Page 67 of Angelika Frankenstein Makes Her Match
“Wish, pray, think very hard—it is all the same. Praying cannot cure scarlet fever.” His fingers flexed on the sill. “My child will have no grandmama or grandpapa. You will be married and gone by then.”
“Maybe not. The one I love looks at me with doubt and sadness, too.”
Victor had an idea. “I need you to ask Mary if she would come back to help us when the baby arrives.”
“I never told her to leave.”
“Tell me exactly what you said to her.” He listened as Angelika recounted the exchange. “She believes you dismissed her that day, Jelly. You did not say to her that she was to remain here for the rest of her days?”
Angelika audited the memory again. “I thought it was soobvious. You need to understand, she was horrid to me.” She told him about the strange decorations, the dolls, and the terrible underwear.
“She felt awkward having you in her personal space. Then you told her that Sarah would be the new head of housekeeping. She packed her bags and is gone forever, unless we get her back.”
His tone was kinder than she’d expected. Was this Will’s calming influence on Victor?
Quietly, she said, “She has hated me, from the moment I was born.”
“Nonsense. She’d cut out her heart if you needed a new one. She was hurt and upset, but she’ll forgive us. It’s also my fault. I did not make circumstances clear to her.” He was quiet for a while. “I should like her to be there when I am wed; she’s all the family we have left. But Mary will also insist on a church wedding.”
“Could we travel to another parish? Somewhere that doesn’t know us? You could just pretend, and say the church words, and later on make your own private vows to Lizzie.”
“I don’t think she would feel well enough to be jiggled about in a carriage. I thought about asking Chris to use the chapel at the academy, but even if that’s an option, I might open my mouth and no words will come out. I feel a rising sense of panic whenever I picture it.”
Angelika so rarely saw him vulnerable. “You just need some time to adjust to the idea. You’re Victor Frankenstein, and I am always at your side to assist you in inventing a solution. Thank you for not shouting at me, for mucking things up with Mary.”
“I don’t want to wake Lizzie,” Victor replied, but he was smiling. “I know you do your best. I’m sorry I made you runout of here the other day. I forgot that I’m your best friend. I still am, you know. You scared me. If anything happened to you...”
He left the words unsaid, but she knew what he meant. They bumped their shoulders together.
The sun hung above the hill, preparing itself to slip behind, and when it did, the entire property would be plunged into an icy blue. It was a melancholy time. Angelika leaned further out of the window and asked impulsively, “Do you ever think about the terrible things we have done, and regret them?”
“Well, when you put it like that,” Victor drawled, but then saw she was not joking. “We saved Will. He was dead. Now he’s having a nice cup of tea and a biscuit.”
“Please. We did not do it to be altruistic. You showed up that Schneider nemesis of yours”—here Victor grinned widely—“and I picked Will’s individual parts like a vapid heiress, hoping he would fall in love with me over time. And even if he is having tea and a biscuit, he lives in the worst kind of mental torment and physical pain that he keeps hidden. We areterriblepeople.”
“Yes, we are. But I’ve been observing you since that night we saw Will sleepwalking in the study. I know you’ve been tutoring Sarah, and helping Clara with food, and doing things for her baby. You’re changing. It’s like witnessing a moment in an experiment, when the most unexpected reaction takes place. All it took was the addition of Will.” Victor mimed using a chemical dropper. “When I think of my creation, lost out there, and how I cannot find him—” Victor’s voice broke a little, and he put his face in his hands. “Yes. I am a terrible person.”
“What more can you do to find him?”
Victor hesitated. “I would need more people to help me.Searching on my own is not working. But a well-paid group of men could easily turn into a mob, and a violent end is the last thing I want for him.”
“You are going about it all wrong. You need to draw him to you. I feel his presence,” she said, and they looked across to the site of her accident. “He’s here, close by. Same with Mary. We just have to find what they need most, and bring them home.”
Despite saying this, she still found herself hesitating to reveal her nightly meal deliveries into the forest. Just once, she’d like to show Victor that she could solve a situation alone. Besides, her brother would just barge in, ruining the delicate trust she was attempting to build.
“I believe he may try to kill me,” Victor said suddenly. “And I would not blame him.”
“When you find him, you will put this right. Are you going out again?”
“Nightfall seems to be when the villagers glimpse him. I will take Lizzie up to the house, set her down with some dinner, and ride out.” He smiled at his sister wryly. “Be glad you coaxed Will inside on that dark, rainy night with the mere promise of a bath.”
“You asked me if I can make my choice, being uncertain of his... reproductive viability. That will be my price to pay for my part in this if he asks me to marry him.” She hesitated on this next thing. “He said something about his health. He believes he has a limited life force. I don’t know what that means, but I don’t think it’s just his fatherhood prospects that plague his mind. It’s something more serious. His hands, Vic, unless I massage them several times a day, they curl and turn cold. I worry about the future.”
Victor answered with halting care, “I am not at liberty to discuss him.”
“I know. I’m just telling you I’m worried. Are you ever afraid that they cannot survive the things we have done to them in the name of science, and love?”
“I am sick over it. That’s why I need to bring mine home.” Victor’s expression was stark. “I’m worried also about something different.”
