The Remarkable Miss Frankenstein Read online

  The Remarkable Miss Frankenstein

  Minda Webber

  The problem, Clair realizes, is that she’s a Frankenstein. Everyone in the family is a success, while all she’s managed is a humiliating misadventure with pigs. But her spirits are rising. The Journal of Scientific Discovery promises to publish a paper on the Discovery of the Decade, and she has a doozy. She simply has to prove Baron Huntsley—man of distinction—is a vampire. With his midnight-black hair, soul-piercing eyes and shiny white teeth, what else could he be? Oh yes, the Baron wants a bite of her or she’s no scientist. Pretty soon she’ll expose him, and on everybody’s lips will be…

  Minda Webber

  The Remarkable Miss Frankenstein

  A Bat in Hand is Worth Two in the Coffin

  The trouble with Clair Frankenstein was that she was a Frankenstein. Her ancestral name required living up to feats such as creating life and forging new frontiers in scientific discovery, no matter whose toes one stepped upon or whose grave one walked over—or in her famous uncle's case, whose grave one robbed. In general Clair felt all her Frankenstein relations were a royal pain in the neck, their creations included. And tonight was no exception as she made her way cautiously down the steep, stone staircase in the direction of the Huntsley family vaults.

  "I must have bats in the belfry," she muttered to herself, feeling a malevolent quality to the dense air surrounding her. Suddenly she broke out in goosebumps, overwhelmed by a sense of gloomy urgency, as if destiny were stalking her with tiny catlike steps. She shook the feeling off.

  Her movements were silent as she descended into the pitch blackness of the stairwell. The utter darkness encircled her, surrounded her, impenetrable and infinite. The only light came from her flickering candle, which cast gold highlights in her tawny hair and ghostly shadows on the thick limestone walls. Yet Clair could scarcely contain her excitement, for soon she would enter the room where the object of her quest was kept. Finally she would be able to put her theory to practice, to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that which was both improbable and impossible. She, a mere woman, though a Frankenstein, was about to prove a shocking supernatural fact: Vampires were living and feasting in London. Skeptical scientists had laughed at her theory. They believed that few vampires existed and these all lived in Russia or Prussia. Clair disagreed. Vampires were in London. And she, Clair Frankenstein, was going to prove it by accosting one of these elusive London vampires in its own home.

  Well, Clair mused, a half smile on her face, she was not actually going to accost the vampire himself yet, but she was going to view and study his coffin. If she was feeling a slight case of nerves at the idea of the blood-craving fiend that inhabited the coffin, who could blame her? After all, she was as sensible as any lady in 1828 London, including her nemesis, Lady Delia Channey, daughter of the Earl of Lon. Just because Clair didn't faint at a drop of blood or the closing of a coffin lid didn't mean she was any less refined.

  Clair pictured Lady Delia, with her cupid-bow mouth and mincing mannerisms, the one lady of the ton who had made Clair's life a misery ever since Clair was a young girl in pigtails. Regrettably, Clair's childhood foe had never let an opportunity pass to politely mock her. Lady Delia was always chastising her for the many long hours she had dedicated to the advancement of the research of scientific phenomena. It was all done in Lady Delia's most ladylike manner, of course, and always before a most amused audience, causing Clair to wish that she had developed the skin of a rhinoceros.

  Ah well, Clair reflected, if wishes were horses, then beggars would ride and Lady Delia would grow warts on her pert nose.

  Yes, sometimes she felt as if she carried the weight of the world on her small shoulders. But Clair knew that in reality it was only the very invisible but very great weight of the Frankenstein family fame—or infamy, depending upon with whom she was speaking at the time. After all, when your uncle created a new bachelor from dead body parts, people were either extolling his virtues in scientific journals or up in arms with torches. That's how people felt about her uncle's creation, the monster Frederick.

  How anyone could be upset about Frederick, whom her uncle Victor had legally adopted, was beyond Clair. Frederick, the Frankenstein monster, was like a brother to her. Frederick wouldn't hurt a fly, although he occasionally ate them. And he had a heart of gold. Well, not actually gold, since Uncle Victor had tried that scientific route and it had failed dismally. But her uncle had never been one to let failure defeat him, and he had adapted his theory of creation and replaced the heart of gold with the heart of one Mr. Thaddeus Applebee.

  Orphaned at an early age, Clair had been raised by her uncle. He and his sister, the Lady Mary Frankenstein, had raised Clair with love, and the freedom to think, to create and to discover whatever could be learned about the unknown world. And while her playmates and peers were being read the fairy tales of the brothers Grimm, Clair's uncle Victor was creating his own grim tales, crossing thresholds no man had crossed before and making his name a household word. He'd shared that strange but exciting world with Clair.

  Clair certainly had big shoes to fill—not only her uncle Victor's but Frederick's as well, and Frederick's boot size was an unheard-of sixteen. That was why a very determined Clair had decided she must make good on this new supernatural research project with which she was involved. She wanted to make her family proud, to make her mark in the Frankensteins' annals of achievement.

  And now she had the perfect chance. The Journal of Scientific Discovery was going to publish a book on the Scientific Discovery of the Decade, along with honoring the chosen scientist with the Scientific Discovery of the Decade Award. This award was what every scientist in the world aspired to own.

  For Clair, though the prestige of being classed a top-ranking scientist—a feat no woman had yet achieved—was remarkable, she had a greater goal. She wanted her theories to be published so badly she could taste it. But Clair well knew she had some stiff competition. Dr. Jekyll, a rather two-faced medical man who dealt in odd new chemical compounds, evolution and brain activity, had recently been keeping his cards close to his chest. Of course, Clair reasoned that was like Dr. Jekyll—always hiding something.

  Durlock Homes, a well-known sleuth and scientist, was another contender for the prestigious award. Homes was a friend of Clair's uncle Victor, and so she knew he was going to present a paper on something called the "Hound of Hell." Which was all well and good, but if Clair found a live vampire—well, as alive as a vampire could be after being dead for three or four centuries—she would top Homes's and Jekyll's discoveries. A century earlier, Dracula had made his nefarious home in London, but townspeople had gathered together and purged London of all its supernatural creatures at that time. Most of Society didn't even believe in shapeshifters and the undead anymore. But Clair knew better.

  She would show them all. Besides, Clair thought, flushing with excitement, by the time she was done she would not only have unearthed a vampire in London but a werewolf as well. And anyone worth his scientific salt would recognize that a pair—that is, a vampire and a werewolf—beat some devilish dog any day of the week.

  After her disastrous pig misadventure and her imprudent foray into that demon hunt, Clair found herself having a devil of a time getting anyone to take her work into the otherworldly as serious. Her pride was sorely pricked. But winning the prestigious Scientific Discovery of the Decade Award would validate her existence and career. She would make her family proud, even if it killed her, such as by having her blood sucked dry.

  Sometimes it was so hard to be a Frankenstein. Yet in spite of it all—the tremendous pressure and desire to succeed, the sacrifices she had made for her research—Clair re
cognized that she wouldn't trade her name for any other in the entire world. For when she was delving into her science, she was a whole person. She never felt more alive in her cells and in her inspiration than when she was probing and investigating the unusual and unknown, expanding the boundaries of human knowledge to their very outer limits. Her uncle Victor had taught her that.

  Other women might find it tedious to spend their daylight hours with heads bent over dusty tomes, but never Clair. Her happiness was at its peak when her mind was revolving around the mysteries of the universe. Though she rarely went to balls or routs, Clair had no qualms about that social sacrifice. And it had never seemed more worth it than tonight, Clair thought, her features animated. For this moment in time was pivotal in the proving of her scientific theorems. This night was to be the pinnacle of her career and was a point of no return. She was about to make an important scientific discovery, perhaps even a life-and-death discovery to a vampire victim or two.

  None of it had been easy, she acknowledged. It had all been quite difficult, in fact, Clair mused as she stumbled on an uneven stone step. But gracefully correcting the balance of her trim but curvy figure, she descended downward.

  Clair frowned at both the smell of damp mustiness, like very old leaves rotting, and the thought of the difficulty she'd had in bribing Baron Huntsley's footman. The footman hadn't wanted to give her the information she needed to prove her conclusions—which meant the baron's staff was either extremely loyal or extremely terrified. Clair would bet on the latter. And she was not a person prone to betting, except for charity, or on an occasional hand of whist with her aunts. Or every now and then a horse or two.

  Clair pursed her pouty lips, thinking. Here she was, a solitary female alone in the house of a supposed vampire. Maybe she was a bit more of a gambler than she'd thought.

  Glancing cautiously about her, Clair felt the strongest sense of menace yet. She almost shuddered at what lay ahead of her, and the frightening possibility that the coffin might spring open, the vampire popping up with fangs bared like a rabid jack-in-the-box.

  "Quit trying to scare yourself silly!" she scolded the shadows. "You have your theory to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt. No matter the danger from the undead. You have your research to publish," she said. "You can't let a little thing like a bloodsucking monster stop you. You are first and foremost a Frankenstein."

  She often talked to herself, discussing her conclusions and her strategies. "No Frankenstein has ever gone unpublished," she continued. Then, wrinkling her brow, she realized that wasn't quite true. Her great-uncle Aaron had remained unknown. Of course, he had believed he was a ghost. He often regaled Clair with the exploits of his hauntings, but also used being a ghost as an excuse for not publishing. He would tell Clair that everyone knew ghosts could not be expected to write anything visible to the human eye. Then she and her great-uncle would have quite the debate, which would always end when she perversely brought up the fact that everyone had heard of ghost writers.

  The sudden sound of bells clanging in the far distance overloaded Clair's senses. Heart palpitating rapidly, she shivered. It was midnight. The witching hour.

  " 'Ask not for whom the bell tolls,' " she quoted, whispering to herself and tasting fear. She had not realized that the taste of fear was metallic.

  Quickly she scanned the darkness, sensing something she could not define. Cold air stirred in currents around her. The darkness felt oppressive, like a great dank weight resting upon her chest. She felt as if Fate crouched nearby, watching with jaundiced eyes, waiting for her to make a mistake.

  Moving her candle in a clockwise circle, Clair once again searched the shadows. There was nothing, yet she couldn't help feeling as if something wicked this way came—and right at her! But only dark silence met her fears. She was alone, wasn't she?

  Biting her lower lip, Clair nervously squared her shoulders and continued her descent. She couldn't quit now; she had put too much time into her research. Her meticulousness had unearthed the unearthly living and feeding in London.

  Yes, Clair in fact believed that a whole nest of vampires were in hiding here, though no deaths had been attributed thus far to such creatures. However, her assurance in her theories and her eventual scientific jackpot made Clair's journey into the unknown much more palatable. She knew that many Nosferatu hid among the English aristocracy's ton, in the perpetual dark of night and the perpetual motion of the affluent. For what better place to be than among those who seldom went to bed before dawn? Vampires couldn't select a more perfect place to thrive than among the upper crust of English society, who so loved the night, its decadence and lechery.

  "Yes," Clair muttered. "London is the perfect place for the bloodthirsty fiends. Like it or not, Baron Huntsley, here I come."

  Clair had never met the baron face to face. Her interest in him had been stirred to frenzy when she met a stranger on the train, both of them staring out the rear window, watching the night flash by. The younger woman, a Miss Hitchcock, had served the Huntsleys for several years as a maid. And on the train the maid regaled Clair with the baron's exploits. Some Clair had heard before. She'd known the baron was handsome and wealthy, his cunning for making money almost magical. He owned estates in the north of England and several also in northwestern Wales—rather a north by northwest arrangement of land holdings. A notorious womanizer, the baron was said to love the hunt better than the actual conquest. It was, however, the other tales the maid confided that kept Clair spellbound and aroused her suspicions.

  Now, a year after that fateful train trip, Clair had gathered enough background information to warrant a scouring expedition into the baron's estate, though she'd decided to move when he wasn't in residence. And that piece of information had been delivered two nights before, after her great-aunt Abby's predictions with tarot cards. It had accompanied the icing on her suspicions' proverbial cake, when Clair's great-aunt had dramatically stated that the ominous Baron Huntsley was a creature of the night. And so the last damning piece of evidence had fallen at Clair's feet—or, to be precise, on the card table—at the same time Clair discovered her opportunity: the ton believed Huntsley would be attending the Amberton Ball, an affair to last until dawn.

  Clair grinned, wanting to pat herself on the back. "While the vampire's away, the scientist will play," she whispered as she reached the bottom of the stone steps.

  A heavy wooden door loomed to her left. Cautiously, Clair inched it open. The bottom scraped against the hard stone floor and the sound echoed off the walls. Her heartbeat did a staccato dance in her chest.

  "You can do this," she said. "Be the brave Frankenstein I know you sometimes are." Gathering her courage like a warm coat against brutal wind, she prepared to enter the room which she believed held Baron Huntsley's coffin.

  She knew she must be brave and must loose caution to the winds in the search for truth. No matter the danger or the hardship, she must march onward and prevail. "The truth at all costs," she reminded herself. It was the Frankenstein family motto, and mottoes must be upheld—else why have them, she reasoned quietly.

  Still, sneaking about in the dark in the minutes just past midnight, the witching hour, looking for the coffin of a vampire, might be throwing a bit more than caution to the winds. In fact, some people might just call it pressing her luck. She knew her aunt Mary felt that way. Unlike her great-aunt Abby, who, eccentric and mad as a hatter, was always remarking, "Off with their heads." Of course, Abby was Queen Elizabeth this week, and that was one of her favorite Queen Elizabeth lines.

  Clair entered the room, thinking to herself, "I shall prevail."

  Scanning the looming blackness, she nervously sucked on her lower lip, moving her candle to her left hand while her right hand grasped the rather large silver cross around her neck. A bit of wax dropped on her skin and she gasped slightly at the pain as she moved slowly into the eerie room. Candlelight danced across the damp stone walls, highlighting the large marble crypt in the corner.

&nbs
p; "Aha! I have it!" she announced joyfully, her eyes dancing with both pride and excitement. The vault room was exactly as she had pictured in her overactive imagination: dark, dank, gloomy, with a hidden treasure… her treasure! Some might consider it hideous, but not Clair. She found the coffin absolutely, magnificently marvelous. She was a genius. But then that was never in doubt, with her Frankenstein genes, she thought cheerfully.

  Clair grinned. It felt like Christmas morning and she could hardly wait to open her gifts. Except this time her gift was in the form of a marble crypt.

  "Eureka! You're mine, all mine," she cried.

  But the best-laid plans of mice and women sometimes come crashing to a grinding halt. Unfortunately for Clair, this was one of those times. A deeply compelling voice interrupted her self-congratulation.

  "Beg your pardon, but just what is yours?"

  Clair spun around, almost losing her balance. Stunned, she took careful stock of the owner of the voice. He was holding a five-stemmed candelabrum, the candles' dancing flames revealing a strong, formidable face. His cheekbones were high and well-defined, as was his nose, indicative of his Welsh heritage. Clair noted that his brows and hair were so dark as to blend in with the night, and his hair was long, the edges curling several inches past his collar. The intruder was tall and sturdy, with wide, muscular shoulders filling his broadcoat. His cravat was loosely tied, and he was attired entirely in black and gray. In essence, he was a study in shadow.

  Wide and sensuous, his lips gave the parody of a smile, with gleaming white teeth. Big white teeth, Clair thought, gasping, which stood out in sharp contrast to the darkness surrounding them.

  From somewhere deep within her a scream rose, but Clair managed to swallow it. She was standing face-to-face with a real, live vampire.

  Well, perhaps not live, she reminded herself.