The Reinvented Miss Bluebeard (London Paranormal 03) by Minda Webber Read Free Book Online Page A

kept her eyes open, and breathed a sigh of relief when the good doctor deftly righted the downward-dropping drink. He quickly took it from her butler's hands.
    Pretending that she hadn't seen the incident, Eve approached Dr. Crane. "I am so glad you could make it tonight, Doctor," she said. Though he was in his mid-thirties, the slender wereowl's hair was a curious mixture of pale black and whitish silver. The smile he gave was both warm and speculative, with only a faint hint of lecherous intent.
    She smiled back, noting vaguely that Dr. Crane was attractive in a bookish sort of way, and that he carried a truly distinguished air. If the rumors were true, he was a fine psychiatrist, if a bit pontificating in lectures, and he was an expert in the classics as well as the field of the supernaturally feathered
fou
. He was also reputed to have a taste for soiled doves.
    He lifted her hand to his lips and bent low, kissing it and eyeing her assets with a connoisseur's delight. Eve managed to gracefully withdraw her hand with her smile still in place.
    "By Jove, my little chickadee, I would have contrived to meet you sooner had I known how lovely you are." Dr. Crane gave her another appreciative glance, his big, yellowish-brown eyes glittering. He cocked his head and studied her with practiced ease. "I had not thought our hostess would be so stunning. It's as if Helen of Troy and Minerva, goddess of wisdom, are combined in your form. Even male peacocks must envy your splendor. How is it we have not met? Such a fowl trick, to be deprived of such an egg. Surely the Fates have been cruel."
    "Perhaps your reputation precedes you, and Dr. Griffin prefers to keep herself tucked safely in her nest," Count Caligari remarked arrogantly, appearing and bowing to Eve. She could hear the stays creaking in the corset he was wearing. She made a curtsy with dignity and grace, keeping her features politely reserved. She had met the warlock before, at various medical lectures. He was not one of her favorite colleagues, this Italian doctor with a sly intelligence and an inflated sense of his ancestry.
    "There's no need to be huffy, Caligari. You're still perturbed by my latest book's reviews. You know how they raved and flapped about my brilliant deductions on hen-witted chicken hawks."
    The count drew his rotund little body up to all of its five-foot-seven-inch height, a scowl on his features. "Pray disregard his comments. My books are as well received—if not more so," he added with an unflappable air. "My latest,
Practical Magic for the Abnormal Paranormal
, won critical acclaim."
    "A lot of hocus-pocus, I rather thought." Crane clearly knew the count well, for he was inured to Caligari's condescension. He turned his attention back to Eve. "Now, really. Why haven't I seen you around and about before now?"
    "You wouldn't know brilliance if it swept you off your taloned feet!" Caligari ejaculated.
    Eve smiled politely at them both, praying to defuse the tense situation. "Dr. Crane, I fear I haven't been in London all that long—a little less than three years—and have been much occupied with running the Towers and treating my patients."
    He bowed slightly at her words, and Eve noticed that at least Dr. Crane didn't creak.
    "I am glad to finally make your acquaintance," he said, "and am eager, quite eager, to hear of your work." Dr. Crane paused momentarily, then remembered, his round eyes joyous at his recall: "Ah, Verbal
Intercourse
is your theory, is it not?"
    Trying hard not to preen, Eve ignored the word emphasis and the gleam of sexual interest in both doctors' eyes, and focused on her growing reputation.
    Count Caligari seemed to have forgotten his anger at Dr. Crane's slights. He added, "Yes! A method that I hear is similar to Dr. Sigmund's own treatments."
    Dr. Sigmund, upon hearing his name, left his wife's side. He was an older man, in his mid-fifties, with an ancestry that included trolls and endowed him with a bushy head of long white