When I came to, Christine was touching a cool cloth to my temple and Anci was hovering at a safe distance.
"He's fine. You can go," Christine clipped. Anci vanished faster than Sorelli's virtue.
I immediately initiated self-rescue procedures. "Christine, I swear—"
"You should keep still, Erik," she soothed. A sick little grin played on her lips; the wench enjoyed watching me squirm! It got my ire up; after all, for once I was an innocent man. What an odd feeling, being falsely accused.
"Now see here, Woman, you should at least give a man the opportunity to explain before you slug him!"
"Slug you? You goose, you fainted like a debutante!"
I turned colors while she laughed at me. "Careful you don't split your corset, Madame," I groused.
Recovering her composure at last, she slipped my mask off and kissed my forehead. "My darling grumpy Angel, you should have seen yourself. Really, Erik; you might have given me credit for a bit of intelligence." She continued pressing kisses on me. "I love this face," she mused.
"Right, well, a lifetime's habits are hard to break. How many times in my career have I not been at fault?"
"Grumble if you must, then, but it's her I don't trust, not you," she sniffed.
"Whatever for? She's a respectably married woman." Best not to add fuel to the fire by confirming Christine's suspicions. Besides, it had to be some kind of misunderstanding; the child couldn't really want me. Surely it was general masculine approval she was after.
"I suspect you were the first person who was ever nice to her, ever paid her any attention. Never mind the nature of the attention," she added sourly. "She used to look at you as if you were Christ Transfigured. She's moderated some with time, but…women know these things."
"If you say so." My darling Christine sees so much to love in my wretched corpse that she's convinced it's apparent to everyone. I'm the luckiest monster that ever was made.
"You still don't realize your own magnetism, my silly Angel." She gave what there was of my nose a pinch. "Now why don't you tell me what business you two had together."
"Er. Um…it's rather private."
"WHAT?" I saw immediately that I'd misjudged the depths of Christine's conviction that I was innocent.
"I mean…I mean…" I was searching for something plausible, harmless, and completely untrue.
"You'd better mean--quickly."
"Right. Right." There was nothing for it; the boy was on his own. I poured out my alibi. "Masson and Soraya are sweet on each other. They fancy they want to marry." I couldn't look at her. I was terrified a lightning bolt might catch me and strike me dead. "I tried to talk to him, of course, and that was no good. And Raoul tried to talk to him, and that was no good either. So I decided to buy some time by working on it from the other end, see, until I could think of some way to get the boy sniffing down another trail." Unfortunate choice of words, but it was alright under the circumstances. Christine was fuming about the religion thing, as I knew she would.
"How the devil does he expect to—she's not even Protestant!" She was on her feet. "You should have told me about this immediately, Erik."
Crap; I was sliding down the muddy bank into trouble again. "I didn't want to worry you, Angel. With Miri-ange, and Gustave and all…"
"I'm not a child. I'll decide when I need protecting, and I'll let you know," she snapped. I wasn't really in trouble. Her eyes said she'd moved on completely. "Now where is that boy…"
"Wait, Christine; your reaction now is precisely why I didn't tell you about it. It needs delicate handling or else it'll blow up in our faces."
"I can tell Darius, and that'll make an end of it!" she fumed.
"Oh you'd do that, would you? And see that poor girl married off to the first marginally human male Darius can find, so long as he's Muslim, just to get her out of the house?"
"You don't think he'd do that." She joined me on the sofa, pulling my arm over her shoulders.
"I absolutely know he'd do that."
"Well then, we'll just sit Masson down and tell him we expressly forbid him to marry yet." She had that determined set to her jaw; the battle had been joined.
"It's probably no good pointing this out, but he's your son, Madame. When have you ever responded favorably to being forbidden something?" I pointed out.
"Then we won't forbid him in so many words. We'll present a coherent, flawlessly logical argument, and—"
"A flawlessly logical argument, to a devastatingly romantic nineteen year old who's led about by his gonads. Brilliant; Darling, I'm sure that's the solution. So relieved I brought this up."
"Now you're in danger of being slugged," she growled.
"Except I could execute a suave move and sweep you off your feet, right here in the parlor," I threatened.
"Don't distract me; I'm worried about my son." I backed off and she rested her head on me, sighing petulantly. "This is all your fault."
"I never doubted it for a moment; but why do you say so?"
"Because he's so…French. I'm Scandinavian. He got this obsession with girls from you and your passionate Gallic temperament."
"That is true, of course. How well I remember the women of France declaring a day of national mourning when Erik was married," I deadpanned.
"Yes; I shall slug you now."
-0-0-0-0-
I stared out the window at nothing. The rain made a comforting patter on the conservatory roof.
"Papa."
"Miri-ange!" How she'd changed in four months! The image of her mother, she was breathtaking.
"I'm sorry, Papa," she whispered.
"It's in the past now, Angeline." I rocked her in my arms. "You're home; I'm so glad you're home."
-0-0-0-0-
Raoul agreed to accompany me when I took Gustave to the University of Liege. "I've never had a Belgian girl that I recall," he grinned.
"Christ," I grimaced. "Is that what this is about, so you can sample a Belgian whorehouse?"
"Come on, it'll be fun."
"No thank you. Have you forgotten that my impressionable young son will be with us? Christine'll have my nuts on a plate if I take him near any sparkly ladies."
"We can leave him with the maths professor for one evening. Come on, Erik, don't be such a granny," he wheedled.
"Raoul. Your puppy eyes will work no magic on me, and I am no granny. I am an insanely happily married man, utterly devoted to my wife, not that you would know what it's like," I sniffed.
"Who ever said I'm not happily married? I'm trying to spare Manon's delicate sensibilities the burden of my formidable appetites."
"Please spare my delicate sensibilities the burden of your formidable mendaciousness. You're an adulterous fiend; you should be horse-whipped."
"You're just jealous, Old Man."
"You're absolutely right."
-0-0-0-0-
I was pottering in the kitchen garden with Sofie. She'd planted some rosemary and mint, both all but impossible to kill, and we had to check her plants regularly.
"Pickle, how about we make a surprise for everyone: ice cream. We can use your mint."
"Papa!" My little chunk knocked the wind from me in her excitement. "My mint from my very own garden? Yes! Yes!"
"Very well then; let's go and ask Darius if he'll let us borrow a patch of his kitchen."
"And bowls and stirrers!" She bounced and twirled.
"Mm, and how shall we make it sweet?"
"Sugar!"
"And what else must we use for ice cream?"
"Cream!"
"Right, and that's the whole recipe," I smiled. The Pickle's plump little hand squeezed my bony fingers.
"Papa, how do we get the mint out of the leaves?" She crinkled her nose. "I don't want to have leaves in the ice cream."
"We're going to cook them in a bit of water, with the sugar, to make a minty syrup."
"How come you know how to make ice cream? Did you used to have a job like Darius?"
"No; I used to live on my own. I had to feed myself, didn't I? Poor skinny Papa." I hoisted the Pickle onto my hip. She swung her feet gaily.
"Papa, tell me a story about when you lived on your own."
"Hm…let's see. Did I ever tell you about how Uncle Reza and I ran away from the bad people who were after us?"
"No-oo. Just you, on your own."
"Alright, I'll tell you about the first time I saw a beautiful little princess who grew up to be your Mama. She was only a bit older than you are now."
As we turned back toward the house, I spied the two lovebirds, apparently involved in a heated discussion—not to say argument. I'd deal with that later.
-0-0-0-0-
"I missed you, Old Man." I handed Reza his brandy. "How was it?"
"Wonderful," he smiled. "Miri-ange was delightful, and it was something of an extended honeymoon for Silke and me."
"Oh my; tell me you didn't expose my daughter to any exotic Persian techniques," I grinned.
"We were quieter than you and Christine ever managed." We had a good laugh on that; then I turned solemn.
"How is my little girl?"
Reza took a sip, pondered a moment. "She missed home, and all of you, terribly. She is worried about what life will be like for her now. Doesn't want to return to Monmartre; she is afraid of running into Renoir. And I think she's feeling ashamed."
"Christine and I will have to reassure her that we love her and aren't ashamed of her."
He nodded. "What is new here?"
"Funny you should ask, haha. Masson and Soraya."
Reza nearly spit up his drink. "What do you mean, Masson and Soraya?"
"They want to marry; so Masson claims, and so far I've had no luck in dissuading him. Of course Christine's insane about the religious aspect. I'm simply afraid Darius will turn to murder."
"Well, if you want to put a stop to it, you might tell him," he suggested. "Likely he'll ship her off to cousins in Persia if he catches wind of it."
"Egad, the poor child. Poor Anci."
"Well, I just say, it would end it."
"Which reminds me, I saw them earlier—arguing, it looked like."
"We can only hope," Reza chuckled.
"I expressly forbade him talking to her anymore; I'll have to call him on the carpet. It's not just Soraya, Daroga, it's any girl. Can you see him married?"
"No, I can't. You've protected them, Erik; some might say too much. Which is not to say that I don't understand your motivation."
"And what do you suggest? Throwing them to the wolves? Letting them perform with no safety net? No, Sir: I grew up that way, if you can call it that. My children will know they're not alone in the world, by God!" I sputtered.
"I said I understand, Erik. I'm not saying you should cast them adrift, but they have to begin to make their own way sometime," he soothed.
"When they're ready, they may do so."
"And how will you know when they're ready?"
"Goddammit, Daroga, last time I checked you weren't a family man! How the hell do you come to be an authority on childrearing?"
"You forget how I love those children, Erik" he murmured, lowering his eyes.
Suddenly I felt horribly guilty; I'd hurt him. Reza was as close to a grandfather as my children would ever have. For all I knew, he'd been unable to give Silke children; he'd never mention such a thing to me.
"Look, Reza…I'm sorry; I know you love them. I'm at wit's end with Masson, but I shouldn't take it out on you."
"Forget it. I'm used to your temper by now."