"What else did you tell him?" she asked as they began to carefully guide Frederick back to the house, the giant balanced between the two of them.
"I told him that every man makes himself a fool over some woman, often more than once. The trick is to give things your best shot, and if that doesn't work, go on about your life, even if you leave a bit of your heart behind. Crying over spilt milk never proved the pudding."
"What a crusty thing to say."
"You should trust your husband more—a lot more," Adam said. "That's what a good husband does: cossets and takes care of his wife. And she cossets him, especially in the boudoir. That is the secret to wedded harmony."
Frederick groaned beside her, his weight causing her back to ache, and Eve thought of what had just been said. She had never really thought all that much about husbands or what she wanted in one. That was, until Adam had stuck his nose into her life and asylum. One thing she did know, however. Well, several actually. If she were thinking about husbands—which she really wasn't—she would want one who loved her. He would be her helpmate within the asylum, and would think of the members of the Towers as an extended family—an odd family, but a family nonetheless. Strangely, Adam fit most of those requirements.
With the rain pounding down upon her head and soaking her to the skin, Eve groaned as the soused Frederick stumbled, almost bringing all three of them to their knees. She wished the castaway creature were at least four feet shorter and easier to help along.
Reaching the terrace steps to the balcony, she sighed in relief. They'd soon be inside.
"I love Miss Beal, and I'll show… shower her roses," Frederick slurred. "Shower with roses."
Eve stuck her head around Frederick's belly, looked at Adam, and said, "Shower with roses?"
"I told him to send over four or five baskets of flowers for Miss Beal, and apologize in person for his clumsiness. If she doesn't accept the apology, then she isn't worthy of such a fine fellow as Frederick."
"My, my, Dr. Adam, you do surprise me," Eve conceded graciously as Teeter and Totter came bounding down the terrace steps to help. Relieved of her burden, she stared in admiration at Adam. He might not be trained in psychiatry, but he had a good head on strong shoulders, and a fine instinct about people.
Frederick stumbled less as her butler and gardener half carried him up the terrace steps. "Dr. Eve, I didn't even get to l-look at all those inky pictures of yours." He finished his complaint with a series of loud hiccups.
Adam chortled, saying, "Don't worry, the results are spotty anyway."
Eve scowled. "My ink test is being touted as highly effective, thank you very much."
Wisely, the butler, the monster, and the gardener all kept quiet.
Jack the Rip, however, did not. He let loose a sudden bellow of both pain and outrage. Glancing back over her shoulder, Eve sadly shook her head. "Totter, go and get Jack untangled. It appears everything's coming up roses."
"How very gothic."
Chapter Twenty-One
Take Two Glasses of Port and Call Me in the Morning
Eve's carriage was filled with laughter and off-key singing, and the creature crooning was not only slightly off balance but off his rocker as well. Frederick was still sloshed to the gills, and he wasn't even part merfolk! Luckily, Adam had some experience with drunks; after all, he had once worked in a tavern in Paris. So while they traveled along the rutted roads, making their way through the London streets to Dr. Frankenstein's, he restrained Frederick from bellowing at the top of his lungs.
As they approached Mayfield Square, where only the bluest of blue bloods lived, along with a few vampires, Frederick, his damp hair sticking to his scalp, began to sing a bawdy song. Adam intervened, saving not only Eve's eardrums but her pride as well. She had no desire to make a scene.
Twilight was falling, the sky shrouded in dim gray and black, as Eve asked Adam more about his tavern experience. He told her that his job had been to roust drunks and keep the tavern from being torn to shreds during shape-shifter fights. His stories were enthralling, and Eve clearly saw that wherever he wandered he made an impression—and left one as well. Her hypothetical husband had done so many things in his life. He was a jack-of-all-trades, a chameleon, blending in perfectly with his surroundings no matter where he laid his head at night.
She smiled at something he said, thinking about what an odd man he was. Adam was composed of many parts, not unlike Frederick. She hadn't even known the man a full week, and yet she found it difficult to imagine that he'd once been nothing but a figment of her imagination. He had come into her life and made it better with his presence.
He smiled back at her, patting Frederick, who was now waxing rhapsodic about Miss Beal's attributes. Eve rolled her eyes. If Frederick wasn't singing some horrid song, he was writing odes to Miss Beal's beauty. If she heard one more word about the woman's dainty elbows, she would go mad herself.
The carriage stopped. Catching Eve's expression, Adam helped a lurching Frederick into the house, along with her driver, James. Inside, his creator and Clair both scolded the wayward giant.
Adam returned to the carriage and climbed inside. Once settled comfortably against the seat, he crisply rapped on the roof. "Home, James!" he called. Then, turning to Eve, he smiled a slow, crooked smile, which left her slightly breathless. "I'm so glad that your driver's name is James. I've always wanted to say that."
Eve laughed, surprisingly happy. In her wildest dreams, she would never have imagined loving the devilish glint in a husband's lovely hazel eyes, or recalling fondly the way his broad shoulders looked while he was shoveling dirt alongside Fester.
Adam winked, his manner quite merry for someone who had been singing in the rain with a nude monster a short while earlier. His humor was infectious, and she found herself giggling for no reason at all. Her feelings for him were becoming rather warm, even though she knew that he was calculating, cagey, cunning, and probably as crooked as the day was long. But he did make her toes curl when he kissed her. Maybe even more important was the fact that he made her laugh.
As the carriage took them back along the muddy roads to the asylum, he and Eve talked more about his past. Adam found her questions to be a dashing good sign. To his way of thinking, her curiosity indicated interest, and interest could be turned into lovemaking, if a man were both cunning and intrepid. Adam was nothing if not intrepid.
As they talked, Adam stared at Eve. She was his guiding light, his shining star. When he was younger, he had stood alone on jagged peaks in distant lands, and below he would watch the world go by without him. Now the world was a different place, and his participation in it began with Eve.
She was telling him something about her past, and he commiserated, noting appreciatively how the soft glow of the carriage lantern set off her creamy complexion. The reddish-gold strands of her hair were highlighted, and glistened like flame.
"What about your early life and family?" Eve asked. "You've mentioned them little."
Adam sighed. "My father, before he lost the estates, was a jolly fellow, always laughing. He taught me to love nature, to ride, to hunt, and he always had a good story to tell." His father had also taught him pride in his heritage. "He was a good father. He chased away the monsters in the dark when I was small."
He stared into the flickering fire of the lantern, his surroundings fading from view. Bravely he summoned memories of things long left buried, and he looked back across the years.
"I remember him fondly. When we were small, my father used to throw me and my little brother into the air, laughing the whole time. My mother would scold him and kiss him on the cheek, while she combed our mussed hair. Mine was always tangled. I was quite the little scapegrace."