The Remarkable Miss Frankenstein

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.

Sex and the Cemetery

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.'