A/N:

Here is the next installment! Apologies for the slowness.

Keep in mind, please, while reading this story, especially the next few chapters: in writing Raoul as I am, I do not mean to bash his character or paint him as a rogue. Rather, he is a respectable nobleman, waging a war against his brother, disillusionment, and caught between trying to regain his former self, or allowing a further descent into madness, which, after all, can be bliss. Please don't hate Raoul or me for writing him this way, it's only one view of the story.

-

Chapter 4: Only The Truth

Dearest Christine,

I know you may find this hard to believe—even I cannot seem to comprehend it fully, and for me it has been two whole days! The Viscomte de Chagny—yes, Raoul—has asked my mother if he might court me, with the intention of marriage!

I worried at first that you might be angry with me, or jealous, but then I remembered your happiness with Erik, and I know you would wish only that for me. However, I am struck nearly witless at the prospect of being courted by Raoul de Chagny. He was yours first, and I never dreamed that I might be the one he chose to replace you.

The idea of becoming a Viscomtess, along with all that entails, frightens me more than a little. There is so much that I do not know. And besides, I will have to give up my dancing when we wed, and I have shed some tears over that, but I have decided that, if he should propose, then I will accept, for this is an opportunity I should not let slip by. I will never receive such a proposal from any other man, and I would rather give up my dancing to be joined in wedlock than to have a nobleman's child when we are not wed.

I hope that he will come to love me as he loved you, my friend. I can never hope to compare to or replace you, but I will do my best to make him happy.

Do send me your regards, dear Christine. I do so want you to be happy for me.

I will send you the date as soon as the ring is on my finger!

All my love,

Meg

Christine lay the note down on the bedside table, folding the crisp paper and sliding it back neatly into the linen envelope.

"Erik?" she called, wondering where her husband might be.

"Yes, Christine?" The tall figure of the erstwhile Phantom entered the room, garbed as casually as he could bear in dark trousers and a white lawn shirt half-open.

As always, Christine swooned just a little at the sight of him, as she rose to embrace him and handed him the letter.

Erik read it through, his brow creasing at the information contained within. His voice was tight when he finished. "So little Meg is to wed the Viscomte. How does that make you feel, Christine?"

"Happy." Christine replied calmly, taking the letter from his hand. "I am overjoyed that she will gain the joy I have found, and that she will have all that she deserves from life. I bear no ill will or jealousy, if that is what you are asking."

Erik nodded, though he continued to appraise Christine. "She may gain what she deserves, but I would not count on her finding joy. That boy will bring nothing but misery to anyone who tries to come near him now."

He turned and walked out then, leaving an effervescent tension lingering in the air.

-

After morning Mass that Sunday, Raoul approached Meg as she and her mother were exiting the cathedral. He had a long-stemmed white rose in one hand, and he extended it to Meg.

"May I request the pleasure of your company on a walk today, Mademoiselle Giry?"

Meg laughed, a delightfully cheery sound. "Of course, Monsieur le Viscomte. And please, call me Meg, as you have always done."

"It shall be my delight, Meg, if you will call me by my Christian name as well."

"Very well, then, Raoul."

-

At was precisely at noon that Raoul came to the opera house for her. Meg came outside, dressed quite beautifully in a pale blue day-dress. Her hair was pinned up, as became a proper young lady.

It was but a short carriage ride to the park, which was teeming with Parisians out on a Sunday excursion. Raoul's valet followed dutifully behind as a chaperon, and the young couple was free to talk as they wished.

"Will it sadden you greatly to give up dancing, Meg?" Raoul asked, such a look of concern on his face that Meg knew it was a question that had troubled him for some time.

She tried to make light of it, laughing with a carefree sound. It delighted and irritated Raoul all at once—delighted because Meg's laugh seemed to make the sun shine brighter and the birds sing more loudly all at once, and irritated because it reminded him of a joy that he had once had, and now feared he would never have again.

He felt young and old beyond his years all at once when he was with Meg, and he was not at all sure that it was a pleasant thing.

"You speak as though we are engaged already." She smiled coquettishly at him, as her fellow ballerinas had told her to do. "Act as though you have a dozen men proposing marriage," Lisette had instructed. "It will drive him mad and make him want you all the more. The trick with men is to act as though you care not a whit, even if you care a great deal."

"I told you, Marguerite, that I was courting you with the intention of marriage." He did not seem at all pleased with her little game, yet she was loathe to give it up when she had barely begun.

"Intentions are not always what they seem, monsieur."

"Mine are far better than what you have received in the past."

"And how am I to know that?"

Raoul's brows drew together, and Meg felt a delightful shiver go through her, an intoxicating sense of power, and a twinge of fear all at once.

"You will know, mademoiselle, by my actions." The stiff formality had returned. "Or would you have me play the rake instead of the gentleman?"

"Not at all, monsieur." Meg's tone was demure. "But you are not the only man who has offered for me."

"I am the only man who has offered marriage."

"True, but the others might in time."

"No other would want the stigma of marriage to a ballerina."

"You do not care?"

"I do not."

He saw with a surge of devilish glee his brother's expression when, after an appropriate interlude of wooing, he announced his engagement to Meg, a ballerina. Philippe would be furious.

The very thought made Raoul happier than he had been in months.

"And what of you, Meg? Do you object to marrying a man who is considered, in the general opinion of Paris, to be mad?"

She stopped then, and looked at him, suddenly serious, her gaze matching his. "I do not think you mad, Raoul. I think you in love, with a woman far beyond your reach, and I think you a broken man, not easily pieced back together. If this is madness, it can be cured. I believe it can be cured."

"Then you, mademoiselle, are far more optimistic than others." His face had hardened. "There are things even you do not know about me, Meg, things you may not know until you have been my wife for some time." He turned away from her for a moment, then reached out awkwardly and took her hand.

"There is much to be said, Meg, between the two of us. Our marriage will be scandalous, and the things that the gossips may say about you will not be at all pleasant. I will offer you what I can, but there is little that I can promise. I am a broken man, Meg, as you said. You are a perceptive woman, but there are some things that I do not wish perceived, yet. There may come a time when you can heal me, but I must warn you, the rumors of my madness are not entirely untrue."

He paused for a moment, wishing to quell the spark of uncertainty he saw in her eyes. "When may I take you to dinner, Meg? We will finish speaking then."

"Next Sunday." she replied, smiling. "I will look forward to it."

They were quiet all the walk home.

-

Raoul took her to dinner the next Sunday as promised. Meg looked stunning, her cornsilk hair pinned up into an elaborate design, and dressed in a pink confection of an evening dress that clung to her in strategic places and lent her curves where she lacked them.

Dinner was uneventful, and Raoul was very quiet on the ride home. He sat beside her, fingers loosely entwined with hers. He looked out the carriage window to the lamplit streets, and spoke suddenly.

"I loved Christine very much, you know."

"I know." Meg whispered, her voice small.

"Do you think you can marry me, Meg, knowing how much I loved her? How much I still love her?"

Meg was silent for several moments. "I think I can."

He turned to face her. "Why? How?"

Because I love you. Because I have always loved you, even when you were Christine's.

"Because there are more important things to a woman than love. There is the security of a good man, comfort, and a place in society. You can offer me these."

Liar! Her conscience accused her. You want nothing more than for him to look into your eyes as he looked into Christine's! You want nothing more than for him to desire you as he did her! You want those words of love! Can you live a lifetime without them?

Raoul took both of Meg's hands in his. "I cannot promise to love you, or to share all of my secrets with you as a husband should with his wife. I cannot promise any of the things that a woman wants to hear except for these: I will give you my name, my home, my wealth and my security, as long as I live, and you will be provided for well if you should outlive me. No one will look down upon you. I will give you children if you wish, and they may love you even if I cannot." He smiled, a small, sad smile. "It is not much, but I am being honest with you, Meg, because I do care for you." He caressed the backs of the hands he held. "Will you marry me, Marguerite Giry?"

Meg looked into his blue eyes, those beautiful eyes that had held her captive from the first moment she had seen them, and she knew that she loved him so that she would endure an eternity without his love, if only she might be near him. The thought of being separated from him now was too painful to bear. In time, perhaps she might heal his demons. In time, he might love her.

"Yes, Raoul." She replied, her voice soft, full of love, though she had meant to hide her feelings. "I will marry you."

He slid a ring onto her finger, a lovely band of gold filigree, with a sapphire that matched her eyes and small, delicate diamonds on either side. He saw the tears beginning to mist in her eyes, tears of sadness or of joy, he did not know, and he leaned forwards to kiss her for the first time.

Her lips were warm while his were cool, her touch hesitant while his was practiced. He held her gently, not meaning to seduce but to woo. Seduction of Meg had never entered his mind. Christine he had wished to seduce, but Meg seemed an ethereal wisp, a fragment of a cloud that must be held gently lest it fade away. His lips remained closed, even when she pressed, in her heady delight at receiving her first kiss, to deepen it. He pulled away, unsatisfied, but the glow in her eyes and the flush of her cheeks told him that she was satisfied indeed.

Can you really do this, Raoul? He questioned himself, even as his ring was already on her finger. Can you marry her for your own means, because a Viscomte cannot remain a bachelor and you wish revenge on your brother? Will you destroy her as you did Giselle, because she loves you already to distraction and you cannot love her in the least?

He held her hand tightly, aware of his folly, yet powerless to prevent his own errors.

I am mad. God in Heaven, I am truly mad.