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** Actually digging through the novel, about the worst you could say is that it has a minor element of fear of sexuality, full stop. The "Brides" and Vampire Lucy are described in somewhat sexual terms and repellent because of it, but the horror is more that they're monsters out to drain life and spread disease (Lucy's slow wasting away as Dracula keeps feeding on her and the attempts to treat her fail is much more like watching anyone with a terminal illness slowly die than anything to do with sex). Vampire Lucy isn't horrific because she's taken ownership of her sexuality, she's horrific because she uses all the tools at her disposal -- including beauty and sexuality -- to draw in people to consume, kill, and spread her affliction. The Weird Sisters aren't scary because they're hot chicks but Jonathan is too British to enjoy their interest, they're scary because they want to drink his blood and kill him. Even applying the sexuality metaphor to vampirism -- which the narrative itself seems to dismiss at least once -- Lucy and the Sisters are "sexual" in the same way Dracula is: rapists, forcing their advances on others by disregarding or actively suppressing their consent. This is vilified, because it '''should''' be, rape is not sexy. And the actual text of the novel has very little support for sexual metaphors to begin with. Much of the discussion of the sexual politics of ''Dracula'' is based on the adaptations, not the original novel.
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** This is actually addressed in the novel. Dracula says it makes little sense, especially since he wants to hire locals for other interests, but gives his reason for going with an Exeter firm to buy property in London as not wanting a local Londoner letting their local Londoner interests get into the Count's business (say, by pushing a property in an area where the solicitor's brother's moving company, bother-in-law's construction company, and cousin's shop would all be on hand to see to the Count's needs... and take his money). How sincere this reason is is up for debate, but over the course of this discussion, Jonathan notes that the business arrangement Dracula wants is one common among those "who don't want all their business known by any one person." Basically, Dracula wanted different groups and companies involved so no one person had access to all the information that would reveal his scheme.
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* Or he's straight up lying. "Oh, shit, she doesn't look like a bloodsucking demon, she's ''hot!'' Uh. . . she was an innocent girl, so still looks that way, even though she's a foul beast! Yeah, that's it..."
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** He may have also been concerned at local investigators disrupting his boxes. Spilling a crate of dirt is no big loss, spilling the crate Dracula happens to be in at the time would a bigger problem.
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* It's implied that one of the reasons Dracula wants to move is because the locals are too savvy about vampires and feeding opportunities are steadily dwindling. Dracula may barely be scraping by, and thus can't maintain his youth as effectively. Once in London, surrounded by warm, vital people who neither know about nor believe in vampires, he get a lot more blood much more easily, and get his youth back. The Sisters are a sticking point, but perhaps they're "younger" or less powerful, so "spend" less blood on supernatural strength and so have "more" to maintain youth and beauty. But it seems like even they're just barely getting enough to survive. Or perhaps the inverse is true: Dracula is more powerful than the Sisters, surviving on an amount of blood that leaves him looking old and withered, but would result in them starving to death (if vampires can starve to death).
