Angelika Frankenstein Makes Her Match(8)

“That’s my brother. Pardon me, Victor,” Angelika called from the window.

“I’m busy!”

“Mine worked, too.”

Victor’s head whipped around in shock. His creation took advantage of his broken attention, untangled himself, and fled, pursued by the pig.

Victor roared unintelligibly. He was soaked and exhausted, with one boot missing.

“He’s alive and talking.” She pointed at the man at her side. “Let yours go, you’ll never stop him. Come back inside.”

Victor couldn’t accept this. “He might hurt himself.” He took off running into the night.

The man looked down at Angelika. “What did you mean, yours worked, too?” He was shaking badly with cold, his skin still an unhealthy hue. “Am I like that giant . . . thing? What did you do to me?”

“He’s not a thing, he’s a guest, just like you. I told you what I did. I saved your life. Come away now.” This time when she took his elbow, he allowed her to lead him back into the relative warmth of the room. “I’ll ask our servant to light us a fire and heat some water.”

She pulled the lever marked MARY on the wall—another of Victor’s great inventions—but summoning her this late at night was dangerous. “Come up to the house with me. Here, let me find you something to wear,” she said, cursing her lack of organization. “Wrap this around yourself.”

She passed him a long muslin cloth, and together they knotted it at his hip.

“I’m not going anywhere until you explain everything.” His teeth were audibly chattering. “It’s all a dream, nothing more. I’ve gone mad, that’s what this is. I’m in Bedlam. I’m in hell.”

“Everything is fine. You are in England. Blackthorne Manor is two miles outside Salisbury. I’ll explain everything when you’re in a nice warm bath.”

A distant bang could be heard. A gunshot? Worse: Mary slamming a door.

“But I have no memories. Was it an accident?” He was looking again at his arms, thumbing a line of healing stitches. “Is this a sanitorium? I’ve been in a long sleep?” He began to beg. “Please, my name. Tell me my name.”

“I don’t know it.”

A shadow darkened the room. It was Mary in her soaked nightgown, a scowl on her weatherworn face. Both Angelika and the man took a step backward.

Angelika recovered first, and said in her best mistress-of-the-manor voice: “Mary, my guest has arrived at last.”

Mary had seen too many unusual things in this household to be shocked. “Fourth time’s the charm,” she said snidely. “When’s the wedding?”

“Oh, Mary, what a joke,” Angelika replied, blanching under the man’s narrowing eyes. “We need hot water. Enough to fill two baths, at least.”

“Do you know how old I am?” Mary began, before remembering she was a servant. She left the room, shrieking an obscenity when she thought she was out of earshot.

“I’m worried about Victor,” Angelika said when the man would only stare at her. She went back to the window. “If you promise to stay in the bath, I might go out to help him.”

The man joined her and looked at the lawn where the violent scene had taken place. He then assessed the stormy sky, and his wet hand slid around her waist and tightened. To Angelika, it felt like a husbandly, possessive touch, telling her to stay inside and out of danger.

Just as the pleasure of the moment rang through her body, he seemed to notice what he had done, and reacted in surprise. He pushed her away hard enough that she bounced off the window frame, her cheek smarting from the impact.

“I’m sorry,” he blurted, his eyes darting. “I’m not this strong. My body isn’t my own.” To add to his humiliation, under the muslin cloth, his penis was growing erect. He looked at Angelika’s waist, her thighs in trousers, and the situation became more prominent. “I didn’t mean to push you. What is happening?”

The hotness in her cheekbone was a reminder of reality. This was nothing like her girlish daydreams, and she refused to lasso her creation as her brother did.

“It’s up to you if you come with me now, but life will be hard for you with no clothes or money or shelter. If the villagers see you like this, they’ll assume you’ve escaped an asylum and will beat you to death. If you come willingly, I will give you warmth, a bed, food, and answers.”

Silently she left the room, and he followed her.

As she crossed the lawn that separated the barn from the manor house, he was still behind her, limping and biting back groans. She felt his attention on the rear of her body acutely. Apart from the involuntary circulatory response from his new penis, there was no indication that he found her even remotely appealing.

Only she felt a connection, and it was a familiar situation.

If Angelika saw a man more than twice, and could somewhat guesstimate where and when she might see him again, she fell into rapturous infatuation. The baker’s pockmarked delivery boy had no idea that he starred in Miss Frankenstein’s most romantic fantasies; ditto the neighbor’s footman, the goatherd who used their back laneway, and, for a shameful time, Victor’s elderly bookbinder.

Angelika had a passionate heart, but as she walked through the dark foyer of the manor and up the left-hand curved staircase, it finally struck her how unromantic this was. Instead of being patient and letting fate decide, in typical Frankenstein fashion, she had been too proactive.