Minda Webber - The Reluctant Miss Van Helsing

"Of course not!" Jane said, looking anywhere else.

Her friend was hiding something, Clair decided. "Of course not," she agreed, giving a warm smile. Jane had a secret, and she would find out what it was. After all, she was a Frankenstein and a Huntsley now—a practically invincible combination. Oh, to what heights she could aspire, and Ian would pick her up if she ever slipped and fell. "All right then, Jane. I will introduce you later. May I remind you that Asher's not an ogre?"

"No, just a devil," Jane replied. She well knew that Asher was no ogre. He was worse. He was the fang-faced vilest of villainous vampires, Count Dracul, who wasn't even a count at all, but an earl. The liar.

Clair arched a brow.

Jane smiled. "The Devil made me say it," she joked.

Clair laughed. "Well, if you'll excuse me, I see that my husband is motioning me over to him. But I will see you later on and make your introduction to Asher. I just know that when you get to know the Earl of Wolverton, you will find him… most intriguing. He can be a bit overweening at times, but after all, he is Asher. Besides, my dear friend, he is someone you will never forget. I'll stake my life on it."

Jane nodded and then quickly strolled away, whispering softly to herself, "No, Clair you are staking the earl's."

Lord Asher, Earl of Wolverton, stood alone dressed in black, his gaze riveted on the Huntsleys. He almost smiled at Clair's foolish shepherdess costume and the joke it implied: Clair protecting her flocks from the big bad wolf. The big bad wolf in question would be her husband, Ian.

Asher grimaced, uttering disgustedly, "Well, they say love is blind. It would have to be for Clair to prefer Huntsley to my own renowned personage." He shook his head and wondered: How could she prefer a lycanthrope to a vampire? After all, everyone who was anyone knew his species was superior.

For over three hundred years, Asher had been looking for a nameless face in the night, was always searching out souls and places. Suffering long, dreamless days of sleep, awakening at night, he longed for something more, some warmth lacking from his exalted world. Peers of the Realm and vampire princesses, nothing meant anything. Then, less than six months ago, Asher had almost grasped his dream. Regrettably, she had fallen in love with Ian Huntsley. And even more sadly, wolves mated for life. Asher clenched his fists and watched Ian Huntsley protectively usher his wife out of the ballroom.

Watching Asher, Jane Van Helsing stood across the room in an alcove surrounded by ferns. She was for all purposes invisible to the other members of the ton where she stood, and she studied Asher watching Clair and Ian exit. The earl, unaware that he was being observed, let down his guard and briefly revealed his broken and bleeding heart.

An student of both human and vampire natures, Jane was surprised. Vampires were notorious for their deadpan expressions. That the earl had revealed emotion meant that what he felt was intense. Clair had told Jane that Asher had some misplaced affection for her, but…

"Clair's wrong. This is no misplaced affection. Asher is in love with her," Jane realized, suddenly filled with disquiet. "But how can Dracul love anything? He's too mean. Yet, I can't blame him for loving Clair. She's adorable."

As she spoke, a slight twinge of jealously pricked Jane's heart, surprising her. She knew the earl was a handsome man—only an idiot would fail to see that. But as her mother always said, handsome is as handsome does. Sucking someone dry of all his or her life's fluid was not her idea of polite society. And even if the earl weren't in love with Clair, he wouldn't be interested in someone as mousy as herself.

Besides, Jane had a scheme to bring to fruition, just like all the other Van Helsings marching through history. They all stopped to the beat of a different drum. It didn't matter that she preferred the flute.

It was time to firm up her resolve. In spite of her many years of practice on vampire dummies, Jane had never made a true vampire kill, even though she was twenty-three years of age. This galling fact was an unheard-of and shameful precedent in Van Helsing history. It was why her father was so annoyed with her. Still, Jane couldn't help her squeamishness. She got sick when she saw little dogs run over by carriages. She felt nauseated when she saw burns on the little boys who were chimney cleaners, and she had stolen one away from his master. Now Timmy worked in the stables at her family's country home.

Shaking her head dolefully, Jane remembered her first staking. She'd been sixteen and scared. She had closed her eyes and staked the pillow in the coffin instead of the vampire. Her father had finished the task with one quick stroke, using the Van Helsing-brand, #4 mallet. Blood had sprayed everywhere. Jane had gotten sick all over the major's favorite hunting jacket. To say her father was not pleased was a major understatement. It had been a day to live in family infamy. Especially since her uncle Jakob and six male cousins had also witnessed her deplorable lack of killer breeding. She had also learned the lesson that day: Everything in life is location. A lady just needed to know where to stand.

Her disastrous and humiliating second attempt at staking had occurred at age twenty, with even less success than her first. This vampire, a newly made fledgling, quite muscular and attractive, had definitely not been an old bag of bones like the first. When Jane had opened the coffin, she'd got much more than she bargained for. The fledgling was naked as the day he was born (or made), and in full splendor, decked out in all his glory, his erection was rampant. Behind her, Steven Ray, the fourth oldest of her male cousins, had commented drolly that he'd known the vampire was going to pop out of his coffin, but not quite in such a way.

It had all been too much for Jane; she had run screaming from the crypt, her face beet red, her cousins' taunts ringing in her ears. As she ran, she'd berated herself. Instead of striking at the vampire—or in the very least, her cousins—she had turned tail and fled. To this day, she was still living down that fiasco. Her cousins called her the Streak, making sly comments like, "Don't look now, Ethel Jane!"

After the awkward naked-vampire debacle, Jane had been sent home in disgrace to the family estate in Dorchester. Now, almost three years later, her father had called her back. Unfortunately, it had been shortly after her arrival that the spies announced Dracul had come to Town. And that abysmal revelation had led her to tonight, which had her reaching for the flask of brandy she had cleverly hidden beside the holy water in her gown's deep pocket. The strong liquor was concealed in a silver flask, which she only used in case of an emergency—a vampire emergency.

Sneaking a quick peek about, Jane took a sip of brandy. The fiery liquid traced a burning pathway to her stomach, imbuing her momentarily with courage. "Tonight I will just stalk up and strike with my holy water and no stake." She took another sip. "I won't have to worry about blood splattering my gown tonight. And that's something," she coached herself. "No bloody mess, just a bit of watery goo."

Frown lines creased her brow as Jane tried to remember the section on the corrosiveness of holy water in the family manual on methods of vampire extermination. Her father had said that the earl's flesh would melt. Nervously, she gulped more brandy. Maybe melting flesh would be worse than pounding a stake through the chest cavity.

Glancing over at the polished earl, Jane shuddered. "How can I melt those exquisite looks?" She mused again. "Maybe I can find a good reason why this job must be done. Or maybe I can make the job a game."