Chapter 10
I come to in my own bed with little knowledge of how I got there. My shoulder throbs painfully and my head is pounding. The curtains are drawn and the room is dark but for a few candles and that silver of moonlight knife's through a gap in the curtains and across my bed.
Gritting my teeth I push up into a seated position. My shoulder burns in protest. I remember that kind of pain from the last time I dislocated my shoulder. I swallow back the groan lodged in my throat. It's not just my shoulder that protests my head feels like it has shattered into a thousand pieces. The room is spinning rebelliously and my ears start to ring. At least I remember how I came to have a headache.
After tossing the chair across the narrow space with me in it. He picked me up by the arm and slammed me into the pillar in one of his fits of rage. I had only ever seen him like that once. The shoulder is nothing. It has been dislocated several times before, the hazards of my upbringing and my brief time in the Corps de ballet. But never has he thrown me like that, tossing me like a rag doll. My hands begin to shake at the memory. Waste of energy, waste of fear, getting angry at Erik only makes the pain worse.
I flop back, groaning again when my head hits the pillow. The shoulder is set but ought to be in a sling. Perhaps after his madness passed he set it for me and brought me home. I close my eyes and have a flash of being carried by someone into a cab.
"The footman." I whisper. As soon as I speak I feel the prickling at the back of my neck that I am not alone.
A man clears his throat. He is here again.
"Where is MacDougal?" He whispers harshly. "Find him and tell him our sleeping beauty is awake. " he orders in perfect English.
"I'm coming. The lass will live." Rumbles a voice from just outside my room. That man's voice purrs a perfect Scottish brogue.
I close my eyes wishing I had the sense to listen before I decided to wake up. I had been through enough for one night and did not care to unravel the mystery of my English footman. Erik was right on that score.
A cool hand is pressed against my forehead and I slap it away. He smells of cedar and leather. His was the voice I heard in the box and I was not mistaken. I open my eye and glare at him, angry with myself for having fallen for his disguise. Looking back it was all so painfully obvious. He is the reason I have a splitting headache. Is it any wonder Erik blamed me for the intrusion?
I force myself passed the pain and sit up. "Damn Englishman!" I squint up at him as his Scotsman turns up the gaslight and orders more candles in the room.
He smiles down at me, a light chuckle escapes his throat. His eyes and his bearing are now years older and world weary. Yet he has the audacity to be even more handsome. His waistcoat is a fine make and he wears a pocket watch and his cravat is tied in a simple yet elegant knot. He must have changed his clothes for his appearance at box five. He is just another amateur detective trying to make a name for himself catching the opera ghost. He even has his doctor traveling with him. How quaint to be a part of one of the many imitators of the Strand's most famed detectives?
"Who are you? You certainly are not a footman in my employ. If you were I could discharge you and been done with it."
"Ah, another hope dashed to pieces.
"You might consider being more gracious. You could still be on the floor of the opera house if not for me."
The anger sharpens the pain momentarily and then pain stifles it. "Did you follow me here from London?"
"Not precisely," His eyes crinkle a bit when he smiles. "It is more accurate to say I anticipated your arrival."
"You obviously know who I am," I reply dully. "And since my flights of fantasy are confined to the stage pray tell me which of the famed Strand stories am I participating in?" I fling my hand out to him mockingly.
He takes my fingertips and kisses them with a wink, as if to confirm my suspicions. The gray-headed Scotsman pushes his way past my Mary who is white as the bed sheet beneath her bloom of freckles.
"I have my own physician." I protest. It makes no difference. The Scotsman pushes aside gallant tormentor and my raised hand.
After examining me and checking the reflexes of my eyes, the Scottish doctor retires to the corner where he whispers to his friend. I sink back into the pillow and remember one of the last things Erik said to me, "You should not have come." He was right. He had his new muse and no longer had need of me.
No sooner does my back hit the pillow than the Englishman is towering over me again. His figure is broader than I first assessed. While I chose to exaggerate my age and figure with much padding and a gray wig, he chose to enhance the impression of youth with oversize clothes and bashful movement.
I don't think he is bored gentleman playing a game. I see a dangerous alertness in his looks. The breadth of his shoulders is fully visible beneath his impeccable tailored coat. He holds my gaze with his frank perusal of my person. For a fleeting moment I have the sense that he is as capable of reading my mind Erik.
"Can you explain to me how it is you ended up in box five when no one saw you enter, neither myself or the irrefutable Madame Giry? It seems you have a few secrets of your own to keep. It's hard to imagine why a woman of your beauty and influence would choose to sneak about in disguise."
I feel the blood drain from my face. He was paying attention.
"Don't let him rattle you my dear," the good quips doctor. "He's just afraid your smiles weren't for him this evening."
"Thank you my friend. I will call you if we need you."
He dismisses him without looking round. Is it money that he wants? Perhaps a bit of blackmail his how he acquires his fine waistcoats and gold pocket watch. The cuff links also solid gold if my upbringing still serves my eye for assessing trinkets.
"Is this a negotiation?"
His smiles. "I have no interest in your money Mademoiselle—though by your quick perusal of my valuables I might ask if you have designs on robbing me."
He leans toward me, "And yes I know who you are," he whispers. "A change of address and a padded dress are not enough to persuade me. Despite what you think I did not follow you here."
Another rakish grin, "It was simply a happenstance of circumstance that I learned you were on the boat from Dover to Calais."
I glare up at him seeing that one eye was green and the other blue-gray. How had I not noticed this before? Light from the candle on the bedside table illuminates one side of his face and leaving his one gray eye in shadow. There is something in the way he looks at me. Determination. Erik is right to wish me far from him. I do not pay attention to the world around me like I should
Turning from his gaze I reach for the steaming cup of tea that seems to have miraculous appears. He anticipates me and places it in my hands his fingers carefully grazing mine.
"Is seduction part of your normal repartee in interrogations?" I challenge.
Straightening, he laughs. "I doubt you would be surprised at its effectiveness."
Turning his head slightly to effectively whisper in my ear, "Rest assured your virtue is safe from me, for the present."
I try to glare through the smile that twitches my lips. He plays the game well. Perhaps he is what he would have me believe. "You are not dressed like a policemen and yet your manners defy the assumption you are a gentleman."
He pulls a chair close to the bed, his eyes searching my reactions for answers more than my words.
He smiles smugly, his arm resting on the bed as if the mattress was an armrest. "Cambridge."
"And beyond that? A soldier or a younger son of a minor title perhaps."
"Something like that. How is your head feeling?"
"I've felt better. Who hired you, the new management?"
He studies my face for moment. "An interested party."
I sip my tea and the room seems to tilt a little more than before.
"You look tried Mademoiselle. Perhaps we should take up these questions in the morning."
The suspicion darts in my breast as I look back down at the cup. I can hardly keep my eyes open. He takes the cup from my hands and sets it aside.
"What have you done?"
"If you have a dispute with your manner of treatment, I suggest you take it up with your physician."
I can no longer hold my eyes open. It is a fitful unnatural sleep I inherit. Unable to move my limbs, the world swirls around me somewhere between consciousness and a dream-state. Laudanum. The Scotsman must have slipped it into my tea. The pain is gone, but I hear whispers in the shadows and see demons on the ceiling. Did they know how they would punish me by this little mercy? Did they know who else would be watching?