Read Online Her Loving Husband's Curse by Meredith Allard - Free Book Online

asked. But the cat only fell asleep again.
    He heard Sarah stirring in the bedroom and looked at the time—two in the morning. She padded into the great room, and he felt her warm hands on his shoulders. He felt human whenever she touched him.
    “It’s past your bedtime,” he said.
    “I could hear you muttering from the bedroom.” She looked over his shoulder at the book in his hand. “What are you reading?”
    “ Dracula .”
    “Why? You know that book makes you mad.” He told her what happened with Goodwin, and she laughed. “So you’re teaching the vampire literature class?”
    “I thought it was best to go along.”
    “Some vampires books are all right. It might be fun.”
    James shrugged. “Perhaps.”
    Sarah flipped open the cover, skimming the pages, reading the synopsis on the back. “It’s fascinating the way Stoker fits the pieces together with the newspaper articles and journals from the other characters as they hunt Count Dracula. You get everyone’s point of view of the story.”
    “Everyone’s point of view but the vampire.”
    “What do you mean?”
    “In vampire stories you get everyone else’s opinion about the vampire—what they think, what they feel, what they know. Why don’t we hear from the vampire? Why doesn’t the vampire ever have a say?”
    “Probably because no human has ever been a vampire so they don’t know how to speak like one. Besides, Anne Rice writes from the vampire’s point of view.”
    “There’s one.”
    “You still haven’t told me why you don’t like Dracula .”
    “Because it’s ridiculous. What vampire do you know can turn into a bat or scale walls like Spiderman?”
    “None?”
    “Of course none. Have you ever seen me turn into a bat or scale a wall?”
    “Never.” She held his face between her hands, her warmth calming him. “If people don’t know you exist then how can they know the truth? They have to use the myths and legends to guess what vampires might be like, and let’s face it—vampires don’t have the best reputation.”
    James nodded. She brushed his gold hair from his eyes and kissed his forehead.
    “You’ve always said people can’t know your kind exists. Isn’t it better if they don’t have it right, that they make up stories? If they knew the truth then you’d be exposed, and that can’t happen. Isn’t that what you told me?”
    James smiled. He looked at his wife, her dark curls loose around her shoulders, her lips full, open, and smiling, the spaghetti straps of her pink nightie with the lace lines falling down her shoulders. He pulled her onto his lap and kissed her peach-like shoulders.
    She wasn’t as distracted as he was. “So am I right, Doctor Wentworth?”
    “You’re always right, Mrs. Wentworth.”
    “They’re just stories.”
    James leaned back, twisting Sarah’s curls between his fingers. “But the legends originated from people’s fear when they encountered the magical,” he said. “Anything related to the supernatural people assume is evil.”
    “You’re not evil, James. I’ve never known anyone more loving than you.”
    He kissed her shoulder again. “At least I was able to write up a syllabus. The class will look at the earliest vampire folklore and legends and how those legends evolved over time. Then we’ll compare and contrast the legends with the progression of the vampire novel. The theme will be ‘The Curse of the Vampire.’”
    “You’re not cursed. You’re special.”
    “I’m very special.”
    “I’m serious, James.”
    “So am I. The earliest folktales from Eastern Europe say vampires were cursed by Satan to outwit death. Perhaps they’re right.”
    “You have nothing to do with Satan.” Sarah slapped her hand in the air, dismissing the Devil himself. “I don’t believe in Satan. And I don’t believe hell is a pit in the center of the earth. I don’t believe in Dante’s Inferno or that Bosch triptych with Adam and Eve and the Garden of Eden on one side and