1905

A full three years of marriage came and went before Erik finally caught Nora red-handed.

She had thought that she would have the house to herself, of course, while Erik was away on business. But he had returned home days ahead of schedule, loaded with flowers and trinket boxes and all of the other bounty he took too much pleasure in bringing home for his wife.

He had snuck into the house, avoiding the small fleet of servants Nora employed. He found her all too quickly.

In his music room.

At his piano.

In her dressing gown, hair unbound and quite wild, with a glass of sherry nearby, playing a rather lively rendition of Abdul Abulbul Amir.

Erik could not help himself. Just as Abdul was shouting 'huzzah!—' a lyric Nora threw herself into—Erik burst out laughing.

Nora's hands froze just above the keys, and she slowly turned on the bench to look at the interloper. Erik had never seen her eyes so round nor blush so deep.

He laughed anew.

"Oh," she said quietly, "damn." After a minute, she added in a more Nora-like tone, "Will you stop laughing, please?"

"Of course," Erik brought himself under some semblance of control and retrieved the forgotten bouquet. "Lilies for my… prima donna." He laughed again, and Nora moved over on the piano bench to allow him to sit and catch his breath. "I'm sorry, my dear—truly sorry."

Nora heaved a sigh. "You were bound to find out eventually."

"To think! I had always believed you were embarrassed about how you played, not what you played."

"Anyone in their right mind would be embarrassed to play for you," she said, "So what is the verdict, Maestro? Am I banned in perpetuity from your music room?"

"We shall see," Erik said, shuffling through his sheet music. "Play me a little Mozart and I will decide."

Years had passed since that particular interlude, but Erik still thought of it fondly. Nora played the piano whenever the rare fancy struck, and Erik truly did not mind. He would never make her into a concert pianist, but she was not a poor player. And whatever she lacked in pure technical refinement, she made up for with a nearly vaudevillian sense of showmanship. It was an entirely too alluring persona she could conjure up at the piano, for everything from 'Mid the Ringlets to Where Did You Get That Hat?

And here Erik had thought he was the master of musical seduction. He was delighted to discover otherwise.

It wasn't always saucy playfulness with Nora. Occasionally, Erik would catch her at the piano, looking thoughtful and abstracted. There was always something more to how she played at those times, some deeper feeling that slipped out of her otherwise impeccable control.

(Masks, Erik had discovered, covered the wide world. Some were simply more discreet that other.)

He could have loved her for those quiet, musical moments. Even if all else had gone bad, even if all else between them had proved false, Erik could have grasped at the truth in the piano cords, and related to them, and bound himself to his wife with them. They were bittersweet moments for him, because she was always off-center from happiness when she played like that, but he could not help but rejoice in the demonstration that she understood that part of music—and therefore, perhaps, that part of Erik.

She had that look and that sound to her on that evening in May. She was playing something syncopated with waltzish three quarter notes in the base.

She was so pretty, Erik's living wife, though these days she would laugh at Erik when he told her so.

"I'm nearly sixty," she had said the last time, "my pretty days are past me."

Erik could not believe that, not when she turned to look at him, draped in sapphire silk, dripping in the diamonds that had been Erik's price of blood a lifetime ago, and smiled at him.

"It sounds like Scott Joplin has improved his waltzes since that travesty he put out in '96," Erik commented.

"Daniel just sent it to me," Nora said. "What do you think?"

"It's quite lovely, dear. For American music."

She pulled a face at him. "Oh, admit it. You like ragtime."

"I admit nothing."

"You sampled The Entertainer in your Chavande concerto."

"I did no such thing!"

She was laughing at him, Erik realized, she was laughing like she so often did.

He grumbled. "You're teasing me."

"I don't mean anything by it," Nora stood and came up to straighten Erik's tie and kiss his cheek. "Come now, I'd sooner accuse Mozart of having too many notes than my Erik of artistic unoriginality."

"Still teasing me, dear."

"Ah—yes. Would you rather I did not?"

Erik made a great show of thinking this over. "No. No, I suppose I will endure. So long as you tell me what you were thinking."

"Hm?" She was just fussing now, smoothing his lapels and flaring his wingtip collar. But who was Erik to tell her to stop?

"You and Mr. Joplin were having quite the tête-à-tête. What about?"

"Just thoughts," she said, "silly thoughts. We're going to be late if I go through all of them."

"You can talk in a carriage, Nora." They walked arm in arm out of the music room and he added, "I like your silly thoughts."

Nora's knack for personnel was evident as always. A hyper-competent and silent valet helped Erik into his coat and handed him Nora's wrap.

"It's our anniversary next week," she said.

"I know." Erik did not like to think that the particular wistful-melancholy look Nora had been wearing had anything to do with their marriage. "Are you sorry for it?"

"Hm. Fifteen years, darling."

"Fifteen wonderful years," Erik amended, a little desperately.

"So wonderful," she agreed, almost absently. "So wonderful that I had to wonder—what if it was twenty years? Twenty-five, thirty, forty years?"

Erik thought on this. "Forty years ago, I was running away from a murderous Turkish sultan. …But you would have enjoyed that, I think?"

A funny little fantasy world, that; Erik in his prime, towing his practically-child bride Nora—a riot of rainbow silks and Holy Land spices, wild days and starlit nights. He might be obliged to mold it into a capriccio, one of these days.

"I told you it was silly," Nora sighed, "but there it is." She turned to look out of the carriage window. It was not terribly late, but it was overcast and gloomy. "I thought about what our children might have been like, if we had married earlier."

These really were odd thoughts for his Nora. "You loathe children. You call them beasties and make me cross the street if it looks like we're going to walk by too many of them."

"Well, I think I would have liked my children. I think I would have loved your children." Erik saw her quirk a smile in the shadows. "They would have had my nose, you know."

"We would hope," Erik replied. They were silent in the dark carriage. It was not an uncomfortable silence, though Erik felt obliged to break it. "What brought this all on?"

She was too quiet for too long and Erik thought she would simply decline to answer. She did that every so often and Erik allowed it, though it gulled him.

"I simply realized that fifteen years will be over too soon," she said at last. "I used to be very good at being alone, but I don't think I could do it again." She reached over and set her hand over his cuff. "You've spoiled me, Erik."

"I'm glad," he murmured. He felt the roads change and knew they were nearing Paris. The evening's coming activities suddenly seemed very… small. "I don't want to go to the Garnier tonight."

"It's your own opera premièring."

"I know. I have a bad feeling about it."

Nora huffed at him and slid closer to let Erik trap her in his arms. "In the past twenty years, when was the last time one of your pieces was poorly received?"

"Six years ago. Rhapsodie de Méphistophélès."

"I amend my statement—how many of your pieces that you did not compose and perform while raging drunk off of Didier Moncharmin's bad Italian wine have gone over badly? Hm? See?"

Erik ignored her. "We could go straight on for the coast, catch a ship at Calais…"

"Everyone will be there. Didier brought his family up from Provence especially. Eloise and her beau are being modern and coming together. Even the Daroga said he would not miss this. For God's sake, Erik. I hate to spoil your fun, but you're conducting!"

"I know, I know…" It was delightful to watch Nora work herself up like this. It often ended in Erik's favor. Sometimes, at least. Once or twice.

"Well," she said, "I want to see it. I like seeing my husband in action, thank you. I like to show the world what a genius I married. You won't deny me, will you?"

He slipped off his mask to kiss her hand. "Only if I could buy us forty years with the denial. Only then."

The silly old girl cried at that, and in a reversal of how these things usually went, Erik kissed away her tears.

For the record, the waltz Nora plays is Bethena. It was not particularly well received during Scott Joplin's lifetime, but it now considered one of the most masterful pieces of the ragtime era. But, you know, I'm pretty sure Erik and Nora are a little ahead of the curve in terms of the music they like.

On a saddish note, I think it very likely that this is the last of the shorts I'll do with Nora and Erik. At first, I had thought to go through 'the entire week', but I think not. At this point, my only real option is to write a proper sequel—and, frankly, I don't think I could pull such a project out of sloppy sentimentalism. What can I say? '…And they lived happily ever after, and eventually it ends.'

With that in mind, let me take this opportunity once again to thank all of my readers. Your encouragement and support have been invaluable.

Cheers!