A/N: Thank you for the reviews! :) I'm really happy to know that you guys are liking this!
VI
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Christine rested in a silk-cushioned chair, different from anything The Heights had to offer, and glumly stared out the huge window of the room she'd been given. She looked far past the manicured lawns and perfectly arranged boxwood, toward her beloved, savage moors … and beyond them, through the mist and out of sight stood The Heights.
He had not come.
She had wished it, even dreamt it, at one point so sure he'd held her close in his arms and called her his Little Angel … but a dream was all it had been. He would never leave her at this place, had he actually been there. Nor would he put himself in a position for strangers to see his face, cloth-bound or not.
But she had so hoped he might come.
She sighed and plucked at a soft fold of the day dress Arabella had loaned her, her own dress ruined from her brutal encounter with the beastly hound.
Christine knew very little of Erik's past before he came to The Heights, and what little she did know made her ache for his torment, a life no child should suffer. Papa had never told her any of it, if indeed he himself had known. But in their secret hideaway of rocks, on one of those rare occasions when Erik confided in her, his revelations always brief to the point of curtness, he told her he'd been kept like an animal in a cage and escaped the carnival two nights before Papa spotted him weary and shivering at the side of the road near Liverpool. From that night forward, since he brought him to live at The Heights, he treated Erik as a son, though even then Christine had difficulty thinking of him as her brother. He'd always been a close friend, but he'd become so much more than that. And now her horrible cousin treated him as a slave. Perhaps that's why Erik had not come to see her. Had Henri forbidden it?
Even if he had it wouldn't have made a difference.
Christine blew out a disgruntled breath as she quietly answered her own question. Erik would never have obeyed such an order. He had a streak of wildness that would rather endure a beating than take commands harshly given, the only kind Henri knew how to issue with regard to Erik. No. He had not come to see her only because he did not wish to visit The Grange.
She frowned, trying to decipher the cause. Perhaps he was angry with her for ending up in this palatial home of the people they'd long scorned, since it had been her decision to spy. Or, perhaps he had grown weary of her constant companionship, though his kisses had surely stated otherwise. Her face heated with the coveted memory. Surely, as close as they'd been, as close as they were – he must miss her as much as she missed him! And yet, except for praising her voice when she sang and calling her his Little Angel, he rarely gave her a compliment in all the time she'd known him, a fact that irritated her, especially of late. It puzzled her thoughts and wounded her heart that he'd not attempted to see her, not once, to ensure she was recovered. She could very well have died!
The sound of the door opening had her turn, half expectantly, half regretfully. She knew he wouldn't be there but couldn't prevent her heart from hoping.
"Hello, Christine." The Vicomte's cousin, Arabella, approached. "How are you feeling today?"
"Much better." It was a lie. "I would like to go home now."
"Of course you would," the young woman comforted, though she looked at her as if she didn't understand why Christine would wish to return to The Heights. Henri's depraved behavior was obviously no news to those at The Grange. "However, the doctor said that you lost a great deal of blood and it would be wise for you not to overexert yourself. It truly is a miracle that you didn't break a bone from your fall and only endured a bad sprain, though likely you will always bear the scar of that awful hound that bit you. My cousin gave Victor quite the scolding for not keeping a better eye on the gate to ensure it was latched and the dogs were penned. He would have fired him then, but Victor begged for another chance since he has two new mouths to feed—twin boys. Raoul told him one more mistake and he's gone."
Christine grimaced at the news, paying scant attention to Arabella's prattle as she gingerly rubbed her sore arm and glared at her bandaged ankle. She wondered how long it would be until she could again run on the moors with Erik or climb their special rock summit.
"However, that's not why I'm here. I came to tell you that my cousin spoke to your cousin on your behalf and he's given his consent for you to stay with us a few weeks longer."
The news broke Christine from her wishful thinking. A few weeks? She had already been here for seven days! Seven days full of nothing but endless emptiness and boredom.
"Oh, but I couldn't! I don't wish to impose. You—you have been so kind already." And she had. Both Arabella and her cousin had been genial hosts in their parents' absence.
"It would be no imposition," the Vicomte said from the doorway, startling Christine. "Forgive the intrusion. I couldn't help but overhear. Are you faring well, Miss Daaé?"
"Yes, thank you."
"Raoul, do come and help me convince the dear girl to stay," Arabella urged with a smile. "It would be lovely to have your company, Christine. My cousin is masterful at Whist and charades, when there is an adequate gathering to warrant such amusements, and he can carry a conversation fairly well for a gentleman, but really, he lacks dreadfully in all things musical. And to think, Uncle is considering offering his patronage to the opera house in Paris and one day sending Raoul there in his stead!" She laughed lightly at such a farce.
"Am I to take offense at your remark or consider it a compliment, dear cousin?" His blue eyes sparkled with grudging amusement.
"Do as you wish, Raoul dear. I would so love to have another woman my age for company," Arabella said to Christine, after giving him a slight grin. "I hear you are interested in the dance, and I did learn ballet as a child, so we do have that in common."
She laughed lightly at Christine's clear astonishment. "My mother was a dancer, yes … a simple woman who married a comte. Shocking, isn't it?" Her gray eyes twinkled with mirth. "She had to relinquish her dancing, of course, after they were wed, though she did teach me as a child before she grew ill. My father sent me to a Swiss boarding school after she died, and I was surprised to learn my roommate also took dance instruction and aspired to become a ballerina. Her father was a shipping magnate, not a titled gentleman, so nothing prevented her desire to pursue the dance. Of course, I learned all she was taught. Once my father died the title then went to Raoul's father, but as Raoul continuously reminds me, no titled gentleman would consider a dancer for a wife. So I must put all such notions firmly aside, as Raoul says, since I am the daughter of a comte and must content myself with polite dancing at balls."
"Really, Arabella," he said in appalled amusement.
She gave a little carefree toss of her head. "My father was apparently one of his own breed to consider taking such a lowly wife, though he had no parents still living to deny him his choice. And so, here I am – recently graduated from the ladies' elite academy with years of dance instruction I can never accomplish, a ward of my uncle, and dependent on his generosity until I can land a rich, titled husband."
"Arabella!" Raoul reproved.
Her answering laugh came light. "Well, it's true. Would you prefer me to speak falsely and pretend I seek a pauper?"
"No, indeed. However, the manner in which you speak is rather alarming. What did they teach you at that academy?" he mused.
She batted her lashes and smiled. "Why, how to survive in a gentleman's world, dear cousin. What else?"
"Miss Daaé," he turned to Christine. "Do forgive my cousin's dreadful conduct. I assure you, we are not all so bloodthirsty in our endeavors."
Christine didn't think she would ever understand all the intricacies of the gentry but she couldn't help a small smile at their light repartee. "How did you know I was interested in the dance?"
"Your father spoke of it," the Vicomte answered. "When he gave me lessons."
"The poor man," Arabella teasingly surmised. "I do hope your father paid him well for such a supreme sacrifice."
Christine wasn't certain she liked the idea of the de Chagny cousins discussing her life behind her back. Yet she supposed, in a sense, she had done something similar, and felt a little guilty for it now that she'd met them. These people were kind and gracious to receive her into their home, when she and Erik had been nothing but trespassers on their property.
"I should like to know." Christine nervously smoothed her skirt. "Has anyone been here, from The Heights? To inquire after me?"
"As a matter of fact …"
Christine's heart picked up pace at the Vicomte's slow words.
"Your housekeeper came by on the third day of your stay. Berta, I believe her name was?"
"Yes, Berta. She was my nursemaid when I was little." She cleared her throat trying to sound unconcerned and briefly glanced down at her hands folded in her lap. "Did anyone else come to see me?"
The two exchanged a look, but it was so fleeting, she couldn't be sure what it meant, if it meant anything at all.
"Not that I'm aware," the Vicomte said. "Were you expecting someone?"
Christine barely curbed a sigh of disappointment. "No, I suppose not. He wouldn't come, not here …" Her quiet words trailed off, as distant as her gaze toward the moors. After a moment, she looked at her host, at last remembering her manners.
"Thank you, Vicomte, Lady Arabella, for your kindness in opening your home to me."
He smiled. "Please, call me Raoul. And may I call you Christine? I feel as if I know you, having seen you at church throughout the past years."
Christine nodded uncertainly, having seen him, as well. Both she and Erik, in those first years when Papa had been alive, had whispered to one another from the back pew, poking fun at the Vicomte where he sat like a little golden angel in his front family pew. Afterward, the minister or the sexton, Joseph, who also lived and worked at the Heights gave Christine and Erik a scolding, calling them wild and heathen, sometimes followed by punishment for the sins of which they declared them guilty – a punishment which she and Erik usually managed to escape, running to the moors and their hideaway, where no one else ever visited.
After Papa died and Erik was made into a servant, he refused to attend church, much to Henri's indifference and Berta's horror, and Christine missed his presence there. At first, she tried to be a dutiful daughter and listen to what the crusty old minister said. Mostly it had been about hell and brimstone and how they were all destined to burn in everlasting fire. How different and hopeful Papa's words with regard to sacred matters had been! Afterward she would tell Erik what she heard, and he would make wry and witty retorts about the minister, the sexton, and others in the congregation that would break her from her bleak mood into gales of laughter. Months after Erik's change in their household status, she also stopped attending the long, dry services and remained with Erik, enjoying his company much more than the critical minister or the dour sexton's.
Christine came back to the present with a little jolt, noticing the cousins' inquisitive looks toward her. If Erik was determined to remain absent, she wouldn't let his cruel distance make her confinement at The Grange even more difficult to bear than it already was.
With a polite smile, she kindly accepted Arabella's offer to join them for tea.
xXx
A/N: "Arabella" is my answer to Isabella for this PotO version - but don't look for matches in WH storyline with her character or with Raoul's (aka- Edgar) either. I'm doing my own thing with this ... 'nuff said. :)