Chapter 24
You don’t look like a doctor’s assistant. You look like a ducal enforcer.” Victoria leaned her back against the wall of the laboratory with a scowl painted on her face half caused by the scent of vinegar in the air after she had sprinkled it about to dull the stench.
She had barely managed to get any sleep the night before, and what little she’d gotten had been on the great-room floor between sewing the final bits of Innominatus’s outfit.
Maybe it hadn’t been such a bad thing that her mother had forced her to set the textbooks down and learn to sew all those years ago.
Innominatus looked absolutely devastating.
He was dressed plainly, well enough to pass as respectable, yet there was something about him that set the room on edge.
She had tied his shoulder-length black hair back low with a matching black ribbon.
His cravat had been positioned to cover the majority of his most eye-catching scars, and the few on his face she made less noticeable with a bit of rice powder.
“You look like a divine goddess wrapped in muslin. What is that color? It brings out the mahogany obsidian in your eyes,” Innominatus asked.
Victoria froze. “It’s the same as my other dresses,” she snipped. “It’s the exact color of the blood that fueled your original body, if you must know.” Every moment in his presence sparked frustration and irritation since last night.
“My blood?” His eyes pinned her. “Why would you match it to your dresses?”
She heaved out an impatient breath. “Because I was thoroughly infatuated with you. It’s fitting. Something of the past, just like the blood from that body. Now turn around.”
From the moment she woke, she had been furious about having to go to the ball. Who were they to just demand that she and her “father’s assistant” go? She wouldn’t be in the position she was in were it not for their pompous demands.
“You need something that says you’re a doctor’s assistant…
Oh! I know,” she exclaimed and ran to grab something behind her father’s desk.
When she returned, Victoria held her father’s brown leather physician’s bag.
“Here, carry this. No one will ask why you have it. They don’t care about anyone but themselves, but it will do the trick.
Make sure they see you with it and then you can leave it with your coat once you’re there. ”
Innominatus took the bag and held it at his side.
“Hm…better, but you still look…intimidating. How can we make you look more academic?” She tapped her chin, lost in thought for a moment, before running to the back of the laboratory and grabbing a small box from the old shelves crowded with equipment and forgotten experiments.
The corners of Innominatus’s mouth curled as he watched her go. He opened the stiff bag and peeked inside. “This bag is empty?”
“You will not be performing any medical treatments. It is for looks alone.” She stepped up to him, so close that he sucked in a breath and waited with wide, curious, citrine eyes to see what she would do next.
Victoria rose onto her tiptoes and placed a pair of brass spectacles on his face, careful to ensure they sat properly on his nose and ears.
Innominatus’s unwavering eyes locked onto hers, and for a moment the two of them simply stared at one another, the ball and the spectacles forgotten somewhere in the background.
Victoria broke away and moved several feet back to assess his entire appearance.
He looked good. Better than good. He looked the part perfectly, handsome and intelligent, with just enough of his intimidating presence leaking through the edges that most people would likely avoid speaking to him longer than necessary.
“I cannot believe I have to do this,” she muttered aloud.
It was more likely than not that by the end of the night her entire world would be turned upside down by the discovery that Innominatus was not a man at all but a resurrected specimen that she could not kill.
She would be thrown in jail, or worse. She felt her body tremble, and despite every effort to stop herself, her eyes fell on the body that had been her only rock when she had needed one. Now, he would be her demise.
Innominatus’s hands clenched around the handle of the bag, as if restraining himself from going to her. “I will not let them know,” he said softly.
Victoria turned her back to him and moved to her desk. The pungent scent of decay intensified the closer she came to the cold chamber.
“The bag is empty and unconvincing. If I am to go along with this, at least allow me to lend what little skill I still have to the cause,” he said.
“Fine,” she snapped. She grabbed the jar of maggots from the shelf and walked to where he stood with the bag open, just about to place a book inside.
She tossed the jar into the bag, pulled the book from his hand, and dropped it in as well.
The instant their fingers brushed, a spark of electricity snapped against her skin, and Victoria pulled away quickly.
They stared at one another for a long moment before she leaned forward and closed the bag as it rested on the stone table, still partly held in his grip.
“There,” she said, steadying herself. “The maggots are pupae now, many in eclosion. Maybe I can at least free them from their cage. I will release them on the way to the baron’s estate.
We’ll pass the old church where my mother is buried.
Perhaps they will keep her company until my father can rest beside her. ”
“Metamorphosis,” Innominatus said quietly.
“What?”
“They are like you, are they not? In a metamorphosis.” His dark brow lifted.
Victoria’s eyes squeezed shut. “You are not comparing me to maggots and flies.”
He tilted his dark head and stepped closer, his gaze quietly sentimental. “Even the maggot, hidden and shunned, carries within it the promise of wings. In the quiet act of becoming, it learns that change is not decay. It is the moment loneliness ends and life can take flight.”
She moved until she stood directly in front of him, his dark frame illuminated by a golden glow that radiated from behind him like a halo. “So poetic. Tell me, Innominatus—”
“Inno,” he interrupted with a grin. “I prefer when you call me Inno.”
Victoria swallowed her irritation, remembering she had called him that long before he had become who he was now. “Tell me, Inno, how it is that you remember an empty bag might give your disguise away, yet you do not recall how to bathe?” Her brow arched accusingly.
“I did not forget how to bathe, and I never said I did. You assumed and I let you. I couldn’t stand to go back to the lab so soon, and I wanted more time with you.
” It began slowly at the corner of his mouth as the faintest lift, then spread wider until it split his lips and revealed his teeth, climbing into his eyes and creasing the corners just behind the spectacles.
Victoria forgot everything. The world seemed to vanish for half a second as she felt his smile more strongly than she had felt her own in a very long time.
“We need to go. The driver is waiting with the carriage,” she muttered. He had been lonely, and she would not fault anyone for that. “And you will be bathing yourself from now on.” They climbed the stairs and opened the door into the sitting room.
“I understand. One more question, before we are within earshot of others. Will you be dancing with Herr von Lichtenmarstein at this ball?”
She gathered her reticule and headed for the front door, pausing only long enough to answer.
“I certainly hope not, but as you will soon see and no doubt are already aware, it matters very little what a woman actually wants, especially when it comes to Wilhelm. If it happens, you must remain in character and not let it fluster you. You cannot cause a scene tonight or it will end in us both being killed.”
“I promise you I won’t hurt him…where anyone can hear his screams.”
“Inno!” she snapped, stopping abruptly.
“I do like when you say my name like that,” he said under his breath with a smirk as he took the lead.
The cool spring air washed over them as they stepped outside, clearing away the lingering scent of decay that clung to the castle walls.
At the ball, they were welcomed into the baron’s great mansion and almost immediately the attention shifted toward Innominatus and Victoria.
Packs of men pressed in around Innominatus to greet him, their interest sharp and eager, pushing her slowly back until she found herself separated from him entirely.
She circled the edge of the gathering, watching him for a moment like a mother hen, ensuring he was holding his own and would not fold beneath the pressure.
What she did not notice was how his gaze followed her even as he answered questions.
His posture remained open to the men surrounding him, his expression calm and composed, yet his awareness never strayed from her presence.
Each time she moved, his attention tracked the shift as though she were a fixed point anchoring the room.
When she paused near the edge of the crowd, his shoulders eased slightly.
When she drifted farther away, his jaw tightened.
Her worry eased when she saw him standing calm and controlled among the men, even offering her a small, confident wink that caused something cold and long frozen in her chest to soften.
This was the first social gathering she had attended since her father’s passing, and the loneliness of not having him here hung over her.
She had expected to be pushed aside and overlooked, and during the carriage ride she had done her best to prepare Innominatus with fragments of conversation to use, knowing the nobles, both men and women, would descend upon him like scavengers, eager to sink their claws of wealth into him and keep him close for their own advantage.