There were still boxes, only just arrived from Canada, that needed to be unpacked. It was good, Erik thought, that Nora had so much to bring. Even after he had emptied the storehouses of old treasures, this place had seemed bare and impersonal. It was only after he had brought his bride to the house that it transformed into a home. He delighted to see her belongings overtake his own. They were comforting reminders of her presence, of her permanence. The cloisonne vases appeared one day and were filled with flowers from the gardens the next. English books and fine oil portraiture of relatives long dead took up their posts in the library. Knick-knacks from her travels somehow brightened the aspect of his own, grimmer souvenirs when they were set side by side. He did not even mind the cuckoo clock, after she granted him the favor of tinkering with it. It now gave the hour far more charmingly to Erik's ear.
One room Nora did not invade. None of her ephemera, which usually followed in her wake like flowers under the feet of Kore, lingered in Erik's music room. It was not by injunction—Erik had neither the heart nor desire to bar her from any corner of his world. It was some determination of her own that kept Nora leaning on the doorway, sometimes chatting and smiling during a lull in the music, sometimes bidding Erik to leave off his work for a moment to eat or sleep or make love to her. Today was not one of those days. She was in the shared library, worrying over a box that need unpacking. When Erik discovered its contents, he determined to use it to lure her into his lair and keep something of her there.
"We may as well store it with the rest of the music," he said, picking up the box when she was slow to protest.
"Well, we may," she said, arising from where she had been kneeling on the rug and shaking imaginary dust from her burgundy skirts, "but do you want it with your music, Erik? These are just little popular airs—carols—a few pieces forced on me by an old piano teacher. I can't imagine they'll be of any use to you, and I don't play anymore."
Erik bowed himself and the box of sheet music out of the library, and Nora followed him perforce. He settled the box on a small table near the piano and opened it. "I've worked out a filing system that does very well for me. A few additions can be easily accommodated." Her foot checked at the door jamb, but at a jerk of Erik's head, she crossed into his sanctuary. She came to his side, half-rested her cheek on his arm, and let him sort through the music.
"Far be it from me to interfere with your system," she teased. "That's part of it there, isn't it?"
Erik had his own boxes filled with paper that did not have the excuse of being recently delivered. He waved his hand dismissively. "I know where everything is. I must find some time to build the needed cabinets."
"I'm sorry—have I been distracting you from your carpentry?"
She was looking up at him with a serious face, but eyes brimming with mischief. "Amongst other things," he replied imperiously. "And you are not the least bit sorry."
She shrugged at this and separated herself from Erik's arm. He missed the weight and warmth of her, but knew it was a temporary separation and therefore tolerable. She ran her finger along the keys of the piano, gently so as never to strike one.
"You're working on a new opera," she commented.
"Just the germ of one," Erik said. He had followed her over to the piano and sat down at it. He sketched out the theme that had been brewing in his brain since he was first locked in a steamer cabin with Nora, crossing back the Atlantic as a married man. "I feel she will grow into a symphony instead."
"A choral symphony? I hear you in here, from time to time, singing." She was looking at him, all expectation. Expectation of what? Erik shifted his mask and dropped a kiss on her brow. She looked amused, but otherwise the expression was unchanged.
"Very likely."
"You once told me—wrote to me—that you had purposely never sung for me," Nora said. "Something about wanting to win my love fairly and without tricks. Well, you have my love. Hard and as fairly won as could be, at that! May I at last have a song, or do I need to prove myself a while longer?"
The request left him thunderstruck, and his mind raced over his memories of Nora. Had he never?... no, he had not. He had entertained and cajoled her, used his voice to tease and tempt her—but they had all been spoken words. She was not teasing him just now, though every word had been so lightly spoken. She always left an escape open for him. He would not take it, in this case, but…
"I will sing for you," he said slowly, "but I do require one more proof before I do so." He might have asked for a kiss, or any silly small favor—that was usually what he would do, in a similar situation. But an idea took shape in his head and threw itself into his heart with startling speed, and he knew he had a serious request to make this time. Nora must have sensed it, for her eyes narrowed and turned calculating. "Sing with me."
She looked a little sick at his words, and for a moment Erik panicked. He would have taken them back in the next instant, would have sung her lullabies to soothe and ballads to comfort until world's end without asking anything in return, but he was forestalled when she smiled gamely. "I will—one song, and only if I have your word that you will follow it with a solo. And please remember that I am not a trained soprano."
He laughed and her smile turned brighter. "You have my word, my dear. And I know you have a fairly decent voice—I am not the only one to mutter out measures when I think I am alone."
"Well. I'm considered to do a fair O Tannenbaum, and I think I remember the chorus to The Glow-Worm." Now she really was teasing.
"I hope you can manage something other than a German song," Erik shot back. He went over to one of his own messy boxes and, after a few minutes, returned. He dashed off many songs over the years, some of them of rather dubious quality by his reckoning. There had even been a time, around the opening of the Garnier, when Erik thought he might compose commercially. It was one of those pieces he now brought to the piano and laid out for Nora's perusal. It was an inane little love song about candlelight and starlight—an interlude, perhaps, for a short soprano and an uninspired baritone while the leads changed costumes.
"Pretty," Nora commented.
Erik had to agree—it was pretty. He had loathed it at the time, mentally tore apart the composition and its never-to-be-found audience for its sparkling sweetness. Fifteen years later, it no longer seemed quite so saccharine, nor so meaningless. He played the piece through once. He could just detect Nora's hum beneath the music.
"Well?" he asked.
She nodded. "Strike up, Maestro."
He could tell that she kept her gaze locked on his profile, and when the time came, they both missed the mark—Nora because she clearly did not want to open her mouth first, Erik because he would not start without her. He turned to meet her eyes, and after a moment, they both laughed.
"All right, all right," she leaned over and buried her face against his shoulder. "I'll do it! I will, and I hope you suffer for it."
"In that case, sit up straight," he commanded, and she did with all the primness of a maiden and her music master. This time, she looked at the sheet music, and came in right on time. Her voice was more crushed velvet than cut crystal, and the range was limited. Erik wove his way around it, and she only faltered once when he coaxed her into a particularly sweet harmony.
It had been many years since Erik had sung with a companion, and never quite like this. There would be no divine highs, no soul-searing lows, no moments when his voice would blend perfectly with hers to create a new wonder. He knew this, but could not bring himself to care. Nora's voice was a comfortable thing, warm and unpretentious. It would, of course, suffer by comparison. That did not matter, for Nora defied comparison.
Their song was short, and she caught Erik's gesture to end low, rather than the inscribed high. As the last note on the piano faded into nothing, she turned back to him and half-welcomed a critique with the quirk of an eyebrow. Erik offered none.
"Your turn," she prompted, voice almost at a whisper.
Erik nodded and, after, a moment of internal debate, closed the piano. He hummed a note, testing it against the ring of his heart—and he sang, sang of all the warmth and wonder he found in the world.