Angelika Frankenstein Makes Her Match(14)

“You aren’t finding yourself a husband,” Angelika reminded him dourly.

Victor grinned. “She then asks them very creative questions from a prepared sheet. They do not accept a second cup of tea.”

“I’ll take a second one,” Will said charitably, extending his cup.

Victor poured, and spilled. “She’s too focused on the end result of her love experiment. As a scientist, I tell her that unexpected things happen all the time. She’ll find her match. Frankensteins always do.” He considered Will at length. “Besides, she’s the only one I trust to be my assistant, and she does everything to my exact requirements.”

Will nodded. “I gathered that firsthand.”

They set about eating and chewing, like two relaxed friends. Angelika decided to wait by the window until her red face faded.

“How are you feeling?” Victor asked Will.

“Like I’ve been drinking spirits. I have a headache. I’m cold now, though your sister kept me warm all night.” Will said that last bit with a slice of humor. “I should tell you, I couldn’t keep her out of my bed.”

“My bed,” she corrected him, smiling.

“Of course,” he replied, sinking down lower into his seat. His countenance changed in an instant. “I believe there is no room for me in this house.”

“Mary is making up the room across the hall from mine, like we talked about. That shall be yours.” Angelika saw how he only relaxed when Victor nodded his assent. The man had a sparkle of sweat on his brow now. “We would not bring you into our home if you were not very much welcome.”

“I am grateful for such hospitality,” Will replied in a faint tone. So, this was a person who required his own guaranteed personal space? Angelika really should have slept across the hall last night, but the bed across the hall was unmade, cold, and had a bear costume on it. She’d slipped in on the edge of the mattress and stacked pillows between them to allow him some dignity.

They’d woken up wrapped in each other, the pillows thrown to the floor, her cheek tucked perfectly on his beefy shoulder. She’d looked up. Eye contact occurred next. Her nightdress had ridden up at some point, and her thigh was across his. His cock was harder than iron.

They’d rolled violently apart.

Like he was reliving the same memory, Will said to Victor in a whisper, “You’re a doctor, correct? There’s something wrong with my . . . It’s private.” He put his napkin back across his lap.

“Jelly installed that for you, so you’d best ask her what she did.” Victor lolled back in his chair, cackling. “We are scientists, not doctors. I must say, I’m glad you’re here. It’s nice to have a new person to chat to. I’m glad you’re not screaming through the forest.”

Will laughed, too. “Angelika made a strong argument against it. I’ve got nothing. Not even my memory. I’m afraid I will need to rely on your generosity until I have my strength enough to leave.”

“Leave?” Angelika was brought back to the table by this. “Where are you going?”

“To find my old life,” Will replied. “When I see where I’m from, my memories will come back.”

Angelika was aghast. “I forbid it. Here, try some ham.”

Will recoiled at the slice of meat she forked onto his plate. “I cannot stomach it.”

“Only yesterday he was like meat,” Victor reminded his sister. “And it is his decision to make if he wants to leave us. Let’s try to find some clues about you. You speak like you are educated. Here, what do you make of this?” He rummaged in his clothing and then proffered a discolored and well-folded piece of parchment.

Will narrowed his eyes at it, then looked up. “You carry your last will and testament in your breast pocket?”

Victor snatched the page back. “Grand, you can read.”

“Perhaps I should have done the same,” Will said, looking at his hardly touched breakfast.

Victor replied, “You had not a pocket upon your person. So, we have deduced you may be a gentleman indeed. But finding you at a public morgue for commonfolk leaves a question mark.”

“I did not think you would be so interested in your past. Perhaps you could instead think of what the future might offer you?” Angelika looked around the dining room, seeing things through Will’s fresh gaze.

They sat underneath a sixteen-candle French chandelier, with fine glittering ropes of beads that might break under the weight of a dragonfly. When hosting guests, Angelika’s father, Alphonse, would often gesture upward and retell the delivery-day story. Eight people had walked thirty miles from the port of Bournemouth, carrying the chandelier’s crystals in baskets. They were too fragile to withstand the rattle of a carriage or cart. Angelika opened her mouth, ready to share this anecdote, and then closed it again, remembering Will’s concern over Mary carrying the heavy pails of bathwater.

She hardly knew him at all, but she thought Will probably would not like that story.

The dining room walls were stacked to the ceiling with frowning ancestral portraits. One painting of a great-great-uncle, nicknamed “Poor Plague Peter,” stood ajar on a hinge from the wall. Behind it there was an open safe box, glinting with gold in the morning sunlight, and it had not escaped Will’s notice. For a split second, Angelika felt fear.