Have You Forgotten?
There is only one happiness in life, to love and be loved.
-Unknown
Philippe de Chagny was every inch the lecherous fop Erik presumed him to be with his crisp attire, ostentatious watch and cane, and his perfectly groomed hair. Not a stitch or hair out of place. Erik hated him immediately. The Comte de Chagny's previous escapades, and a supposed bastard child by the Opera's resident whore La Sorelli did not improve this opinion. The only thing that kept Erik's hold on his temper was Christine's hand in his. Now, in the harsh light of day, their intimacy seemed like a fever dream of perfect beauty. How had this miraculous creature consented to be his? He knew he would float through the first few years of his marriage dazed and slack-jawed at his sheer dumb luck.
De Chagny rose from where he lounged in Madame's desk chair. His muddy shoes dripped on the draft of the letter Madame had left on her desk. Uncouth idiot!
"Monsieur Rousseau, how good of you to-" his grey eyes widened as he saw Christine and narrowed again on their joined hands.
Say one word, Erik bade him silently, I dare you. Any shred of an excuse to disappear below forever, the dark dandy and his golden fop of a brother forgotten. On Christine's insistence, he was unarmed as a gesture of goodwill. It made Erik feel vulnerable and fractious without the weight of his dagger or the rasp of his Punjab up his sleeve.
"Christine!" De Chagny said with surprising warmth, moving forward to kiss her cheeks. Erik was assaulted by a wave of his cologne, overpoweringly, eye-wateringly spicy.
"You look well," De Chagny said with his insufferable smirk.
Was it possible for Erik to despise his cheap charm more than his brother's vomit-inducing sincerity? A wealth of censure lurked in what he didn't say. Namely: why are you on the arm of the man who tried to kill my brother scant weeks ago? Christine was poise personified, Erik thought, his heart swelling in pride. Gripping de Chagny's hand with her left, letting her rings sparkle in the light, she replied, "Thank you, Philippe. Erik and I were recently married."
At de Chagny's reaction a sharp, warning fingernail raked up his spine. First, blood ebbed from his face in an extraordinary expression of shock, then his pointedly handsome features transmuted into a look of mixed repugnance and irony. Erik draped his arm around Christine's waist possessively and was gratified by her resting her head against his shoulder. Some of the tension ebbed out of him.
"Monsieur, I may be remiss in my upbringing, but is it not customary for a gentleman to offer congratulations when a lady imparts such news? And do close your mouth. You wouldn't want a fly to get in," Erik said dryly.
De Chagny's jaw snapped shut with an audible click as he shook himself. Humor glinted in his grey eyes.
"Mother was always despairing over my poor manners. Forgive me, Madame Rousseau," he swooped dramatically over Christine's captive hand, "I am grateful your husband has corrected my lapse. I most heartily offer my congratulations and hope for your continued happiness." The words were said with such oozing charm that Erik perceived an insult in them.
What was it about de Chagny men that irked him so? Erik grunted and guided his wife to the only chair and stood with his hands braced on her shoulders, buried in the protective warmth of her hair. The message was blindingly clear: Get on with it.
Madame Giry, who had watched this performance keenly with a hint of merry humor in her eyes, caught Erik's gaze and his nod. She disappeared with a rustle of her full skirts and the faint rap of her heels. She was to return if anything seemed amiss.
"Erm, all right then." De Chagny coughed and fidgeted, adjusting his lacy cravat as if was trying to strangle him.
"Is everything all right, Philippe? You look pale," Christine said softly. Erik noticed her nervous gesture of twisting her ring around and around, the worn silver band glistening in the strong sunlight streaming through Minette's high window. De Chagny coughed out a reluctant laugh.
"We'll see how I am in about five minutes, hmm?" This stab at humor served only to thicken the anxiety in the room and Erik forced himself to stop restlessly kneading Christine's shoulders. She was his. No de Chagny could take her away from him. Nothing else mattered.
"Speak, Sir. My patience is wearing thin," Erik enunciated the words with the crisp authority of one accustomed to being obeyed without question. It worked well on de Chagny, who snapped to attention. He began pacing erratically across the narrow room, and Erik was reminded of a bird flitting in its cage struggling to break free.
"Very well, then. As you both are aware, my father died recently." A pause, a sliding glance over Erik, fixing for a moment on the mask.
"We offer our condolences," Erik said stiffly, Christine agreed with a sympathetic coo. A flare of affection warmed his heart. His sweet little songbird. After the death of her beloved father, she was no doubt a bleeding heart for the poor de Chagny boys. Never mind that Michel de Chagny was considered a right bastard by even the kindest of standards.
"Yes, well," Philippe said with a tight little shrug, "he disclosed some . . . unsettling news on his deathbed that involves all of us." Erik frowned. A feeling like panic rose up sharp and jagged in his chest, every fine hair on his body standing on end.
"Oh? How so?" Erik said, a queer note warping his usually mellifluous voice. De Chagny looked far worse, like a corpse dressed for a funeral, waxy pale and haunted.
"He . . . mentioned the existence of a . . . third de Chagny heir. The eldest born heir to our title. One he entrusted to the care of his former lover, Madeline Laurent."
Erik's ignominious cry was lost in Christine's as she jumped to her feet. At the loss of her warm shoulders beneath his hands, he felt the world start to crumble underfoot. Madeline Laurent . . . his mother. His mother? His hands groped for purchase, clenching on the padded back of the chair so hard his fingernails bit through the cloth. Christine . . . he saw the reflection of his shock, horror and fear swimming in her brown eyes. She was saying something. He couldn't understand her. His ears felt stuffed with cotton.
He whirled on his enemy, longing for his Punjab to suffocate the cruel lies.
"What did you say?" he said, spearing the hapless de Chagny with his gaze. Those grey eyes were cool, with none of his usual supercilious, mocking affectation.
"The Comte said his eldest son had black hair, with a hideous deformity on the right side of his face. He sent money to this Madeline every month for the boy's care for ten years. It was only then that the wretched woman said that the boy had run away three years prior."
The black-haired, hideously deformed man shuddered at those casual offhand words, as if remarking on the weather. They encapsulated the misery of his childhood and the wretched cause of it. No, it couldn't be true!
He couldn't be . . .
"I do not know what perverse whim prompted you to create these lies, nor do I care. Get out. You're upsetting my wife." Erik was proud of how calmly the words emerged. None of roaring maelstrom of anger that swirled in his tight chest.
"Erik-" De Chagny began. The lying bastard's presumption of using his Christian name was beyond bearing.
"Get out!" he howled, hurling the chair against the wall. The abused wood groaned. His vision pulsed red and it was all he could do to contain the mad, killing rage in his breast.
"Erik-" Christine's hand touched his arm. Erik jerked free from her placating grip, panting like a cornered animal. The walls pressed in on him, their wary, frightened gazes piercing him, leering at him from behind iron bars . . .
Erik surged forward, shoving past de Chagny, Christine's pleas falling on deaf ears. He needed room to breathe, to think! Couldn't they see he was suffocating? He turned out of Minette's office, hurried down a hallway, pressed a hidden panel, and disappeared.
XXX
Both she and Philippe stared at the yawning doorway, as if it could answer the riddle of where he had gone. Christine hugged herself, feeling bereft and abandoned. Erik had sucked all the air out of the room with his anger, leaving her gasping. Philippe stared perplexedly at the chair Erik had thrown as if wondering how it landed there. Christine leaned against Madame's desk to steady her wobbling knees.
"Is it true?" she whispered.
"Yes. There are records to prove it."
The world, so bright and perfect with new love this morning, now squeaked on a jerky axis around one central fact: Erik was a de Chagny. Erik was Raoul's brother. A small sound, like a wounded animal caught in a trap rose in Christine's throat. The mother that Erik had loved and hated his whole life was not his mother at all, but a twisted parasite siphoning off a man's money while she ruined his soul. Gooseflesh stippled her skin. How had the world changed so quickly?
Christine couldn't tear her eyes from the play of light on Madame's good Persian rug, swooping, arching patterns in burnt oranges and golds with playful hints of blue. She heard the rustle of paper and Philippe slid something toward her. She looked up, blinking.
"This was in the parish register."
The words on the paper read, Registration of Birth with the names Michel Andrew de Chagny and Hélène Arianna Moreau de Chagny. Christine's heart stuttered at the sight of the name below.
"E—Erik Adoré Maxmillen de Chagny," she said aloud, tracing the bold, dark scrawl marking his birth date . . . and death date. According to the parish register, Erik Adoré Maxmillen de Chagny had only lived a handful of minutes.
"Father bribed the priest attending the birth to forge the documents. He wanted to erase even the memory of Erik's existence." He glanced down at the paper and chuckled. It wasn't a nice sound.
"Adoré, 'beloved child.' Father said that her last words were naming her son. She must have been blinded by pain and the blood pouring out of her to say such a thing about-" Christine's hand flew of its own volition, striking Philippe hard across the cheek.
"No, Philippe! You will not disrespect my husband. Not while I'm still breathing," her voice quivered with barely suppressed emotion. Erik was hers, damn it! Hers!
Philippe rubbed his tender cheek, giving her a jaundiced glare. A wry quirk of lip reminded her piercingly of Erik. God, how many of his mannerisms had she seen in Philippe and never noticed?
"You do love him, don't you?"
"Yes. Very much." Philippe nodded.
"You and Raoul would not have made a good match. Raoul needs a woman to stand behind him and adore him. Erik, I think, needs a woman to stand beside him, to lean on and share his burdens. Like what I had with my Marguerite."
Christine's fingers crawled across Madame's desk to rest atop Philippe's hand. Their hands were different, she noted, with something like relief. Erik's were pale, long-fingered and slender, speaking of dexterity and grace in every task he turned them to. Philippe's were blunt and square, like a stone worker's.
"What happens now?" she asked. Philippe snorted.
"Hell if I know, Madame Rousseau. The next move is entirely up to your husband. Not that I'm eager for him to disinherit Raoul and I and throw our mother out onto the streets, mind, but regardless, our family has done him a great wrong. Father wanted me to try and make it right. Odd that a man such as he would suffer from an attack of conscience, but he did love Hélène. Perhaps it was to honor her memory."
"He could disinherit you?" Christine asked, one hand fluttering up to the pulse at her throat. Philippe smoothed the yellowed, crinkled corner of Erik's birth registration.
"He is the eldest legitimate son of Michel de Chagny. As such, he is entitled to the Château, the lands and properties, and ten thousand francs a year. Paltry, I know, compared to his salary as Opera Ghost, but a handsome sum to most." Christine swayed, only just now realizing she had become what she had fought so hard against. She was a de Chagny.
"My God . . ." she whispered into her palm, smothering the panicked little cries that rose in her throat. Philippe's smirk was droll.
"We could use your prayers, girl. All three of us poor, mismatched brothers."
After an hour, then two, then three had passed without Erik's return, Philippe bid her adieu. Christine pressed the thin leather briefcase to her chest, containing the proof of this wretched truth. Madame and Meg clustered around her, prying out the story in fits and spurts over tea and biscuits à la cuillère. Their shock insulated her, and she took comfort in their camaraderie.
Christine tried to smother her misery with the sweet, spongy cakes and quarts of hot tea, but the whistling hole in her chest refused to close. She didn't want to return to Erik's home beneath the Opera with all the sweet memories of their wedding night pressing on her in its cold, judgmental silence, so when Meg offered her the use of her room, Christine accepted with alacrity.
She was tired.
Philippe's news was like a lead weight around her neck, dragging her down into a world plastered with paper notices and damning words written in stark black ink. She was asleep by the time her head hit the pillow.
A gentle hand shaking her shoulder dragged her up from turbulent dreams. She rolled over to find Erik seated on the edge of Meg's narrow bed. His white mask hovered luminous in the darkness, the rest of him an indistinguishable blur. Her nostrils flared, capturing his rich, masculine scent, as well as the evanescent tang of alcohol. He sat, still as stone, waiting. Through the grey apathy anger surged up like the hot blood of the earth, and she exhaled heavily.
"This cannot go on, Erik," she said, her voice low and rough with sleep.
If he thought he could skulk back and seduce her into forgiving him, she would quickly disabuse him of that notion! She sat up, shaking off the limp grip on her shoulder. Cold air assaulted her sleep-warm limbs, pebbling her skin with gooseflesh and tightening her nipples.
"You can't just leave whenever the mood strikes you! You can't just abandon me for hours at time without a word of when you'll be back, or if you'll be back! Do you have any idea what that does to me? What that makes me feel? I hate that feeling. And I hate seeing you turn away from me!" The last was said when his face turned aside, in utter silence.
Christine rocked forward on her knees and seized his jaw, dragging his face even with hers. Her thumb stroked the dry, smooth warmth of his lower lip, feeling his abrupt intake of breath. Erik struggled onto the narrow bed, kicking off his shoes and grasping her forearms. Christine felt tears well up, tears that she had refused to shed in front of Philippe or Madame or Meg. Holy Virgin, the power this man had over her! He could rend her to pieces with a word, or a gesture, a turned back. She felt so fragile as hot tears slipped down her cheeks.
A wordless croon emanated from his throat, the rough pad of his thumb smoothing away her tears. Needing to balance the scales of vulnerability, she peeled off the mask and petted his twisted flesh. He gasped, and tried to pull back.
"Christine," he whispered, grasping her wrist. Christine held fast, leaning her forehead against his. They stayed like that for a long time, in the chilly darkness, sharing warmth and breath.
"I am your wife, Erik. Your burdens and your battles are mine." A question lingered beneath her brave assertion, a hunger for his affirmation. Was she? Was she truly the partner of his life and heart? His unfathomable heart, so full of secrets and pain.
"Christine . . ." he breathed again, warm hands encircling her throat, feeling the leap of her pulse.
His breath reeked of brandy. He had skulked off and gotten drunk with the Persian, no doubt. An irrational stab of envy pierced her at the thought. The Persian knew Erik better than she did, and it galled her. Erik moved as if to kiss her, then reconsidered, the faint brush landing mostly on her cheek. A sob rose up in her throat, her hands fisting in his coat as if to physical bar him from leaving. It was so easy for him to leave her behind . . .
"I am sorry," his rich voice murmured, "I am sorry you had the misfortune of marrying a coward." The jagged fear in her belly softened slightly, but did not dissipate. The anger was only partly mollified by the real grief in his voice.
"You're not a coward," she said sharply, irritated, "you're not! Philippe's news was a great shock to you."
"Shock or no, you are right. I should not have left. Oh Christine, I . . . I do not cope well with strong emotion."
"I've noticed," Christine pointed out dryly, her caressing fingers stroking his face to alleviate the sting of her words.
The darkness wakened her nerves to new awareness, the dips and ridges of both the smooth and rough sides of his face were sharp and vibrant beneath the pads of her fingertips. Erik snorted. His hand found hers in the dark and brought her knuckles to his lips. Silence filled the space between them.
"I was a coward. I don't deserve you," he whispered, restless fingers caressing her throat. Christine clenched her jaw, warring with the twin desires of wanting to burst into tears and to cling to her anger.
"Oh Erik, how I love you. And you deserve love, you deserve to be happy!" she whispered, kissing him gently. A soft groan escaped him and he slanted his mouth across hers, lips and tongue claiming hers in soul-shaking kiss. Christine whimpered, hands tangled in his hair, holding him close. Had he been unsure of his welcome? Her greeting had hardly set the right tone. The anger transmuted into a molten desire.
"Forgive me," he implored against her lips, kissing her again, "tell me you still love me!"
"Yes! Of course I love you, you fool man!" Christine tugged at a fistful of his hair, dragging him back down to her lips. This time, it was her lips that did the claiming. Heat bloomed through her body and a wild, savage desire longed to tear off his clothes and claim his body as hers. Whatever name he held, whatever family claimed him, he was hers, first and forever. She wanted to peel back his flesh and touch that spark inside his heart that beckoned her with its beauty.
"Don't leave me. Never again," she snarled, clawing at the buttons of his coat, waistcoat, and shirt—honestly, he wore more layers than she!—and touched the warm, hard flesh of his chest. Erik helped her shrug them off, surging forward and pressing her against the thin mattress.
"Never," he growled, grasping the hem of her shift and yanking it up over her head. Christine framed his face between her hands, staring into the formless darkness where his gaze burned.
"Please. Please don't leave me again. I couldn't bear it," she choked, hot tears trickling into her hair. Her legs wound around his waist, his hardness trapped in his trousers pressed to her molten center. A soft groan left his lips. Erik reared back, braced on his hands.
"Oh my love, forgive me! I would never hurt you. Never!" he said passionately.
His kiss was an assault, as if he too was caught in this mad fever to possess, to claim her as his own, to affirm that they were together even when the world went mad.
When he broke away to free himself from his trousers, Christine sought the warm twisted flesh of his jaw, breathing against his skin, "I know, love. I forgive you." As hotly as her anger burned, love came like a soothing rain to extinguish it.
Erik exhaled a shaky sigh, seeking her mouth again. A shudder raced through his body as he slid inside, Christine's own deep moan stifled by his lips. Delightfully stretched, primally satisfied, Christine thrust her hips up for more. Erik's moan sounded more like a whimper as he set a slow, deep pace. Deprived of her sight, the feel of him anchored so deep, the hard muscle of his shoulders moving beneath her hands, the coarse hair of his calves against hers was magnified, perfected.
"I love you. Oh . . . I love you so much!" he growled against her throat.
The thorny passion between them was incendiary and it wasn't long before it burned too hot and Erik's thrusts quickened to a pounding pace. Together, they flew together into sublime pleasure. Her lips sought his blindly in the sweaty aftermath, and he kissed her deep and sweet. He laid his head on her chest, as their breathing slowed.
"It's true, isn't it? What de Chagny said?" Erik's beautiful voice held a shy note that Christine had never heard before.
Still languid and throbbing in the aftermath of their shared pleasure, she felt pleasantly detached from the upheavals of the afternoon. In her present mood, the fact that Erik and Raoul were brothers was no more remarkable than the fact that Erik had a preference for her hair in its natural wild state, preferably knotted in his fingers or splayed across his chest.
Petting his head, she said, "Yes, love. I saw your birth certificate." She pinched the upper curve of his ear gently.
"Erik Adoré Maxmillen," she teased, striving for levity. Erik made a noncommittal sound, nuzzling her breasts.
"My . . . my mother?" Christine tightened her limbs around him, cradling his fragile heart against hers.
"Gone, Erik. She . . . she lived long enough to name you, then she died. Your mother loved you, Erik."
Not that harridan Madeline, who made it her sole duty to erode your soul, was the unspoken counterpoint. Erik stroked her sides with the barest whisper of callused fingertips in silent understanding. A pleasant shiver raced through her.
"And my father hated me," he said. Christine exhaled heavily. There was no defense of Michel de Chagny's treatment of his sons—any of them.
"He didn't deserve you," she crooned. Erik's exhaled breath tickled her skin.
He untangled himself from her and groped through the tangled sheets for his mask. Swinging his long legs over the edge of the bed, Erik found the candle and striker on the narrow bedside table.
As Christine watched, orange sparks struck illuminating his beautiful hands. The wick caught, and the angle lit his beloved face in ghoulish effect. He looked both ancient and eternally young, the remote angel lit in his masked side, and the echoes of the lover found in the flesh. Unconcerned with his nakedness, Erik sank into the chair next to the bed. Christine propped her head on her bent arm, watching his lithe grace with absorbed fascination. She found it telling that he felt compelled to don the mask even when bare of even as stitch of clothing. Her husband steepled his fingers and tapped his lips with his pointer fingers.
"What shall we do, my love?" he asked, quirking a brow, "There are most certainly strings attached to the acceptance of a black sheep such as myself into the impeccable de Chagny fold." he said with no small amount of bitterness.
"My . . . my father did go to rather considerable lengths to keep me hidden away and my brothers will indubitably resent being disinherited." She could find no words to soothe. Christine hated her own helplessness to assuage the injustices of his life's miseries.
Erik went on, "The courtly constraints of a Comte are abhorrent to me. I loathe high society." He leaned forward suddenly, capturing her hand in his larger one.
"I can provide for you, Christine. In our whirlwind courtship, I left out a few vital details. I am a wealthy man in my own right. My salary from the Opera was only ever a means of control, though I did use it for the manor. I have skill and wit enough for business, should I ever need occupation. You will never want for anything, I swear it." Christine's heart burst into a glorious song of love for this strong, beautiful, earnest man.
"I know. I never doubted you," she said, squeezing his hand. His eyes, now the deep, pensive hue of a moonlit lake shimmered with emotion. He bent over her hand and folded a kiss into her palm.
"I—I fear I will never welcome either of the de Chagnys with open arms. There is too much bad blood between us. But . . . I would try. For you," he breathed against her skin. The steel of his resolve shone in his eyes, throbbed in the strength of his grip. He would. For her.
"What do you want, Erik? I don't care if I am a Comte's wife, or composer's mistress or a criminal's lady. As long as I am yours, the rest is trivial." Erik's eyes slipped closed. He pressed his lips to her hand fervently.
"You are a miracle, Christine. I will never understand what I've done to earn your devotion," his voice shook and the candlelight caught the shine of tears.
"Likewise, love," she tried to keep her tone light, but a quaver betrayed her. A long, tender moment stretched between them.
"So we're mad for each other," she said, earning a soft chuckle, "but we still have not decided what to do."
"It is quite a conundrum. What's say we take a holiday to mull it over? Say, in Milan?" A shiver raced through her.
"La Scala?" she whispered. Erik grinned.
"Sí."
A romantic adventure with Erik, away from the lure of Philippe's poisoned promise sounded absolutely perfect.
"When shall we leave?"
xxxxxx
A/N: So? What did you think? Tell me either way!
A note on Erik's deformity: A major flaw, I think of the 2004 Phantom movie is that they made Erik too sexy (Darn you Gerry Butler and your chiseled features!). His deformity is meant to have him shunned from the human race for his whole life, a major pathos for his character. And in the movie he had a sunburn. Really? Imagine mine as something truly gruesome and horrifying.