The room, lit by a dozen or so candelabra, softened the handsome, swarthy face, with its strong chin and patrician nose. The man was dressed in a deep green superfine jacket that outlined his broad shoulders, and his doeskin breeches were tucked into gleaming Hessians and emphasized his taut leg muscles. Although this was not a tall man, perhaps just under six feet, he was well built, with hair the color of polished walnut wood, and his hazel eyes were a mixture of colors, mostly amber. He reminded her of one of her father's pirates, but better dressed.
He opened his mouth to speak, and Eve's interest was doused like a fire by water: "My dearest, how good it is to see you again! I could barely wait to reach the Towers and see my devoted wife."
A dreadful silence filled the shadowy room, and Eve's stomach clenched in preparation for a disaster of epic proportions. Her ill winds had turned into a hurricane.
Chapter Five
High Anxiety Is a Lying Impostor
His wife? Eve was flabbergasted. Once she was through being flabbergasted, she was flabbergasted some more. His words were galling, appalling, and preposterously absurd. Suddenly Eve was faced with a wild sense of disbelief mixed with rage. Her senses reeling, she couldn't help but silently ask what in the bloody hell this madman meant. She was no one's wife. Eve's world shrank until she thought she would faint. A madman had invaded her very important party and invented a Banbury tale of biblical proportions.
She swallowed hard past the lump in her throat. A raving lunatic was loose in her house, among her elite guests. A raving lunatic who didn't live here. She growled in indignation. "Just who do you—" The presumptuous impostor cut off her words, gliding closer like a predator on the prowl. He stopped beside her with a piratic grin, covetous, condescending, and cocky. "My sweet, sweet wife. How I've missed you." Lifting her hand, he leaned over to press a swift, hot kiss upon her palm.
At first she was too stunned to protest, and then she discovered that his lips were searing and soft—very, very soft. She blinked twice, but the blasted man still appeared a handsome rogue. He moved with the grace of a dancer, and there was deadly power in his movements. Luckily, life in a lunatic asylum had taught her to roll with the punches, just as life on a pirate ship had taught her to keep her balance on a pitching ship. If she screamed foul, then a great scandal would end her party and she would be the talk of the ton. She couldn't explain that this wasn't her husband because she'd never had a husband in the first place; that little admission would be a typhoon of major proportions. She would lose all respectability. Her opportunity to help others would be obliterated, and she would probably lose control of her asylum.
A long moment of indecision passed while Eve ran through her options, all while her guests were quietly conversing and watching the deranged drama unfold. No, Eve couldn't hang this intruder from a yardarm, because she had no yardarm. He also couldn't be shot in her dining hall, not without the guests all going agog.
As Eve was busily thinking, Adam Griffin was appreciating the fine view. The sight of her in all her furious glory actually momentarily mesmerized him. For as long as he lived, Adam knew he would never forget his very first sight of Eve Bluebeard. She was magnificent. Her deep amber-hued gown clearly delineated the supple lines of her body. Her hair, dressed in a psyche knot, was glimmering in the candle light which revealed a myriad of hues of red, brown, and gold. At her neck she wore a three-strand necklace interspersed with emeralds and topaz. Her face was remarkably lovely, even with its current worried expression. With reluctance, he released her wrist.
Eve snapped her hand back out of reach, deep in thought. Her mind had always been an agile thing, as fleet as a ship with a brisk north wind. Yet, tonight she had been broadsided, hit by a large ship and unable to quite find her bearings. Nearby, she could feel the heat of his body as he held her hand. How dared this mad, pirate-looking man kiss her hand?
Forgetting her guests in a momentary fit of rage common to Bluebeards, and unheeding of the scene sure to cause tongues to wag, Eve raised her hand. She wanted to slap the man's grinning face, remove his expression that seemed to dare her to protest his inappropriate actions.
Surprisingly, she found herself being outmaneuvered. The stranger pulled her agilely up and to his side, like in a choreographed dance, and addressed the room in general. "My apologies, but I have lately arrived from Transylvania and haven't seen my wife in some great time."
Slipping closer toward the idiot standing boldly beside her, she stood up on tiptoe to whisper fiercely in his ear, "You're a lunatic." She intended to foil his pretensions immediately. No more wrist kissing.
"No, I'm not," he whispered back provocatively. He knew a reprimand when he heard one, and he knew, smart man that he was, that he had many more coming his way. He relished the challenge.
"That's what all lunatics say."
"Then I must be in the right place." He smiled wickedly at her, then turned back to the room. "Forgive me. My name is Dr. Adam Griffin, and you are… ?" Dr. Crane was glaring at him, looking very much as if he had eaten crow, rather than the tasty bit of Barcelona hen he had just consumed.
"You…" Eve began softly, not wanting her very important guests to realize that something was wrong in the house of Bluebeard. She made the introductions in a somber tone. The interfering impostor who was standing by her side listened to the introductions of the esteemed assemblage, bowing slightly. Still in shock, Eve's mind again refused to cooperate, its usual razor-sharp edge dulled. Who was this cunning charlatan, and how had he gotten here?
"Are you having an identity crisis?" Eve whispered, halted by more introductions and her mind's inability to absorb this absurd Shakespearean farce. "You aren't—"
"Yes, I know darling, you missed me terribly, as I did you," the fraudulent fiend interrupted. He held up his hand to protest her protestations.
She glared at him, hissing, "Blast it! That wasn't what I was going to say. You deserve a bloody good thrashing. Just wait till my guests leave!"
Clearly undaunted by her fierce mutterings, he leaned down to whisper in her ear, "That's no way to speak to your long-lost husband. Do you want your guests to think you're a shrew, darling? Do you want me to tell them about the marriage ceremony in Vienna that never was? Do you want to deny me, and force me to explain who Adam Griffin really isn't? I'm afraid, my dear, your charade is at an end. Mine begins."
"It's my charade, and you have no right to steal it," Eve hissed. "Besides, having a husband is the last thing on my mind." Somehow she managed to keep smiling politely.
Looking to lash out, Eve stepped on the impostor's boot-clad foot. The result was negligible, since slippers with tiny rosebuds sewn on the top just didn't have the same painful impact as her old pirate boots.
He merely grinned at her feeble attempt, noting her narrowed mouth with perverse satisfaction, and replied, "I didn't steal your fantasy; I just stole into it. The perfect dream lover comes to life. Many women would envy you."
"I was right. You are utterly mad."
Ignoring her hiss, the man turned toward Teeter. "Teeter, I'm dashed hungry. Set me a plate, please."
"Delighted to serve you again, sir."
Serve him again? Teeter had never met this sly schemer. Stupid drunken ogrish butler, Eve thought, shooting the servant a look of pure annoyance.
Glancing at the wine bottles on the cabinet, Adam said, "I'd really prefer a glass of port with my meal. And if your guests will excuse it, I should like to remain dressed as I am."
Dr. Sigmund agreed wholeheartedly—not unexpectedly, since trolls weren't much for dressing up. "Never did like to stand on formality, Dr. Griffin. You've had a long trip and you're hungry." Dr. Sigmund's wife demurred as well, as did Countess Caligari.