The Remarkable Miss Frankenstein

by Minda Webber

  Ian heard Clair moan. Surprised, he patted her hand.

  Clair's moan wasn't from pain, but from disbelief. The Frankenstein veil was a curse. It was so ugly, no self-respecting bride could possibly want to wear the hideous thing.

  Oblivious to all but her wedding plans, Lady Mary continued. "I, of course, will wear a light shade of blue, I believe. It will take the dressmaker quite a while to sew all the little flowers I will need on my gown."

  Ian was not to be outmatched by the feisty little Tartar, even if he was surprised by her suddenly crotchety attitude. She was actually quite contrary when crossed. He wondered if Ozzie knew this less-than-attractive side to Lady Mary's character. "Ten days," he offered.

  Tugging on Ian's arm, Clair once again tried to gain his attention. "I haven't said yes."

  Lady Mary was just as determined as Ian, and she intended to gain the time she needed to plan the wedding of the century. Her plan had worked out, after all; she deserved to benefit from it. "Six weeks," she suggested.

  Clair yanked on Ian's arm again. "I haven't said yes!" she shouted.

  However, no one was paying the least attention.

  "Two weeks," Ian bargained, his expression blank. It was his poker face. And though these stakes were high, he wasn't bluffing. And he was sure he would win. Though his Plans A and B had failed miserably, his Plan C had been a success. He was finally marrying Clair.

  "Five weeks."

  Ian shook his head. Clair's aunt was a Trojan, standing firmly against his formidable Huntsley will.

  "One month. It is my last offer," Lady Mary said. Inside, she was beaming. She had the crafty baron cornered. One month was what she had wanted all along. One month to plan the wedding. It was enough time for her to get everything ready, and also a short enough spell in case Clair was already with child.

  Ian nodded, shrewdly judging his opponent's joy. "You win, Lady Mary. One month."

  "I haven't said I'd marry anyone!" Clair shouted for the umpteenth time.

  In perfect unison, both Ian and her aunt turned to stare at her, both arching their aristocratic brows and making her feel like a child. Then, without further ado, they went back to discussing the wedding plans.

  Clair would have stomped her foot if she could have gotten out of bed. She would have yelled some more, but she was so tired. She would just sleep a little and then argue with these two impossible idiots afterward. She had to admit, they were idiots she loved.

  She fell asleep before Ian's tender kiss, and so she missed all the discussion of her wedding. Thus she ended up wearing the Frankenstein veil, that veil guaranteed to make any bride cranky. When she woke, she would put it all in an update to her friend:

  Dear Jane,

  I wasn't speaking to Ian, but now lam again. In fact, I am in love with him! We went to a house party at the Earl of Wolverton's where I had hoped to get the evidence I needed to prove my hypotheses. Unfortunately, I almost got myself and Ian killed. The Honorable Christopher Wilder—who was not so honorable—is now quite dead. Truly dead and not just undead, for he was a vampire. So were Mr. Bear and his wife, along with Lady Montcrief. Aren't you glad you weren't at this house party with all these vampires? Imagine the stakings your father would have required!

  Anyway, the Earl of Wolverton is not a werewolf and Ian is wonderful. Have I told you that before? I am in love, and we are to be married.

  Oh, and the Duke of Ghent is really a chef, not a warlock, and he wishes he wasn't a duke. He is courting Aunt Mary. Isn't that marvelous? He was once a suitor for my aunt, before he had to marry into a great deal of money. Well, he didn't actually marry the money, he married the heiress who had the money.

  I wish you to attend the wedding—my wedding to Ian, not Aunt Mary to the duke. Although they may marry in the not-so-distant future. The wedding is in four weeks. (My wedding.)

  With fondest affection,

  Clair

  P.S. Great-aunt Abby is giving me the city of Alexandria as my wedding gift. Yes, I knew you'd understand.

  P.P.S. I am also being forced to wear the Frankenstein family wedding veil. Each night I am leaving it in the attic unwrapped, in hope that large rats will take a liking to the hideous thing and eat it. Wish me luck!

  The Wedding Bell Blues

  Today was the day! Her greatest triumph. Her niece would be getting married in a matter of five hours, and Lady Mary rejoiced as she hurried down the staircase. Her bouncy steps made a pattering sound on the marbled stairs.

  Today of all days, all things must go according to plan. Mentally checking her list, Lady Mary noted that Clair's wedding gown was ready, as was Abby's French gown, since Abby believed herself to be Marie Antoinette, the deceased queen of Louis the Sixteenth, this week.

  The church was decorated with stuffed doves and lovebirds, courtesy of Lady Mary, of course. And the chapel was fair to overflowing with orange blossoms, jasmine, and gardenias. It was a visual as well as olfactory feast.

  Now all she had to do, Lady Mary knew, was get Victor out of his lab—a major feat in itself—and find Frederick, who had been celebrating rather heavily the previous night with the groom's cronies. Shaking her head, Lady Mary hoped that Frederick was getting his required eight hours of beauty sleep, which he most certainly needed.

  On her way to her brother's lab, she ran into Brooks. The butler politely handed her an envelope from Jane Van Helsing.

  Opening the envelope and reading the brief letter inside, Lady Mary frowned. Jane was not going to be able to make the ceremony. Poor girl, Lady Mary commiserated. Going to Holland to care for her injured aunt and then coming down with the measles—as if Jane didn't have enough on her plate already, being one of those eccentric Van Helsings. How Jane survived in that family of vampire-hunting lunatics, Lady Mary would never understand. Fortunately, she herself was a Frankenstein and removed from such things.

  Glancing back up at Brooks, she asked, "Do you know where Frederick is?"

  "In the library, asleep on the floor," Brooks replied, stonefaced.

  "He's bosky, is he?" Lady Mary asked, shaking her head. "Well, I suppose boys will be boys—or in this case, monsters will be boys."

  Brooks looked heavenward, beseeching. Employed for over thirty years with the Frankensteins, he often wondered how he had remained sane.

  "How late was he out?" Mary asked. "And can he be made to sober up before the wedding?"

  Brooks replied, "He arrived home around four this morning, singing about graveyards and monster balls."

  Lady Mary raised her hands to her eyes. Of all the days for Frederick to be nursing a hangover! He would be very cranky when he awoke, and a cranky monster was usually one to avoid.

  Brooks leaned in closer to her, confiding, "Master Frederick was with that bell-ringing fellow from Notre Dame last evening."

  "Heavens," Lady Mary exclaimed. "That fellow is mad as a hatter. Running around bell towers and swinging on ropes!"

  Suitably satisfied that Lady Mary would put the blame square on the humpbacked shoulder where it belonged, Brooks sniffed disdainfully and added, "That bell-ringer fellow took your nephew to one of those places for Frederick impersonators who like to play cards. Unfortunately, one of the young gentlemen decided to try and attain Master Frederick's height with a pair of stilts, and he fell onto a stage where a person of suspect repute was singing. This enraged the singer, who threw a bottle of wine at the young gentleman and hit him on the head. Which upset that bell-ringing fellow, who grabbed up the singer and threw her over his shoulder, fleeing off into the night. Naturally Frederick and his impersonators were all asked to leave."

  Brooks leaned in even closer, almost whispering to Lady Mary as if the walls had ears—which of course in the Frankenstein manor could well be true. "You know how Master Frederick feels about rejection."

  Lady Mary patted the butler on the arm. "I know. Poor dear boy."

  At the first appearance of the Frederick impersonators, Lady Mary had worried that her adoptive nep
hew would get a swelled head from all the attention being focused upon him. And that wouldn't do at all, since Frederick already wore a size-eleven hat. Instead, her nephew had grown more and more upset until Victor finally explained that the young gentlemen were seeking his approval. Victor's words had finally settled Frederick down, which was a good tiling. A three-hundred-pound monster throwing a temper tantrum was not a pretty sight.

  Brooks nodded regretfully.

  "Well, there's nothing to be done for it now, Brooks. Let us leave him to sleep two hours more. Then please wake him up and be sure to give him my tisane for overindulgence," Lady Mary commanded. She peeped into the library. Inside, Frederick was sleeping as peacefully as a baby—well, as much of a baby as a six foot eight man with feet the size of Derbyshire could sleep. Mary smiled sweetly, noting that Brooks had gone to the stable and brought a horse blanket back to cover her nephew.

  Studying Frederick, Lady Mary worried that he looked a tad greener then usual this morning. Her nephew really must have tied one on last evening.

  She quietly closed the library door and, shaking her head, she headed in the direction of her brother's lab. Victor too would be behaving inappropriately, working on the morning of his sister's greatest achievement.

  "Men," she mumbled as she made her way down the basement steps to Victor's laboratory. You couldn't live with them and you couldn't live with them. Of course, Ozzie might be the exception to the rule. Mary was certainly willing to find out.

  Opening the door, she entered the lab to find her brother scribbling something in his large maroon journal. It was a book Victor Frankenstein was never without.

  "Victor, Victor, do you know what day this is?" she asked pettishly.

  "The eighteenth," her brother answered absentmindedly, continuing with his writing.

  "Good. Now that we know the date, can you tell me what is important about this date?" Lady Mary jibed, her eyes narrowing as Victor continued scribbling.

  "It should have worked perfectly," he grumbled. "Just perfectly. I used the right-sized corneas for the eyes. All the muscles and nerves were attached precisely. The patient could see just as clearly in the day as in the night," he muttered to himself.

  Lady Mary sighed. Her brother was talking about his latest scientific work. He had taken the eyes of a jaguar and transplanted them into a blind man's eye sockets. The results had been remarkable. The blind man had not only been able to see perfectly well in the daytime, but he had gained uncanny night vision as well. But it appeared a glitch had been thrown into the wheels of the experiment, and Victor never handled glitches very well. In fact, Frederick had learned his temper-tantrumming from Victor, his adopted father.

  "The last time we spoke, your patient was doing incredibly well. What has happened, Victor?" Lady Mary asked worriedly. Her brother's transplant operations could give hope to so many.

  Her brother raised his head wearily. "Side effects. Who would have thought a jaguar's genes would be so similar to those of an ordinary house cat? Every time my patient sees a mouse, he chases it about the room, then tries to scale the drapes."

  "Oh, dear. That is unfortunate."

  "It gets worse. He wants milk for every meal and has the unfortunate tendency to groom himself by licking his arms and hands."

  "Yes," Lady Mary conceded, "I can see how that would be a great disadvantage at a dinner party. You can't have your guests licking themselves at the table."

  "Quite," Victor agreed morosely.

  Lady Mary leaned over and patted her brother's arm. "You'll correct the problem. Perhaps you can give your blind patients the eyes of owls. They have remarkably clear sight."

  "Hmm?" Victor managed, his forehead creased in thought. "Hmm," he said again. "It might just work." He thought some more, looked momentarily hopeful, but that look was soon replaced with a crestfallen expression. "Owls wouldn't groom themselves at dinner parties, true, but there is still the mousing side effect."

  "Oh dear, you're quite right." Lady Mary paused; then, leaning over to look her brother in the eye, she asked archly, "Victor—besides the eighteenth, do you know what day this is?"

  Her brother focused, truly focused, on her words, and his eyes widened in recognition. "Good grief. It's Clair's wedding day to that baron fellow!"

  Good! Lady Mary rejoiced. She had finally gotten through to her brother. "Yes. And you need to prepare yourself for the ceremony. After all, you are giving the bride away." And with those words, Lady Mary burst into tears. She had just realized for the first time that her niece would be leaving the Frankenstein home—the niece whom she had loved like a daughter, whom she had raised since Clair was four.

  Mary remembered the first frog Clair had tried to make fly after attaching paper wings to its back. Grimacing slightly, she also recalled the frog's rather ignominious landing, after it was dropped from the top of the house. Clair had been in tears and never again tried to get any creature to fly unless its wings were already built in by nature. Lady Mary would never forget her niece's horrified expression as the frog fell thirty feet and made a terrible splat.

  What if the baron didn't treat her beloved Clair right? Mary wondered. What if he was the type to sip brandy all night long? What if he had warts?

  And would the baron leave Clair free to be her wonderful, inquisitive self after they were wed? Would he cherish her forever? Would Clair ever come visit her old aunt again? Would she ever see Clair's children? What had she done by succeeding in her stupid Plan A, To Catch a Baron?

  Awkwardly, Victor patted his sister's shoulder. "Come now, Mary. All chicks leave their nest."

  "My darling girl is leaving me!" Lady Mary said. And she cried harder.

  Embarrassed, Victor prodded her. "Come, my dear, you are a Frankenstein. Buck up." He did so hate seeing women cry. It made him feel helpless, especially when his aid merely made his sister grab a handkerchief from her pocket and sob harder.

  Growing desperate, he hit upon a grand idea. A brilliant Frankensteinian plan. "Eureka! I know, Mary. I will make you another niece," he stated grandly.

  The Bride Is a Frankenstein

  Six figures dressed all in black entered St. George's Cathedral and joined the congregation. The oldest of the group marched to the front of the altar and bellowed in a voice at odds with the size of her diminutive figure, "Where's the funeral?"

  Lady Mary, clad in her blue wedding finery, hurried to the old woman's side and explained, "Lady Vandeover, you have your days confused. Tomorrow is the funeral for Mr. Pugsley. Today is my niece's wedding."

  "Wedding, did you say?" Mrs. Vandeover asked, lifting her hearing horn.

  Lady Mary nodded, motioning for one of the ushers to come and escort the wizened woman to a seat. "Here, let Mr. Sleet help you and your party to the pews."

  Beside her, Ozzie asked, "Is Mr. Pugsley a relative?"

  "No, her pug."

  "She's using St. George's Cathedral for a dog's funeral?" the duke questioned, amazed.

  "She's very well off, you know." Lady Mary told him all about the woman as he escorted her back to her seat.

  Glancing about, she felt her spirits revive. The church was still like one in a fairy tale, decorated beautifully with gardenias and orange blossoms. The smell was heavenly. White stuffed turtledoves and lovebirds were placed strategically all around.

  Over a hundred and fifty guests—Mary's compromise with Ian—sat in the pews. The Frankensteins and their friends sat on the left; Ian's family and friends were seated to the right, staring over at Frederick. Lady Mary decided their awe must be due to such august company.

  As Ozzie seated then took his seat beside her, Lady Mary proudly surveyed the assemblage. Frederick was dressed in a rust-colored jacket, which toned down the greenish cast of his skin. He looked remarkably fine, Lady Mary decided, studying him, for a man who was wearing someone else's face.

  Next to Frederick sat Victor and Professor Whutson, both talking shop. Beside them, Clair's uncle Tieck busily scribbled more n
otes, having confided earlier to Lady Mary that he was writing a sequel to his last novel.

  Lady Mary frowned. She'd had enough of all this vampire business. It had almost gotten her beloved niece killed. And if it weren't for the fact that Clair had met Ian through the whole nasty business, she would be quite put out.

  "Let them eat cake!" Lady Abby cried from next to Lady Mary. She was dressed to suit her role as Louis XVI's queen.

  Mary patted the woman's hand. "We will, Marie. Soon. And it will be delicious. Ozzie made it, you know." She smiled fondly at her lover.

  "That's 'Your Highness' to you," Lady Abby huffed.

  "Yes, dear," Mary replied.

  At the back of the massive church, another famous figure entered. Dr. Durlock Homes. He stood for a moment surveying the scene, stifling a smile. It wasn't something he did very often. His work was so serious and grave that he had a hard time finding humor in anything but the most absurd.

  Beside him, the tall, mustachioed Artie Doyle appeared and asked, "Which side is the bride's?"

  Holmes lifted an eyebrow. "Rudimentary, my dear chap. Rudimentary." He pointed, then went and seated himself beside Professor Whutson in the seat vacated by Victor, since it was time for Victor to escort his niece to the altar.

  The church grew quiet as the wedding march sounded, and the bridal procession began their walk down the aisle. A collective gasp came from the assemblage upon seeing the bride standing in the entrance. She was indeed a vision, dressed in yards of creamy satin with pearl inlays. Clair carried orange blossoms in her hand, and on her head was the Frankenstein wedding veil—a monstrous creation of lace, feathers, and flowers, with a towering crown topped by a tiara.

  Yes, what a vision I am, Clair thought glumly. How could she have let them talk her into this hideous costume? She knew it was custom. All Frankenstein brides were married in this nasty veil. It was said to bring good luck.