Chapter Text
My dearest Ruby,
Many nights I've spent, sleepless, yearning for the moment we see each other again. My work suffers without your presence, my castle large and empty. I've taken the liberty of having your wedding gown shipped to my estate. It will be here when you arrive.
My darling, I am restless knowing you are about to be my wife. As I promised at the market square on that moonlit night, I vow to protect you and love you as any husband would. You are my reason for living, the light that's kept the dark, lonely recesses of my soul inflamed.
I await your arrival most anxiously, and revel in the thought of having you in my bed.
Yours most lovingly,
Victor Frankenstein
Ruby smiled widely and clutched the letter to her chest. The carriage bounced jovially as they reached the dock. It was late at night, the moon a dim sliver in the sky, and Agrippa Port was merely a few minutes away. She tucked the wax-sealed letter into her red coin purse and folded her hands neatly in her lap. This time tomorrow, she would be the wife of Dr. Victor Frankenstein, nestled in his bed with her womanhood finally claimed. Ruby peeked out the curtain of the carriage window as the coach slowed to a stop.
Ruby would be embarking on this adventure alone, and she liked it that way. Her granny disapproved of the match from the get-go, said that Victor was too rich and too proud for a humble field-hand like her granddaughter. Ruby had met Victor last year at a party. Rumple von Stiltskin was throwing a lavish ball at his estate in the mountains, and his wife Belle, an old friend, had invited her. Ruby had never been to a ball before and sewed her own gown weeks before the event. Belle had helped tend to her hair, loaned her a few jewels, and by the time the party began, half the men in the room were begging for a dance.
And then Victor had arrived.
Ruby was curious about him from the start. He dressed well, his hair neatly combed and a polite smile on his face, but he stood near the wall all night and never danced with anyone. His eyes swept across the room, staring at the guests as if solving a riddle in his head. After some goading by Belle, Ruby asked the man to dance.
Victor tilted his head to the side and said, “Was it my lively personality, or my sparkling wit that attracted your attention, Miss . . .?”
“Lucas. Ruby Lucas.” She held out her hand and Victor kissed it. He smiled at her—oh, how she loved his smile!—and gave a polite bow.
“Miss Lucas, I would be honored to dance with you.”
They took to the dance floor and he held her in his arms at a slightly greater distance than the rest of the men. “Are you afraid I'll bite?” Ruby asked coyly as they danced.
“Should I be?”
Ruby giggled. “Are you a nervous dancer?”
“Only when my partner is as beautiful as you.”
Ruby felt her heart tremor as he spun her around. She landed back in his arms, her cheeks blooming with roses. “How do you know the lord von Stiltskin?” she asked.
“We're old business partners,” Victor said. “He once invested in a project of mine.”
“Really? Are you a broker?”
Victor smiled again. “No, madam. A doctor.”
A doctor? Ruby had thought. What would a doctor need of an investor? But she didn't press the matter. They danced the next three sets, making small talk and admiring the grand ballroom, with it's gold chandeliers, marble floors, and tall windows. Only after the third dance did Ruby ask his name.
“Victor Frankenstein.” He bent at the waist and kissed her hand again, smiling up at her shyly.
Ruby's face hurt from grinning so much. The rest of the night, they were inseparable. They had drinks on the balcony, the stars shining above them in a vast blanket of black velvet. They toured about the room arm-in-arm, the other guests staring and whispering as they passed. Ruby worried she was being too forward with this man—the customs of the upper-class were still foreign to her—but Victor was a gentleman all night. He didn't even blink when she told him she was a simple farm girl who lived with her grandmother.
“I've known many well-born women,” he said, “but none with as much charm and grace as you.”
Ruby raised a brow. “'Many'?”
Victor laughed. “Acquaintances of my father, I assure you.”
Ruby blushed again. They stood in the foyer outside of the ballroom, alone, shrouded in darkness save for the candles and slivers of light from the heavy dance hall doors. Victor took her gloved hand and stared into Ruby's eyes with the utmost sincerity and hopefulness.
“I'm in town for the next two weeks. May I call on you, Ms. Lucas?”
Ruby smiled. “Yes, Dr. Frankenstein. You may call on me.”
“Victor,” he insisted. “Please.” The doctor kissed her hand, sending jolts of electricity up Ruby's arm.
Her eyes fluttered, her heart swimming in her stomach. “Victor,” she whispered.
At the end of the night, he gave her a chaste kiss on the cheek and said farewell. Ruby watched him leave in his grand carriage. She leaned against a stone column outside the estate and sighed happily.
“I don't like this,” Granny had said the next day. She was a stubborn woman with a hard will and a lifetime of regrets. “He can have any girl in the province, so why you?”
“Why not me?” Ruby cried.
“You know what I mean,” Granny said. “You may be beautiful, dear, but that's all you have to offer a man like that.”
So it went, the two women bickering in their cozy cottage in the woods, until Victor finally called on Ruby three days after the dance. He came to the door with roses for his date and a single white carnation for Granny. The old woman accepted it with a huff and waved the two away with a scowl.
The pair took a walk through the woods and Ruby felt inferior in her simple dress and red cloak. The doctor wore a stunning blue jacket and a gold scarf, a pair of circular sunglasses perched on his nose. They toured arm-and-arm down the path to the meadow, until resting on a fallen long to watch the sunset across the hill.
Two weeks became two months, and when Victor couldn't hold off his responsibilities any longer, he bid Ruby farewell with a kiss and a promise to write. They exchanged letters twice a week, declaring their love for one another, and after nearly a year of long-distance courtship, Victor returned to the province and asked Ruby's hand in marriage.
She accepted with a passionate kiss.
A week later, Ruby packed for her trip to the Frankenstein estate (Victor had to leave before her to prepare the castle), and Granny watched with a worried frown.
“I'm begging you to reconsider,” Granny said. She stood in the doorway of her granddaughter's room, hands crossed over her chest.
“There's nothing to consider,” Ruby said. “I love him, and he loves me—”
“Does he know who you are? What you are?”
Ruby stopped packing and looked at her grandmother. She lowered her eyes and said, “I'll bring my cloak. I can hide it—”
“Right,” Granny scoffed. “But for how long? Sooner or later he'll find out, Ruby, and he may not like what he sees.”
“I don't care!” Ruby said, throwing her nightgown into her bag. “I know he loves me. It doesn't matter, if I'm . . .” She stopped and looked at her grandmother, tears welling in her eyes. “I'm not just doing this for myself. I'm doing this for us. We can provide for you, give you comfort—”
“I've lived this long without jewels and silk,” Granny said bitterly. “I don't need his money now.”
Ruby crossed the room and put her hands on her grandmother's shoulders. “This is what I want, Granny. I want a life with this man, to travel with him, and share a home.”
Granny's frown tensed, her chin quivering as she struggled to hold back tears. “Who's going to make sure you're safe?” she whispered.
Ruby smiled weakly. “I will.” She pulled the old woman into a hug. They shared a few tears, a stroke of the cheek, until Ruby turned and finished packing.
Granny walked her to the town square where a carriage was waiting. Ruby put on her red cloak, the sun dipping down below the mountains, and gave her grandmother another tight hug.
“I love you, Granny.”
“I love you too, Ruby. Be safe.”
They parted and Ruby nodded. She held Granny's hand as she climbed into the carriage. “I'll visit often. I promise.”
Granny nodded, tears staining her wrinkled cheeks, and when the carriage pulled away, her hand finally slipped through Ruby's until they were separated.
* * *
Ruby descended the carriage steps, the coachman holding her hand graciously until she was firmly on the ground. She looked up at the dark, ominous ship before her. It swayed against the night sky like a mournful ghost. The driver helped carry her luggage to the loading dock. Ruby clutched her red cloak around her neck tightly, her heart beating erratically in her chest. She boarded the ship slowly, calculating her steps, and leaned against the ship's bow with a bitter, salty wind stinging her face.
In the horizon, Victor's land was barely visible through silk-like fog—mountainous, filled with forests—and Ruby swore she could hear thunder rumbling in the starry sky. She took the letter from he coin purse and read it again, her heartbeat subsiding, and readied herself for an adventure of a lifetime.