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Victor's creature, for all the ego and pride within her soon-to-be brother, seemed nothing like its creator. What wonder was contained in its eyes, what curiosity inhabited its every movement. Even something so small as the flex of its fingers earned its consideration. She delighted in watching the muscles of its mismatched arms work in tandem to move its body.
His body, she realized.
Despite a lack of words or language, she could see him process when she spoke. He wanted to understand. Elizabeth took his hands in hers and drew them to her check. His palms were like ice, cold enough to burn against her skin. Her thumb found his wrist and felt the heavy beat of his heart where his pulse sang through his arteries.
He was alive. He was marvelous.
“Elizabeth, can you say that?” She asked, tapping their joined hands to her chest. “Elizabeth.”
The creature watched her. His head tilted from one side to the other, wondering. He wanted to understand, she could feel it.
Elizabeth drew his hand to her throat. “You make the sound here,” she explained. “Elizabeth.”
The cool pads of the creature's fingers touched her throat and smoothed down to where the neckline of her sleeping gown hid her bare flesh. He didn't push further, but lingered there on the satin. His thumb and forefinger stroked and touched at the fabric while a sound of interest rumbled in his chest.
“Eliz-a-beth.” One word, only her name half-broken with a breath.
Elizabeth sucked in a breath of the cold air and the taste of moldering damp filled her. Her body shuddered, and the creature looked at her again with that same curiosity.
“I'm okay. Just cold.” Elizabeth withdrew her hands from the creature to rub her arms. “Do you understand? Cold.”
For a moment, he watched her in silence. Then, the light of recognition filled his eyes. The creature leapt from the table to fetch a blanket from the floor and drape it over her shoulders. He was careful, despite the rattle of the shackles around his wrists. Elizabeth sought the metal cuffs and drew the creature's wrists into the candlelight.
The skin had reddened where the metal rubbed at it, and the creature whined when she soothed her fingers over the marks.
“I'm sorry,” she murmured. One after the other, she kissed where her fingers had just been. “You deserve a bed like any other living thing.”
“Elizabeth,” the creature repeated with more confidence. This time, he took her hands in his and copied her actions by tapping them to his chest. This wasn't enough and, with a wandering touch, he ran his hands up her arms and played with the fabric of her sleeves. This venture moved to her chest, and the back of his fingers grazed her breast as he admired the gauzy material. Elizabeth's breath ceased in her chest. He was innocent, she realized. His mind was unaware of the impropriety of such an action.
Elizabeth should put a stop to it. She shouldn't take advantage of the creature. The man. Could it be taking advantage, given his intelligence? He was no dog, no child. This was many men made one; he was curious as all men were. She couldn't fault him for that.
This culvert beneath Victor's laboratory was absent from society. There were no matrons or uncles to bid her be mindful. There were no watchful eyes of her husband to be or his brother's lingering gaze. It was only she and the man before her. Perhaps this aloneness was what emboldened her.
The candles cast Elizabeth's fingers in a warm glow as she mirrored the creature's touch with her own. The backs of her nails brushed the healing flesh that stretched over his pectorals, tracing the muscles where they twitched beneath his skin. His chest expanded and collapsed like each breath was a great effort, warm air fanned from his lips across her face. The nearness should discomfort her.
Instead, Elizabeth found that she wanted.
Her hands turned so that she might lay them flat against his cool skin. The creature leaned forward in response and pressed into her touch. It didn't withdraw when ran her hands down the hills and valleys of his ribs and pressed into the soft skin beneath them. His stomach contracted at her featherlight tracing, sucked in with a breath when she found his hipbones.
He was beautiful, every bit a man and yet not as monstrous as men. Those eyes, dark as the night around them, watched her. Watched without lust, without want but to understand her. The creature had settled, seated on the table, but his eyes still stirred. He wouldn't draw his gaze away while his hands fell to the stone between them. He lingered among the fabric of her gown and swirled patterns in the sheer material where it pooled before him.
Was he afraid?
“Are you okay?” Elizabeth's hands flattened at his hips. The creature watched her as his eyes narrowed, brow furrowed, and his mouth worked to feel out words he couldn't find. Eventually, he settled on a nod.
“Elizabeth,” his voice rumbled. The hands curled in her gown came to life again. This time, they smoothed beneath the fabric. It didn't feel lecherous like Victor's seeking hands. The creature's touch was inquisitive. Even as he brushed over her thigh and grazed her stomach with his fingers, every press and feel of her skin was with the same curiosity as he approached all things.
Despite the innocent nature of the creature's exploration, Elizabeth could not deny the effect it had upon her. Her body had warmed against the chill of the basement level. Between her thighs, the stirring of arousal betrayed what had been a visit born of innocent companionship. The creature's hand stilled where the crease of her thigh met her stomach. She could feel the chill of its flesh, as she was certain it was aware of the warmth within hers.
His hands, wider than Victor's, than William's, opened on her thigh. His palm was like ice, and yet it burned through her and curled traitorously in her stomach. She was certain the lightning that had brought him to life electrified the contact between them. There was no other excuse for the way her pulse skipped when he touched her.
When he moved again, toward the apex of her thighs, Elizabeth stopped him. “No. You do not understand.” She returned her hands to his face to cradle it in her palms. “I cannot give or take this from you when you don't know what it means.”
The creature's eyes were confused, nervous that he'd made a mistake. Elizabeth banished the uncertainty with the gentle press of her lips to his cheekbone. The dark eyelashes of the creature fluttered, and his black-brown gaze fell shut at her kindness.
“I have to go now. I'll visit you again, I promise.” Elizabeth took the candelabra in one hand and the creature's hand in the other. “Goodnight.”
“Elizabeth,” he replied in a tone she could describe in no other way than mournful. She allowed herself close enough to press a kiss to the creature's head before returning to the stairs that would take her to bed.
In the shadowed alcoves of the entry, Victor waited with the fire of unrequited affection in his eye. She suspected it was as familiar to him as the passion and vanity that clung to every breath he expelled, like the volume in which he spoke his words might force the emotion from him and free him of it.
“Elizabeth,” Victor echoed his creation with none of its innocence. “Don't indulge it.”
“I indulge him no more than I do his maker.” Her eyes narrowed. She took a breath, and without another word, Elizabeth marched up the stairs to the bed of her betrothed.