Jane Vows Vengeance (2 page)

“It’s cold enough to freeze a bear’s ass,” she said as she pulled the cap off and sat down. “I need some coffee.”

In addition to her new wardrobe, Miriam had also acquired a collection of sayings generally used only by residents of the New England states. No matter how many times Walter told her that New York—despite its name—was not considered part of New
England, Miriam persisted in behaving as if it were, occasionally even taking on an accent that was more Maine lobsterman than Jewish mother of a certain age.

Jane got up and poured Miriam a cup of coffee, thinking that she really needed to start locking the front door. She handed the cup to Miriam, then refilled Lucy’s mug. She herself was drinking hot chocolate. Although her vampire metabolism didn’t require that she eat, she still enjoyed the activity, particularly if it involved sweets.

“Still looking at dresses, I see,” Miriam remarked, nodding at the magazines.

“Yes,” Jane said evenly. “Still looking.”

“I really don’t see what the problem is,” Miriam said. “Choosing a dress shouldn’t be any more difficult than choosing a paint color. Just pick the one that’s going to hide the problem areas the best. Take you, for example. You’ve got a wide—”

“I believe I’ve narrowed it down,” Jane said. “The dress choices,” she clarified as Miriam started to reply.

Miriam peered at her through the steam from the coffee cup. “And have you set a date?” she asked. “Summer’s right around the corner, you know.”

Jane was unsure whether Miriam was referring to the approaching anniversary of their agreement or just remarking on the fact that a summer wedding would be lovely. She chose to believe it was the latter, although Miriam’s tone could be interpreted either way.

“Why don’t you and Walter just elope?” Lucy suggested.

Miriam and Jane both turned their heads to look at her.

“What?” said Lucy, pushing a strand of long curly black hair behind her ear. “It would save a lot of fuss and bother.”

“I thought you were excited about being my maid of honor,” Jane said.

“I am,” Lucy assured her. “I’m just saying, if this is making
you so crazy, just get married at the courthouse and go to Tahiti for two weeks or something.”

“That would be nice,” Jane mused. “We could lie on the beach and have fruit drinks.”

“Nonsense,” said Miriam. “You’re going to be married right here so that I—so that all of your friends can join in the celebration.”

Jane looked at Lucy, who rolled her eyes and puffed out her cheeks. “It was just a suggestion,” she muttered.

“Walter’s first wedding was simply perfect,” Miriam informed them. “Evelyn was absolutely stunning.”

And now she’s dead
, Jane thought, immediately mortified that such a thing would pop into her head. But it was true. Besides, it was becoming far too common an occurrence for Miriam to compare Jane to Walter’s deceased wife. The week before, when Jane had tried her hand at cooking a brisket because Miriam had mentioned how much she enjoyed one, Miriam’s response was to tell her how Evelyn’s brisket had been so much moister and how she had served small roasted potatoes with it and not mashed.

“Miriam, what kind of dress do you think Jane should wear?” Lucy asked.

Miriam waved a hand at her. “Oh, you know I don’t care. I’m sure whatever she wants is fine.”

Jane felt her fangs click into place. She closed her eyes and concentrated on forcing them to retract.
You can’t bite her
, she reminded herself.

Miriam raised an eyebrow. “Do you have a headache, Jane?” she asked. “You look tense.”

“I’m fine,” Jane snapped. She opened her eyes. “I’m fine,” she repeated, giving Miriam a tight smile.

She heard the front door open and close. “Jane?” Walter called out. “Where are you?”

“In here,” Jane replied. “With Lucy and your mother.”

Walter came into the kitchen, brushing snow from his navy blue peacoat. “I have great news,” he said as he bent to kiss first his mother and then Jane.

“You got the Thorne-Waxe house job!” Jane said. A restorer of historic houses, Walter had recently been asked to submit a proposal for restoring a run-down Victorian house that had been cut up into four apartments. The new owners wanted to bring it back to its original glory.

“Oh, yes, I did,” said Walter. “But that’s not the big news.” His blue eyes, always sparkling, had an extra twinkle to them.

The three women looked at him. “Well?” Jane said after a long pause.

“I’ve solved our wedding problem,” Walter said, beaming. “Well, not so much the wedding problem, but the honeymoon problem.”

“What do you mean, the honeymoon problem?” Miriam asked.

“Jane and I have been trying to decide where to go on our honeymoon,” Walter explained.

“What honeymoon?” said Miriam. “You haven’t even set a date for the wedding!”

“We’ll figure that out,” Walter said. “The important thing is, I know where we’re going afterward.”

“Tahiti?” said Lucy hopefully.

“Europe,” said Walter.

“Europe is a big place,” Jane reminded him. “Can you narrow it down a bit?”

“That’s the best part,” said Walter. “We don’t have to narrow it down. I’ve been invited to go on a tour of historic houses with the International Association of Historic Preservationists. They’re spending two weeks looking at homes in Ireland, France, Switzerland, Italy, and England. Oh, and Scotland or somewhere. I can’t remember the exact details. Doesn’t it sound fun?”

“How many other people will be going on our honeymoon with us?” Jane inquired.

“I don’t know—two dozen or so, I guess,” said Walter. “But we don’t have to do everything with the group. There’s a lot of free time built into the itinerary. And it’s not really our honeymoon. We can add another week on at the end for just the two of us. Anywhere you want to go.” He looked at the three women, who sat there saying nothing. “Well?”

“When is this trip?” Jane asked.

“March,” said Walter.

“March!” Jane, Lucy, and Miriam shrieked in unison.

“March what?” asked Lucy.

“We leave on the ninth,” Walter answered.

“The ninth!” the three women chorused.

“Walter, that’s …” Jane counted on her fingers.

“Seventeen days from now,” said Miriam. “We can’t possibly plan a wedding in that short a time.”

“Why not?” Walter asked. “You’re my only family, and Jane has none.”

“Hey!” Lucy exclaimed.

“You know what I mean,” said Walter, patting her shoulder kindly. “No parents or cousins or other people who would need to make travel plans. Everyone we want to invite already lives here. All we have to do is get married.”

Lucy looked at Jane. “It sounds so simple when he puts it like that,” she said.

“It does rather, doesn’t it?” Jane agreed.

“See?” said Walter, sounding very pleased with himself. “It’s all settled.”

Jane looked at Miriam. Her mouth was set in a grim line, and she scowled at Jane with undisguised dislike.
She’s been hoping all along that the wedding would never happen
, Jane realized.
She wants me to run out of time. Well, we’ll just see about that
.

“I think it’s a splendid idea,” she said. “Don’t you, Miriam?”

Miriam narrowed her eyes. “Just peachy,” she said through gritted teeth.

Walter put one arm around Jane’s shoulders and the other around his mother’s. “I knew you would be thrilled,” he said. “Hey, I just thought of something. Once Jane and I are married you’ll both be Mrs. Fletcher.”

Miriam let out a little yelp, which she covered by pretending to cough. “You know I don’t go by that name any—”

“You should take care of that cough, Mom,” Walter said, grinning and ignoring her. “You don’t want it to turn into something worse.”

“I don’t think it’s possible for it to get worse,” said Miriam, reaching for her coffee.

“Well, maybe you should go home and rest,” Walter told her. “We want you in fighting shape for the big day. Right, Jane?”

“By all means,” Jane said, flashing her teeth at Miriam. “I know I will be.”

New York City, New York

“E
XPLAIN TO ME AGAIN HOW YOU
’
VE LIVED THIS LONG WITHOUT A
passport,” Byron said to Jane as they walked down a narrow street on New York’s Lower East Side. Surprised by a snowstorm that had begun just after midnight, the city was in a state of disarray. The normally bustling thoroughfares were largely empty as cars huddled beneath blankets of white, and the few people out walking did so with hats pulled down over their ears and hands jammed into the pockets of their coats.

Jane and Byron, having arrived on the first train of the morning from Brakeston, took little notice of the cold. They wore coats and scarves not for warmth but to blend in, although Byron wasn’t doing a particularly good job of that. The black wool ulster he was wearing gave him the appearance of someone from another era. This impression was intensified by the cane he used to compensate for his limp. Made of cherry wood, it was topped with the head of a rabbit cast in bronze. The ensemble, coupled with Byron’s pale skin and dark hair, created an aura of otherworldliness. The fact that he was extraordinarily handsome only made him more noticeable.

“I’ve never needed one,” Jane said, answering Byron’s question. “I don’t go anywhere.”

“Still,” said Byron, running his hand across the top of a car as they passed by it and scooping up a handful of snow, “I would think you would want one
just in case
.”

He packed the snow into a tight ball. Then, with a casualness that belied the speed at which the snowball traveled, he hurled it across the street, where it struck the back of a man who was standing and watching his dog, a French bulldog wearing a red-and-white striped sweater, relieve itself on a lamppost. The man whirled around, exclaiming loudly, but saw only the retreating figures of a well-dressed couple walking arm in arm through the snow.

“That was for making that poor dog wear a sweater,” Byron explained to Jane. “Oh, and here we are.”

They had stopped in front of a narrow brownstone remarkably like all the other brownstones on the block, although the ground floor of this particular building was taken up by a small watch repair shop. The front window was crowded with timepieces, and the faded gold lettering on the glass read
TIME OUT OF MIND
. Underneath that in smaller black lettering was
S. GRUNDY, HOROLOGIST
. Bits of paint had long ago fallen off or been chipped away, giving the letters a moth-eaten appearance, and the dust that was gathered in the corners of the window provided additional reason to suppose that the establishment had long ago ceased to do business. Only the faint glow of a light hidden in the recesses of the shop suggested otherwise.

Byron turned the handle of the shop’s door and pushed. Protesting, the door opened, and Byron stood aside, motioning for Jane to enter ahead of him. As Jane looked around the small, cluttered room Byron walked to the back and called out, “Solomon! Solomon, are you here?”

“Solomon?” Jane said, glancing at the window. “Solomon Grundy?”

“Indeed,” said Byron. “Do you know him? I thought you said—”

“No,” Jane interrupted. “I mean, I don’t know
this
Solomon Grundy. But there’s the rhyme. ‘Solomon Grundy, born on a Monday, christened on Tuesday, married on Wednesday, took ill on Thursday, grew worse on Friday—’ ”

“ ‘Died on Saturday, buried on Sunday,’ ” said a voice, followed by a violent cough. “ ‘This is the end of Solomon Grundy.’ ”

Standing before Jane was a very tall, very thin man who if not a century old was very close to it. He had long gray hair that fell in greasy strands to the shoulders of his worn black velvet frock coat, pale gray eyes that peered out at her from behind shockingly thick gold-rimmed spectacles, and a forehead creased like the spine of a well-read book. Most peculiar of all was his nose, which extended from his face almost like a beak and ended in a blunt point that was covered by a gold cap.

“Very good, young lady,” he said. “And what is today?”

“Thursday,” Jane answered, trying not to stare at his unusual appearance.

“Thursday,” the man repeated. “That explains the cough, then. It’s a good thing you didn’t come a day later, as I would almost certainly be unable to see you. And of course by Saturday I will be dead and of no use whatsoever. So before that happens, perhaps you should tell me why you have come.”

“Jane is in need of a passport, Solomon,” Byron explained.

“Indeed?” said Solomon. He eyed Jane with curiosity. “And who
are
you? Before, I mean. Not now.”

“Oh,” Jane said uncomfortably.
Saying
that she was Jane Austen always made her feel as if she were lying. Or boasting.

“Solomon, allow me to introduce you to Miss Jane Austen,” Byron said.

Solomon stepped back. “My, my,” he said. He bowed toward her. “It’s my distinct pleasure.”

Jane felt herself blush as much as someone with no beating heart could. “It’s lovely to meet you,” she said.

Solomon smiled, revealing a row of gleaming gold teeth. “I have long been a fan,” he told Jane. His eyes sparkled. “Just a moment,” he told her. “I want to show you something.”