Bittersweet Obsession Read online

  “Help, Angel, help!” Father clung to the edge of the hole he had so carefully crawled to. The corpse, the object of his desires, bounced against him as he struggled to keep his head above water.

  Angel jumped off his horse and raced to the ice. A myriad of cracks now marred the entire surface. “Hold on, Father.” Angel scoured the surface for places where the ice looked thickest and the cracks had not weakened its integrity. In war, when his infantry was advancing on the unsuspecting enemy, he’d learned to tread so lightly his feet barely made contact with the ground. This same technique helped move him quickly over the unstable surface to where his father still clutched the sharp edges of ice. His hands bled through his gloves and his face was as colorless as the surrounding landscape.

  Angel dropped to his stomach and grabbed his father’s forearm. “Take hold of me.”

  Father’s shaking fingers wrapped around his arm. Angel dragged him onto solid ice. The old man lay there for a moment regaining his breath. The surface beneath them clouded with splintering ice.

  “Let’s get off this pond. It will not hold us much longer,” Angel said.

  Father pushed to his knees. “I won’t leave without the corpse.”

  “You stubborn old fool, if we wait much longer, we’ll be corpses as well.”

  Angel’s father ignored him and pressed back down to his stomach. He made several wild grabs and managed to pinch the wool blanket between his thumb and forefinger once but that was all. He could not retain his grip. Another chunk of the icy edge broke free and dropped into the water.

  “Bloody hell,” Angel muttered. “Get out of the way, you madman.” Angel leaned down, grabbed hold of the body, and hauled it to the ice. The flow of blood had ceased and crystals of ice had started to form on the creases of the rough blanket. The small toe still peered out but it was now blue with cold . . . and death. Angel grabbed the foot end and pulled it over the disintegrating surface of ice. He glanced back to be sure that his father followed. “Next time I shall let you sink to the bottom with your specimen.” And yet Angel knew that he would never allow that to happen. His insane father was the only family he had.

  The ride home was considerably slower with a frozen body draped over the horse’s hips. Angel was thankful that they did not pass anyone on the road home. It would have been a difficult scene to explain.

  After several years of working for Dr. Van Ostrand, the stable boy, John, had learned not to ask questions. His expression remained stoic as he held the horses steady so Angel could drag his father’s new house guest off of Titus. Much of the water had either solidified or drained on the ride home, and the body was now light enough to be tossed over his shoulder.

  “Take it through the servant’s entrance,” Father said. “I don’t want to alarm Zander.”

  Angel peered over the load on his shoulder and raised an eyebrow at Father. “Truthfully? Zander will not even take notice. The servants, on the other hand—”

  Father waved his hand dismissively. “Fine, fine, bring it inside. I’m anxious to see what we’ve found.”

  Angel trudged behind his father. “A dead man, we’ve found a dead man who somebody hated enough to kill and drop in an ice pond and who weighs no more than a ten-year-old. I only pray that it is not a ten-year-old.”

  Chapter 2

  Aside from the candles in the parlor window, the manor was dark and eerily quiet. Zander met them in the exact manner that a puppy might meet its owner, sans the tail wagging. Angel was taller than most men, but Zander stood half a head taller. He had a wide forehead that was offset by an equally wide nose.

  “Brother, what do you carry?” Zander’s tone was deep and seemed more slurred than usual. He’d taken up the habit of calling Angel brother and he’d not had the heart to tell him to stop. The man had no more sense than a five-year-old, and he had no recollection of his past, making him a mere shell of the man who’d once lived within.

  Angel hurried past Zander. “It’s a new rug, Zander, a new rug for Father’s study.”

  “Ah ha, I see.” It was a response Zander used frequently. He was parroting back a phrase their Italian speaking cook, Imelda, had always used. The woman had been a master at preparing roast duck and delicate pastries, and her meals had added a small but much needed slice of joy to the otherwise dismal existence at Greystock, but she’d fled one day and had taken several house maids with her. They’d been convinced that some sort of sorcery had invaded the manor. Now Ellie ran the kitchen, a partially blind, elderly woman who his father had found wandering the moors one day and had taken pity on.

  Father slid past Angel in the hallway and opened the door to the laboratory. Of all the rooms in the vast, dreary house, this was the room Angel hated most. As a child, he would wait patiently, sometimes for hours, for his father to emerge from the room. He was never allowed inside as a youth, and he wished that the same rule still held.

  Wooden tables lined walls that were covered in monstrous charts of morbid anatomy depicting cadavers in various states of exposure. Some showed bodies with the skin pulled back to display organs, and others, like the particularly gruesome one of conjoined twins, showed life-like drawings of the skeletal and muscular systems. Huge glass tanks stood empty along the rear wall. Wide leather straps, bloodletting implements, and jars filled with dead critters, as well as jars for collecting electricity, gave the room a medieval dungeon atmosphere. But it was the smell that Angel hated most of all, a grotesque mixture of chloroform, dried blood, singed hair, and decaying flesh.

  The physician’s table in the center of the room was equipped with shackles for arms and feet. Zander had ripped two of them from their steel bolts upon waking from his death. Preternatural strength still plagued Father’s creature. Angel had seen him crush an expensive vase accidentally in one hand, and twice he’d ripped the brass knob off his bedroom door. He had the mind of a toddler and the strength of four men— a treacherous combination indeed.

  Father hurriedly cleared the physician’s table of the notes and book he’d left on it. “Lay it down here, Angel. I will have to work through the night.” He picked up an amputation knife from a tray of lethal looking instruments and began sawing away at the rope that kept the wool blanket wrapped securely around the victim. “I don’t want the body to deteriorate. Thank goodness it has been bathed in ice water. That will give me more time.” Father put down the knife and Angel half-expected him to rub his hands together in delight. “No doubt we will unwrap this shroud and discover a vagabond or Irish traveler. The poor wretch must have crossed paths with our wagon driver. An argument probably ensued and he ended up with a knife in his gut.”

  “I’ll bet the man never expected to end up here on this table though. His murderer is probably drinking a pint somewhere, secure in the fact that his nemesis is at the bottom of the pond.” He glanced across the table at Father. “It is astonishing how easily you have given your specimen a story without undraping the fabric from his face.” Curiosity kept Angel in the lab. “Father, if this is a young lad, you must promise me that you will not perform your tricks on him.” Angel grabbed hold of his father’s arm as he went to lift the end of the blanket. “I must have your word, Father.”

  Father’s shoulders sank in defeat. “Fine, I will not touch the body if it is a child.”

  Father’s fingers trembled slightly as he lifted back the wool cover. Both men fell silent. Several scenarios had drifted through Angel’s mind about who might be under the covering, but never in a century would he have expected to see the face that lay in front of him now.

  “My God,” Father whispered shakily. “What depraved miscreant would take the life of this gift from heaven?”

  Angel heard his father speak but he could barely comprehend the words. He had to force himself to breathe as he stared down at a face so agonizingly beautiful, so delicately proportioned, so breathtaking he was certain he was looking down on a painting. A long curtain of lashes shadowed the pale white skin of her cheeks, but her
perfectly drawn lips were still rich with red color. The tops of two perfectly shaped breasts peered above her lacy chemise. One side of her sarcenet dress was ripped and stained with blood making the cause of her death by stabbing certain.

  Angel was thankful that her eyes were closed. It was hard enough to draw his gaze from her as it was, he could only imagine how hard it would be if those eyes still had life. “We must report her to the magistrate, Father. She is finely dressed. Surely she will be missed by someone.” Angel grabbed the end of the blanket to cover the face, a face that would surely haunt his dreams for eternity.

  This time Father grabbed his arm. “What are you about, Angel?”

  “You’re not going to experiment on her. Even you cannot be that insane.”

  “Our deal was if the victim was a child—”

  “She cannot be more than twenty years. You judge the murderer as depraved yet your desires are equally immoral.”

  Father’s face reddened and his neck bulged over his collar. “I have important work to tend to, so I’ll ignore your insult. She is not a youth and that puts an end to our debate. Besides, exactly how would we explain our carrying the corpse here? We would become suspects.” Father glanced down at the girl as if she were his prized possession. “What’s this?” His thick, calloused fingers contrasted with the creamy skin on her throat as he reached for a thin gold chain hanging around her neck. A gold charm dangled from the chain. Father leaned down to read the inscription. “Jane. That’s all it says.” He gazed down at the girl, and for a moment, Angel saw a glimmer of human emotion in his father’s face but he quickly reverted to his calculating scientific expression.

  “You’ve passed all reason and now you’ve brought me into your repellent affairs.”

  Father ignored him and walked over to his collection of Leyden jars where he would store the electricity needed for his experiment. “Let Ellie know I won’t be needing dinner this evening, and tell the others that I want no interruptions.” He waved a dismissive hand at Angel. “I no longer need your assistance. Please close the door on the way out.”

  “I should have let you drown out there.” Angel stormed out of the lab intentionally upturning a table of surgical implements as he went.

  ***

  Angel slouched in the drawing room chair, lost in his grim thoughts. The fire had purposely been kept weak. Though not frightened by glowing embers and candle flames, Zander was terrified of roaring fires. Lightning scared the giant beast of a man as well. He would often cower beneath his bedcovers until the storm passed. It was no wonder Father worried that his one success might be a grave disappointment to Rowntree. While it had to be admitted that Dr. Van Ostrand had achieved an astounding feat by bringing a once dead man back to life, Zander was hardly the picture of health and stability. There had been other specimens, forest creatures mostly, but only Zander had been brought successfully back from death. And that gave Angel some comfort. The odds were against his father having any success with the girl, the perfectly sculpted beauty lying cold and lifeless on his surgeon’s table.

  Lettie, the downstairs maid who stayed only because she had no place else to go, came into the parlor. “Master Van Ostrand, I shall build a better fire.”

  “Leave it,” Angel said quietly. “I don’t need it. Where is Zander?” He had to be watched like a small child.

  Lettie rubbed her hands on her apron, a nervous habit that seemed to get worse when Zander came up in conversation. “He’s in the kitchen with Ellie, Sir.” She curtsied hastily and hurried out of the room.

  Ellie would certainly have had enough of her overgrown, small-minded charge. Angel pushed up from the chair and headed downstairs to the kitchen.

  Being nearly blind, Ellie required little light to perform her tasks. The lines around her hazy brown eyes crinkled as she glanced up. “Master Angel, I’ve not seen you all day.”

  “Regrettably, I went with my father to the village.”

  Zander had been absorbed in a self-made game of stacking biscuits into a tower and had not noticed Angel walk in. He twisted back at the sound of Angel’s voice and jumped up so abruptly the stool he sat on overturned. He stared down at it with a pathetic look of anguish.

  Angel righted the stool and Zander went back to his mindless task of biscuit stacking.

  Ellie’s fingers moved with incredible speed and accuracy as she cut the potatoes. The blade of the knife was dangerously sharp, yet she managed it without cutting herself.

  “Father will not need supper tonight,” Angel said as he picked up a biscuit that had not found its way into the biscuit tower yet.

  Zander frowned at him for taking it.

  Ellie suddenly stopped slicing potatoes and looked toward Angel. “Is he working in his lab?” she asked.

  “Yes. All night.” Angel took a bite of the biscuit.

  Ellie’s weathered face smoothed and her lips thinned with concern. She’d been at Greystock Manor long enough to know that unexplained, unseemly events took place behind Dr. Van Ostrand’s lab door. One of those experiments was sitting directly in front of her, piling biscuits like a small child. And while she was generally fond of Zander, she knew that all was not right with him. She understood too well that the feeble minded man who had inexplicably become a member of the household was somehow connected to Dr. Van Ostrand’s secret experiments. Fortunately for Ellie, she was a woman of deep faith, and she would never allow herself to believe that God had been thwarted and Zander’s death had been reversed.

  Angel had come to the kitchen to relieve Ellie of her task of acting nursemaid to Zander, but standing in the dim, depressing atmosphere of the kitchen and watching Zander’s apelike movements, Angel lost his good intentions to selfishness. He could not stay the evening at Greystock knowing that his father sat hunched over an innocent victim, his probes and scalpels poking at the supple masterpiece of flesh they’d dragged from a watery grave. Her young life had ended horribly and prematurely and now she would not be allowed to rest in death.

  Angel tossed the remainder of his biscuit toward Zander who finished it like a hungry child being tossed food scraps. “Ellie, would it cause you great stress to watch over Zander for the remainder of the evening?”

  Ellie smiled weakly at Zander. “Not in the least. He usually goes to sleep directly after supper anyhow.”

  “Thank you, Ellie. I’m going out for the night.”

  Chapter 3

  The shadows of dusk stretched long over the pearl white landscape. Angel’s horse, Titus, was not bothered by the uneasy light or frozen ground. The animal galloped at full pace. Steam billowed from its nostrils as the horse’s thundering breaths shattered the silence of the surrounding forest. A lack of daylight and a lack of solid ground did not stop Angel from prodding Titus on to a dangerous pace.

  Arctic air numbed Angel’s face as he leaned over the horse’s neck. He steered Titus toward Bill Hanover’s farmstead. Hanover hosted illegal boxing matches three times a week and Angel was in the mood to witness a good pummeling. If the desire struck him, he might even participate in a match.

  A half moon had risen in the navy sky and it beamed down on the small farmstead. Three small cottages glowed yellow in the moonlight as their thatched roofs strained against the heavy mounds of snow piled on their rafters. Thin streams of smoke snaked up from the chimneys. Loud voices and flickering lantern lights flowed from the barn, a building that dwarfed the cottages. From the horses and wagons standing in the yard, it was easy to predict that a large crowd had already gathered inside. Angel paid the stable hand to see that Titus was rubbed down and watered.

  Hanover’s eldest son, Thomas, sat at the barn entrance to collect the spectator fee and warn those inside of possible visits from the law. Not that he needed to spend too much time with the latter since the town magistrate and two of his men were usually in attendance.

  Thomas had his father’s round face and ruddy complexion. He sat forward when Angel walked up. “Van Ostrand, a pleasure to see y
ou, Sir. My father will be pleased as well.” He nodded toward the commotion inside. “There’s a new young buck inside, claims he trained with none other than Gentleman John Jackson. Says he is undefeated. Enormous like an uncut ox.”

  Angel handed him his coins. “Sounds as if I came on a good night.”

  Thomas pocketed the coins. “That’s just it, Sir. Seems that no one has the ballocks to step inside with the man. Grayson showed up to fight tonight but took one glance at the lad and backed out. That’s what all the roarin’ is about in there. No one wants to take Grayson’s place.”

  “I suppose a fight with only one participant would be rather dull,” Angel said and walked inside.

  The odor of sweat mingled with the smell of livestock creating a dank, unpleasant atmosphere in the barn, yet at least seventy men had paid half a shilling to squeeze into the place. Hanover had cleverly divided his colossal barn into two useful halves, one to shelter his animals and one to hold pugilist matches. The man certainly earned far more money from the illegal half of his barn. Although tonight it seemed some might demand their money back.

  The aggravated spectators stood huddled around the floor space that had been cleared for the match. A massively built man, with a bald head and nose that bent in several directions and looked decidedly off-center from the rest of his face, stood in the center smacking his fist against his palm. His feet danced anxiously around the circle waiting for his victim to step inside.

  A hand fell hard on Angel’s shoulder. “Van Ostrand, you’re here,” Hanover said.

  “So it seems.”

  Hanover looked slightly embarrassed. “We’ve run into a bit of a problem, I’m afraid. It seems our newest pugilist, Lawford, does not have a proper match amongst our usual fighters.” Hanover hesitated but Angel knew what was coming next. “I don’t suppose you’d consider it?”