Chapter Thirteen - A Lie To Pledge
Christine could not have imagined how long a single day could be. She spent it alone, not daring to venture out of the little gray room for fear someone might recognize her.
She did what she could to smooth away some of the wrinkles from her dress and tidied her hair as best she could before a small, cracked mirror.
She did not dare venture out of the room. If someone should see and recognize her, Raoul would learn where she was.
Even knowing that her Angel...she still thought of him as her Angel, despite his bitter words...was there in the depths of the Opera House could not totally relieve the dull weight of the loneliness that settled over her as morning turned to afternoon.
In the early afternoon, Monsieur Reyer brought her some food from the commissary and several newspapers.
"The gendarmes were here this morning, Christine."
"Sooner or later, my dear girl, your husband will need to know that you are safe."
Christine nodded. She did not mean to hide forever.
"But not yet, Monsieur. Not yet."
When Reyer left, Christine glanced over the newspapers. All of them were filled with stories of her sudden disappearance.
She was last seen by her maid...searchers were scouring Paris...no reports of a body matching her description...Jerome Reyer told the gendarmes that he had personally seen the missing lady leave the Opera Populaire...Vicomte de Chagny said to be devastated...was the lady abducted...always wore black...despite the strange scandal surrounding her brief career at the Opera...no rumors of indiscrete conduct...
Christine set the papers aside. How the society gossips must be enjoying this even as they shook their heads in sympathy for her husband.
No, she did not think of him as her husband. She had wronged him, too, when she spoke those wedding vows...it had been a lie pledge to him a life and a love that already belonged to another.
Wearily, Raoul sat down on the edge of his wife's bed.
Where was she...what had happened?
He idly turned her note over and over in his hands.
Even now, gendarmes continued to seek her, searching the Bois, the Seine, the cemetery where her father lay within his stone tomb...
He had personally spoken to Reyer, the last person to see her. The old maestro was known for his unfailing honesty and had always been very fond of Christine.
"I hope no harm has come to your wife...I spoke to her in the grand foyer, Monsieur. She was just going home, she said. I offered to order a carriage for her, but she smiled and said she'd prefer to walk."
Where the hell was she?
He heard a soft cough and looked up to see his housekeeper, Madame Brault, standing at the foot of the bed.
"Monsieur, there is something I ought to tell you. About Madame. I assumed she had already informed you."
