Page 25 of Her Creation

“You dressed up for me,” Wilhelm said as he opened the door.

Victoria’s mouth popped open in shock, then snapped closed at the brazenness of his words. Her skin prickled with unease until she rubbed her hands over her arms. Every muscle in her body tensed in his presence. This was the first time she’d seen him since he’d left the stain of his fingerprints upon every inch of her skin.

“Where is Helena?” She ignored his greeting and stepped into the entrance. The inside was beautiful, if not gaudy, not the style she had for whatever reason expected from her new friend.

Wilhelm’s hands wrapped around her waist and pulled Victoria into him. With her heart in her throat, she pushed away, resembling a buttercup-yellow rabbit caught in a snare.

Wilhelm frowned playfully, but his eyes were self-assured and uncaring. Victoria’s heart hammered in her chest.

“Helena is probably sitting by the fire with her lover valet, in her own home.” He reached for her again. “Come here. What are you wearing?”

All the pieces fell into place like a guillotine snapping down on her head.

“This is your home,” she breathed, unable to gather enough air in her tight lungs.

He grinned. “Come, I have a suite off the first floor; it opens to the back of the house. Use that from now on when I send for you.” He wrapped his arm around Victoria, blocking her exit and guiding her farther into the house.

“Sophia, your fiancée,” she argued, unable to pull her thoughts together. He continued to pull her deeper into the house and into an elegantly decorated guest suite at the back corner of the home.

His too-warm hands were all over Victoria as she struggled to push them from her skin. “What about her?” he breathed into her neck.

Victoria’s skin covered in gooseflesh as it revolted against the man’s touch. “She’s here. I saw her in the window; she saw me. What are you doing? Stop, stop touching me!”

His hand dropped to his side as though she’d cast a magic spell upon him. He turned away from her and went to the bed. After removing his vest, he pulled loose his undershirt and sat on the edge of the bed, watching her with an irritated, haughty expression.

“Of course she’s here. Sophia is my future wife; she won’t interfere with our relationship. She needs my help too.”

“What?” Victoria backed against the door. Thoughts of running swirled in her mind, but Wilhelm shook his head, as if he read her thoughts. “You mean to have me, and she is all right with it? In her home?” Her voice shook with disbelief.

A devilish grin formed on his face. “It’s my home, and like you, she doesn’t have a choice. Now come, I need to have you. I’ll have her after.” One side of his grin lifted higher. “You should feel honored. I bet you’ve never been chosen first for anything in your life.”

Victoria pulled the door open and took a step into the hallway, turning her head to look at Wilhelm.

“Leave. You and your father’s reputation and livelihood will be ruined before you wake tomorrow. Sophia’s social circle stretches far greater than mine and my father’s combined, and I doubt she’ll believe I didn’t touch you tonight. Not after I told her everything I was going to do to you. You will be arrested and charged with performing medical acts without a proper license or training. My father will make sure they imprison you or something even worse happens. Everything will be taken away from your father.”

“I saved you! You were going to die. My father couldn’t stitch your wound closed because of his tremors; that’s all I did!” Victoria screamed as she stepped back into the room.

Wilhelm’s eyes flashed. “I remember everything. You may have covered my eyes, but you left my ears open to hear everything. I know exactly what happened. I know your father is sick with something that made his hands shake so hard he could not do his duty and finish my procedure. One more reason you both should be cast out of society.”

“He’s not sick!” she shouted. She despised her father being spoken of with such a lack of sensitivity to his condition. She hated it more than the remnants of Wilhelm’s sweat that still clung to her skin or the feel of his body invading hers. “You will not speak of my father again.”

Wilhelm nodded, and the corner of his mouth curled viciously. “I like you with a little spirit. But I will do whatever I like, and you would do well to remember that.”

Victoria clenched her fist and, for the first time, felt the threads of her composure and sanity unravel. “You obviously feel as though you have complete and absolute control over me and what you compel me to do, but I assure you, sir, the moment the ability to end this situation is within my reach, I will see that you suffer just as you have made me.”

Wilhelm rose from the bed, leveraging his stature, hoping to intimidate the small woman. “Do you threaten me?”

“No, that would be foolish. But take this as my warning to you. I am not fearsome nor formidable—”

“No,” Wilhelm interrupted her with an arrogant look. “You are quiet and insignificant.”

Victoria removed her eyes from the intricate wooden bedpost she’d been focusing on and shifted her penetrating, hollow stare onto Wilhelm. “That might be true, but—”

“It is true,” he snapped, growing more impatient.

“But I am also intelligent and persistent, and I will stop at nothing to protect the only family I have left. There is a love that lives in my heart for my father, the magnitude of which you could hardly understand, and for my mother there is only a torrent of anguish that has fermented into rage. If I cannot defend my father and myself with the one, then I will do so with the other.” Her dark eyes glistened in the flickering flame of the oil lamp, pressing unblinkingly into Wilhelm’s. An air of madness had curled around the edges of the soft-spoken woman. Enough for Wilhelm to pause for a moment. But only for a moment, as the hunter only gains enthusiasm from the terrifying snarl of a beast before it is brought down.

“And what of it?” he taunted with the flash of a smile. “You may think I am a horrible man, but you can leave through that door whenever you wish. You will simply face the consequences.”