Angelika watched Victor put his eye back to his microscope. “What are you doing?”
In a tone he’d used since childhood, he replied: “Using—a—microscope—Jellybrain.”
She gritted her teeth. “For what?”
“See for yourself.” He usually made her try much harder to use his equipment. It felt like a trick, but Angelika stood up on tiptoe to look through the eyepiece.
“What am I looking at? Bacteria? Bile?” Another world was teeming on this glass slide. Angelika adjusted the view. “Some sort of lice?”
“Spermatozoa,” Victor replied. “A sample that Lizzie collected for me a few minutes ago. Say hello to your nieces and nephews.”
Angelika recoiled. “Chemicals to wash my eyeballs, I beg.”
The fact that he wasn’t laughing was a worry.
“Be more mature,” Victor chastised her. “I am only doing this for your benefit. This is selfless research.”
“Oh, certainly. Did Lizzie obtain the sample with a needle?”
After a violent shudder, Victor continued his noble speech. “I seek to understand what Will’s chances are of fatherhood. Whilst I do not flatter myself as the perfect specimen, I’m the only baseline I have easy access to. This new microscope is marvelous.”
“This is what he meant about your unendurable requests,” Angelika said slowly as the full scale of the experiment dawned on her. “You asked him for a sample, so you could compare.”
“I did, and he reacted like I had offered to tug it out of him myself.” Victor hunted through the mess on the bench and proffered a glass beaker. “Sterilize this, then see how you do. Make sure you bring it to me at once. Doesn’t matter if it’s the middle of the night.”
“He said no.” She crossed her arms and refused to take it. “So I will not even ask.”
Victor insisted, “It’s the only way we can know. Our other comparison subject is my friend out in the forest, but that would be a challenge I’d rather not attempt. Unless you’re up for securing a third suitor.”
The grin on his handsome face was infuriating, but it also put a happy bubble in her stomach. This felt so much like old times, bar a snoring Lizzie behind them.
“I think we’ve done enough to him.”
Victor looked through the eyepiece at his sample again. “I’m thinking about bringing a dead ram back to life as a possible alternative.” His brow creased as he thought about it. “The things we do for science, eh?”
“Just leave it. This is one thing we can leave up to—” She mindlessly almost said God, but quickly finished with: “The mysteries of nature.”
“And can you make Will your final choice, without knowing?” Victor leaned an elbow on the bench and they both watched Lizzie sleep. “She’s with child, thanks to my spectacular efforts.”
Angelika knew this was inevitable, but still felt stunned. “Are you sure she is?” A flash of envious, guilty, scrambling desperation coursed through her. The race to lie on a picnic blanket with their babies had now officially begun. “Are you absolutely sure?”
“She’s tired, and is very picky about her food, and hates bad smells. Her courses were due two weeks ago. Check the slide again if you doubt me.” He gestured to the microscope. “I am a very productive person. I should be the one asleep.”
“Your greatest experiment begins. How wonderful.” Angelika saw his smile did not quite reach his eyes. “Are you not happy?”
“I’m very happy, but it is creating friction between us. According to her, we have to be married as soon as possible.”
Even in her sleep, Lizzie was pinching her engagement ring. “She would marry you today. Yesterday, in fact. I do not see the problem.” She tactfully did not glance at the printed anti-marriage treatise tacked to the wall, riddled with knives and darts. She didn’t have to.
“I am famous for my stance on it.” It was amazing how Victor could still wince. “It won’t die. It’s multiplied and spread, like a germ. Every time I walk into a room, I hear titters.”
“You’re being very brave, facing your fear of worldwide ridicule.”
“I’m not brave. She will only marry me in a church, to please her parents.”
“Ah.”
“I did not think it through completely, when I gave her the diamond ring. And now she is bitterly disappointed that I am being so difficult. Every time she looks at me, it’s frustration and sadness and . . . doubt. We Frankensteins are risky propositions.”