The Reinvented Miss Bluebeard

by Minda Webber

  "And leave you alone to fend off mistaken hunches, claustrophobic vampires, and fake wereflies who are really wolves in human clothing? Not to forget bungling butlers and slamming doors. I don't think so. What kind of husband would I be if I left you alone in the midst of all this mayhem?"

  "An absent one—the kind I like best!" she answered.

  "Don't be tedious, darling. Remember our vows? In health or in an insane asylum. For richer or poorer—yet definitely richer," he added with slippery charm. The family jewels were already increasing. "Besides, I can slay your dragons for you," he suggested.

  "There aren't any dragons here!"

  Adam glanced around and cocked his head. "How strange. There appears to be every other kind of paranormal creature."

  Eve sighed. "I was right. You're beyond help. And quit talking like that—you know perfectly well that there was never a wedding."

  He threw back his head and laughed at her militant demeanor, rigid spine, and clenched jaw. "Ah, but I remember it well. You wore virginal white."

  "I wore nothing at all, you fraudulent dolt!"

  His eyes lit. "That was later."

  Gasping in outrage, she shook her head. He was absolutely impossible! Ignoring his crude laughter, she spread a bit of blueberry jam on her scone. She wouldn't react further. That was the only way to deal with a man so oily he could walk on water.

  "I missed you last night, Eve," he said.

  "You are seriously deluded if you thought I would allow you to sleep in my bed."

  "Oh, but I did. You just weren't in it," he replied. "Are you going to eat these?" he asked, taking a bit of her kippers.

  When Eve hadn't made her way to her bedchamber last night, he had crept out to find her. She was studiously writing notes, probably on the successes and failures of dinner. While he would have preferred her company, he returned to her room alone—and enjoyed the best night's sleep he'd ever had. She had a fat, goose-down mattress, with lavender-scented pillows and meticulously clean sheets—after too many long nights in barns, haymows, berths of ships, and upon rocks under the stars, such a clean, comfortable bed was a call for rejoicing. He intended to do everything in his power to make sure he remained in that bed. With one slight adjustment: Eve would be in it with him.

  "Where did you sleep last night?" he asked.

  "Elsewhere," she retorted, ignoring the fact that there was something deep within his eyes that touched something in her, some sort of vulnerability that appealed. She caught a glimpse of it only every once in a while.

  He chuckled, then popped a piece of buttered scone into his mouth. "The staff will talk. My charms will be suspect."

  "The staff can go hang, and as far as your charms, they can hang too."

  When she was around, they certainly weren't hanging, he mused.

  "How testy you are in the morning! I find that a definite flaw. As far as hanging, I'm sure some do in this odd house of yours. Any suicidals here? Perhaps the fly man or the vampire, Sir Loring—or how about that deluded Englishman with the Napoleon complex?"

  "Who told you about Major Gallant?" Eve hissed.

  "Mrs. Fawlty mentioned his problem, that he often charges up and down the stairs shouting commands and demanding that people call him Emperor. I imagine many would take umbrage at such demands. Still, the housekeeper mentioned that he's a fledgling vampire. That must take the bite out of—or rather put one into—the situation. Either way, I rather think Old Boney might better be served if you let him charge across your gardens at night rather than up the staircase. That way he won't disturb you and me. Of course, he's your patient. I take it you have sense enough to keep him locked up, at least. He's clearly batty."

  Eve exploded. "How dare you? What utter cheek to question my methods of treatment! And there'll never be any 'you and I.' Never!" Shaking her head, she held up a hand in haughty anger, the other wielding a fork, with which she speared the air. "Don't say anything else, or I might just make you dinner for an inmate."

  Adam knew when to keep silent, when to simply sit back in his chair. Instead of speaking, he grinned, since he was quite out of reach of her fork. His new wife was such a feisty little thing. How he longed to chase her around the breakfast table and kiss her senseless. But pushing aside such lusty thoughts, he managed to look suitably repentant. Or not.

  "That innocent look won't work with me," Eve said. "My father uses it all the time. But I'm onto his tricks, and yours too! You've both been scoundrels for too many seasons to be believed."

  "You're right," he admitted. "I shouldn't have questioned your judgment on whether you lock in, lock up, lock away—or maybe even better, lock out—these bedlamite characters."

  "I don't lock my patients up unless I absolutely have no other choice," she growled. "They're already locked into their own prisons—prisons of their minds. They don't need any other lock; they need keys. But since you have the compassion of a goat and the manners to match, I doubt you would understand."

  "But, my little pearl, all you had to do was explain. I understand. Agonies of the mind are prisons. And I imagine the pain of knowing that you are abnormal is like dying a thousand deaths every day. These poor creatures. Humiliation, feelings of self-worthlessness and guilt…"

  Eve didn't like the sympathetic glint in her husband's eyes, or the understanding words he uttered. He understood quite a bit more than she liked—but that didn't mean she was softening in her feelings toward him.

  He continued: "Nonetheless, I feel the major might be dangerous in a major way. As your protector, I feel I should put in my tuppence—"

  She interrupted him frostily. "Enough. I've had enough. Just who do you think you are? What presumption, to think that you can blithely enter my life, interfering, interrupting, and demanding things? And how can you just drop an old life and enter a new one without any consequences? Don't you have family? Someone who might want you? Anyone?" she asked hopefully.

  "Everyone has family," he remarked offhandedly, taking another sip of coffee. "But they died when I was a young man. I have been on my own since."

  The casual tone in which his words were spoken might have caused her to wonder if his family were of little import to him—if she didn't spend her days and nights listening to what people didn't say. She swallowed her tea, finishing it and feeling a slight lump in her throat. His story was rather sad. He would have had no one to help him grow into an honorable and respectable man whom a woman might fancy for a husband—if a woman were fancying a husband, which, of course, Eve wasn't.

  "Friends, then? People who will miss you when you don't turn back up?" she prompted. Finger to chin, she frowned. "Why on earth did I ask that? I doubt anyone could miss your ill advice."

  He dropped his elbow onto the table and leaned close, his head in hand, to gaze at her. "Oh, believe me, my sweet wife, some women actually rave about me. There are probably a baker's dozen crying themselves to sleep every night since I disappeared."

  Eve glared. She had created this man; she wished it would be as easy to kill him off. Unfortunately, her compassionate nature wouldn't allow that. "Then why don't you do us both a tremendous favor and go find those unbalanced females? Go with an easy heart, knowing that you have left me here in blessed peace."

  "Tsk, tsk. I can't imagine this place ever being peaceful," he said. "Besides, I like it here."

  "In an asylum?" Eve said.

  "Each to his own," Adam replied. She started to protest, but he stalled her by raising a hand. "That's what I find fascinating about the Towers—no two days or nights will ever be the same. Or so I would vow." Seeing a look of disbelief fill her eyes, he quickly finished, "I do like a little adventure. That's why I've enjoyed traveling, and have seen much of the world."

  "You are an Englishman originally?" His accent was a bit strange, and she had been trying to place it since she first heard his outrageous words last night.

  "Born in Ireland, but bred in England during my early years."

  "Then, pray
tell, if you like to travel so much, why on earth would you want to stay here and pretend to be my husband?"

  "Is there ever any one reason?" he replied. "For the gold your father gave me. I'm tired of roving the world and never finding a home," he added. He picked up her hand and gave her a scorching look. "Now that I have seen you, my wandering days are over. I am prepared to stay and be a model husband—and immoderate lover. And most important: visible. You don't have to carry your burden alone anymore, my dear."

  Jerking back her hand, she snapped her fingers in front of his face. She was going to kill her facetious father. "Do you not understand that you are sadly de trop? I am a modern woman, and have learned to take care of myself." She pushed her breakfast aside. He was killing her appetite.

  He gave a scrupulous glance around the room. "I can see that. But how harsh you are, my love. Wake up on the wrong side of the bed?" He gave a lazy smile. "Perhaps you should have been in it."

  "Look, you can't just pick up someone else's life and pretend it's your own," she said.

  Putting finger to chin, he remarked, "Not normally, no. But then, this is not a normal situation."

  "Of course it's not normal! Nothing is normal here, not even my staff. This is an institution for the abnormal," she scolded huffily. Spreading her arms wide, she indicated not just the breakfast room but the whole asylum.

  He chuckled again. "I meant the fact that you used to have an imaginary husband, whose imaginary shoes I am now more than willing to fill with my very real fleshy feet. I also have other fleshy bits to fill things with—and quite pleasurably."

  "I am not willing to have you fill them, and that is that," Eve argued. She ignored the sensations his words were stirring in her. He was very handsome. "I shall tell my father that you are leaving. You can go on your merry way—to hell in a handbasket." Her desperation increased as her body continued to react to his proximity.

  "No!" Adam said, slapping both hands down on the table. "And it is not open for debate. I will not leave." Her arguments were beginning to annoy him, especially as he could tell that Eve found him attractive. He knew it by the way she kept avoiding his gaze, and the feverish gleam he caught in her eye.

  "No?" Eve echoed. Sadly. She had reasoned last night that his reluctance to leave was because he was in fear of her father. She needed to resolve that worry, which would leave him free to go on his merry, scheming way, causing mayhem and chaos wherever he went. Just not here.

  "I think I shall domesticate quite easily," he said.

  "In a pig's eye. The only thing domestic about you is your… clothes."

  "You should see me without them," he retorted. "But then, if I were nude, I fear any thoughts of domestication would go right out the window."

  Eve had a sudden image of Adam as naked as the day he was born. This image was accompanied by a sharp sensation in her gut, and her face flushed. She'd had the same vision last night in her dreams. Rubbish, and a dead man's pirate chest!

  "You're blushing, dearest," he pointed out.

  "Must be the kippers." She pointed a finger at the diabolical deceiver. "You are, without a doubt, the most conceited, conniving buffoon it has been my misfortune to meet, much less be married to—or not married to, or whatever! Now listen to me closely while I explain things to you. I will make things clear with my father, and then you may leave here. I will make sure that he pursues no vengeance. I have some jewelry you can take, and if I receive my funding I'll send you more. A thief couldn't ask for a better deal. You can take your ill-gotten gains and go without a care in the world. What more could you want?"

  Leaning back in his gilded chair, Adam studied her, all masculine ire. He hated the fact that she thought he had a sad lack of character, and that he was for sale. He was, of course, but the price was love.

  Hiding his anger, he replied, "You. I want you." That commanded her attention. "I want a family, a place to belong, and respectability and responsibility. It has been too long since I've known those precious commodities. Besides, Captain Bluebeard would have my liver if I left, no matter what you say or promise. He wants you married to me for life—to me, a real man and not some fantasy lover."

  Well, that wasn't exactly true, he admitted to himself. The crafty captain had actually hired him for the short term. After he faked his death, Eve would be free to marry again. But Adam had agreed before he had seen her and recognized her for what she was: his soul mate. No one else was going to marry this woman, but him. He just had to win her.

  "I don't want you! I don't need you! And most important, I don't respect you!"

  Adam's face glowed bright with anger. "Watch where you step, my lady. You're treading on thin ice."

  Her anger making her incautious, Eve ignored his warning. She forced the challenge, rising from the table. "How can I respect a man who lies his way into my life? How can I respect a man who was paid to be my husband? What kind of man would do that?"

  Adam's features tightened and he stood, towering over her. "Sometimes you do what you have to do to survive. Sometimes hunger and cold do amazing things to one's scruples and dignity! Have you ever felt so hollow that you could feel your back through your stomach? Have you ever been so cold your teeth won't stop chattering even after you finally find a warm bed? So cold that your feet are like blocks of ice and you can't feel your ears? 'And gilded honor shamefully misplaced.'"

  He was quoting Shakespeare. How interesting. "No. I'm sorry," she replied quietly.

  It was several seconds before he nodded his head. "Apology accepted. But I've lived in some dark places with scant hope of light. Then, last night, I found a beacon. It was like lightning striking me, for suddenly I knew what I wanted."

  He stared at her so intently that she could feel her breath hitch. Finding herself frustrated beyond anything she had ever known—including many battles with her old sea wolf of a Father—she pleaded vehemently, "You can't just step into another life."

  Looking around, then pointedly back at her, Adam stated, "But I already have. You can't pry me away, my little jewel, wish me away, or force me to leave. I'm here. So buck up and get used to seeing me at the breakfast table. More important, in your bed. Preferably with you in it." He held out his arm. "Come; we have patients to see."

  "Go to hell, whatever your name truly is. I have an appointment with a patient, yes. A private appointment."

  He took her rejection with good nature. "Then have a nice morning, my love. Oh, and by the way, my first name really is Adam."

  Eve's mouth fell open and she gaped. Surely the Fates weren't so capricious. It couldn't be so; the lecherous louse had to be lying.

  "Be careful," her husband warned. "You might catch a fly. Or is Mr. Pryce still in bed?" He grinned.

  Eve closed her mouth with a snap, her eyes shooting sparks. She hated both the fictitious fiend and her finagling father.

  "It must be fate," Adam called over his shoulder. "The world is conspiring against you." Then he exited the breakfast room, just in time to avoid a flying cup. Life with Eve meant he needed to be well-off, he decided; it appeared he would be replacing a great deal of porcelain.

  Outside the door, he shook his head, irritated. His new wife had quite a mouth and arm on her. Her father had been right when he'd warned that when his daughter wanted something, nothing stopped her. And Eve definitely wanted him gone. But then, Eve Bluebeard had never run up against the likes of him. She wasn't aware of it yet, but the little admiral had just met her Waterloo. He wasn't going anywhere for a long, long time.

  The words he had spoken about respectability and responsibility were true; a long time ago he'd had both. A long time ago Adam's heritage had included a title: Baron Hawkmore. But betrayal had ended all that, along with the lives of his parents and younger brother. That tragedy and treachery had killed something soft and good within him—or at least, he thought it had until last night.

  Once he had been a man to appreciate the beauty of a sunset on a windswept moor, or the purity of voices
lifted in crystalline beauty in a church choir on a foggy Sunday morning. He had enjoyed the bonny sight of a mother strolling with her young sons in the early morning dew, and the laughter of a pretty lass dancing in the thick of a merry crowd. But that man had died a dozen deaths with the passage of time. Adam had learned to trust precious few, and that honor was ofttimes the only thing a man could call his own.

  Yes, he had been brought up to believe in duty and honor, home and hearth. That giving love was as important as receiving it. Yet, somewhere along the way this had gotten lost. Perhaps he had taken a wrong turn in the icy winters of despair. Maybe he'd been traveling down hill when he should have been quickly climbing the peaks. He would probably never really know all his wrong turns and missteps, but his path had led him away from what he'd wanted to who he was now. And he wasn't sure who that was anymore.

  He had a sense that Eve was a beacon calling him home to his lost self, because, for the first time in over a decade, Adam Pierce Hawkmore had looked in the mirror that morning and welcomed home a stranger.

  Chapter Ten

  Ashes to Ashes and Dust, Too Much Dust

  Although she was frantic to confront her father, Eve put aside her anger as she walked into her study. She had to concentrate on her patient, Lady Jane Asher, Countess of Wolverton. Lady Jane had an abnormal fear not only of blood, but of dirt, spiders, crypts, and other things that went bump in the night. Born a Van Helsing and the only female in the clan of infamous vampire slayers, she had found her fears to be a hard cross to bear.

  Happily, Lady Jane had escaped her vampire-staking and -stalking duties by marrying a noble Nosferatu. The Romeo and Juliet of the vampire world had fallen madly in love regardless of odds to the contrary. Unfortunately, Jane had been unable to overcome her fears enough for her husband to make her an immortal. And unless Lady Jane could overcome her phobia of blood, it would be ashes to ashes and dust to dust for her after enough time passed.

  Her patient smiled cheerfully at Eve as she seated herself on the rose brocade chair. After treating Lady Jane for the past five months, Eve recognized the steel core within the woman, which would help in her cure. She also held great affection for and devotion to her vampire husband. Motivation, Eve had learned, was the key factor in overcoming one's problems.