Angelika Frankenstein Makes Her Match(42)

Victor said, “I shall send an invitation to you shortly.”

“I should be delighted,” Christopher said, but his eyes were on Will. “I’d enjoy the chance to get to know you all much better.”





Chapter Thirteen


Shortly after Christopher’s exit, Will had stalked off into the dark, telling Angelika only: “Don’t.”

An afternoon spent drinking had loosened the cork on her emotions, and she desperately needed an ear, but Victor’s bedroom door was closed. Angelika knocked and called softly, “Lizzie?”

“Fuck off, Jelly!” Victor yelled breathlessly from within. “I am showing Lizzie something very, very, very important.”

“Disgusting,” Angelika replied, then cried at various points of the hallway: slumped on the railing, at the top of the stairs, then underneath her mother’s portrait. Receiving absolutely no sympathy there, she slithered snail-like on her trail of salt water to rest against Will’s doorjamb.

The thought of Lizzie becoming mistress of Blackthorne Manor did not specifically bother Angelika. She had no great affection for this house and had spent too much time in it. But Larkspur Lodge was like a forgotten sapphire in a drawer, and the prospect of losing it, even to someone she loved, pricked at her heart.

She thought: Please, Lizzie, if I could have anything, it would be Larkspur.

After more cathartic tears and a cold soapy rinse of her more urgent areas, and once she’d picked the numerous leaves out of her hair (Victor had been right as usual; how terrible), she remembered she was on Will Watch tonight. Given that he was now prone to walking all over the house and his penchant for books, she had earlier volunteered to sleep downstairs in the library.

“He will avoid me, even in sleep,” she said to herself, dressing in one of her mother’s silk gowns, plus a robe and slippers. “Poor Angelika, sleeping on the lumpy chaise,” she grumbled as she went downstairs, dragging a blanket and pillow. “Poor Angelika, after the day I’ve had—”

She was startled by a dark shadow at the foot of the stairs.

“Oh, it’s you,” she said when she recognized the silhouette.

“It is I, your brother’s colleague. Did I hear you correctly just now? Poor Angelika?” Will’s tone was plain: he thought her ridiculous. She passed without a word, the blanket sweeping across his feet like a bridal veil.

He followed. “Poor Angelika? Don’t make me laugh.”

“You’ve finally come to ask me if you are a married man. I’m amazed you’ve restrained yourself this much.” She went into the library and began to make her bed. “Well, go on, then. Ask me if you have a wife called Clara.”

Will closed the door, then added fuel to the dying fire. “That’s not at the top of the list.”

Angelika sat on the chaise and crossed her legs. “Ask your burning question, then.”

He turned his face to her. “How do you expect me to sit through a dinner with him looking at you like that?”

For the first time, Angelika felt afraid of him. She had no idea who he really was, and right now, he had fire in his black eyes. His hair curled into horns. He was demonic, and it was a further contrast to Christopher’s angelic blondness. But he had the gall to ask her this, when he was actively trying to return to his original life?

“Victor hates formal affairs. Knowing him, we’ll end up eating sausages in the garden, sitting on apple crates.” The next reflexive thought surprised her: What would Christopher make of that?

Will read her mind, and his stare was blade sharp. “Poor Angelika. The woman who always has a ready replacement.”

“Poor old Will, lounging around in a manor house. You don’t even care how I might be feeling today after what I’ve uncovered.”

He put a hand into his hair, raked it into a more civilized shape, and turned on her. “Yes. Poor Will, or whoever I am. Dragged back from hell to have to sit through a dinner and watch you be slowly seduced by that flawless man.”

“I will make your excuses.”

“Imagine how I’ve felt as the day wore on and you did not return. But you’ve had a fine afternoon, haven’t you? I could hear you screeching with laughter long before your arrival. Christopher Keatings must be a funny fellow.”

“He is.” (And she’d drunk a lot.) “Come and kiss me until you do not feel angry anymore.”

“Believe me, it is my first impulse. You’re fortunate I didn’t pick you up over my shoulder off the front stairs. But I didn’t want to give you the satisfaction.” Will braced a forearm on the mantel and stared into the fire. “When I heard you laughing in the distance, my first thought was that you had not met my wife today.”

“So, what actually happened was—”

He continued, speaking over her. “Then a new thought occurred. After confirming she is my wife, you had a half hour of hurt feelings. Then you decided to move on with your next option.”

“I will tell you everything. Clara Hoggett is—”

Again, he stopped her. “Just let me be yours awhile longer.”

The anger blew out of the room like smoke, leaving them both in tired silence.

When she’d found him on the morgue slab, he’d still had fight in his brown eyes. When she’d dragged him naked up the staircase, he’d declared that he might be dying but still had that stubborn tightness in his jaw. Tonight, staring into the fire, he looked utterly defeated. Unbreathing, and unblinking.