“Not at all. Heaven and hell aren’t very scientific.” She watched as his expression darkened into a scowl. “Is that offensive to you?”
He sighed, and his face smoothed out. “I don’t know what to be offended about. The only thing I know is what you look like. I can’t even remember my own face.”
This brought Angelika out from hiding. “I will fetch you a looking glass later. Trust me when I say you are extremely handsome. I will add more salts to your water. Does it sting?”
“Like you can’t believe,” he replied, eyes on her face, before breaking away to survey her nightdress in one quick slide, shoulders to toes. He was barely submerged now, and he had a relieving pinkish hue to his lips. “It was true. I smelled like death.”
Angelika laughed in surprise, wiping her wet eyelashes, and he mustered his first-ever smile. It was a lovely thing. His teeth were even better than she remembered.
“Choose a name, until you can recall your own,” she encouraged him, pulling her stool nearer his head. “I shall wash your hair.”
“Thank you,” the man said as she began to work suds onto his scalp. “I really don’t know how I’ve gone from the morgue to this moment. My name,” he pondered, eyes drooping closed as she began to massage. “List a few, and maybe I’ll remember mine.”
“George. Charlie. John. David. Francis. Edward. Liam. Ted. Hubert. Howard. Hugh. Horatio.”
“Enough H names, that is not it,” he ordered her gruffly, but telltale smile lines were by his eyes.
Angelika remembered the ring he had worn in the morgue. Was it still on the hand of the nude creation currently howling across the moors? It might hold a clue to his identity.
“More names?” he prompted on a sigh.
“Albert. Lawrence. Edgar. Chester.”
“Chester? Do I look like a Chester?” His mouth still had a faint amused lift, and Angelika’s heart fluttered and resettled in her chest.
“You look like a man who could be anyone he wanted to be.”
Mary returned presently with more water. She was badly exerted by now, wheezing and coughing, her face glowing with sweat. When she put the pails down, she could not restraighten her back. It alarmed both Angelika and her guest.
“Sit down, Mary,” Angelika said, at the same time as he said, “Be easy, please.”
“Pour it in yourself. I’m going back to bed. Remembered your name yet, son?” Mary narrowed her eyes over him. “What about William? That was my husband’s name. He can be Willy, or Will.”
Angelika was surprised. “I didn’t know that you were married once.”
“You never asked, missy.”
Angelika thought back to his body on the slab, to the defiance in him even then. “I think Will would suit him perfectly. He has shown me what a strong will he has. What do you think?”
The man was turning the name over in his mind. “Will. Yes, that will do, until I get my memory back. Thank you, Mary. You’ve saved my life tonight, too.”
“Breakfast is at seven,” Mary replied, but his praise had her smiling. “No funny business in here, understand?” She cast a suspicious look at the man, then, looking to Angelika, she mouthed a familiar phrase: No hesitation, no politeness, run.
It was an old code between them. It hardly looked like this man would attempt to overpower her. “Thank you, Mary, I remember well. Good night,” Angelika croaked at the old woman’s departing form, her face burning with humiliation.
Will’s eyebrow moved. “I’m sure that’s not what you resurrected me for. I would not be so vain as to presume.” Angelika shut him up with an entire bucket of water on his head. Spluttering, he wiped his hair back. “Where are your other staff? It hurts to watch her struggle.”
“It’s only her. We require a great deal of privacy.” At his incredulous look, she amended quickly, “But I will hire more if it pleases you. How do you feel?”
“I think I am all right. Very tired, but the pain is less.”
“I will give you some laudanum and tuck you in, my love.” She went to fetch a towel. Behind her, he stood up out of the water.
“No point in being shy, I suppose,” he said to her back. “You’ve seen it all before. You put a lot of thought into my body.”
He wasn’t being flirtatious. When she turned, he was bent over and admiring the stitch line on his abdomen. The ever-present erection pointed cheerfully in her direction. “Whoever owned this penis was positively mad over you.”
“I hope it wasn’t Victor’s naked friend,” she said, making him laugh. “I didn’t know that the different parts would have different feelings. Maybe they are retaining the memories of their owners.”
“My old body was mangled, you said?”
Victor’s rules on a reanimation to exceed Schneider’s benchmark now seemed like a petty reason to dismember Will’s original slim, tidy frame. But she couldn’t tell his expectant face that. “Try not to think about it.”
“But I need to know why you’ve done this. Please tell me, or I will not be able to sleep.” He wrapped the proffered towel around his waist, and a yawn cracked his jaw. “I shall sleep on the floor.”
“You can sleep in my bed; it’s very warm. You must recuperate.” Angelika ignored his shocked expression and left to look for some nightclothes in Victor’s room. In truth, she had shocked herself at her forwardness.
In her well-worn fantasies, it would have been love at first sight, and he would have been laying her down in the coverlets for a night of exploratory passion, and Mary would have definitely been soaking a virginity stain in the morning. How had she been so cavalier about it all, and so optimistic?
She found some fresh nightclothes in her brother’s chest of drawers. “Here,” she said when she returned. “Dress yourself if you can manage.” He disappeared behind the screen, and she allowed him his privacy to dry and dress.
She turned back the bedcovers, and he wordlessly climbed in, letting out a throaty groan that made her thighs quiver. Angelika gave him some drops of laudanum, and he shuddered at the taste as he sank deeper into the pillows.
“Here, look,” she said, raising her silver hand mirror so he could see himself. “Don’t you agree that you are very handsome?”
As he regarded himself, the drug unfurled inside him and his eyes went hazy.
“I don’t believe I am as handsome as you think.”
“I have seen every sort of man there is,” she said, remembering the thousands of cursory assessments she had made in every crowd. “Your face is my favorite.”
“I can say honestly,” he said, exhaling slowly, “yours is my favorite, too.”
Angelika finally understood the term bittersweet. “That’s because you don’t know anyone else.”
“But look at you,” he said huskily. “When I opened my eyes, I thought I was in heaven.”
With effort, she resisted the urge to ask him to elaborate. “Sleep well.”
“I permit you to sleep next to me, but I should warn you . . .” He trailed off, lost the thought, and his eyes closed. Then they opened again, with a startling intensity in them. “I’ll tell you now, before I forget. You’ve seen all of me. I want to know your body in return. I’d touch you everywhere. I want to pick you up, to feel your weight. I want to test my body.” His eyelids fluttered almost closed to slits. “Of course, I will resist. Lean down, closer. Closer. I will not bite.”
She did, reeling from this sensual confession. It would take only one upward pull of linen for her to be naked. Was this to be her first kiss? He only tilted his face into her neck, inhaling her skin. He held that breath, before exhaling hot air into her nightdress.
“May I ask for something?”
“Of course,” Angelika said, a little afraid, her heart throbbing in her throat.
“Could you help my hands? They are in such pain.”
“Have you a cramp?” She took one of his in both of hers, and the size of it stunned her afresh. All she could think was: He could easily pick me up, and where would he hold first? Flushing, she massaged his wire-tight hands, applying herself to the task so diligently he smiled.
“Why did you bring me back? Are you sure we were not in love?” He fought to keep his eyes on hers as the opiate dragged him under. “The way you care for me, and look at me, I think we were. I’m sorry that I do not remember.”
“We were not in love,” Angelika told him as he sank into sleep’s black hold. “But I wish we would be.”
Chapter Four
Victor limped into the dining room. He was filthy and still wearing only one boot. “Good morning,” he said to Angelika and Will, who were partway through their porridge. “Mary says we are to call you Will. Nice to meet you. I haven’t been up this early since I was a boy.”
“It’s true,” Angelika said to Will. “I have breakfast alone. And sometimes lunch.”
“I work late,” Victor defended himself. “And what a wild night that was.”