Christopher wanted to know. “She died when you were young?”
“When I was thirteen, and Victor was sixteen. Papa was to bring a doctor to the house, because she had scarlet fever. Father Porter convinced him to pray for my mother’s soul instead. It did not work, of course, and Papa died of grief three months after her. There is nothing I despise more than a thief, and that is what I believe Father Porter is at heart. He stole that last chance to save her. And so that is why Victor and I do not attend on Sundays. We will not be taken for fools. Heathens and witches, yes. But not fools.”
“I have heard that he will be replaced soon. Hopefully by somebody younger and more progressive in their thinking.”
She snorted. “He was ancient when I was a child, so someone younger would not be difficult.”
“I’m sorry that happened. To lose your father to grief is especially tragic.” Christopher sounded like he was uncertain.
She shrugged. “It is part of the Frankenstein temperament. We are passionate people. When my beloved dies one day, I expect that I shall die, too.” She rode in silence for a few minutes.
If Henry Hoggett’s body had been sold to the morgue, as she deeply suspected, who else had the good father cashed in on? She would pull on this new thread for Will. “I’ve got to be a glutton for punishment,” she said out loud.
Christopher’s seat in the saddle had loosened considerably these last few miles, and Angelika thought she might be about to witness a rare crease upon his immaculate person. That must be why her eyes kept returning to him. It was an undeniable fact: he had wonderful thighs. Absolutely marvelous.
“Not much further now,” she said. “I can go on alone from here.”
“After the story you told me, about some oaf in your orchard, petting your hair? Not a chance.” His attention was completely on her. This had been the case from the time they sat down in the tavern, and the first and second ale mugs became the third and fourth. She’d gradually revealed more of herself to him; the parts that she knew were most unattractive.
Her habit of wearing trousers? He’d grinned.
Her interest in science? He’d asked her if she knew anything about chemistry. They’d discussed the various ways gunpowder could be unreliable, and the scientific papers she had read on the subject.
Her past suitors? Her impression of the elderly Swiss count had him crying in laughter.
And this is why I’m on the shelf, she’d concluded.
Some men can’t handle serious weaponry, Christopher had replied, and Angelika had no doubt he could. But as they turned through the manor gates and she guided Percy over the buried pressure plate to signal her approach home, new feelings began to rise up. She’d missed dinner and whilst Victor would be kissing Lizzie in a dark corner somewhere, Will was probably overwrought with nerves. He fretted over the recent disturbances in the village, and the types of people who came out after dusk.
She moved her horse’s pace up. “I’ve probably caused a bother at home. I should have sent a message. I can go on from here.”
“I’d like to meet your brother.”
Angelika arched an eyebrow. “Reeking of ale, with your shirt untucked?” She cackled when he reacted with violence, searching himself in vain, and then gave her a dirty look. “Calm yourself. I would wager my entire dowry that you don’t have a single horse hair on your trousers. Victor is a complete mess, you are forewarned.”
“I’ve heard enough of Victor to know he’s terribly informal, and I shall like him a lot. I may be tidy, but I don’t require others to be.”
Angelika thought with despair that Christopher was very, very, very handsome.
More than his outstanding personal presentation, he was fun, masculine, and had been warm to the barkeeper and kind to a beggar. He had an outdoorsy sun-kissed glow, nice teeth, and a smile that should make her pulse respond. He was technically ideal. Where had he been even a month ago? It suddenly felt absolutely imperative to guard and protect and fight for what she felt for Will, lest Christopher’s thighs weaken her resolve.
“May I ask a somewhat personal question?” Christopher carefully touched the back of her hand with his riding crop to get her attention. “Why did you cry when you held Clara’s baby?”
She asked his legs, “Did I?”
Gently: “You did.”
Angelika’s memory of the moment was being shocked that a baby could be so heavy. The child defied physics. He was like a wet sandbag on her forearm. Clara had shown her how to hold him, and as she and Christopher chatted by the fire—something about Clara’s cottage and how much time was left—Angelika absented herself to stare into the baby’s eyes for an age.
Life and possibility glowed in little Edwin. His skin was perfect and had a smell she liked. His sticky starfish hand pulled her hair. She found herself bobbing from one knee to the other, and when Clara proclaimed her a “natural,” it deeply flattered her, and embarrassed her speechless.
Her hollow insides ached.
It was that thing that Victor was always banging on about: natural science. A lever had been pulled. It was time. There was nothing connected to Will, or her hopes for a future with him, in this memory—it was just the feel of her heavy redheaded friend in her arms.
She needed to answer Christopher now. “I’d never held a baby before.” And she hadn’t wanted to hand him back. In fact, she had already planned in her mind the tartan cloak she would have made as a gift for him, of the softest lambs-wool. Perhaps a matching Scottish bonnet, topped with a pom-pom—wouldn’t that look sweet, set upon his head? Angelika thought about the endless outfits a baby would need for the ever-changing seasons, just extravagant spoiling, for years on end. The finest fabrics and the loveliest colors. Corduroy dungarees with a patch pocket on the chest, in russet tones for autumn—
Cutting into the daydream, Christopher asked, “Do you wish for your own child?”
Angelika contemplated kicking Percy into a gallop in lieu of a reply. But she found herself saying instead, “I think I’ve just realized that I should absolutely love one. But I’ve been a bit disorganized on that front,” she reminded him.
But he did not smile, and confided in return, “I have long given up on starting a family. I am rotated to a new post every two years to train recruits. It’s hard to find someone adventurous who would want to start over in a new town, possibly abroad, again and again. I’m told I am intimidatingly well-ironed, which people mistake for a lack of humor. Also, I am thirty-seven.” He admitted his age as though he were an elderly man.
“You don’t look too old to me.”
“Neither do you.”
They regarded each other with curiosity. Then Christopher’s eyebrow raised and they both howled with inexplicable drunk laughter, causing the horses to shy. When they finally arrived at the front stairs of Blackthorne Manor, the first thing Angelika noticed was that the house had had a haircut.
“Something’s been happening out here,” she said, squinting at the visible porch railings. There were leaves on the ground and some sacks filled with greenery. “I think someone’s been gardening.” She felt conscious of the old house’s appearance. “It was so grand, once upon a time. These days, it just looks miserable.”
Christopher was charitable. “It looks grand to me.”
“Not in daylight.” It was a black brick gothic mansion, three stories, plus basement and attic. It had arched windows, and the thick glass panes shone iridescent, like soap bubbles. Now that the choke hold of ivy and creeping roses had been loosened, the gargoyles might be visible again.
“Must be twenty-five rooms, at least,” Christopher said. He had been counting windows and doing his sums.
“And every one of them is stacked up to the ceiling in curios and inventions. Believe me when I say I barely have enough room to store a new hatbox. The barn to that side has been converted into Victor’s laboratory. Stables, orchard, and so on.” She waved in the direction of the dark. “The forest is the stuff of nightmares. Who has been working out here?” she asked herself again. “The ground is covered in petals.”
The next odd thing happened when a teenage lad appeared from the side of the house and grasped her reins as she dismounted. “I’m your new stablehand, Jacob. How do you do, Miss Frankenstein?” His voice was thin from nerves.
She shook his hand firmly. “Hello. Who hired you?” Angelika could not imagine Victor being bothered. He usually left the horses free to roam.
“Sir Black did. Is this Percy?” The lad produced a carrot from his pocket. He barely spared Angelika another glance.