I thought that you would like to get to know the Comtesse a little better. Thank you for all of you that reviewed the last chapter. I assure you that it will all tie into the earlier part of the story. Some of you might find a clue about it here.

Chapter 22

Auguste Marie's POV

How weak the Mulheim men are, with the exception of the masked one, Erik. My mouth has grown tired from the fake smiles that I have had to endure making. Soon the time for pretending would be over; when the weaker Mulheims do away with the stronger branch of the family, my revenge against the older Erik will be complete. How easy it was to get them to believe that it was Erik who killed his brother when it was me. Those German's are so easy to fool. Christian is the most foolish of them all. He is too kind in spirit to think ill of almost anyone, perhaps with the exception of me. I see how he looks at me with barely concealed contempt but he will fall into line when I remind him how his cousin and great uncle died. I am sure that the former Phantom of the Opera would be eager to learn the true nature of his loving cousins, and of the half century feud between the two halves of the family Should Christian disobey me. Perhaps they would kill each other in a duel. Ah, I could never be that fortunate.

I have waited a long time for this time to come, a very long time. I wanted their family to have the same fate that mine did, and my late husband's. Soon they would disappear into the dustbin of history like many good old noble names. It could have been different, if those brothers did not reject me. I would have proudly borne the name and title of Baroness von Mulheim but both brothers eventually married others and made me bear my bastard child. My poor husband thought that I had a miscarriage, but I had not. My baby, a girl, almost killed me when she came a month too early. She was born in Paris where I was staying with my cousin Louisa. I was warned not to travel so late in my pregnancy but I had decided that I would not want to raise the child if it was a girl. It was best that the child was born away from Alsace. Although Jules was willing to raise it as his own, I couldn't bear that thought. It wasn't like it was Jules' bastard. I was never sure who the true father was, even if I named it to be Georges. Louisa was barren and longed for a child. She raised mine as her own; eventually my daughter, Aurore, married very well. She became the Comtesse de Chagny.

Jules wanted an heir, and if it had been a boy I might have raised it. My blood would have sired a new and stronger generation of de la Bois Comtes. However I have never been particularly maternal, a child would have forced me to play the role of every young mother and take care of it. Yes I would have had servants to help, but ultimately it would have still whined and drooled and craved my attention and others attention too. I was never one to share anyone's attention with others. The delivery was hard and I decided that I would never go through that agony again. I informed Jules that I was heavily scarred and it would be dangerous for me to bear another child. He did impregnate me once but I took care of it immediately. I was able to use Jules' sympathy for my 'second' lost child to get him to stop touching me. The man was ugly, and I did not want to raise a bevy of ugly children. I could find my satisfaction elsewhere without utilizing him. After my second 'miscarriage' I told him that it was too dangerous for me to have a child. Amazing what a little blackmail and F20,000 did to encourage the local doctor to stay silent. He and his wife enjoyed a happy marriage and, in return, I retained my peace and quiet. No ugly brats to compete with me for what I wanted.

For my entire life I was loathe to share, and why did I have to? My mother used to tell me that I was born under an unlucky star. I was born in the first year of the new century, 1801. My family was old, one of the oldest in France, related to the house of Valois in one way or the other. But those that stayed in France during the revolution were all killed. My father and his father survived because they had lived in Switzerland during the last one hundred years of the monarchy. That was where he met my mother who was of French speaking Swiss extraction, and of a good noble Protestant family. Her family had emigrated to Switzerland in the reign of Louis XIV when the King revoked the Edict of Nantes and Protestants were no longer tolerated. My family stayed in France, and pretended to convert, but secretly remained Protestant. They left when my father was a small child, barely making it out of Auvergne before the soldiers came to arrest them. My father and grandfather returned when Napoleon came to power, and France became tolerant once more.

My father was quite handsome and I loved him with all of my heart. He took me with him everywhere and called me his 'belle ange.' He spoiled me with whatever I asked for, even when my mother warned him that he was teaching me 'the wrong values' particularly so soon after the revolution. He and my grandfather went off to war, in my fifth year of life, for the last time. He was one of Napoleon's men. The day that he left, I clung to his leg. I would not loosen it until he promised to return to me with wonderful gifts from Egypt, Spain, Austria and Prussia and finally Russia. He sent one or two but after a while the gifts and the letters stopped and I never saw him again. He broke his promise to me that he would come back to me, breaking my heart as well. He was the last man that I believed in. It was then that I learned not to trust in anyone or anything but myself. Not even God.

By my teenage years, I was considered to be the most beautiful girl in all of Auvergne. I was the object of desire for almost every eligible young nobleman in Auvergne at least until their parents found out that we were up to our ears in debt, and Protestant to boot. My father had left us destitute after he died in Russia during the Napoleonic Wars. He was a gambler and a drunk and had wasted away every sou that he inherited from his father. I tried every trick that I knew to ensnare a husband, and I knew a great deal. I was only eleven when I lost my virginity with a particularly handsome servant. He was incredibly handsome and even then I understood my power over the male sex. Men believe that women are the weaker sex but we do not live for sexual satisfaction in the same way that they do. Once I realized that I could use both my beauty, and their view of our weakness, for my own gain I began to utilize my appeal. When maman realized what I was up to, and the extent of my desire to lure a rich husband, she was humiliated. She told me that my behavior was unbefitting of a girl of my station. She sold the last beautiful objects that we had left, and bought train tickets to Strasbourg, where there were plenty of Lutherans, and nobody knew us. She thought that I would change but why would I?"

I soon found out that the de Mulheim brothers were some of the wealthiest and most handsome boys in the area and decided to procure an invitation to a rout that one of the noble families were hosting. I spotted both boys immediately. They were as handsome as I was told. I would have accepted one, or the other, but I soon found out that Erik was the heir to the bulk of the family fortune and estate so naturally, I concentrated on him. I thought that Georges was slightly more handsome but Erik would do nicely. I decided to hedge my bets and get one of them, or both, to fall in love with me. That way I was assured that I would get one of them. In the meantime, I was prolific with my affections. I had not been a virgin for many years so I did not feel that I needed to be. I would find that if I were extra affectionate that I would be showered with jewelry and other gifts from my wealthy suitors. I was careful that word of my adventures was never received by the boys. Maman found out and called me a whore and threatened that we would leave town; but without the jewelry and other trinkets that I received, we could not go anywhere. It wasn't like she could work and support us. We were not of the working class. I certainly did not want to become a lady's companion or a governess, they were both ill- treated and could not sustain my needs. I simply needed to bait the trap and reel in one of the Mulheim boys.

My opportunity came fairly quickly, Comte Jules de la Bois hosted a small affair and both boys were staying over. I concocted a reason to remain at the house as well. I saw that Georges was drunk and decided to sleep with him. He was very naïve and awkward, as he was still fairly young. He was no match for me. I slipped into his room and made love with him. I was planning on doing the same to Erik, but to my dismay, he spotted me leaving Georges' room. I quickly burst into tears and confessed that his brother had been jealous of him, and that he had forced me to sleep with him, so that he could claim me as his own. A few drops of blood on his brothers' bed, which I had placed in the right location, while Georges slept were enough to convince Erik of the veracity of what I said. The Mulheim brothers were known for their quick tempers as well as their intelligence. I found Erik to be the more intelligent of the two but he was still no match for my efforts. I suppose that having never been subjected to the humiliation of poverty, and maintaining social status that they did not understand the desperation that such would engender. I was sure that the ends justified the means.

I suppose that if anyone knew what I was up to, they would have condemned me, as my own mother did. When she found out that I was pregnant, she was very angry and threatened to tell the brothers' father what I had done. At the time, I did not intend to hit her so hard that she would fall off the balustrade to the first floor of our rented townhouse, but that is what happened. It was ruled a suicide. It was then that I discovered that death could be a particularly useful tool to rid me of encumbrances upon my plans. Revenge was a powerful motivation as well. My mother could not inform anyone of my plans, but her death had been in vain, unfortunately neither brother did marry me. By then Georges was already married. He had been disowned by his family and was an assistant to a professor of archeology. By then, four months after the incident, Georges met and quickly married his German girlfriend, and moved to Germany.

Since Georges was not an option, I confronted Erik and begged him to marry me but he would have nothing more to do with me. I was already well along in my pregnancy, when sweet Jules, saw me 'crying'. He asked me what was wrong and I told him how the Mulheim brothers had used me and discarded me. I mentioned that my mother had just died and I was pregnant with Georges' child and that I was not sure what I could do. He knew what had happened in his house and was therefore easy to convince to do the gallant thing. He was not a handsome man but he was rich and titled and very kind. Fortunately he had no family left to dispute our marriage. His father like mine had died in the Napoleonic wars. His mother had died several years before. Both of his parent's families had been murdered in the French revolution and so there were no relatives left to contest our marriage.

The only person to do so was Erik. He tried to tell his friend that I was not worthy of him, but to Jules' credit he was a very kind man and very gallant. Unlike the Mulheims he was not of mixed French and German heritage but purely French. He would not hear of anyone, not even his closest friend, speak poorly of a beautiful noblewoman such as me. He was angry that Erik would not do the 'right thing' and marry me for his own family's honor. He felt that since Georges could not do so, because he had married the German girl; Erik should sacrifice and do so. Erik told his friend that he would not do so under any circumstances. He knew that I had been with several men, and did not think it likely that Georges had sired my baby. Jules was appalled at Erik's behavior and called him out but Erik refused to fight him saying that I was not worth any man's life. It was then that I knew that I truly hated him and vowed to get even with him when I could. I decided that I would ruin his family and that they would bear the same fate as both mine and Jules'.

Due to Jules' status, no one would dare question the fact that I was seven months pregnant when we were married. Most assumed that we had been in love all along and were simply legitimizing our union. In those days the code of morality was not as high as it is today. While it was still considered scandalous for a woman to have a premarital affair, we were both of good family and noble bearing. Society forgave us and after the unpleasantness of Aurore's birth, we were always at the heart of any function, although we were never invited to the de Mulheim's functions and we never invited them to ours. It was well known that it was best to invite one, and not the other, but there were enough families and we lived far enough apart that we rarely had to see one another.

I had my chance to begin the real war between the different branches of the Mulheim family several years after my marriage to Jules. By then Jules secretly despised me and lived as far from me in the house that he could. He could not confess the true state of our marriage to anyone since he had so vocally defended me to Erik several years before. He basically let me do as I pleased so long as I did not sully his name or mine. When I caught a servant stealing, an act punishable by death, I blackmailed him into killing Georges and his bride by tampering with the brakes on their carriage. He was to make sure that he was caught and then to 'confess' that he was hired by Erik. He agreed readily once I told him that I would pay off his family enough for his son to buy an inn in Strasbourg. His family would have been destitute without the money if he had not agreed. I warned him that I would make sure that that his widow could find no work anywhere and that they would die homeless and that his young son and daughter would starve.

Georges and his German wife were my first targets, because it would be harder to trace their deaths back to me. He arranged for the brakes to fail on their carriage. By some fluke their child, Otto, had not been with them and was staying with his grandparents in Bonn. It was then that I decided that rather than using blackmail, I would turn the family against one another. I made sure that the child found out that it was his uncle who had committed the murder. I circulated a rumor that the assassin was hired by a 'Baron' in Alsace to murder his own brother.

When the child grew into a man, I made sure that I had business in Bonn, and 'accidentally' met the boy. I told him all about his uncle and his two children. I told him about how shameful that it was that the two brothers had never reconciled all due to a misunderstanding over me, and how Erik tried to kill my own husband in a duel but was too cowardly to fight. Otto ate it up as I knew that he would. By the end I could see that he wanted his own revenge. I told him how much his uncle loved his son Charles especially, even if he had disowned him for marrying beneath his status. I wanted to see Erik suffer before he would die. I wanted both of his sons to predecease him so he could know the same pain of loss that I did. By the time that I was done I could see that Otto was speculating upon how to get revenge upon Erik. He readily took my bait and he decided to make him suffer as he Otto had, by killing his favorite son. It was joyous to find out that the boy got his revenge upon his uncle Erik, by arranging an accident to kill his cousin in Normandy. The older son, Albert, later died in battle during the war with Prussia sparing us the trouble of arranging it. It might have looked suspicious killing everyone too close together.

When Erik was a grieving old man and finally a widower, it was time for him to die. He was alone and lonely as I wanted him to be. I knew that he would have no choice but to name Otto, or his son, as his heir. Otto sent his son Christian to his great uncle with revenge in his heart. He made him swear to find a way to kill the old man and make it look like an accident. The problem was that Christian was starting to like the old man. I had to intervene and personally traveled back to Bonn to tell Otto that Christian was becoming too attached. Christian even went on an errand for the old man to find out the exact fate of his grandson and namesake.

He had written the mother years before but never really found out why the boy had died. Christian came back, reporting to Erik that the mother had lied and that the boy might still be alive. He explained how he had been born with a facial deformity, which apparently cropped up in the family every so often, and which was always well heralded because each and every Mulheim who had been afflicted with the deformity was also highly intelligent and usually brought good fortune to the family. I remembered seeing the family portraits years before, when I was being courted by Erik and Erik proudly telling me about it. I have never seen a more hideous group of men than those who bore the mark. At the time I said nothing to Erik. I did not want to offend him. I had prayed that if I bore him such a child that it would die upon delivery. I would not want to mother such a thing no matter how intelligent such a creature would be. Christian later told me that the old man was ecstatic that the boy might have lived. He felt terrible that he had believed the mother all of those years ago and bemoaned the lost time that he might have had with the child. Christian promised to find the child if he were still alive, who would be around the same age as he was, and restore him to the family. He soon found out much about the boy, about his time as the Devil's child and his amazing palace in Persia. The old man was so proud of his grandson. Christian kept delaying the inevitable and for a time I thought that he would balk at doing it.

Otto and I had to remind Christian of his duty to the family. Otto told him that he had to honor what he had sworn to do and kill the old man, Erik. He had to remind the boy that the Baron was the one who started the whole war. It was time to exact the last bit of revenge. He reluctantly agreed that he would do so and soon after told his father that he had smothered him in his sleep. Christian tearfully related that he made it look as if he had passed away in his sleep peacefully. He told his father that, as he was doing it, the old man opened his eyes and saw what he was doing and tried to say something to him but did not get the opportunity to tell him. He was gone. Christian was uncharacteristically depressed for a long time. He would have nothing to do with me. Unlike his father, I believe that the boy started to suspect that I was not who I seemed to be. My husband had long suspected me, and with Erik's death, his suspicions grew. He had long since despaired of the loss of his friendship with Erik and Georges- especially Erik. He and Erik had just started to reconcile. Jules had always been too ashamed to admit his mistake in not believing him all those years ago. When Erik died he accused me of having something to do with it.

He stormed at me "Too many tragedies have affected their family, and your mother died accidentally as well. I cannot prove anything but I am going to warn the boy Christian, he seems to have a good head on his shoulders he will listen." He threatened to change his will as well, cutting me out of it with nothing but a small pension.

I had to stop him and so for the first time since my mother's death, I had to do it myself. I had to bloody my own hands with his Jule's death. Like my mother so many years before, I gave him a push in the right place. You would think that I would feel some remorse at my husband's death, but I could not bring myself to feel it. If I did I would have to admit to myself that I had been a monster, but I was not. I was a child of the French revolution which butchered my family and impoverished us. I was taught early that life was cheap and that the weak could not survive. I was far from weak. I was eighty years old and had out lived everyone. I would outlive their heirs as well.