As she approached her close friend, Jane noted how beautiful Clair looked tonight, what with her shining golden hair and large gray eyes. "Clair, you arrived early! I thought you wouldn't be in Town until tomorrow," she said.
Clair bent her head, her tawny curls bouncing. She studied Jane's costume, listening to the voice and finally smiling as pleased recognition lit her eyes. "Jane Van—"
Jane interrupted before her friend could finish, looking at the two gentlemen standing nearby. "Paine. That's right, Clair. Jane Paine." Pulling her friend aside, she whispered dolefully, "Father is having me use my mother's maiden name for the time being."
Clair Huntsley, nee Frankenstein, arched a brow but kept her expression stoic. "Major Van Helsing is at it again, with some harum-scarum scheme, isn't he?" she asked. "A stratagem most assuredly designed to deliver some poor unsuspecting dead man walking right into a permanent coffin?" Poor Jane, she thought, born a Van Helsing when she fainted at the drop of blood. The situation was so bloody unfair.
Her friend shrugged philosophically. "You know how eccentric he is, and how thoroughly dedicated to his vampire-slaying duty."
"Eccentric?" Clair almost snorted. "My family is eccentric. Your father and cousins are unhinged—like Frederick's wrist gets at times. Always running around in their black capes, muttering rubbish, carrying huge black bags, planning some mysterious cloak-and-dagger business stuff…" Clair laughed wryly. "And don't forget your cousin's fetish for crypts." How Jane, with her love of birds and her artistic temperament, had ever come from that deranged clan was a question she had asked more than once. Jane, who was made up of fairy dreams and hopes as light as gossamer wings, and who was just as fragile—she was definitely a bird of a different feather.
Seeing her friend's tense expression, Clair decided to change the subject. She smiled, holding out both hands, genuinely glad to see Jane. "Ian decided to return to Town a bit early. I meant to get in touch, and was going to call on you tomorrow if you weren't here tonight at the Stewart Ball. Now I feel like some wooly-headed female. Come, let's talk."
Actually, Clair had meant to send Jane a note saying she had arrived in London at noon. However, her adorable husband had had other ideas, distracting her with his wolfish appetites. And what a fine distraction it had been, Clair mused dreamily—love in the afternoon with a hot-blooded husband who took her to the wild side.
Waving goodbye to the sheik and centurion, Clair took Jane's arm and strolled her toward the punch bowls. "You look grand tonight and quite mysterious," she remarked, pleased. In her green Egyptian creation, Jane seemed right in line with Clair's great-aunt Abby's tarot-card prediction.
Only last night, Clair had asked her great-aunt if her friend Asher, the Earl of Wolverton, was destined to find true love. In the back of Clair's mind, Jane had popped up as a possible bride for the vampire, who himself had a few months ago popped up from his coffin and into Clair's life like a vainglorious jack-in-the-box. Since that time, Asher had saved her beloved husband's life as well as Clair's own, creating a lasting bond between them all.
Clair had been delighted when her great-aunt predicted, "A queen in green will be the means. He lives by night, his bride-to-be by daylight. She hunts his kind, but love she will find."
Clair had seen the threads of the two lives spinning themselves together, and she had wanted to laugh aloud with glee. Life was oftentimes filled with ironies, and what sweet irony that a Van Helsing vampire hunter would be destined for the Master Vampire of all London. Oh, how the fates would laugh when Clair's newest plan—Plan Z, Against all Odds—was finished and done. She didn't care one whit that the objects of her plan were mortal enemies; she had never cared for bigotry, and wouldn't stand for it now.
"Clair?" Jane called curiously.
Clair started, then smiled looking sheepishly, adorable in her shepherdess costume. "Sorry, I was woolgathering," she said.
"How is the wedded state treating you? You've certainly got a sparkle in your eye tonight. Married life seems to agree with you," Jane remarked.
Clair grinned. She had speculated and suspected much about the things that went bump in the night before marriage. Now she knew exactly what that bumping was and how delicious it could be. Well, all's were that ends were, she thought saucily.
"Married life is intense, interesting and infinitely wonderful," she replied at last, chewing on her bottom lip. But that was the understatement of the year. Marriage to a werewolf was a course that never ran smoothly. From the first moment she awoke to watch her husband of less than a day transform from mortal to wolf, the fur had flown. All of it his. It would have been awe inspiring, if Clair hadn't been so furious to find out the truth.
Why hadn't he told her he was a werewolf, when she was knee-deep in scientific research into shape-shifters and vampires? After his startling but spectacular revelation, Clair had of course tried to yell at him in an intelligent manner—but it had been next to impossible with him howling at the moon and running around sniffing all the furniture.
"We've resolved all our differences admirably," she told her friend cheerfully. "I now have a full-time lab specimen to explore to my heart's content." And explore she had—on many very interesting, although not so scientific, occasions. The scientific method had been forgotten in the search for primal passion's release.
"I'm just wild about Harry Ian," she confided happily, glad her close friend was in London so that they could share confidences once again. "He is the most remarkable man I have ever met. A jack-of-all-trades, he is strong yet gentle, tender yet passionate, intelligent yet fun to be around. He makes every day a holiday." She loved him all sleek and muscled in his human form, and she loved him all furry-faced with his big white fangs. Her husband was like many beasts in one, especially in bed on nights close to the full moon, when he answered the call of the wild. To say their love life was passionate and wild was an understatement. "These days, my only complaint is waking up after a full moon to find fur or muddy footprints in our bed."
"Yes, well, sheets are sheets, even if they are silk. But love is love." Jane hugged her and smiled. "I am glad you are so well content with wedded bliss. You deserve as much."
"As do you," Clair responded.
Jane shrugged slightly. "Happiness isn't easily found when one's duty is slaying vampires," she complained.
Noting her friend's somber expression, Clair quickly changed the subject again. Glancing down, she remarked, "I do so admire your costume. And I imagine you are much cooler than I am in this costume."
Jane laughed self-consciously. "I know it is not in my usual style, but I decided to be adventuresome tonight."
Clair was surprised. This was too good to be true. "Are you perchance husband-hunting?" She knew just how deeply Jane had been hurt by two would-be suitors when both gentlemen defected. Having desired something and failed not once but twice, Jane would be beyond timid to try again.
Although she lived in her own little world, where reality changed day to day and monster to monster, Clair was astute enough to recognize that Jane was too aware of self-perceived flaws. She was not a beauty in the traditional sense of the world of 1828 London; Jane didn't have fair skin and hair, or eyes the color of the sky. Still, she was a wonderful person and needed to know it.