Angelika Frankenstein Makes Her Match(16)
Chapter Five
Mary, where are my nightgowns?” Angelika asked the old woman on the upstairs landing. She held up a fistful of slippery silk. “These aren’t what I wear.”
Mary performed a slow, blinking grimace. “Mightn’t hurt to try.”
“Are you trying to wink at me?”
“For a week you’ve passed him on the way to bed, flannel nightgown buttoned up to your ears.” Mary boomed it so loudly the entire house could hear. “These were your mother’s negligees. I brought them up from the basement, to see if they’ll move things along. I’ll have you married yet,” she said like a threat.
In her gilt frame, Caroline Frankenstein agreed with this new plan.
“He won’t notice or care.” She grimaced, imagining Mary in the black, dusty basement, then realized it was probably the first time she’d worried for the old woman. Mary had always seemed so capable. Angelika used her best mistress voice. “With Lizzie no doubt arriving soon, and Will joining us for as long as he’s able, we need to hire you a chambermaid to supervise. We also need a footman, a cook, a stablehand, a groundsman—”
“Slow yourself,” Mary said, but she was not displeased. “Maybe a maid would ease the load. Someone young to run up and down stairs. I could ask my older sister, who runs the boardinghouse, if she knows of anyone suitable who could be trusted to be discreet.”
“An older sister?” Angelika echoed in horror, reflecting on how positively ancient she must be. “I didn’t even know you had a sister.”
“You never asked,” Mary said, but she was smiling as she gestured to the silk nightgown. “Now, slink about in that, be a good lass.”
Angelika shook her head as Will’s door opened at the end of the hallway. “Please, Mary.” Too late. The old woman had walked off.
“What’s happening?” Will asked as he approached. He was in his nightclothes and an embroidered burgundy robe, his hair towel-dried and ruffled attractively. He smelled like citrus soap.
Angelika sighed. “Mary has decided to stock my drawers with only negligees in the hopes I could pique your interest. Utter nonsense.”
“Very sly,” Will agreed mildly, barely glancing at the silk she’d awkwardly hung on the stair rail. He’d overcome his spontaneous erection issues, because he stood easy in her presence. “Whoever furnished my closet did very well, thank you.”
His praise was deeply gratifying. “It was me, of course. Victor doesn’t buy his own clothes unless I drag him to the tailor. When Lizzie finally marries him, I’ll have one less wardrobe to worry about.” Her glum tone betrayed her. “Where is he?”
“He’s putting his horse away.”
“All of this endless searching. He will make himself sick.”
“You’d leave me out there?” Will asked.
“Of course not.” She could not resist folding down the lapel of his robe. “I would not come home until I had you.”
She’d loved the task of shopping for Will and had spent half a day choosing shirt materials alone. She had paid handsomely for seamstresses to work night and day. It had felt like a wifely duty, and she’d pretended thus to the clerk, even as the thought followed her around the shop: A lovely man like this is likely already married.
He was an outstanding houseguest: unobtrusive, polite, and tidy. Any casual observer would believe him to be an old family friend. He turned every conversation deftly back to his companion. The way he listened was intoxicating. Victor had already declared him as the finest fellow I ever met, because he now had a captive audience.
Angelika smiled at him. “You will have to come to town, to be measured for your winter wardrobe.”
“I won’t be here by then.” Will hesitated, and then said, “I still think I understand this situation incorrectly. Your part in all this, and why you . . . made me. It makes no sense. I can’t sleep for thinking about it.”
“I wanted my own project, to prove my skill to Victor, to make history, and to assist humanity—” She broke off when Will raised a doubting eyebrow. “And should he be a handsome man, even better. I like beautiful things, and trust me, you are everything I like best. But in terms of your use, I had no designs. I just thought that—”
“Please, speak plainly,” Will cut in. “To not hate you for doing this to me, I need to understand.”
“Hate?” But she did deserve it. “What have I done to you?”
“The pain is hard to bear. Imagine a wooden stake,” he said, touching a finger to her shoulder joint, “pressed deep here, and here”—he touched her elbow—“here, here, here”—wrist and two knuckles. “I feel every bend and every joint. Every movement is an agony, and I’m very cold.”
She ignored the pleasure she took from his fingertip. “Would you like more laudanum?”
“I should work to become accustomed to this, or I might drink the bottle daily. Please, just let me understand why, Angelika.” He allowed her to take his hand and watched as she began massaging it. The soft leather of his palm was familiar to her now, and his cold fingers uncurled as she worked with her thumbs, pushing, loosening.
Grateful for the busy task, she said to his hand, “I made you the way you are, so ideal to me in every way, because I thought you might be here awhile, recuperating, and we might form a connection. The last suitor to call was over a year ago, and Victor is no longer helping me. Time is marching on, and I found a wrinkle by my eye here—” She showed him, but he smiled, like she was charming. “And time drips by, slow as treacle, up here on this hill.”