Clara returned to the women's asylum in the morning fearing the worst: the loss of a young mother's life, and an infant made an orphan.
As though sensing this, the first thing that Mme. Georges did was take her to the dormitories. There, she pointed to the girl lying abed in the corner: bandaged and unconscious and so very pale, but breathing. Her baby boy slept soundly in the bassinet next to her. "We have found a wet nurse for the child while his mother recovers," the directress said quietly. "She is very lucky, given the quantity of blood that she lost."
Hearing this, Clara felt ten times lighter.
"I am not sure that I could have forgiven myself, had she not pulled through," she confessed in Mme. Georges' office afterward. "Madame, I am truly mortified by how I reacted, both in doing nothing to help her and in running away, and I understand if you do not wish me to stay on."
"Please just call me Adele. All of the others do." The older woman laced her fingers together atop her desk and smiled warmly at Clara. "Do you know, I once saw my late husband pass out at the sight of blood? We cannot control how our bodies react in times of crisis; we can only prepare ourselves as much as possible and hope for the best.
"I did not prepare you, mademoiselle," she continued, "and for that I apologize. I do want you to continue your time here, and I intend for you to learn about and aid in the facility operations, in time. For now, though, perhaps a less overwhelming task is in order?"
Clara released the breath she had not realized she'd been holding. "Thank you, madame. I am happy to defer to your judgment."
Adele smiled. "Follow me, then." As they left the office and walked two doors down, she said, "You demonstrated great proficiency in correspondence when you wrote me this summer. Perhaps you would be interested in assisting with mine? I am still dreadfully behind."
Clara was more than happy to comply, and Adele showed her into another, smaller office—sans window—where she could work. It was unoccupied but cluttered with ledgers and other documents. "I had a cousin assisting with the bookkeeping," the directress explained as she cleared some desk space for Clara. "Alas, he and his wife have just left the city to rear their firstborn. Thus, I have more responsibility than ever—but you have your own desk, my dear!" She grinned and patted the shiny wood surface. "Have a seat."
Clara slipped into the desk chair as instructed, and Adele set her up with everything she would need to write both thank-you letters and solicitations to past and potential donors. "And soon," she said, "you can help with the invitations to our first-ever charity ball in November. Which you are, of course, wholly encouraged to attend."
"Well that sounds exciting!"
"Oh, yes. There is a judge on our board of advisors who happens to be good friends with the new managers of the Opera, and he has arranged for the ball to be held in the grand foyer of the Palais! Isn't that marvelous?"
"Indeed," Clara murmured, knowing that Erik would find out soon enough if he had not already. How would he cope with her attendance at a dance without costumes?
She pushed the thought aside. There was time to mull it over, and these letters were not going to write themselves. Adele saw herself out, and Clara set to work.
She arrived home just in time to change and join her aunt in the drawing-room ahead of her lesson with Erik. She tried to read, but her nerves would not permit it, and it was with equal parts relief and anxiety that she reacted to the butler's entrance.
"I beg your pardon, madame," he said. "There is a Monsieur Giovanni here for mademoiselle's piano lesson."
Erik had chosen the surname in her presence, the night they drank champagne on the beach, after she had finally asked him about his last name. She had been wondering how she should refer to him in her family's presence and had balked when he'd claimed to have none. "I did possess one, once," he said with a shrug. "We were separated long ago."
Giovanni was the one he had landed on for the foreseeable future. Clara did not like it with his first name, that pairing of discordant sounds and origins, but he had vaguely alluded to it honoring an old mentor; she could not deny him that.
"Send him in, please, Bertrand," said Céleste, and she stood and faced the doorway to receive Erik. Clara, too, rose to her feet, but it was her aunt whom she watched with growing trepidation. Had she not, she might have missed the gasp that Céleste emitted when Erik entered the room: the smallest and quickest inhalation of breath that one could produce and still consider a gasp, perhaps, but a gasp nonetheless.
Clara turned to Erik now, trying to see him as her aunt might. He wore his usual ensemble: black trousers and swallow-tailed coat, black waistcoat, white shirt, white cravat, black hat and shoes, everything clean and pressed and tailored magnificently to his tall and reedy frame. His arms seemed slightly too long for his body, and with his gaunt fingers extending even further, he was reminiscent of a dark and upright mantis.
The black mask covered all but his sallow lips and chin; his eyes were in shadow. She had cautioned her aunt and father about the mask, of course, claiming to have been alerted to it in the course of seeking a recommendation. Likely a traumatic childhood accident, she told them, was what she had heard. But to see the mask in person was a different thing entirely: a striking mark of otherness. And the scant bits of exposed skin around his face and neck were even paler in the daylight, again suggesting the supernatural: a beguiling vampire, perhaps, or a debonair skeleton.
He moved with catlike grace despite his height and length of limb, setting a black leather valise beside the piano as he entered. Then he surrendered his hat to the butler, splayed hands rising to slick back his newly exposed hair.
She waited while Céleste found her voice and exchanged pleasantries with Erik. She almost laughed at the pair of them together: the man of bone and darkness towering over her diminutive aunt, with her soft and rounded features, looking almost like a confection in layers of pink-and-gold ruffles and lace.
Finally, her aunt gestured in her direction. "My niece, Clara Toussaint."
Erik stepped forward and bowed politely. "Pleased to make your acquaintance, mademoiselle," he said, his voice as dulcet as ever.
She could not be sure given the darkness of his eyes, but it seemed to her that as he came back up from his bow, his gaze lingered on her a beat too long. She wondered whether her appearance shocked him as much as it had her earlier that day; it was the first time in six months—nearly the entire time he had known her—that she had worn any measure of bold, saturated color. She had chosen a frock of Persian blue silk, the high-collared center panel of the bodice inlaid with pearly white sprays of wheat and florals, knowing precisely how well the blue set off her hair and eyes.
"Please, do begin," Céleste said, gesturing to the piano, and as Clara and Erik moved toward it, she turned to address the butler. "Bertrand, Monsieur Verne will be joining us for supper this evening. Please see to it that there is a place for him at the table."
Clara and Erik stiffened simultaneously.
She had not seen nor heard from Isaac Verne in at least six weeks, since he had left the coast, and she realized with a pang of guilt that she had never bothered to follow up with Erik regarding the safe return of the man's funds. She had to admit that she had, in fact, taken advantage of his absence; it had been far too easy to enjoy the rest of the summer without the worry of his interference.
She risked a glance at Erik's face and saw tension edging his jawline, but it dissolved quickly. She was not sure what to make of that.
"Mademoiselle?" he said, beckoning to the piano bench with an open palm, and she snapped out of her reverie to take her seat.
Céleste, meanwhile, crossed the room to sit with her embroidery in her favorite armchair. Clara had warned Erik that her aunt would be present for the lessons, as propriety demanded, but he had seemed unperturbed. Even now he remained cool and self-assured.
She watched him in admiration as he withdrew a slim black portfolio from his valise, flicking through the sheet music within, and she began to wonder what on earth she had been thinking. How could her family not notice how in love she was? She was perpetually drawn to him, like a blossom coaxed to unfurl and follow the sun across the sweeping arc of the sky.
"Bach's Invention No. 11," he said, placing the sheet music on the stand before her. "I will have you know, mademoiselle, that I intend to teach theory as well as application." This was hardly news to her, as he had often expressed his displeasure at how little theory she recalled from her prior lessons, so she guessed that it was meant for her aunt's ears. In the meantime, she kept her hands in her lap, knowing from past experience that to place her hands on the keys without first examining the music was to invoke his irritation.
"Please identify the key," he said brusquely, a palpable shift into instructor mode.
She found herself immediately following his lead, ever the willing student, once again made nervous by his unapologetic meticulousness and not wanting to disappoint. "G minor?"
"Correct. Now take us through the scale, both hands, two octaves."
She disliked minor scales—minor keys in general, really—and he knew it. She wondered whether this was his attempt to overcome her aversion, knowing that she could not protest in front of her aunt. She pursed her lips and played the two octaves as instructed.
"Again," he commanded. "Do concentrate on evenness of tone and rhythm this time."
She bit the inside of her lip and played the scale once more. After that, he led her through arpeggios and chord progressions. Then, finally, she was permitted to try the Bach. From the corner of her eye, Clara could see her aunt across the room, embroidering but utterly failing to conceal her interest in the proceedings. In fact, Céleste seemed to straighten in her chair each time that Erik spoke.
The first run-through of the song was tedious. Erik slowed her tempo to a crawl so that she could work through the difficult passages, and every so often he would lean forward with a pencil to scratch suggested fingerings above the notes, his spindly numbers an eerie echo of his frame. The first time that he did so, his tailcoat brushed against Clara's shoulder and his face was the closest it had been to hers that afternoon, and the teacher-student spell was broken. She felt a sharp pang deep in her abdomen: desire, like a bolt of lightning, a white-hot awakening from within.
She had not predicted how torturous it would be, this sense of near-worship that she felt while observing him in his element, in conflict with her inability to touch him. Even the more innocent markers of their relationship could not be enjoyed here: the lingering gazes; the soft murmurs; the easy, muted laughter. She swallowed.
As though he'd heard, his head shifted ever so slightly in her direction. "Try the bar again, mademoiselle," he said, his voice gentler now.
As was his habit, he softened as the lesson progressed, as he became more invested in the music and in coaxing improvements out of her. His passion was obvious, infectious even—though she could never feel for music what he did. It seemed to live inside of him. Clara imagined that if he were to open a vein, a fugue would come spilling out.
At the end of the hour, Erik detailed how he wished her to practice. "Thank you for permitting me to instruct you, mademoiselle," he said with a short bow, "and I hope that we might continue our lessons." Then he turned to Céleste. "Madame, forgive me, but I wonder whether you might allow me to stay and tune the piano? At no extra cost to you, of course. I am afraid that it needs work."
Clara stared at him, instantly suspicious, but he paid her no heed.
"But we had it tuned just last October!" Céleste said.
"Ah, well, once a year is the recommendation. And it was a rather humid summer."
"Well, I suppose that I can hardly protest if you are offering your services. Very well then, Monsieur Giovanni."
"How long does it take to tune a piano, monsieur?" asked Clara dryly, signaling that she was onto him.
He offered her a small, innocuous smile. "I expect two hours or so."
"In that case," said Céleste, "you may as well stay for supper, if it pleases you."
Erik put a hand to his breast. "Ah, madame, you are too kind. It would be an honor." He turned to peer down at where Clara still sat at the piano, and she did not even need to see his eyes to know that they were positively gleaming. "Forgive me, mademoiselle, but I must ask that you vacate the bench so that I may finish my work in time for dinner."
Inside, Clara seethed at his audacity. As though a successful bid for a meal with Isaac Verne was not enough, he was practically flaunting it! "Ah, but monsieur, do you not need tools to tune the piano?" she reminded him.
"I am well prepared," he said, and he withdrew a slim lacquered box from his attache and unlatched it so that she could see the handful of foreign-looking implements nestled in its red velvet lining.
She realized that there was nothing else that she could say in present company to deter him. Making certain that her aunt could not see, she shot him a look of reproach and slipped away from the piano.
"Mademoiselle Toussaint," he said quietly, and she pivoted to face him again. "You made excellent progress today, so much that I suspect you have remained disciplined in your practice despite the recent absence of an instructor. Am I correct?"
"Yes, monsieur."
He nodded. "That is...commendable. I do look forward to sharing your company this evening." With that, he turned his attention back to the little tool box.
Damn him. He did know how to make her heart swell.
As tempting as it was to watch Erik work, Clara excused herself to her room, claiming that the sounds coming from the piano made it difficult to concentrate on anything. In reality, she needed some time to clear her head, to put aside thoughts of the impending meal with her two suitors before she was reduced to a bundle of nerves.
She somehow managed to read until it was time to dress for dinner. Juliette helped her into a gown of rich plum satin, freshly coiffed her hair, and inserted a delicate gold comb adorned with leaves and vines. The maid seemed more chipper than usual, and Clara suspected that she, too, was happy to be working with color and ornamentation again.
Finally, she made her way back to the drawing-room to await Isaac Verne's arrival and hopefully provide some relief for Erik. She was stunned at the doorway to find not only Isaac sitting there among her aunt and piano instructor, but also her father.
"Ah, Clara," he said, motioning for her to enter. "Glad you could join us. We were just getting acquainted with Monsieur—"
"Giovanni," Erik intoned, as though he could hardly be bothered with a man who could not remember his name.
Clara quickly crossed the room to exchange greetings with Isaac before she joined her aunt on the loveseat. He wore a burgundy waistcoat and cravat underneath his black jacket, and the color brought out the ruddiness in his cheeks, the soft gray of his eyes, the russet highlights of his brown hair. He was clean-shaven and fresh-faced as always, and it occurred to her that he really was quite handsome, objectively speaking.
Subjectively speaking, he was all wrong. Everything right—for her, at any rate—was sitting opposite him and watching her every move. When she smoothed her skirts at the hip, the fingers of the masked man's right hand twitched.
"Forgive me," Henri said, with forced politeness, and Erik's focus was pulled back to her father. "I believe that I have forgotten your credentials. Where is it that you studied?"
"The Royal Conservatory of Brussels," Erik replied. "Perhaps you have heard of it?"
Céleste, now in a sage-green frock with sprays of gold lace at the cuffs and collar, balked. "Heard of it? Why, it is one of the most prestigious music schools in the world! What other instruments can you play?"
"Anything that madame wishes."
She clapped her hands together in delight. "How wonderful! And I can tell from your voice that you are a singer as well, are you not?"
He hesitated. "I...do possess that ability, yes."
Clara's eyes widened. He did not seek out her gaze.
"Oh, you must treat us to a performance!" Céleste demanded. "After supper, perhaps."
"With all due respect, madame, I am happy to play the piano or any other instrument to your heart's content, but I no longer sing for an audience."
There was an uncomfortable pause, and Clara could tell from her aunt's furrowed brow that she was thinking hard about how to tactfully question him regarding this revelation. But Bertrand stepped in to announce that dinner was served, and Erik was spared for the time being.
The party moved into the dining room, where Henri sat at the head of his table, Celeste to his right and Isaac to his left. Clara was seated next to Isaac and across from Erik, who looked as though he was trying to fold in on himself while the woman next to him gestured perhaps too broadly as she talked. Wine was poured and napkins unfurled.
"It is good to see you again, dear boy," said Henri to Isaac as the soup was brought out. "We had heard you were a victim of theft!"
"I am afraid that you heard correctly, monsieur. My entire account, emptied in one fell swoop! The bank had absolutely no explanation for why my account alone was targeted, nor how it was done."
"There were no other funds stolen?" asked Céleste. "How very curious."
"That is hardly the strangest part," Isaac replied. "It was all returned four weeks later. Every last cent. And again, no explanation from the bank."
"Time to find another bank, perhaps?" said Erik, without looking up from his soup. He had been playing at eating it, of course, but no one besides Clara had noticed.
Isaac stared at him inscrutably for a moment. "Yes. Yes, I suppose so." He paused to take in a spoonful of soup, a sip of wine. "So tell me, Monsieur Giovanni, are you an opera man?"
"One might say so."
"I presume that you have seen the program for the upcoming season, then?" Here Isaac turned to Clara and explained, "There are a great number of crowd favorites returning; I imagine that our musician friend here must be thrilled."
"Quite the contrary," Erik replied, the acid practically dripping from his tongue.
There was a moment of awkward silence before Céleste was kind enough to inquire, "And why might that be, monsieur?"
"I believe it is the responsibility of the Opera to showcase works of importance and innovation, and this season's program is lacking in both."
Isaac chuckled. "Surely you are joking! Of course the productions are important. Audiences love them."
Erik set down his spoon and replied, emphatically, "Les Huguenots? La Juive? At this point they are little more than candy for the average theatergoer, a surplus of glamour and excess over substance. People go to the Opera to be enlightened, monsieur."
"Nonsense," said Isaac, defensiveness creeping into his voice. "People go to the Opera to be entertained."
"Perhaps they believe that," Erik said, "but the real arbiters of theater and music, of art, know it to be untrue, and the showcasing of such stale repertoire serves only to coddle the masses into accepting the status quo."
Isaac opened his mouth to retort, but Henri, his face turned to Erik with solemn and genuine interest, held up a hand to stop him. "Please," he said. "Do elaborate."
"The stage has always been a platform for political and social change," Erik said. "Opera, theater, art, literature: these are the necessary tools for modeling empathy, for calling out corruption, for inciting change and sparking hope. Any program director worth his salt knows this and does not base a program solely on the whims of the patrons. This season has an utter dearth of meaningful operas as well as new and innovative compositions."
"Compositions such as yours?" Isaac bit out, and a chill settled over the room. "I can only assume, given your talents and your strong opinions on the subject, that you think yourself a composer. Perhaps you are bitter that your own work has not graced the stage?"
Clara could hardly believe her ears; she had not considered the man capable of harboring even a drop of vitriol until now.
"I know myself to be a composer," Erik replied, the hostility in his voice now evident. Clara suddenly noticed that his hand was tucked into his tailcoat, and she had a horrible vision of his fingers closing around the Punjab lasso. "But no," he continued, "I have nothing I wish to be performed. I simply desire that the managers do their job."
"Well," said Isaac, taking a too-large gulp of wine, "we shall have to agree to disagree on this matter."
"And you, mademoiselle?" Erik's voice was softer now as he turned to Clara. "What are your thoughts?"
The others blinked at her as though only just remembering that she was at the table.
"Oh," she said, eyes wide with anxiety. "Well, I...I am not as well-versed in opera and the arts as you, monsieur; I do enjoy some of the productions that you loathe, I am afraid." Out of the corner of her eye, she saw a smug smile playing at the corners of Isaac's lips. "That said," she continued, "I have been reading an awful lot of late, and it seems to me that what makes a work of literature 'great' is that success in challenging one's way of thinking. Such books would not adhere to our memory so fiercely if they did not rouse some sense of unrest, don't you think?" Erik nodded, urging her on.
"By that extension," she said, "then I suppose that each great artist—or composer, or writer, or performer—is a visionary. He sees not only the world around him, but also what it ought to be. He creates to enlighten and not just to entertain. What is art—performance or otherwise—without meaning?"
The table was quiet. Clara felt her cheeks warm, and she took a hasty sip of wine to signal the end of her pontificating.
Finally, her father nodded slowly. "Yes," he said. "Yes, I am rather inclined to agree with you, Clara."
She did not even have to look up to feel the affection radiating from Erik's place at the table, and she smiled the tiniest of smiles into her soup.
Erik departed shortly after supper; Isaac stayed only long enough to enjoy a cigar and brandy with Henri. Once he had gone, however, the Toussaints found themselves convening in the drawing-room.
"Well," Céleste said, fanning herself as she slumped against a chair. "That was a most interesting evening. I dare say, Monsieur Giovanni's presence adds a certain something to the conversation."
"There is something off-putting about that man," Henri said, fiddling with his pocket-watch from the comfort of an armchair. "Abrasiveness, perhaps? Not to mention the unsettling mask."
"I find his candor wholly refreshing," said Céleste, and Clara felt a surge of affection for her aunt. "And that voice of his! I have never heard anything like it. I do wish he would have sung for us. But he is to be your instructor, Clara, not ours. What do you think?"
She made a show of mulling it over and worded her reply carefully. "I think," she said, "that I would learn a lot from him."
Céleste looked to her brother and said, placatingly, "He was a very effective teacher, Henri."
"Fine. Just do not make a habit of inviting him to dinner after each lesson. He is a paid employee, not a family friend."
When he came to her balcony that night, she was reading in bed, the lamplight low. She had not expected his visit, but neither was she surprised. She marked her page, set the book on the nightstand, and sat up straighter. He crossed the room but stopped at the foot of her bed, placing distance between them.
That was perhaps not the worst thing, Clara decided.
She was no stranger to what ultimately transpired between a man and a woman in the marriage bed—Margot, ever curious and sometimes flat-out racy, had seen to that—but the details had never quite filled themselves in.
Until Erik, that was, and the alluring intoxication that his presence induced. How quickly their physical intimacy had developed, despite their mutual inexperience! Now that she knew what it was like to crave one's touch, one's taste, she could easily understand how someone might find their way onto that slippery slope down from chivalry: a kiss here, a caress there; building warmth and urgency; the need to touch skin, to be as close as possible.
She was used to ending her nights in Erik's embrace, and she loved every minute of it. But most nights, she had to distract herself from the fact that it would, eventually, not sustain her. It would not be enough that he was the last person she saw before sleeping; she would need him to be there the whole night, to be the first person she saw after waking. The beginning and the end of the day and everything in between.
Clara shivered and pushed the thought from her mind, focusing instead on the shadowy man with his pale fingers curled around her bedpost. "Are you quite satisfied, then, now that you have sabotaged our dinner with Monsieur Verne?" she asked.
"Sabotage!" he repeated in mock surprise. "Such a strong word for a rather innocuous investigation, don't you think? But, yes, I am satisfied. I have determined that he is not a threat."
"Well hallelujah!" Clara quipped, and it was all she could do not to roll her eyes as well. "You have concluded that you could best an average man in some sort of physical altercation. We are saved."
He clucked his tongue and shook his head. "Sarcasm does not suit you, my dear. And I hardly needed to meet Verne to know how easily I could slip the lasso around his throat, though I did discover that he has a rather thin neck—you would hardly know it, not with his cravat and his collar pushed up so high as to turn him into a foppish giraffe, but—"
"Erik!"
"Yes. Sorry. When I say he is not a threat, Clara, I mean that he is no match for your intelligence and curiosity. You would tire of him in due course." He let his hand drop from the bedpost and walked slowly along the bed to where she sat by the headboard, his fingertips trailing up the quilt as he moved.
Her pulse quickened. "And you know my desires so well, do you?"
"If I am mistaken," he said quietly, "then please do enlighten me." He towered above her now, and as if sensing her unease at this advantage, he lowered himself to sit beside her on the mattress. His amber eyes burned bright. "What are your desires, my sweet fawn?"
Oh, so many things, my love. "An apology," she whispered.
"Ah," he said. "I suspected as much." He held up his hands, showing her his open and empty palms, and with his right hand he reached out to brush aside a wisp of her hair as he so often did. When he retracted his hand, however, it held a single pink peony. He extended it to her, and she took it between pinched fingers, mouth agape.
"I truly am sorry," he said. He cupped a hand to the side of her face and began to trace her lips with the pad of his thumb. "I saw an opening, and I seized it without thought of consequence. After decades of looking after no one but myself, I am still learning to live otherwise, I'm afraid."
Clara twirled the peony stem between her fingers and frowned. "You cannot just magic a flower every time I am cross with you."
"The very fact that you stay with me, knowing that future transgressions will happen, ensures that I will work even harder against them." His thumb finished its tour of her dry lips, but his hand held fast at the side of her head as his voice dropped. "Please," he said, "let me kiss you," and his eyes positively burned for her.
Breathless, all she could do was nod.
Erik pulled her face to his, and their mouths met eagerly. Had it been only one day since their last kiss?
This one was brief, though. She heard the shudder of his breath as he pulled away, and she wondered whether he, too, was now realizing the importance of pacing. He had only just met her family, after all, and—oh! "Why did you never tell me you could sing?" she blurted out.
He blinked at her in surprise. "It never seemed warranted."
"Did you mean what you said, that you do not sing for others?"
"I did, my fawn, but perhaps I will sing for you and you alone. Not now, but someday."
"And did you really attend the Royal Conservatory of Brussels?" she asked.
"No," he said. "I am entirely self-taught."
Clara glowered at him. "You had best hope that my father does not decide to look into your credentials."
"Ah, but Erik Giovanni is in the conservatory records as having attended."
She stared at him for a moment. "Fine. But your letter of recommendation—"
"—is a forgery attributed to a faculty member who recently expired, and I am afraid that the news of his passing has not yet reached our dear Monsieur Giovanni. Really, Clara, your lack of confidence is disheartening. This is hardly the first time that I have had to fabricate an identity."
She sighed. "Sometimes I think that I ought to be more frightened of you than I am."
"Ah, my fawn, is that not what I have been saying since day one?" His yellow eyes narrowed into mischievous slits. "But I now suspect that you are drawn to my cunning."
"Oh, hardly!" she protested, giving his shoulder a gentle shove. He caught her wrist and pulled her to him, lowering his face until she could feel his breath on her lips.
"If that is the case," he said, his voice a husky shell of its normal timbre, "then you will not be at all tempted to kiss me when I tell you that, tomorrow, Monsieur Verne will be summoned to Rome on business."
She glared at him for a full five seconds. "Damnation," she finally whispered, and she crushed her lips against his.