No Going Back Now
"Jean-Louis, Léon, please wait."
Happily, the acute reflexes of youth prevented the footmen from barreling into their future mistress with their laden trays. She unexpectedly had raised her hand up while outside the door of the music room, signaling them to proceed no further.
What she heard did nothing to ease her concerns over the revelations of the day or Erik's reaction to them. It only served to make her heart sink further at listening to the wind-swept melody of Chopin's Prelude Number 8 in F# minor, its notes like icy fingers unpleasantly stroking the back of her neck. Obviously, Erik was exorcising his demons on the keyboard rather than the more destructive ways of his past.
Waiting for the last benedictory notes, she lightly tapped four times in two sequences. On rare occasions, to his displeasure, the servants found it necessary to interrupt him in this most private area of the chateau. Christine, naturally, was welcome at any time. Still, wishing to respect his privacy, she light-heartedly suggested a special code to alert him to her presence. What did he think of the opening eight notes of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony? Erik had laughed heartily at her sense of the absurd and agreed.
It also was she who arranged the light meal now carried by the two footmen. Erik had instructed Mme. Dumont to prepare a late luncheon for Christine as he had no wish to dine and would spend the rest of the afternoon in his music room. Both women stared without comment as he escaped up the stairs two at a time to change and retire. Shrugging at his mood, Christine instructed the housekeeper to arrange for wine and a platter of cold meats, cheeses, fruit, and bread to be ready after she had changed.
Erik glanced up at her entrance, attempting a bleak smile, only to follow it with a grimace at the food. He had no desire to eat when his past was doing its damndest to devour him.
If only…
In only his father had found some way to keep both him and his mother alive. If only he had not yielded to the cruelty of Emma de Carpentier and joined the gypsies. If only he had never left the opera house. If only he had…
But what if the sum total of these if onlys had meant that he would never have felt the love of any female, much less of this beautiful child-woman who was serenely directing the activities of the servants? That he would have never felt that wave of peace each time Lucien placed the wafer on his tongue.
The child-woman critically surveyed the footmen's handicraft. The dishes were assembled with precision on a black tilt top table, wine glasses filled to the precise depth.
Nodding her approval, she said to the young men, "Everything appears to be order. You may return to your other duties."
With that dismissal, Christine walked to the piano bench to sit beside him, offering him a glass of wine while she nibbled on a piece of cheese from the heaped plate she held securely, all the while capturing his eyes with hers. He knew the look in those dark depths—you are not alone—I am here. Yes, she was here, he reflected in bittersweetness, absently tearing off a piece of the crusty loaf.
§
She listened as he played, holding his wineglass for him and stealing an occasional sip. His tunes mirrored the disorder of his emotions, stormy Liszt and Chopin; sweet Mendelssohn and Schubert. His own works had moved beyond the discordant harmonies of Don Juan Triumphant—they were full of aching yearning.
Despite the large windows that allowed the warmth of the sun's rays to fall on her, she experienced a chill, setting down the wineglass and plate on the piano cabinet in order to pull her silk-fringed shawl tighter around her bodice. Changing clothing has been a rushed affair; a simple long-sleeved white silk blouse waist, its square neck cut nearly to the top of her chemise, and a dark green bengaline skirt with apron. An exotically designed red Kashmir shawl, a gift from Erik, draped sensually around her shoulders. She had not bothered with the effort of inserting a modest fichu in her neckline.
The rustling to adjust her toilette interrupted his concentration. Breaking off from playing, he seized her body to his, claiming her lips in a deep, passionate kiss in which to pour some of his troubled emotions. She responded with sweet fervency, trailing her hand down his neck to his open collar above his vest, his cravat and frockcoat long since discarded. At the feathery touch of her fingertips, he broke from her lips, moving his along her jaw, down her swan-like neck, to the racing pulse at its base. Her gasp of surprise and pleasure met with a startling growl from deep inside his chest.
What happened next caused all breathing on her part to stop. He tore his mask off and slammed it onto the colorful Persian rug beneath the piano. She dared not breathe—he had never removed his mask voluntarily in her presence—yet he did now, prompted by desire or perhaps some other unformed emotion. She did not know and did not care.
With all of her being, she controlled the visceral shiver that threatened to boil over to the outermost layer of her skin as she felt his hand pushing away the shawl and his lips move closer to the bottom of her neckline just above her chemise. She closed her eyes and stroked his hair, instinctively feeling the need to allow him this liberty, while wrestling to control her own reaction to this most sensuously delicate of incursions. Then, as suddenly, he ceased, pressing his marred cheek against her breasts as if listening for her heartbeat would convince himself that she, at least, was alive in the charnel house of his past.
When she felt his hot, stinging tears roll down the hollow between her breasts, she choked back her own sob into her kisses on his glossy, dark hair.
§
Mme. Dumont irritably pushed back a loose hair as she and Perrot assembled the servants with no small degree of difficulty in the Great Hall. Their inattentiveness might be explained, in part, by the great distraction of their efforts to prepare for their own Twelfth Night celebration. Still, this was no excuse for servants that Perrot and she had trained diligently in order to instill a suitable understanding of their positions. Out of his generosity, Monsieur had agreed to relocate the crèche from its corner in the salon to the center of the Great Hall, to be flanked by his gift of the tables of food, drink, and, of course, galette du roi for after the Midnight Mass.
Both Monsieur and Mademoiselle had been tightlipped upon their unexpectedly early return from Fleury-sur-Andelle, he retreating to his music room, her following him after emerging from her bedchamber. Now, he wished all of the servants called together.
She looked up at the sound of the library door opening, surprised to see only the Giry's emerging, their faces solemn and thoughtful. Both women had just returned from Rouen, only to be immediately escorted by Jean-Louis to the library to meet with Monsieur and Mademoiselle. As the two women approached the Grand Staircase, Mme. Giry stopped to inform the housekeeper that they were to change out of their carriage dresses but that Alice and Hélène were to remain to attend the couple now emerging from their seclusion. She and her daughter would manage nicely.
Erik felt Christine's reassuring hand on his arm as he faced the servants, not feeling quite right about what he was to say. Michel had requested that Erik spare Francois and the family name some dignity, which it did not precisely deserve, reminding him that Christine would bear that name. Roles would be reversed. Instead of the Church, Erik would be the instigator of the investigation into his past. It would be he who had discovered his true name and antecedents some years earlier but had chosen this moment to present himself to the head of the de Carpentier family with his proofs, spurred by a need to settle his affairs before his marriage. Charles and Emma de Carpentier's role would disappear—a disturbed servant of the doctor abducted the ill child and sold him to the gypsies, who in turn maimed his face for their own profit. In order to protect his reputation and deny his culpability, the doctor told Francois that the child had died of contagion. Thus, the dignity of the de Carpentier de Chagny name escaped scandal since the doctor and servant were assumed long since dead in Switzerland. Only the inner circle of the de Chagny family, priests of the Church bound by the Seal of Confession, and the Emperor of France knew differently. By the time of Francois' death, servants had died, left for other employment, or were pensioned off. Much could be forgotten or imperfectly remembered in nearly thirty-five years.
Christine's eyes widened at the change in his posture as he surveyed the gathering before addressing them. The proud, erect man in the portrait had come back to life.
"I have an announcement to make which I trust shall have no bearing on the daily operation of this household. The Comte de Chagny has determined that I am the rightful heir of the previous Comte de Chagny. That child presumably expired under his doctor's care but was actually abducted and raised under different circumstances. With the permission of the Emperor, I have chosen not to assume the title from my cousin but will be styled Baron de Carpentier, my father's lesser title, until my cousin's demise. I intend to live as I have, with no more change than the affixation of a coat of arms on the carriages and a change of stationery as soon as I design it." Even his own words did not convince him. His father's signet on his right hand, a presentation from Michel, gave lie to the studied correctness of his tone. The ring, which had fit almost too perfectly, now tore at his flesh like a golden nobleman's cilice.
Suzanne's agile mind rapidly calculated the portent of his words. A quick glance around was all that was needed to tell her volumes. Her fellow servants' look of goggle-eyed shock dissolved into more erect bearings and serious miens, with reason. As young as they were, they were now servants of a nobleman, to be precise a baron who would, one day, be a comte. She knew the petite mademoiselle had no personal servant. Now, the mademoiselle was to be a baronne upon her marriage, in need of a lady's maid. She would redouble her efforts to prove indispensable…
"Furthermore," Erik continued, responding to Christine's tender pressure on his arm, "I pray you overlook my ungentlemanly behavior over the past few days. My change in station is somewhat disconcerting but will become familiar in time. Meanwhile, Perrot, Mme. Dumont, due to the revels I will not expect the servants to commence their duties until 10 o'clock in the morning."
He looked down at Christine, rewarded by the beam that lit her face.
Mme. Gobert, on the other hand, was aghast.
"Monsieur, er, M. le Baron, what of your breakfast? I could not possibly stay abed, knowing that guests have not broken their fast."
Christine nodded reassuringly at the older woman's distress.
"Mme. Gobert, I have offered my services to M. le Baron, with the assistance of Mlle. Giry. Besides, he has promised to instruct me in the art of brewing Turkish coffee."
The good dame drew her breath in her ample bosom as if to protest, only to be mollified by Christine's charming smile and soothing words.
"Madame, please put your mind at ease. I assure you I am quite capable of recognizing the difference between an egg beater and a potato masher."
Her mouth widened in even greater humor at the cook's stunned expression of disbelief, feeling the tremor in Erik's arm as evidence of his own feeble attempt to suppress his laughter.
It would not be easy but they would cross this stormy lake and make a safe landing.
§
It was a fine crisp night for the Twelfth Night Procession to Midnight Mass, the stars so bright that they made the torches almost redundant. Lucien gazed fondly as the children, from teenagers to toddlers, beat on drums and blew on pipes, marching grandly in their shepherds' clothing towards the church. One of the older girls signaled the beginning of the carol…
Un flambeau, Jeannette, Isabelle
Un flambeau, courons au berceau.
C'est Jésus, bonnes gens du hameau,
Le Christ est né, Marie appelle
Ah! Ah! Que la mère est belle
Ah! Ah! Que l'Enfant est beau.
It was a time for all of the townspeople of Bezancourt. Even the Huguenots and anti-Papist atheists could not resist the innocent pageantry of the celebration, mingling along the street with their Catholic brethren in unfamiliar bonhomie for the occasion.
Lucien stood on the church steps, smiling broadly at their singing, but unable to resist a glance at the betrothed couple watching the procession. Earlier, they had ridden to the presbytère, only to be redirected by Mme. Camier to the sanctuary. The appearance of the couple in the narthex brought back painful memories of a wretched lone horseman who had poured out his soul in a morning of burning confession. Now, it was two, not with personal confessions, but generational ones.
So this was Henri-Marie's great secret. The amount of family betrayal was outrageous but, with time, it would ultimately serve to drive the two closer together. Lucien covertly eyed the jeunne femme with interest, wishing he knew more of her. She was barely past her girlhood, her youth betrayed by occasional blushes and a downcast tilt of her head. Yet he knew that she could be utterly fearless if the need arose. Erik was indeed blessed.
Still, not all was quiet in his heart. Many years in the priesthood had given him a sensitivity of the undercurrents of the human condition. There was something here he did not understand, like a missing piece of a puzzle that when placed would reveal the whole picture. Perhaps it was an inconsequential piece but at this point, he did not know.
God willing, he would understand in time. He would pray on it.
§
Christine recognized her right away. After the service, the children had gathered around Erik as bees around a hive, greedy for wrappers of Turkish Delight in spite of the promised galette du roi at their respective homes. He had spoken of this little one, all of four years old, all black curls and brown eyes, impudently demanding a second piece from the very beginning. Prodded by her maman, she slowly approached Christine with her curtsey and darted behind Erik's cape.
"Lucie, remember my boon for the second piece," he turned and scowled down at her with mock seriousness, "you must properly introduce yourself to Mlle Daaé." Erik required an exchange for that second wrapper—she must sing a tune, recite the Rosary, give him a pretty stone or flower. The older children minded less and, after all, she was the youngest of those whose parents would allow such a treat that might spoil one's appetite.
Christine's heart filled with loving pride when told of his solution. He would be such a good papa.
As Lucie slowly inched towards her, Christine sank gracefully to her knees and offered her gloved hand. Lucie took it and sucked in her breath, her other hand yanking at a wayward strand of black curls.
"Mam'selle, does your hair snarl dreadfully like mine? Maman says that rats live in my hair but that cannot be true or I would have heard them squeak," lisped the petite, her words an unruly jumble of French and Norman dialect.
Christine bit her lower lip to control the laugh threatening to bubble out. A quick glance at Erik showed him to be suddenly interested in the stars above, smiling faintly at whatever amusement they offered.
"Yes, it can so I must be careful to brush it every night," Christine sighed, replying with a few halting Norman words she knew in order to put this little one at ease. Her own Scandinavian mother language had proven quite useful in unraveling some of the unfamiliar words to which her stay at Fleury-sur-Andelle had exposed her.
"Maman tries, but sometimes it is hard for me to sit still. Maman told me that Monsieur is going to marry you. He wears a mask to cover the scars on his face, you know. You are very pretty. Are you sure you wish to marry him?"
The mortified maman's attempt to hiss her little girl into silence met with Christine's upraised hand and tender look of understanding.
"Lucie, are you able to keep a secret?" she asked. The little girl nodded vigorously in the affirmative, her curls bobbing in agreement. With her eyes shining luminously at Erik, Christine gathered Lucie into her arms and whispered loudly into her and everyone else's ear. "Monsieur has promised that if I marry him, he will give me all the Turkish Delight I wish!"
Lucie's round-eyed astonishment at her confession nearly sent Christine into giggles, while the others around them chuckled fitfully with self-conscious humor at what could have been a supremely awkward moment. However, Erik's beatific smile to his betroth warmed the chill of the night air on her skin finer than the most expensive furs.
Once past her initial shock the petite screwed her innocent childish face in a calculating expression.
"Then, Mam'selle, I shall marry him, too."
§
Minette watched indulgently from her comfortable armchair as Christine and Meg nibbled from a plate of victuals looted by Suzanne from the servants' buffet. Out of consideration for the turn of events, Père Mallaird and his housekeeper had not insisted on a lengthier visit for cake and cider. They arrived back at the chateau with the servant gala in full swing.
It was just a well. Meg and she were exhausted after a busy day of sight-seeing in Rouen and certainly Christine and Erik looked drained, Erik more so. Surprisingly, he kissed Christine at the second floor landing and made a speedy exit to his own bedchamber, leaving his betroth in astonishment.
Sensing Christine's misery, Meg suggested that Suzanne bring them food while they aided with each other's nightly toilette in her maman's bedchamber.
Minette felt like a girl in the dormitories with its memories of dress unhooking, groans of relief at releasing corsets, and chatter about the day's events. Christine smiled at Meg's description of Rouen but it was a smile that never went to her eyes, her hands fidgeting with the wide Valenciennes lace that edged the belted wraparound white flannel dressing gown.
"Girls, have a care with crumbs!" the ballet mistress scolded with mock exasperation as the jeunne femmes made a dining table of the bedclothes. "I will be sleeping in that bed tonight."
Meg giggled at her mother's admonition but Christine looked stricken, hastily setting the plate on the bed stand.
"Christine, I did not mean for you to stop eating. Meg, enough about Rouen. It is obvious that your sister had wished to speak to me since we returned. Christine, do you wish to speak in private?"
Christine shook her head "No" just before Meg was to launch her protest. "Madame, Meg knows so much of my life that I would not deny her this."
Folding her hands serenely in her lap, Minette prompted, "Well, my child, what is it."
The jeunne femme wet her lips in hesitation, forming her thoughts with care.
"You know of what transpired at the Chateau de Chagny. What I don't understand is why Father had me baptized as a Catholic that summer in Perros-Guirec. I sense he confided in you."
With so many secrets being revealed, Minette was hardly surprised that this one, too, would be uncovered.
"Yes, he did, my dear. At your mother's death, Gustave sought out his father in an attempt to breach their differences. Christer Daaé was confined to bed in ill health, carrying the additional burden of those family secrets. The old man gave him a letter written on his former wife's deathbed in which she begged her son's forgiveness for being weak in obeying the King and her Bernadotte relatives' wishes and hoped he would pray Rosaries for her soul. At that bit of revelation, Herr Daaé admitted the promise to raise the son as Catholic had been broken."
"He lived but another two weeks. Gustave played the attentive, forgiving son but inwardly seethed at the injustice. Do you remember your grandfather, Christine?"
Christine wriggled in the bed to find a more comfortable position that refused to be found.
"Yes, after thinking about it this afternoon, I remembered we traveled to the house of an old man who had violins stashed all around. Father said he was my grandfather. Upon seeing me, Grandfather wept and said I had Jeanne's eyes. I did not understand who Jeanne was at the time but now I do."
Minette reflected sorrowfully, Gustave should have told her this, but no, how could such a little girl have understood?
"Your father felt that his father should have been more of a man and stayed with his wife. He understood a world that used women as pawns, including his mother, and was desperate that you have a career that could give you some level of independence. He also knew the Church had little to no power against the once Catholic monarch and a deeply entrenched Lutheran Church. So it allowed an annulment to gain a baptism, naively believing that Christer Daaé would keep his end of the bargain."
"After his funeral, your father took you and left Sweden and the Lutheran Church permanently to embrace the country and faith of his mother. I truly believed he wished to blot out his Swedish connections, as if he could. My dear, though you have French and Spanish blood, you are, at heart, a Swedish demoiselle whose steady nature is exactly what our tempestuous Erik needs. I am glad for that."
Christine smiled despondently at her last words. Her 'steady nature" did not seem to be of much use to Erik now. She could barely keep pace with his erratic moods today.
"Madame, did Erik ever meet my father?"
Minette jolted visibly at the startling question, scarcely able to imagine the ramifications of such an occurrence.
"No, Erik did not return to the Populaire until shortly after his death. Still, I think Gustave would have approved of Erik, not just because they both had the souls of artists, but because Erik would never let his artistry overrun his need to protect his own. Your poor father regretted deeply that he had not been more concerned with your wellbeing in pursuit of his muse. I think he rests easier that you are in the care of a man who would never allow you to be harmed."
Christine sighed and twisted the double row of lace on her elbow-length sleeves. Oh, Erik, I wish you had returned a bit earlier from your travels so that you might have known my father.
§
Her pale face hung like a ghost in the mirror about the dressing table with her buttery soft flannel nightdress completing the eerie image. Savagely brushing her curls, she dared any rats to squeak. Today had been so hard, trying to be strong for Erik, smiling when she wanted to cry as her own family history haunted her. Next week would come too soon, she thought, while kicking off her old satin practice slippers and crawling on top of the bedclothes. Her days would be filled with rehearsals and voice lessons but what of her nights? Nights spent missing Erik dreadfully and regretting the past. God, she missed him now and he was only a few doors away.
Turning down the lamp flame to nothingness, she sat in the darkness, allowing her eyes to adjust to the shadows on the furnishings. Shadows of the past. They had abandoned love in the name of propriety and convention. Could their darkness reach from the past and tear her from Erik? White-hot anger boiled in her—no, never again. Jumping out of bed she heedlessly snatched open the door. The servants were still at their revelries though the lateness of the hour has dampened the noise level somewhat. She padded down the hall to its opposite end.
His bedchamber was dark as her own but her accustomed eyes could see right away that he was not there. Near weeping with vexation, she berated her rashness. Christine Daaé there is only one reason you are in this room and it would seem you are denied that. No doubt, he is in the music room, reading or sketching, because you heard no music. A fine seductress you are!
She turned to return to her bedchamber but spun around at the memory of her last visit to this room. She would give into the impulse now when no one could see her and make comment. Mme. Giry would disparage the jeté as clumsy but it felt heavenly when her body landed on the soft embroidered velvet. She could faintly smell Erik's cologne, igniting her nerve endings with a desire for more, a more needed to dispel the less she had felt all day. Without hesitation, she pulled away the velvet cover to the linen sheets and snuggled between them. Just a few moments. I mean no harm. I want just this little part of him. I need…
§
That stubborn ass Hugo certainly could write suffering. He and Charles Dickens made quite a pair Erik concluded as the book rested in his lap against the black velvet of his dressing gown. The best thing Hugo could do was sail to France from his exile on an island of milch cows and spend a night with the Emperor drinking and smoking until they puked. Whoring was optional considering their respective age and health but as they were Frenchmen, all alternatives ought to be considered. That might resolve their differences soon enough. Idly flipping through the pages of L'Homme qui rit he chuckled darkly after his—now how many glasses of brandy did this one make?
Could it be that Michel's line of de Carpentiers were so utterly lacking in imagination that they must use the plot of a book published a mere three years ago to explain his existence? Hugo had called them comprachicos, mutilators of children. He knew them by the Spanish word comprapequeños, a name whispered among the gypsies much as one would speak of a legend—or a devil. Whatever or wherever they were, they obviously had no need to practice their craft on him for which in some small degree he was grateful. The rumors of the consequences of their atrocities would make his face look like the beautiful boy's in comparison.
Would he ever learn that overindulging in brandy didn't make him drunk, only cynical? The solution to today was in his bed—sleep it off tonight and see if it improves tomorrow. The lamp extinguished, he wended his way to his chamber with only the slightest loss of coordination soon to be remedied by the horizontal nature of his mattress. After a toss the dressing gown in the general direction of a chair, he heedlessly kicked off his velvet slippers and removed his mask to the bed stand. Slipping between the cool sheets normally signaled his taut muscles to relax but the sheets were unaccountably warm even with his nightshirt and…
Bloody hell, who is in my bed? Those same muscles froze as he reviewed the possibilities. I am getting old. Fifteen years ago, such carelessness would have been my death warrant. Whoever it is, it is smaller and smells of viol… My God, Christine, what are you doing here?
Sleeping, obviously. He could tell by her slowed respiration that she was oblivious to her presence, which was not in the least his case. What to do? Should he wake her and deal with the mutual embarrassment. No, better to slip out as quietly as possible and return to the music room on the hope that she would awaken some time before the sleepy servants did and return to her room. Yes, that was it.
No, that was not it. As he prepared his escape, the sleeping Christine chose that moment to roll over and settle the upper half of her body on his chest, her face pressed against the hollow of his neck. Erik's shock gave way to clammy realization. There was no corset under her nightdress; therefore, he could feel every curve of her mature breasts. To make matters worse his right hand had drifted down into a natural posture, which happened to be on top of her nicely rounded bottom, and that hand was now refusing to move.
No touch in the lair to this moment had prepared him for the impact of this degree of physical closeness. He had played many roles in his life but had avoided acting out the role of his manhood, sensing the potential humiliation. Now that role was crowding everything else out, flooding his body with the desire to find release in the sweetness in his arms.
Christine would not come to his bed on a whim. She knew exactly what such a gesture would signal. He had to but wake his Sleeping Beauty with passionate kisses, to caress and arouse her as much as he already was. To fondle and kiss her perfect breasts without the hindrance of beastly layers of clothing. To caress the silky smoothness of her legs as he pushed her nightdress up past her…
To feel Minette box his ears if she ever found out that he had deflowered her foster daughter without the Church's consent.
She had done it once when he first arrived at the Populaire as a nine-year-old in retaliation for his making ghostly sounds behind the wall to frighten the coryphées. After that, he had learned to run faster than she could catch him.
Groaning in pain that only men can feel, he envisioned the line behind her. Madeleine, Lucien, de Bonnechose, Mmes. Dumont, Gobert, and Camier. Even the managers, if they had to deal with an enceinte diva who was missing rehearsals due to morning sickness. Her still slender body had matured over the last year, signaling that as a distinct possibility if he allowed his aroused state to seek its natural conclusion.
Not the boy, though. Not after that confrontation in the horse barn. De Chagny would just take his not imaginary foil and skewer his liver. Or perhaps regions further south, befitting the crime.
Don Juan Triumphant, indeed.
§
The faint rhythmic ticking of the Drocourt carriage clock on his bed stand and Christine's soft breaths were hardly enough to ease his urge to run a bath—a cold one. Perhaps, he could slide her out of bed without waking her and slip her back to her bedchamber without alerting the entire household. Perhaps…
Stifling a yawn, he came to the conclusion that his body was becoming more warm and less heated with the astounding realization that this was the first time he had ever shared a bed with another human being, much less a comely female. And that it felt delicious, that is, with a female. Would this be their life? Knowing the soothing comfort of human touch, in addition to the other, which was its own set of heady thoughts?
His left hand unconsciously gravitated to her curls, warmed by a softness that the coal stove across from his bed could never hope to emulate. He should take her back to her room now but what was the harm in waiting a few more minutes…
§
It was uncertain whether it was the brightening morning skies or the faint ticking of a clock or steady rhythm of a muscular chest that woke Christine Daaé but wake her it did. At quick glance at the bed stand informed her that it was seven o'clock; a quick glance at her hand told her it was in an improper place as was the rest of her body. Somehow, the offending hand had worked its way through the placket of Erik's nightshirt and was resting comfortably on the light matting of dark hair on his chest.
Christine squeezed her eyes shut in prayer, hoping that the aforementioned hand had not participated in any bolder actions. Mother of God, Erik would think her a demimondaine! What had seemed appropriate in the heated emotions of last night no longer passed muster of the cold reality of day. What would Mme. Giry think of her? That good lady had toiled endlessly to guard her virtue and was to be rewarded with this? Her foster daughter in bed with a man and without a wedding ring?
Carefully removing her hand, she placed it on top of the mattress, bracing to lift herself, alert for any stirring of wakefulness on Erik's part in order to avoid the inevitable mortification of discovery. She would slip out as quietly as a mouse…
§
Pale blue eyes flew open to be greeting with a pair of huge dark brown eyes suspended above him, made larger by the horror in them.
Christine! My mask!
Damn it. Of course, he had frightened her. She had wakened, startled by the reality of his face that had been spared her in her resting state. A stab of pain through his heart reminded him that this might always be his reality every waking morning, a price his soul must pay to keep her at his side.
Only…
Her face had turned an alarming shade of red and newly formed tears threatened to drop from her long spiky lashes. Hardly what one would expect from a terror-stricken mademoiselle. Had he misunderstood something?
Perhaps he had. Christine flung her arms around and sobbed, hiccupping words such as trollop, nymphet, doxy while the object of her embrace smiled in delight. She hadn't even noticed his scars—she was just concerned about what he thought of her.
Well, he thought her just fine.
"Christine," he shushed, holding her tightly and stroking her hair, "we may have behaved precipitously in anticipation of our wedding night but I, you—we did nothing last night that could be considered remotely damning." Just frustratingly painful, he added in his mind.
She sniffed a bit more and rose over him to face him. What he saw was shining eyes of love and gratitude, not the revulsion he had assumed earlier. However, this position, coupled with a tightly twisted nightdress allowed him a vision of her breasts that left nothing to the imagination. What was imagined in the night could easily be imagined in the morning. Christine needed to be back in her own bedchamber.
"Ma mie, it is time Sleeping Beauty returned to her own bed."
Christine frowned a bit at his words but sighed in reluctant agreement. After recovering from her initial embarrassment, she luxuriated in how warm and comfortable this all was.
"Yes, my angel, I suspect the servants are still sleeping off the effects of last night's revels. No one need know—this will be our warm unspoken secret."
He smiled at her play of words on Don Juan Triumphant. There would be a proper time to engage fully the meaning of the words he wrote for his Aminta—but not now.
"Christine, do you have another nightdress readily available?"
She raised her eyebrows in puzzlement. Since they had done nothing "damning" that might remotely involve it, what did he mean?
"You are covered with the scent of my cologne. That needle-witted Suzanne will notice it right away. You can hide this one in the clothes press until it airs."
Christine nodded in agreement. She bent forward to give him a deep, lingering kiss and scooted from under the covers to reach the door. Seriously dazed, he contemplated the promised treasures under said nightgown as she stood beside the door, hand on knob.
"Christine, you realize that after we are wed I will expect a kiss like that every morning upon awakening."
She turned to grin at him saucily and countered, "A kiss? Erik, I am disappointed that your expectations are so low. Mine certainly are not." With a giggle, she slipped out the door and out of his sight but not out of his heart.
Throwing back the bedclothes he debated the efficacy of a cold bath after that kiss and those parting words but realized there was one task to be undertaken before Leon scratched on the door to prepare his toilette. Taking the Baccarat decanter of his cologne from its fitted slot in the red silk lining of his ebonized scent caddy, he pour liberal amount on his hands and proceeded to wipe its scent over the linens, bedclothes, and his own nightshirt.
The past is in the past, he reflected over the disclosures of yesterday while completing his task. There was no way he could change it so he might as well cross it for all times and watch it burn. It could only harm him, and possibly Christine and their children, if he owned it so he would let it go. Christine was his present and future. Her love was stronger than all that was behind him.
Instead of the bath, he crawled back under the covers, falling into a light slumber that gave dreams of dark hypnotic music and the scent of violets.
§
Not since he was a young law student at the Université de Paris had Lucien Maillard sat in an opera house. True it was not the same. He was merely attending a rehearsal of La Fille du Regiment as Christine Daaé guest so he need not worry about a ticket that in the past would jeopardize his always precarious student's budget.
He welcomed the opportunity to share a fine morning's train ride to Paris with Christine and the Girys owing to a last minute telegram requesting his appearance in a professional capacity at the baptism of a premature grandnephew. It would also give him an opportunity to reconnect to fellow law school graduates who still practiced in the city. Thoughtfully, his archbishop had arranged for his lodging at the Archdiocesan palace.
Only his concern of leaving Erik at such a critical juncture swayed him; it was the Comtesse de Chagny who allayed his fears. Since her son had departed abruptly and mysteriously for Paris followed by an excursion in Brittany, she assured Lucien that Michel would inundate his cousin with enough family business matters to keep his mind occupied for weeks not the mere days that Lucien would be absent.
Still, it wounded him deeply to see the couple part at the train station in Gournay-en-Bray. Erik was stricken at Christine's tearful embrace of goodbye, comforted to some extent that Lucien would be escorting her back to Paris. Future visits were uncertain in light of rehearsals and opera productions, with the next scheduled one being during the week of Ash Wednesday, over a month away.
Still, Lucien was delighted at the opportunity to become more closely acquainted with Mlle. Daaé and perhaps uncover the source of his nagging doubts. What he found was a sweet innocence that belied the hardship of her past and the turmoil of her relationship with Erik. Still, something was missing…
§
To the priest, she was youth itself onstage in her charming red and blue regimentals, her curls tied loosely back with a ribbon. Christine had chosen this rehearsal to model a potential costume that the seamstresses had just completed, no doubt to give him glimpse of the opening night he would not see. And her voice… In his memories as a student, he could not remember such a voice, unless it was during the Paris tour of her sister Swede, the great Jenny Lind. Yet she was retiring this glorious voice for the man she loved.
Glancing idly around, he filled his mind with the sights and sound of his youth as a carefree bon vivant over thirty years ago. Had he ever been that young? Looking back at her just made him ache. He needed some fresh air.
If he had not vacated his seat he might not have notice the strange man in the lambs wool Astrakhan hat walking about the back of the theater with the ease of a manager. Their eyes locked for a fraction of a second before the other man exited to the Grand Foyer.
Of course! Erik's Persian.
He never met the man but knew his past was interwoven with Erik's as tightly as chain mail.
As he turned back, caught by Christine glorious rendition of an innocent orphaned girl caught up in love and a web of deceit, realization hit him as a blow from the broadside of a sword.
How could he hurt Erik thus? The younger man was like a son to him, an intellectual partner if not equal, a vindication of his spiritual lifework. On the other hand, there was a trusting young woman on that stage for whose soul he had responsibility if not outright charge. An offhand comment she made during his meal at the Giry's last night; at the time, it seemed inconsequential, lost in the conviviality of a dining table surrounded by beautiful women, but now…
He would not perform a marriage for Erik, Baron de Carpentier and Mlle. Christine Daaé. Moreover, he would insure that no other priest of the Church did.