Everyone was in the room: Lizzie on the edge of the mattress, Victor on the sill, Will leaning a forearm on the mantel. Belladonna’s piglet was asleep by the hearth. “I’m all right,” Angelika said at one point, causing them all to start in surprise, but their simultaneous movements and questions were too much and she fell back under the oily black pall.
When she woke again, she called for Mary—surely one of her divine cool compresses would make her recover—but she did not come, and Angelika felt hopeless. It was painfully obvious to her now as she lay back shivering. Mary was, for all intents and purposes, her grandmother, and Angelika felt her absence as keenly as grief. The memories and fragments she dredged up were all miscolored: running to Mary’s open arms as a wobbly tot, being carried and fed, being tucked in too tight, and all the while, Mary despised her?
“Don’t cry,” Lizzie said.
“Tell her I understand why she hates me, and it’s all right,” Angelika insisted to Victor, before vomiting into a bowl on Lizzie’s lap.
It was an endless night. The worst night. But like anything terrible, there were a few bright spots if one knew where to look.
Will took a turn on the mattress edge, and he read to her from his book of plants. Surely heaven would feel like this, his hand occasionally stroking her arm and his soft whisper alternating between French and Latin. She knew he was probably telling her a list of fungi, but she could believe he was saying anything she wished, as long as she lay with her hurt head on his pillow.
“Is that one of the bigger toadstools?” She tried to make conversation. “Or is it one of the smaller varieties?”
“Come and get me if she wakes,” Victor said to Will, hoisting up a snuffling, sleepy Lizzie in his arms. “If she’s still rambling about mushrooms in the morning, I shall send for a doctor. I’m going back out into the forest to search for him. Not now, Belladonna. Shoo.”
“Take him some food, he’s starving,” Angelika urged. She lay back down and dozed.
Before dawn, Will asked in the silent room, “What possessed you?”
“Your ring,” Angelika replied.
“You were planning on marching down there, to that big wild man, and taking it from his hand?”
“Yes.”
Will let out a huff of disbelief. “What is it like, moving through the world with the confidence of an empress?”
“It’s nice.” She looked around the room with her eyes only opened to slits. “What’s it like, living as a pauper?”
He echoed back, “It’s nice. You really would do anything for me, wouldn’t you?”
“I will prove it, again and again. Why aren’t I in my own room?”
Will hesitated for a few moments. “I was half out of my mind with worry. I . . .” He looked sideways, wincing at a memory. “Victor could barely get a hand on you. I gathered you up from the ground and was growling and guarding you like an animal. I brought you here.”
“You don’t lose control often. I wish I’d been conscious,” she said teasingly, but he remained serious.
“I was no more civilized than that giant beast. You must never do that again.”
“But—”
“Do you understand me?” He was kneeling by the bed now, his lips moving on the back of her hand. “Not for that ring, not for me. Never. You could have been killed. He flung you like a doll. There was a rock on the ground beside you. Six inches was the difference between you lying in my bed rambling about toadstools and you lying on a slab in that nightmare morgue.”
“Victor would have brought me back.”
“Not with a rock clean through your skull. What if he had sought to take vengeance on Victor? Men do terrible things to women. He could have taken you deeper into the woods and . . . hurt you. I could not survive it.”
Mary’s old advice ran through Angelika’s mind: No hesitation, no politeness, run.
He was shaking as he kissed her hand and then began speaking. Latin became English, and it was crystal clear: he was praying. They were words from her childhood; he was asking the Lord to keep her safe, to watch over her and keep her.
On Frankenstein ground, it was absolute sacrilege. Lucky Victor wasn’t here.
Will didn’t even seem aware of what he was doing; a long-held script from his past life was being recited. A devout husband could prove to be a very big problem.
“You shouldn’t do that.” She eased her hand away. “How did you find me?”
“I was walking down to invite you to dine with me. My cottage is finished now, as you see,” Will explained shyly. “I saw you from across the orchard, fleeing the laboratory. Then you stopped in the most peculiar way and waved like a child, but not at me. The way you walked toward the forest made the hairs on my body stand on end. I ran for you.”
She remembered the tenuous moment with the stranger, and their shouts ruining it.
“And now we’ve lost him. I wish you’d just let me deal with it by myself.”
He heard her grouchy tone and smoothed her hair back. “I will never leave you to deal with things by yourself. When you face monsters, I want to be with you. I’m sorry I wasn’t there to catch you.”
“He isn’t a monster. He is lost, and suffering, and oh, his poor feet. I’m sure his hands don’t work properly. He needs me to massage them. We need to find him and help him. I feel like I can never be comfortable again, knowing that he is out there, and Sarah has a cold room, and Mary bends in half underneath the eaves to not hit her head.”
“Empathy has found you later in life, and I think life’s cruelties will burden you more than most. What happened with Mary?”
“I suggested that she consider retiring. She took it badly.” Angelika looked around the cottage again. Could the other four vacant cottages be made this lovely with some hard work? “How do you feel about having an irritable old neighbor?” She thought about the people in her employ. “Add Sarah, so two neighbors? Or three, if Jacob wants to live closer to the horses? Four, if we persuade Victor’s big friend to stay?”
“Now there’s my Angelika.” Will was deeply pleased with her. “Generosity is the garment that suits you best.”
“Jacob apologized to me when we first met. I didn’t understand what he meant.” Angelika closed her eyes and the truth came to her, knowing Will as she did. “He’s the boy from that night, isn’t he? The thieves in the house. He’s the one you scolded and let go.”
“Yes.”
Her past self would have been furious. She would have run to the stables, to check her valuable horse, and to order the thief to never set foot on her land again. But now, she just nodded her head. “Fine.”
“His family has not been able to survive—”
“It’s fine. I forgive him. I’m sorry things are bad for him.”
He pressed a kiss to her temple. “Feeling sorry is one thing, but being practical is the better solution, in view of his family’s poverty. He is paid handsomely to muck out the stalls and untangle Solomon’s tail.”
“You did well.” She stretched against him. “Is my invitation to dinner still current?”
“Let’s wait until your eyes are not big strange stars.” He was quiet for a while.
They were interrupted by a distant howl. Animal or man, they could not ascertain.
“That poor man. His arm was absolutely ice cold.” Angelika put her hand on Will’s wrist to demonstrate what she meant, then recoiled, and patted him all over. “You’re rather chilly, too.”
She searched his face intently, relieved to note his skin still retained its healthy glow.
“It is very cold. The window is open.” He pulled the blankets more snugly to her chin. “What was wrong with the man’s hands? You said they don’t work.”
“It looked like he had no ability to make a fist or use his hands properly. He had trouble picking up an apple. Are you worried the same will happen to you?”
“It’s natural to worry about the future.” He allowed Angelika to gather his hand into hers. The rubbing massage was a ritual now between them, and she needed the contact just as much as he.
She kissed each cool knuckle. “Can you feel this?”
He continued his thought with a small smile. “When you have stepped outside of the natural progression of things, as I have, every day is a blessing, and each night a terror. I’m glad you’re here. The hours before dawn are the hardest for me.”
“I didn’t know that. I will stay all night.”
“I’ve always thought it would be difficult to get you out of my bed.” He curled her against him. “I will remain above the blanket, of course, to maintain propriety, in this race to win Angelika Frankenstein’s heart.”
“You already won it,” she told him, tired now. “It is my turn to win yours. Besides, I don’t think Christopher is still in the running. He’s forgotten me.”
“You’re wrong about that. Some men would be repelled by this type of competition. He is invigorated by it. He’s out tearing up the countryside, hunting for my shadow. He will want you more than ever before.”
“I’m not sure you’re right.”
“No one could forget you. Besides, Victor sent word of your ordeal to Christopher, in case he required the academy’s doctor. I think you will be receiving a visit soon.”
“I wasn’t talking about toadstools that long, was I?”
“A very long time. And you thought you were speaking Latin,” he said.
They lay together, holding hands, utterly respectable and chaste, until the sun came up and it was time for her to leave.