter but to go from man or woman to wolf form."
Yes, Ian knew, but he hadn't realized Clair was aware. "Go on," he urged gravely, concerned. Asher would not take this lying down, and neither would several other groups he knew.
"Secondly, I was informed by several jewelers that the earl can't wear silver—he has a terrible allergy to it. Thirdly, Wolverton is very fit and handsome. Shapeshifters generally are fit. I deduce it's from all that running about on nights with full moons and the energy it takes to metamorphose," Clair explained, a speculative look in her eye. She continued to study the figure of the alluring earl.
Ian's scowl darkened further as she talked. "Go on," he forced out, gritting his teeth. This woman was dangerous, deranged… and driving him wild with her soft, pink lips.
"Number four, several waiters have revealed that the earl only eats his steak rare."
"The man should be hanged!" Ian gasped.
"That's not all," she hissed. Better people than Ian had mocked her. For a man as bright as he, Ian could be such a dimwit. He just wasn't getting the whole wolf-man picture.
"I am all agog. Do tell," he said.
"Fifthly, the Earl of Wolverton has animal magnetism. I calculate it must be a werewolf thing—pheromones and all, you know. His lovemaking is reputed to be even superior to your own." There, that should shut him up, she speculated. From her limited experience and what limited gossip she and Arlene had heard, men were worrywarts about their bedroom skills.
"The man should be worshiped as a god," Ian growled sarcastically, jealousy flooding him. He would show her magnetism. He could be an animal anytime she wanted.
"Don't be flippant," she snapped. Drat! Ian was still being an addlepated twit. For someone so strong and intelligent, he reminded her of a ten-year-old. And he wasn't paying attention. He couldn't see the werewolf in the forest for the trees.
"Sixthly, Wolverton owns wolfhounds."
Exasperated, Ian ran his hands through his thick hair. "So do I! So does my cousin Galen and so do a hundred other men. What has this got to do with the price of tea in China?"
The bloody woman was an enigma with windmills in her head, stirring up all kind of ill breezes that would undoubtedly blow his careful world away.
Vexed, Clair complained, "Ian, keep up with me here."
"I'm trying, Clair. I'm trying." Trying not to strangle you, he thought waspishly. Clair Frankenstein made him madder than any other person alive, dead, or undead.
"I have done a study."
Ian glowered. How he was beginning to hate those five little words. They were words which spelled Ian's descent into the madhouse—or, he reasoned sardonically, he could just move in with the Frankensteins.
"The wolfhounds' footprints hide the werewolf prints. Anyone tracking a werewolf would see that there are wolfhounds in the vicinity and, seeing the werewolf prints, would believe that they are those of the wolfhound," she explained happily.
Ha! Ian thought. The bloody fool woman acted as if she had found the Rosetta Stone. He arched a brow, begging her to explain, wishing she would become a mute in sudden retribution for irritating him and delving into matters otherworldly. He wished to no avail. Plan A, The Seduction of Clair Frankenstein, was no longer proceeding as planned. He couldn't even distract her from her quest with a romantic tryst in a garden with the smell of roses and gardenias filling the air and the mystique of the glowing moon. His attempts were a dismal failure.
"However, I do know how to find the truth," she continued.
"I expected no less," Ian muttered.
Excitedly, she explained the solution to the problem of wolfish prints. "You see, you follow the wolf's footprints or wolfhound prints until they turn into those of a man—or vice versa."
She was so proud of her new hypothesis that her plump white breasts were quivering. The view of the valley of his dreams caught Ian mentally unaware, and a pulse of desire surged in the vicinity of his nether regions. "Neil Asher is not a werewolf in any form or fashion," he groaned.
Now Clair's breasts quivered with anger. Ian stared, transfixed at the delectable morsels. In the back of his mind, he wondered why he was overcome by stupidity every single time her chest came onto display.
He shook his head ruefully. It would take a better man than himself to ignore these sudden near-violent urgings enveloping him. Yet he was a fool with a capital F to be thinking of rutting with Clair when the Earl of Wolverton was less than a garden away.
Peering through the hedges, Ian was suddenly afraid that he was not the only one with ravishment on his mind. Ian noted the play of moonlight across Lady Montcrief's bare breasts. Asher was feasting on them with insatiable delight.
Quickly, he grabbed Clair's arm. But she was spellbound and tried to pull away, entranced with the scene.
Ian stifled a groan. He knew exactly what Asher would do if the earl learned he had been center stage in a lewd display. It would not be a pretty sight. "Come on, Clair. Now!"
"Just a minute. He's at her neck again, ignoring those rather impressive breasts. He's apparently a neck man. If I didn't know he was a werewolf, I could be persuaded to believe he was a vampire."
"Bloody hell, Clair! I thought you were interested in science, not voyeurism." Ian jerked her towards him, debating whether to toss her over his shoulder and haul her off like a bag of sailor's laundry.
"Ian. Please wait a minute. I want to see the animal magnetism part."
"Asher is not a shapeshifter! I promise you," Ian snarled. "Or a vampire," he added for good measure.
"Gammon you say! I know he is and I want to see," Clair argued. She tugged on her arm, which Ian was holding in a viselike grip.
That's it! Ian thought, maddened. He had run tame long enough. Without finesse or gentleness he dragged Clair out of the garden, paying no heed to her protests and less than ladylike curses. But as he dragged the little spitfire along, he worried that Asher knew they had been in his garden spying.
Once they set foot on the terrace, Clair hit him in the groin, causing him to double over in agony. The woman might be short, but she packed a punch.
"Cad!" she complained coldly as she turned away from his pained expression. Then she entered the ballroom alone, muttering to herself, "The truth at all costs!"
Ian narrowed his gaze and slowly straightened, aching. He said with a sigh, "It appears the cost is all mine!"