"Don't quote the family motto to me again. If I have heard it once, I have heard it a thousand times, and that's the plain truth! That little motto could get you dead and buried. Or even worse," he scolded like an old maid, "it could get you two big holes in your neck. How would you like that? How would your aunts like that? You know Lady Abby can't stand the cold and how my arthritis acts up in the damp night air."
"What has that got to do with anything?"
"If you become one of those undead fiends, where do you think we will have to go to visit you? The cemetery, that's where!"
"Now, Brooks, I will be fine." Affectionately, Clair again patted his shoulder. "I will be leaving a little after eleven."
Suddenly, she frowned. She could get in quite a predicament over this purloined letter, which would lead her to the secret assignation, if Ian got a devil in his head. Well, there was no hope for it; she would have to hurry Ian on his way home.
"Leaving where at that hour?" Brooks chided, his feathers ruffled like a feisty bantam rooster.
"To the Honorable Christopher Wilder's house." Clair said the last over her shoulder as she scurried away.
Ian shook his head, remaining in the shadows and listening to Brooks's muttering: "Let's just hope the Honorable Christopher Wilder is an honorable man."
Ian grimaced. The Honorable Christopher Wilder was anything but honorable where women—ladies or whores—were concerned. Ian knew him fairly well from the clubs of ill repute scattered across London. Wilder was a renowned rake, a connoisseur of all that was fleshy, female, and curvy, the bawdier the better. He loved the chase, the capture, and the capitulation. Only, after the fact, Wilder got bored and roamed to new unplowed pastures.
Running a hand through his dark hair, Ian reevaluated things. Perhaps his Plan A needed a few revisions. He smiled deviously. If Clair Frankenstein planned to pay a surprise visit to the Wilder residence, she was in for a big surprise herself.
The Vampire Buster
The road to hell was paved with scientific inventions, a vampire, lust for Ian Huntsley, and breaking and entering twice in one week, Clair decided. She was doing Uncle Victor proud, she mused as she glanced up at the night sky.
Slithering clouds of gray covered much of the half moon, which provided Clair with the darkness she needed to scale the ivy-covered walls of the Wilder property. She was in luck. It was a great night for burgling. And she was ready, dressed in tight-fitting doeskin breeches and a black velvet jacket.
Clair checked her mountain-climbing equipment once more, then swung her rope and grappling hook, which connected with the wrought-iron balcony. Quickly she began her silent ascent up the pale brick wall. As she climbed, she grinned, thinking that one could never underestimate the appeal of a hard-fought silence.
Scrambling over the balcony edge, she laid her rope discreetly to the side. Taking a quick glance back at the ground below, she noted nothing but shadow. No movement. Good, she applauded silently. No one was the wiser that she was here.
The open doors of the balcony lured her forward, revealing a bordello-like chamber of appalling taste. It seemed the Honorable Christopher Wilder was enamored of the color red, in particular the very bright hue known as crimson. His carpet was red, along with the walls, not to mention the bedhangings and spread, all done in vivid tint with interwoven tiny gold flecks. His room was enough to give a person a red scare, Clair decided.
In spite of her revulsion at the utter lack of good taste, she smiled. Uncle Victor had hit the nail on the head once more. Vampires did sleep in the red.
Espying the large wardrobe dead center in the room, Clair moved toward it. The perfect hiding place. She would be able to see the Honorable Christopher by leaving a small crack in the door, but he wouldn't be able to see her. She only hoped his feeding habits weren't too messy.
A voice behind her interrupted her thoughts, and she whirled around. She should have been terrified. Instead she was only horrified. Drat! Ian!
"Miss Frankenstein, we do seem to meet in the strangest places, and you always seem to be breaking and entering!"
"Good grief, Ian. What are you doing here?" she asked nervously, chewing on her bottom lip, her heart still racing from the unexpected shock.
"I could ask you the same question," he snapped.
"I asked you first."
Ian counted to ten. It didn't work, so he counted to ten once more, studying Clair. Tonight she was dressed in another of her unique breaking-and-entering costumes. This one was complete with breeches.
In spite of his pique, he couldn't help noting with grand approval how Clair had longer legs for her five-foot-and-not-much-more frame than he would have thought. Very nice legs, in fact. Indeed, legs that looked like they would feel great wrapped around his waist as he plunged inside her.
Reluctantly, he snapped himself back to attention. "Clair, I am here to stop you from your rendezvous with Wilder."
She gasped. "What rendezvous?"
Irked by her mad dash to disaster and her penchant for sticking her nose into things that went bump in the night, Ian alleged, "You aren't here to make mad, passionate love with him?" Knowing full well she wasn't.
"Have you lost your mind? What would make you think a thing like that?"
"What would make me think that? Could it be because you are standing in the man's bedroom? Which reminds me, how in the bloody hell did you get in here?" Ian inquired coldly. He couldn't leave her alone for more than a moment without her courting trouble.
"I climbed."
Strolling to the window, he glanced out at the rope. "That explains the strange getup," he remarked, glancing down at her trousers. "I guess I should add mountain climbing to your considerable list of talents."
"Uncle Victor and I spent three summers in the Alps," she explained softly. "I even climbed the Matterhorn." Ian's forbidding expression worried her. Surely he couldn't believe she was interested in a man with such poor taste in home decoration?
"How did you get up here? I know you didn't come through the door."
He smiled. It was wicked. "I leaped."
"What a bounder," she said, giggling. "In a single bound?"
"Of course."
"My, you must be some sort of superman."
"I would be more than glad to show you some of my other abilities, and as we are in the bedchamber…" His dark green eyes twinkled. "Oh, but I forgot you are to meet Wilder."
Exasperated, she rolled her eyes. "No! No! And double no! I came to watch him slake his vampire thirst. My informants told me he is to be with Lady Montcrief tonight, and you above all people know what an appetite—"
Ian shook his head, interrupting. "Clair, Clair, what am I to do with you?" Suddenly he glanced toward the door. "Right now, I guess I'd better hide you."
"What do you hear?" she asked nervously. She couldn't be caught; that would alert Mr. Wilder to the fact she knew he was one of the undead.
"Footsteps on the stairs." Grabbing her, Ian shoved Clair toward the wardrobe. Opening the door, he speedily pushed her in. He followed quickly behind, closing the door with a snap.
"It's a tad crowded in here," she complained softly.
"It's about to be a tad crowded out there." He smiled in the darkness, breathing deeply. Clair's fresh scent surrounded him, whetting his appetite to taste her sweet, soft flesh.
"It's so dark. I can't see a thing," she complained. "Ian, watch what you're doing."
"Shhh," he whispered. "They're entering the chamber."
"Ian, move! Your hand is on my breast," she urgently whispered.
"I thought it was your foot." He savored the feeling of her plump breast, envisioning it naked. His hunger grew. He wanted her beneath him doing nature's primal dance. Unfortunately he was in a wardrobe, a most undistinguished place for a tryst, especially for a peer of the realm. Clair really was bad for his dignity.