Chapter 7 #4
“I’ll tell everyone what I saw. You think they’ll believe you or your crackbrained father over me?
” He smiled. His voice had raised slightly, the tones pressed into Victoria’s chest along with the tingling burn of cinnamon.
“How would my father react when he hears that you, an uneducated, incapable woman, were playing doctor with his only son while he was close to dying? He’d most likely think you and your father were trying to kill me.
I don’t think he’d take very kindly to that.
” His square jaw stiffened, and his grip on her waist tightened.
“I don’t think the people of the four villages and hamlet that he handles would tolerate that level of disrespect either.
Not to mention all his friends in prominent positions.
There isn’t a town or village you or your father could go to. ”
Her head shook slowly, but no words came from her parted mouth.
She was at the bottom of a pit of spiced oranges with snapped bones, looking up into the eyes of her hunter.
She’d never been with a man, never thought about it.
Odd, yes, for a woman of Victoria’s age to have never truly thought of lying with a man, but her head was filled with other forbidden desires that were vastly more appealing to her—like resurrecting the dead.
“I know this is forward, and I’m frightening you,” he said. “I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t enjoying that a little, but I promise over the course of our relationship, you will learn to enjoy me too. There are benefits to being with me.”
“Our relationship,” she repeated. What benefit could he possibly gain from a relationship with her? Because Wilhelm was the baron’s heir, people considered him an attractive catch, and she knew he could find a more beautiful and willing partner than herself.
He nodded and licked his lower lip, a sudden flare of urgency in his eyes.
“I thought about you every day while I was healing. I need to know what other mysteries you have, Victoria. Tonight will be incredible, but it sure as hell isn’t going to get you out of my system.
” He nodded his head toward the large boar from his story.
“It took me a year before I stopped coming in every day to stare at that damn boar,” he whispered, and moved both hands over her cheeks and threaded his fingertips into her hair. “And you’re so much prettier than him.”
His mouth closed on Victoria’s. He gripped tightly at her waist before collecting a handful of black fabric and moving his hand under the skirt of her dress.
Victoria’s heart hammered in her chest as spiced wine roiled in her stomach, and she did what she always did when she was in situations that left her hopeless and inconsolable: her mind ran to the texts of her favorite books and she read through the most important chapters, the ones she had memorized—all about reanimation.
She went through and worked out the blank spaces of her notes, forcing them full of information she had learned in the last few weeks with her father.
As Wilhelm undid his trousers, her mind latched on to the enormous cadaver—the man she was building.
The only time her mind left thoughts of resurrection was to pray that if her mother was in heaven, she would not be watching over her at this moment.
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“There you are! Are you all right? You missed the aperitif and opening toast. Oh, it’s all right.
The baron said that he directed you to some books, so I just thought you were engrossed in something good.
Did you run back? Your hair is quite a mess now.
Spiced wine?” Alphonse thrust the glass of maroon liquid into his daughter’s hand, oblivious to the fresh horrors that sat behind her hollow eyes.
Her father was in rare form, swept up in the exciting conversations presented to him at every turn, and his tremors had, by luck, all but subsided and were not enough to draw unwanted attention.
“I noticed Wilhelm was missing from the table as well,” he said with a giddy lilt, smiling and nodding as they passed a large group. He leaned in conspiratorially. “The baron mentioned plans for a wedding.”
Victoria’s unblinking eyes held on to the black veins of the marble floor as her father guided her from the hallway into the ballroom. The feel of his breath on her ear and the press of his arm on her skin were like small razor blades scraping off flesh.
“Yes, he very loudly told me that Wilhelm will stay in their house close to us with his new wife. Isn’t this exciting?
What do you think of the lad? Could you grow to love him?
If not, say the word and I will make known my distaste for the arrangement.
” Alphonse nodded and held a finger up to a small group of men urging him to join them.
“Are you surprised? You need time to think. Understandable. I daresay I like the thought of you being so close. Men of this sort are never around as it is, always out hunting and sorts; it might suit you. Are you all right? Victoria, should we go home? You look as though you’ve seen a ghost.”
“I—I lost myself in my story.”
“Ooh, was it a good one?” he asked.
It was easy to force her thoughts elsewhere when she was alone, but she was incapable of not feeling the care and love that her father covered her with. She hoped he was looking away as she stiffly shook her head. “It was a horror. I believe she died in the end.”
Alphonse mentioned something about asking the baron to borrow the book and after repeating an offer to get a carriage and leave with her that very instant if she wished, he darted off to join the group of men, squeezing Victoria’s shoulders and telling her to think on the wedding and if she were interested in Wilhelm.
Somehow, she found herself in the ballroom.
Opulent to the point of intimidation, elaborate gold leaf filigree and gilding covered the molding and cornices.
The vaulted ceiling medallions holding crystal-cut chandeliers bore the same filigree design that glittered above their heads and painted allegories looked down on the guests of the ballroom.
The detailed dresses of the crowd stuck out against the cream walls, with complicated gold acanthus leaves framing a giant mirror on the back wall of the ballroom.
A melancholy tune drifted from a pianist in the corner.
Victoria wasn’t sure how she’d ended up in the room.
She didn’t remember walking into it. The sad song from the piano played in sync with her soul, and for a moment she wondered if she was the only one who could hear it.
She’d heard it before, but never quite felt it the way she did now.
Adagio in B minor, K.540. Each tap of ivory pulsed over her sensitive skin.
She pulled herself out of the numbness briefly enough to realize people were casting glances and whispering at her.
Was it possible the shame that pulsed and ached over her sore body was visible to them?
If she looked even half as broken as she felt, she knew they could see it.
More elaborately dressed people entered the room, all wearing carefully placed artificial smiles.
Victoria felt every eye touch her raw, cinnamon-burnt skin, judging her. Knowing.
One woman with a floppy red feather in her hair that fluttered about made eye contact with Victoria as she whispered to another woman.
The women moved toward Victoria, to the group that had gathered to watch the pianist play.
She had seen the woman before but had never spoken to her.
She was easily the best-dressed person at any ball or gathering.
Alphonse’s laugh bubbled up and into the room from the hallway, a glaringly beautiful symbol of his ignorance of what had just happened.
Everything is fine, she told herself.
She’d been through worse. She felt incomparable pain every day, missing her mother, wishing she could call out to her and tell her something.
Wilhelm had been gentle—a minor consolation for the situation.
With his talk of their relationship and the baron’s words to her father, he apparently planned to marry her.
Perhaps it wouldn’t be so bad. Women in her station were rarely afforded the ability to marry for love anyway. Why would she be different?
It meant that her and her father’s secrets were safe and that they would be secure financially and together.
Everything was fine.
She would force herself to be optimistic; she could see the good in this.
Wilhelm would never dare tell a soul his wife was performing medical tests and procedures—she could still help her father, still continue their work with reanimation and resurrection.
She would make sure the man she built never acted as these men did—somehow.
They would have enough money that her father could quit when the time came, and his care would be easily afforded.
A weighty exhale poured from Victoria’s mouth so full she felt a small click of bone where the pressure had released from her sternum.
She shifted out of her numb daze and glanced about. Her trembling fingers touched her head and smoothed her hair back into place, her legs growing sturdier by the minute.
She heard Wilhelm’s distant laugh over the crowd.
Suddenly the scent of cloves from the spiced wine her father had given her or perhaps the remnants of what had spilled on her dress amplified, and her stomach seized.
Her front teeth stabbed into flesh as she bit her lip hard and quickly found a servant with an empty tray and set her glass down before she retched.
Discreetly, she attempted to bury her nostrils in the warm, still slightly ethanol-laced fabric scent of her gloves when Wilhelm entered the room and locked eyes with Victoria. Her skin prickled with a cold, clammy sweat, but she forced herself to look at him as he walked directly toward her.