Angelika grinned at that. “And I’m mad for him in return. Did you find new lodgings? I am sewing a few more pieces for my little beau, and I will personally deliver them to you.”
“That’s kind, thank you ever so much. He’s growing at a cracking pace.” Clara reluctantly tucked the money away. “And this will help the house-hunting cause. I may have to go back to my hometown. Here, the properties are of two qualities: pigpen or manor house. The village is no longer a safe place, either. Would you believe the women are afraid to go out past sunset? They say there is a monster in the trees.” Clara hesitated, and then added, “But I feel like you already know about that.”
This was why Victor kept them isolated for so long. The more people coming into this house, the greater the chance of exposure. Just as Angelika began to panic, Clara added, “I was making a joke. You and Victor lead such adventurous lives.”
Angelika changed the subject. “Should I speak with Christopher for you? Perhaps I have some influence to let you stay in your cottage.”
Christopher and Will were now talking by the carriage. She heard one of them laugh. No explosive fistfights today, then.
“Thank you, but no. It is only right that the cottage be turned over to a military family. I will find something soon.” Clara smiled faintly down at Edwin. “I never realized how fortunate I was until one day, everything changed.”
“Despite your hardships and loss, you are lucky right now. You have something money cannot buy.” Angelika kissed Edwin’s cheek goodbye, loving how he clasped her face in his moist little hands. “You have this angel. Aunt Angelika adores you, Winnie.”
Would this fatherless baby boy grow into a desperate teen, forced to break into manor homes to survive and support his mother? Her heart turned sorrowfully in her chest. How black and white her life had once been.
Clara still had her sad look. “Things change, and regret is forever. A mistake might hang on your wall and haunt you all your life.”
Angelika heard her warning but chose to answer cheerfully. “If you need some help looking at houses, I can accompany you to help forge a good deal. I’m quite a fearsome negotiator.”
The men heard Angelika’s boast as the ladies made their way to the carriage. “Look out,” Christopher joked. “What I wouldn’t pay to witness that conversation between Angelika Frankenstein and a landlord. It would be better than theater.”
“I can picture it myself,” Will said. “She’d be standing in the chicken coop inquiring after the servants’ quarters and croquet lawn.”
“Perhaps the carriage would have room to turn if the outdoor privy were relocated,” Christopher added in a mock-thoughtful tone.
Will pointed to a half-dead shrub. “This may be formed into the shape of a swan, with a little skill.”
Clara decided to try. “Is the upstairs of the cottage located elsewhere?”
“Ha, ha, aren’t you all just a hilarious group of people,” Angelika said as everybody roared heartily at her expense, even Edwin. “I’m so glad my haute bourgeois can be so amusing. You’ll see, Clara. I can be useful. I will say goodbye on behalf of Victor and Lizzie. It’s a shame she wasn’t here to enjoy this dramatic performance.”
“Where did they disappear to?” Clara asked, puzzled.
Will fielded that. “They are reading poetry.” Angelika scowled. Her brother was taking increasingly long “rest breaks” in between his searching of the surrounding forests and ravines. She made a mental note to push him harder on it.
Christopher took Angelika’s hand and kissed it. “Thank you for such a lovely cup of tea. Think about what I put to you.” The touch of his lips on her skin stirred the sparks between them. “Should you ever desire to read poetry with me, I am your willing servant. Here, Clara, let me take Edwin while you step in.”
He opened the carriage door and sat the baby on one forearm. Then he turned to let Angelika see how the future might look.
“A dirty military tactic,” Will told him.
“All’s fair,” Christopher replied.
“Good to know,” Will said. “See you the next time you can fit a visit up here into your busy schedule. Happy hunting, Commander.” They watched the carriage depart.
“You heard him, didn’t you? Asking me to kiss him?” She caught Will’s elbow, forcing him to turn.
“I did.” He was bland, and remembering his laughs with his rival sparked her temper. Imagine if Lizzie had been here to witness that quickly fizzling jealousy.
“How I’d like to see some goddamn fire from you.”
Will stopped. “What were you hoping for? A violent fight in a house that is not mine, with furniture smashed, and bones broken? In front of your guest, a very nice woman with a baby?”
She gritted her teeth. “No, of course not.”
“You want to be flattered.” Will’s eyes were sharp on hers. “You want to witness how badly two men want you. You would watch us bloody our fists, pretending to be offended. Typical Angelika, wanting to be adored by a lover beyond sense.”
The flippant words said to Clara hung in the air like mist. Who loves me best, do you think?
“I will begin to think you do not care for me. Show me! Fight for me in your own way!”
“You think I am not?” He took a few steps toward her. “It costs me dearly to deal with every moment of my new life. I take these types of feelings and I place them somewhere deep, where they cannot bubble out. I do this because otherwise they will kill me.”
“I did not realize—”
“I am not speaking figuratively, Angelika. I believe I have a limited amount of life force running through my veins. Everything costs me. I have to control myself more than you will ever know, and having your husband number five walking around this house, looking at you like he’d devour you whole, is draining me dry.”
She thought of his dizzy spell while gardening. “Have you talked to Victor?”
Will sneered. “Any ordinary man would thrash him for what he asks in the name of science, but of course, I am anything but ordinary. Or am I? And now I find myself in a romantic experiment, one I have apparently failed today, because I had the decency of controlling myself and trusting you to not be tempted by perfection incarnate.”
She was frustrated with his evasion. “Is your health growing worse? Answer me.”
“I grow tired of being a test subject. I can no longer endure it.”
“You didn’t answer the question.”
“And I shall not. I am going to the village, to continue trying to find out about myself. I am only disappointed at how little empathy you have shown for me. I hope you had a pleasant time today.” He turned and walked toward the stables.
Angelika was left behind to sit on the front stairs, alone.
*
Angelika had an apology burning in her chest, but because she could not cough it out, and nobody wanted to hear it, she went into the forest at sunset.
She took with her a basket of fruit, bread, a sausage, cheeses, and a knife. Over her shoulder she carried a waterskin, and her arm ached from the weight of a wool blanket. She went to the clearing where she had first found the huge, lost man.
As she was setting out her gift on a fallen log, she noticed something.
On the ground, where her body had disturbed the golden leaves, was a wilted bunch of flowers.
Chapter Twenty-Two
The duchess is asleep,” Victor said when Angelika entered the laboratory. “So do not clatter about.” He proceeded to clatter about himself, knocking over a dustpan, and Lizzie stirred in the armchair. The siblings stood frozen as she made a sleepy grumble, and then resumed her deep breaths. Her lips moved silently.
“She dreams she is performing to an audience,” Victor said with amusement. “Did you know she wants to build an amphitheater, to put on plays for the villagers? I suppose it would still work out cheaper than your soap habit.”
Angelika watched Victor put his eye back to his microscope. “What are you doing?”
In a tone he’d used since childhood, he replied: “Using—a—microscope—Jellybrain.”
She gritted her teeth. “For what?”
“See for yourself.” He usually made her try much harder to use his equipment. It felt like a trick, but Angelika stood up on tiptoe to look through the eyepiece.
“What am I looking at? Bacteria? Bile?” Another world was teeming on this glass slide. Angelika adjusted the view. “Some sort of lice?”
“Spermatozoa,” Victor replied. “A sample that Lizzie collected for me a few minutes ago. Say hello to your nieces and nephews.”
Angelika recoiled. “Chemicals to wash my eyeballs, I beg.”
The fact that he wasn’t laughing was a worry.
“Be more mature,” Victor chastised her. “I am only doing this for your benefit. This is selfless research.”
“Oh, certainly. Did Lizzie obtain the sample with a needle?”