Chapter Three

Chapter Three

Angelika had rehearsed a welcome-back-to-life spiel three times before this, but everything was now forgotten. “Oh, goodness. Sir, you are gorgeous.”

“My arms feel strange.” He tried to rub his face on his shoulder. “Oh, the pain. What has happened to me?”

Angelika took a handkerchief from her trouser pocket. “Let me help.” She wiped his eyes clean, and when they opened and looked into hers, she could have sworn she felt another lightning strike. Star-fire was in her blood and bones. “You’re alive. I cannot believe it.”

The man winced and shifted, breaking the moment. He was busy getting his bearings, eyes wild and unfocused as he looked around the room and down at his own body. “Who are you? Where am I?”

“You died, but I brought you back. Well, my brother and I. I am your new . . .” She hesitated on the phrasing. Maker? Admirer? Friend? He was waiting for her explanation, so she went with: “. . . mistress, and my brother, Victor, is your master. You may live here with us now, as long as you like.”

“But where is here?” The man reached out for the edge of the chamber and froze at the sight of himself. “This isn’t me,” he said in a daze to his arm, and began to struggle, clumsy like Victor’s creation. “I’m all heavy and cold. It’s pain like I’ve never known, piercing right through me. And you won’t tell me where I am.”

“Blackthorne Manor. Well, the laboratory anyway, which used to be the barn.”

“That’s not as helpful as you seem to think,” he replied, and with a huge amount of placenta slopping over the edge, he hauled himself out of the chamber to stand beside Angelika, his muscles gleaming in the candlelight. She could not admire his body now. He shimmered with agony, and it made her sick to her stomach. She put a hand on his slimy elbow, but he shook it off irritably, looking instead to the window. He moved toward it with wincing, grunting determination, his ambulation stiff. Both of tonight’s creations seemed hell-bent on escaping.

“No, stay here, it’s raining,” Angelika shouted. She noted his exceptional backside in an abstract way as he leaned out the window. But he made no further move to climb out, and when she came closer, she saw he was observing Victor struggling on the lawn in the sheeting rain. Victor had managed to loop a rope around the huge man and was wrangling him as best he could with the loose end around a tree for leverage. In the shadows of the house, a lop-eared pig was observing the commotion.

“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.

“You’ve become rather quiet,” the man behind her said. She turned on the staircase and saw he was only on the second stair, struggling to raise each leg.

“It’s difficult?” She went to his side and put his arm around her shoulder. “I’ll help you. Lean on me.”

“I think I’m dying.” He was matter-of-fact about it. “I’m turning blue.” He resisted her help for as long as he could, but then grew heavier against her, until the remaining stairs seemed to Angelika to stretch upward like a mountain summit. Not once did he complain, and she was in awe of his sheer strength of will.

Now that they were pressed together, she could hear a wheeze in his lungs. I did this to him, she told herself in a daze. I have put him through this terrible agony, and for what? To have a handsome man around the house to have afternoon tea with? What was I playing at?

“I’m so sorry about this. My brother is a bad influence on me.”

Up and up they toiled, until they halted, puffing with exertion, on the landing, beneath the portrait of Angelika’s mother. The expression of the painting changed, depending on the angle and circumstance.

Right now, Caroline Frankenstein was deeply unimpressed.

“I’m clearly doing my best, Mama,” Angelika said up at the frame. “Come now.” She steered the man left. “My bedchamber is at the end; we just need to make it that far.”

“Your brother might not approve.”

“A man in my bathtub will not be the strangest thing happening today.”

His body leaned into hers, like it wanted her feel and scent. Against her hip, his member retained its rigidity. “Why does my body keep doing this?” He pulled back with distaste in his features and pushed at himself with his palm. “I want you to know, from the neck down, this is not me.”

He was completely correct, but it still hurt her feelings.

“My hands want to touch you, but I don’t want to, and my—” He focused downward again. “Everything is different. I have no memories, but I know this isn’t me. What did you do?”

At the end of the hall, Mary appeared with swinging buckets, blessedly breaking the moment. She snapped, “Finally. You’ve been an age. Get him in. Don’t waste my hard work.” She marched off, grumbling.

The man watched her depart. “Should I help her?”

“As I said, you’re my guest.” Angelika marveled at his thoughtfulness as she led him into her bedroom, but he balked in the doorway. “Come on, you’ll feel so much better.”

He was assessing the room with a crease on his brow. He took in the four-poster bed smothered in fine silks and the jewels strewn on the dresser. He noticed the embroidered chinoiserie dressing screen, the 250-year-old Persian rugs, and the alcove by the window filled with a copper tub and potted ferns. “You’re rich,” he said in an accusing tone.

“Yes.”

“You live alone here, with only your brother? Remind me of your name,” he commanded.

“Angelika Frankenstein. It is Latin for ‘angelic.’ But my name is spelled with a k, not a c. Mama wanted to be creative, but I wish she hadn’t bothered.” She went to her bathroom and found a tin of salts. As she stirred them into the tub, she said, “You are right; I am a wealthy heiress, and an orphan. We lost both our parents very fast, one after the other, when I was thirteen.” She coughed to clear her tight throat. “After that, Victor did his best to raise me, so my faults are his doing. These salts are from Paris. They may sting your stitches but will help you heal.”

“Why do I even have stitches?” He could not resist the steam and came closer, his teeth still chattering. “I really shouldn’t be in here.”

“We’ll tell Mary to clear out the guest room next. Victor has one of Lizzie’s theater costumes lying on the bed. It’s a big brown bear.”

He was too overwhelmed to be interested in that. When he put his foot into the water, he let out a yowl. “It’s too hot, it’s agony, agony,” he repeated grimly, even as he lowered himself downward. He lay back and looked up at the ceiling with genuine suffering in his eyes. They cut to Angelika, now in that same battle-fierce stare she had glimpsed in the morgue.

“If you did this to me, I hate you.”

“Then I suppose you hate me.” She went to the shelf to get a fresh bar of soap and a nailbrush. “That didn’t take long. Perhaps it is my new record.”

Mary had reentered, and this time her hearing had not failed her. “You hate her, eh?” She sloshed a bucket of water onto his face with no regard. “You’d prefer to be dead in the ground, dinner for worms? You’re soaking like a lord in a manor house. One of the richest women in England wants to scrub your fingernails. Get a grip on yourself,” Mary scolded him, and with effort heaved the second bucket onto him. “Count yourself lucky she hasn’t sent you back where you came from.”

Her words had an effect. When Angelika pulled up a stool beside the tub and held up the nailbrush, he gave her his hand with a contrite blink.

“I really was dead?”

“Yes. I found you in the morgue. We think you died yesterday.” She began to scrub his fingernails. “Are you feeling any better, my love?”

He was reeling from this news. “Why do you call me that? Did we know each other before?”

“I call everyone that,” she lied. “’Tis a habit I have.” She gave him back his scrubbed hand, and he held it up for his own inspection. “You are right. You are made up of several men from the neck down.”

He jolted upright and water sloshed out of the tub, soaking Angelika’s trousers. “I knew this wasn’t my cock,” he barked, before sinking deep in the water. Angelika thought she could see the first glow of color in his cheeks. “I can’t remember a thing, but I know that much,” he said to himself.

She lied again. “You were mangled by a cart wheel. I had to improvise.”

He charted his fingers over his body in a way that had Angelika blushing. “And this is the body you have made for me?”

She watched as the pads of his fingertips ran down the stitches around his neck, the shoulder joints, the heavy chest and ridged abdomen. He raised his knees and noticed an old scar the previous owner had. He had astonishment in his eyes when he looked back up at her. “You did this?”

“I did all the pattern making and stitching. It can be complicated with the arteries, and messy, but Victor’s procedure is ultimately what brought you back. He’s a genius.”

“You’re a genius, too,” the man said with admiration. “If what you say is true, and I should be dead in the ground, then I must say thank you.”

“You’re welcome.” She could not stop herself; she picked up a sea sponge and began to cleanse his face. “My love, you look so much better already.”

He smelled infinitely better. His eyes closed in a way that looked like pleasure as she ran the sponge down his brow, cheeks, jaw, and throat. She repeated the pattern several more times, putting every bit of care and love into the movement.

His hand clasped her wrist. “But why me?”

“Why? We are scientists.” She shook him loose and, to avoid his piercing brandy-brown eyes, she got to her feet. “Oh, I’m soaked.”

This distracted him.

“I have never seen a lady wearing trousers.” His pupils dilated wide, and he pushed the heel of his hand below the water at waist level. “At least, I don’t think I have.”

“I can’t stitch men together as easily if I’m hindered by skirts.” She felt self-conscious enough to want to retreat further out of his range. “I’ll change my clothes. Oh, Mary, my love, there you are. Did you put heating bricks in my bed?”

Mary noticed the endearment and nodded warily. She then went over to the tub and assessed the water, ignoring the large man soaking in it. “He was so dirty and smelly this water is brown,” Mary said snidely before reaching down between his feet and pulling the plug. “Victor’s invention,” she explained offhand as Angelika went behind her changing screen with dry clothes.

“Invention?” the man echoed.

Mary boasted, “Master Victor has a brilliant mind.”

“Yes, just ask him,” Angelika cut in dryly.

“He put in a copper pipe that empties the water outside the house. It’s a godsend. Now if only he’d just invent something to carry water upstairs. I’m sure he will.” There was a gurgling sound, and then Mary began refilling the bath. “Already a better color,” she told him. “And we can see the blood’s flowing well to your prick.”

“Madam, it is out of my control,” he protested.

“What’s your name, anyway?” Mary asked him. “What do I call you?”

“I cannot remember,” the man said.

“Well, pick a name, or I’ll pick one for you. Hmm. You came from the barn outside. Barney?” Mary gathered the empty pails. “Mistress is naked behind that screen. Don’t you think about getting up for a peek.”

“I would not,” he retorted in horror. “I am not interested in her remotely.”

“Ah, my lady,” Mary said with deep regret. “I don’t think this one will work out.”

Victor was mostly self-sufficient, but his younger sister was nothing but hard labor. Mary could be heard muttering as she departed, something about unwed and unbelievable. And it was true. All true. Forever. She wrenched on a nightdress.

“I’m sorry,” the man said. “That was rude of me.”

Angelika’s tears soaked into her fresh handkerchief in a steady stream. When she breathed in, she made an accidental sniffle.

There was a shifting in the tub. “Miss Frankenstein? Are you all right?”

She tried for a normal voice. “I’ll get you clothes and have Mary make you a pack of supplies. I’ll give you money and a horse. I will release you from my company.”

“You’re upset. Come back please, Angelika.” His tone was kind.

“No,” she replied with a louder sniffle. “I’m staying back here alone, forever.”

“If that is your wish,” the man said. “But I would like to know what you are experiencing.”

“I feel pain. Of a different sort.” She waited for the lashing that she deserved. Spoiled, selfish brat. It did not come. “I thought I was doing a good thing, but I now see you did not want me to help. I should have left you alone.”

“I’m glad you did not.”

“Do you remember what it was like? Being dead?” She hesitated, then asked the question that Victor would have forbidden. “Is there anything beyond?”

“Before I saw your face, it was just . . .” He fell silent, for so long that Angelika peeked out from behind the screen in alarm. But he was just resting, the candlelight shining in his eyes as he thought. “Before you, it was absolute darkness. I wasn’t torn back from heaven. I’m sorry if that upsets you to hear.”

“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.”