A/N: Thank you so much for the reviews and continued interest! :) I want you guys to know, I carefully consider and appreciate each one, as I craft this story (all of my stories). Oh- and this chapter deserves the rating... And now...
When last we left our couple, Erik had just told Christine he was once an assassin, ready to divulge the entirety of his dark past...
Chapter XXXI
His confession was the furthest thing Christine expected as shown by her visible flinch and the horror undisguised in her eyes.
Before she could collect herself to form some expected response, the boy called out, "Milord? I have supper for you and milady."
She broke eye contact, and the Phantom studied her a remorseful moment, wishing to delve into the inner workings of her mind and extract what thoughts spiraled within ... wishing he'd never admitted to his most grandiosely wicked host of crimes.
"Enter!" he commanded gruffly.
Tobias slipped through the canvas opening, carefully juggling two wooden bowls steaming near their tops with soup highlighting the catch of the day – some sort of fish, from the aroma permeating the tent. One bowl he handed to Christine, who took it with quiet thanks, lowering it to her lap and staring at it, the other he gave to the Phantom. Erik nodded his gratitude to the boy, who looked back and forth anxiously between them, as if sensing the conflict static in the air.
"Do you wish for anything else, milord?" Tobias asked, shifting nervously from one foot to the other.
"No; leave now," Erik quietly ordered.
Once the boy exited the tent with a deferential nod, the silence was so dense it could be sliced with a dagger. He watched Christine adamantly avoid his stare, looking into her soup though she had yet to lift the bowl to her lips. After an untold span of time, he set his untouched bowl down by the fire then reached for hers, plucking it from unresistant fingers and setting it near his bowl to keep it warm.
"It is foolish to engage in the pretense that either of us has any appetite left," he dryly gave by way of explanation though she didn't ask for one. "Was I correct to presume that you would now think me no more than a vicious fiend and a beast? Can you still look beyond the mask and see evidence of the man who yearns for beauty? But how can you? You cannot even look at me!"
Her brows drew together as her gaze snapped up to his. "You hurl a cannonball like that my way and expect me to experience no shock or horror whatsoever?"
He clenched his jaw, and she took a steady breath, reminding herself that this was the man she loved…this man, who adored her and whom she likewise adored. Her next words came softer as she at last breached the impasse created.
"An assassin, Erik?"
He curtly nodded, and though his stance was formidable, with his arms crossed against his tunic and looking down at her with chin lifted, she saw the unease that flashed in blue-grey eyes that could shine like silver and cut like a knife.
"As the Opera Ghost," she inserted hopefully. "That's what you meant - right? With Piangi and Buquet?"
"Piangi was a mistake; Buquet a necessity. But no, Christine, that is not what I meant."
"A necessity?" She nervously chewed the inside of her lip. "Because of what I told you about him…or do you remember that day?"
"I recall something about Buquet stalking you after your debut, and yes, his unhealthy interest did help to initiate his demise. Is that what you wished to hear?"
To listen to such an admission made her heart ache; it was difficult to realize the man she once thought an angel was capable of such cavalier violence, though she'd seen it the night of the Don Juan. She hesitated before responding, her gaze darting to the flames. She knew this about him; it was no mystery. What was important at this time was to clear out all cobwebs of the past he remembered and she never knew. She needed to understand, if that was even possible, and was determined to hear whatever he would tell her.
"I asked for the truth and am grateful to receive it," she agreed softly. "There has been too much deceit."
The heavens above opened, the rain striking fierce against their roof of canvas. He paced a moment in the crowded space before stopping again to look at her, needing to raise his voice slightly to be heard. "Joseph Buquet had long been the proverbial thorn to every female dancer of the chorus. Thrice Madame Giry found him in the women's dormitories when the hour was late and you were at your lessons with me. She feared that he had begun to target Meg, having seen him follow and watch her. On the last occasion she caught Buquet in the dormitory, she threatened him with a noose around his neck."
He chuckled with approval at that, but Christine didn't find it one bit humorous, especially the news that Meg could have also been a victim. She recalled the twin peepholes bored into the walls, which a girl in the chorus had found during the flurry of a costume change, and barely withheld a shudder.
Buquet had been a disgusting piece of vermin, a threat to all women in the theatre, and she could not express true remorse that he was gone - from the future era, at any rate. Somehow, that both crimes were now centuries away made their knowledge less troubling to bear.
"So, if not at the Opera," she brought their conversation back on course, "How and why did you become an assassin?"
"You truly believe you are strong enough to hear this, Christine?"
Thunder exploded somewhere nearby. The white lightning that flashed outside canvas walls aided to the chill that raised goose flesh on her arms at the mockery of his words. She did not back down, his doubt only solidifying her resolve.
"I watched you slay a man before my eyes, and I'm still with you. I have no plan to go anywhere, and I want to hear all you have to tell me."
Behind the mask, his eyes gleamed with a hint of intrigued admiration.
"Very well, if that is your wish. We shall see how long that veneer of burgeoning bravado lasts…"
She frowned at his tenacious disbelief in her loyalty to remain by his side, but after their history together she could hardly blame his lack of faith in her reaction. She had always fled when doubts assailed her mind and her fears got the best of her. Yet a treacherous week of losing him and believing him dead had taught her to open her heart and listen.
"In the rosy hours of Mâzandarân, Persian for the gateway of the giants, there I became Master Architect to the Shah, the ruler of Persia. I was also responsible for the entertainment of the Khanum, the Shah's mother…."
Christine's eyes widened as she recalled stories he'd told through chapel walls of the land called Persia. They intrigued her girlhood fascination, his melodious voice full of romance and adventure, the pictures he'd painted in her mind glorious and exotic. But all that could be seen from his expression in this moment was despair; all she could hear in his voice was satire.
"My time there did not start out so exalted, no. I was captured shortly after I slipped away from the ship on which I'd stowed away. Starving, I stole bread from a vendor and was caught. In that kingdom, it is usual to lose a hand, if not a life for such a petty crime. But upon snatching away the cloth tied around my face, the guard took me to the palace, where I was beaten and incarcerated for days before I was brought before the Shah. Irony of ironies, my accursed face saved my life – they supposed I was an omen, sent by one of their demigods. Fearing wrath to rain down upon their heads should they continue to abuse me, I was clothed in black silks and assigned a chamber in the palace."
Restless, he walked to the entrance, no longer able to bear the gentle sight of her and briefly wrenched back the flap to look outdoors at the storm that crashed as strongly as his feelings. "The Shah sent for me each night for a week, learning a portion of my history, especially my fascination with magic and illusion. He ordered me to build him a dungeon of weaponry, a building designed to execute his enemies."
Erik held his hands palms up, at waist level, to study their composition. "With these hands, I created nightmares. A room of mirrors that burned flesh and aided in hallucinations most terrifying. But that was only the beginning of the horror I was ordered to create…"
He looked at last into her eyes, challenging her to listen and not look away.
"The shah was a harsh ruler, vicious and perverse. He demanded additional rooms of torture, each more horrific than the last. And I devised them. Rooms of scorpions that were released, one by one, let loose by the victim's actions - actions instinctive to survive - but instead were a means to a slow and painful death. Hidden vipers, venomous arachnids, shards of glass, along with every weapon conceivable, masterfully concealed and brought forth at the most unsuspecting moment. Each time that I was forced to watch the victims enter my torture chamber, each time I heard their anguished cries, begging for death, all that went through my mind were the faces of those who laughed and jeered at me, those that screamed from terror at the unveiling of my face, those who beat me and committed vile acts upon the child I'd been, ignoring my pleas as I begged for them to stop…" His words came softer with the haunting memories. "I felt avenged and cold to those enemies of the Shah and the Khanum, strangers who took on the personalities of the mongrels at the fair. But I felt like a monster, too, for the loss of those who were innocent. The Shah was jealous to be revered as a god, not considered a fair man, his mother no better…"
Christine thought back to the tales of the Phantom's hidden traps in the deepest cellars of the Opera House, knowing now they must all be true. She had never seen them, the path along which he'd taken her on the two occasions she'd been to his home circuitous and winding and without discernible snares.
"Having heard the truth, Christine, can you still look at me and claim that I am no monster? Have my words not persuaded you that a monster is the sum of all I will ever amount to?"
To her shock, he violently stripped away his mask in defeated mockery, though the desperation to be accepted still shone from moist eyes.
"Look well, my dear, and face your fate - this, this is all I will ever be!" He growled the words, his lips pulled back and teeth bared in a grimace, and she sensed the crux of his anger was not directed outward at her at all, but channeled inward, in disgust with himself. "Deformed in body and soul - Can you bear it?"
To keep composed in this moment, after all he had said, after what he had done, was perhaps the most difficult hold on control she had ever known. More difficult than either time she unmasked him at the Opera House, this self-unmasking was designed to engender her fear and prove to them both that he was unworthy to receive compassion or mercy. A month ago, she might have succumbed, might have even believed that…
Her courage a frail, crumbling thing, Christine relied on what little she possessed and stood to her feet to face him, noting his wary surprise.
Had he been born under another star, he might have known a life abundant with acceptance and love, the love like her Papa had showered upon her. It was a fate most wretched that he had been given to such a terrible mother who had wrongly instilled the self-hatred he carried, and it made Christine wish to eradicate the grave acts of violence and rejection done to him, in some way to make up for all he'd lost.
She gazed into his eyes – the eyes of her beloved Erik – before turning her attention to his hands. Taking the one that held the mask, she pulled the stiff leather from his tight grip, letting it fall to the ground, and cupped the bottom of his cold hand, covering it with her other one.
"With these hands," she mimicked his words, "you have created the most beautiful music. The passionate lyrics you composed, the stirring music played on your violin and organ." She smoothed her hand over his, gently clasping it. "These hands have always been there to catch me, to protect me, to save me. To love me. You are so much more than the monster you think yourself: once, you were my Angel; always you will be that. And then you became my husband…" She lifted her hand to tenderly cup the damaged side of his cheek. "And this face, I would be content to receive as my fate. It is your face, Erik, and you are mine."
The wet sheen in his eyes, the tear that broke free to run along the scars testified to the strong emotion that coursed through him though he barely moved a muscle.
"Can you truly excuse all I have done, Christine?" he hoarsely asked then shook his head as if rejecting the likelihood. "How is that even possible? How can you still think of me as your Angel, when I was, in fact, the Angel of Death?"
She flinched a little at his words. "I don't pretend to admire or agree with what you did in Persia, and I won't lie to you and tell you that to hear the truth isn't horrifying." She felt his muscles tense and hastened to add, "But that was a part of your past - those crimes committed in another century. Every person in this world, in every epoch of time, has made mistakes. As I told you earlier, I have seen that in this primitive era, violence is more widely accepted than in the life we once knew; so perhaps that it all happened as it did gave you the experience to enable us to survive."
"You truly believe that?" He lifted his brow in doubt.
"I don't condone murder," she hastened to add. "I never could. And I would hope, would ask for your promise never to resort to those choices again…unless," she briefly closed her eyes, forcing herself to utter the words, "unless it is absolutely necessary."
"You could live like that?" he asked with a disbelieving sort of hope.
"As long as you don't resort to violence as the only method, the first method - and that you don't kill, just to kill…" She shrugged nervously at her inability to express herself when it came to the subject, but he understood.
"With you beside me, sharing in my life, I would never want to." His hand lifted to cover hers, bringing her fingers to his mouth and brushing a kiss against their tips.
She felt a stirring within her breast at his tender gesture and hopeful words.
"What happened afterward?" she asked, dreading to know but needing to.
He heavily sighed. "The attraction to design elaborate structures for torture and death soon lost its appeal, and I came to lose the desire as a master manipulator to inflict punishment. Yet having turned myself over to become a puppet to the Shah, he would not so easily allow me to cut the strings."
Feeling emotionally drained after the past two days, and wishing to rest with his arms around her before further weighty revelations were aired, Christine backed up to the furs while tugging on his hand. "Lie down with me and hold me."
The smile he gave was edged in gratitude. "With the greatest of pleasure, belle jeune fille."
She looked at him, instantly alert, but saw Erik there behind the silvery-blue orbs. "You remember calling me that?"
"The night we met, in this tent…you gave me a kiss as unexpected as the one you left me with, in the lair."
She gasped. "You remember that too?"
He nodded. "Since this morning, other moments of our past have been returned to me, in this life and in the life we have left behind."
"Oh – but why didn't you tell me?"
"I did not want to disappoint, should the memories again fade. Not all have yet returned, and they may never do so."
"As I told you before, I will share with you anything lost, so that whatever you don't recall will be yours again and not forgotten." She held out her hand for him to join her.
He shed his damp cloak and they sank to their fur bed together, Erik lying on his back and Christine cuddling into his chest. She gave a tranquil exhalation of breath as his lean, muscled arm wrapped around her. It made little sense – he had killed in cold blood, with these hands; she had seen him kill – by his own confession, a murderer. Yet nowhere else but folded into his embrace had she felt such absolute ease and safety.
The rain beat down on the canvas, as if intent on finding a way to slice through and drench them, but even the raging storm outside did not disrupt her contentment. She had no wish to break their hard-won peace, but wished to know the rest.
"How did you manage to get away from the Shah?"
His fingers stilled from smoothing down the curls along her back a moment before resuming their trailing caress.
"Nailed into a box."
In shock she lifted her head to look into his eyes. There was no teasing amusement there, and she realized he was quite serious.
"There was a man at the palace, Daroga to the Shah – comparable to a chief of gendarmes. Through the three years I spent in that land, we became acquaintances of a sort, Khan and I. My time there was drawing to a close; I knew the Shah would soon see my life extinguished, in all likelihood a victim of my own torture chamber, and no doubt that is what I deserved - but I was not yet ready to die. The Daroga owed me a favor and brought me ingredients for a potion I made, one that gave the appearance of being dead. The breath stilled, the heart slowed so as to be undetected, and all senses were paralyzed. A good thing, too. I was later told by the Daroga that the Shah gave the command for the nails to be pulled from the lid of the box so as to see my lifeless corpse - the needle a guard was then ordered to jab into my hand unfelt in my comatose state. Once my demise was believed, the Daroga smuggled me out of Persia, and I found my way back to France and my old boyhood haunting ground of the Opera House, making a home there."
"Your life, it seems, has been one adventure after another, the present no exception." Christine winced at how unfeeling her words sounded, contrary to what she wished to express, and was relieved when she felt his chest quiver with a deep chuckle.
"The company I now share makes it all worthwhile," he assured, drawing her chin up to his. "Had I never suffered, so that I felt it mandatory to find refuge and concealment beneath the Opera House, I may never have found you."
It was a horrid thought, one she had not considered, and she shook her head. "No. Somewhere, at some time, I would have found you, my Angel of Music…You once said destiny brought us together, and I now believe that with all my being. Think of it, Erik! We could have been parted through centuries of time, never again to know or even see one another - but instead, I found you here, nearly four hundred years in the past!"
"Destiny...," he agreed. "For whatever reason, I have been given a second chance to make matters right. I do not intend to fail you again."
His lips brushed hers, a comfort and a kindling, inciting a slow, burning passion that was warming to her soul. She craned closer into his kiss, lifting her hand to touch his face, his dear, scarred and twisted face … and though outside their tent a chill wind and rain battered the trees of the forest, inside the canvas walls a familiar heat ignited between them.
Lips gently brushed lips until tongue deeply met with tongue, his hands moving to her hips and pulling her fully on top of him. Christine gave a delighted little mew, pressed against Erik's lean strength, strongly feeling his arousal. She drew her lips from his, kissing the slight cleft in his chin down his neck to his throat, and licked the hollow there, where his beautiful voice lay buried. She reveled in the little hiss of pleasure he gave.
Her hands moved up to pull his laces free and push his tunic down at the wide collar. "Your clothes are still quite damp," she whispered, sprinkling little kisses along the pale skin she'd bared, "they cannot be comfortable."
"And what would you recommend, ma damoiselle?"
Her head went up, a hint of involuntary shock passing over her expression.
"No, my love, I am still myself," he reassured. "Any change would not occur so swiftly, with nothing to add to its impetus, though I am in doubt it should again happen at all. Perhaps to follow my endearment with one more familiar to our century would be preferred, so that you will always have the knowledge that it is I, without experiencing that momentary alarm… I presume I spoke to you by that name when we were not alone as well?"
"Eustace and Tobias did hear," she agreed, returning to the desired task of pulling his shirt free.
"Ma damoiselle…mon ange…" he whispered, helping her by tearing the tunic over his head, and Christine smiled in delight with both alterations.
She rubbed her hand from his hard, cool chest down to his thigh. "These are damp as well," she said, with a hint of a blush.
"Indeed." He plucked at the laces of her bodice, pulling the strings loose with deliberate intent. "Your gown has likewise become moist from being held against me. I should not wish you to catch a chill."
Her bubble of a giggle ended in a sharp inhalation of breath as his hand pulled her loosened bodice and undergown along one arm, his lips brushing the round of her shoulder and nuzzling into her neck.
Their light repartee escalated into a wave of passion as swift and volatile as heat lightning, as they worked together to rid themselves of all material constraints. Erik brought the topmost fur over them, moving over his beautiful bride and creating a much preferred kind of warmth.
"Your skin is warm velvet," he whispered in husky tones against the curve of her breast, ghosting his lips against the tip that grew so rigid with his touch. His tongue slipped out to taste and nibble, bringing forth her quiet whimper. He spread his palm beneath the perfect globe, running his hand slowly down her ribs to her stomach. "Heated satin…" he breathed with one last suckle, moving his fingers low, to brush her inner thigh and trace his fingers against her damp curls before dipping gently into her folds. "Rich cream…"
"Erik," she breathed in a delirium of desire, cradling his head and shoulders with her slender arms.
His mouth trailed the path his hand had taken. "Tell me what you wish," he commanded hoarsely against her belly. His tongue trickled warmly against her navel, his fingers playing a tender symphony inside her. "Tell me, my sweet."
"I want…ohh…" she moaned, the ability to put her wanting into words fading with each brush of his sinful mouth against her skin and each sensual caress of his fingers inside her.
"Tell me, ma damoiselle…ange…" his lips traveled down silken curls to ghost against wet flesh. "Is it this…?" he asked, knowing full well what her answer would be.
"Y-yes," she stuttered the plea, her hands gripping the fur coverlet upon which they lay.
"You desire the monster's touch? To drink from your pleasure?"
He felt her shudder of shock at his careless, erotic words, spoken by rote of what he had always considered himself to be, aided by the opinion of every other mortal in existence. Save for his bride…
"Not a monster," she whispered, "My husband…my love…"
"Oh, Christine…" He turned his eyes up to her face. "I do not deserve you, deserve this, to find such heaven in your arms...How can you want this? How can you look at me with such warmth and desire after all I have told you this night?"
She peered at him with hazy eyes, dark with unconcealed passion, and propping herself on her elbows, she reached a hand to his face. "Because I love you," she said simply.
His heart turned over at hearing those priceless words he once thought never to know. "And you want me…" It came not as a question, but a statement of incredulity.
"Always."
"And this…"
Trembling, she fell back against the fur at the sensation of his tongue delving into her secret, innermost recesses.
"Yes," it came as a heartfelt moan.
"Then this is what you shall have."
His large hands slid beneath her thighs to her buttocks, lifting her flush against his mouth, and she gasped at the pleasurable sensation that sent little tremors of shocks throughout her entire being. He devoured her with abandon and she cried out, aching to be so consumed by him, the incredible hunger spiraling within and without, crowding against all modesty until every fiber of her being rushed forward and begged for release… a release to which he soon brought her, nearly sobbing, desperately panting. And as she rode the waves of bliss, he gentled his caresses, carrying her through the final sweet surge.
"Dear God, Christine, you are sweetness itself –" He moved with lightning swiftness, covering her with his hard body, and she grabbed his sides near his hips, wishing to draw him as close into her as possible. "I must have you," he half growled. "You are now and forever - mine!" The melting haze of delirium ebbed as he brought them fiercely together, and her moan joined his to experience such intense pleasure, to have him share her body...
And in the slim part of her brain that still held rationale, she questioned why she had shied from such delicious intimacy in the months before. She had feared the Ghost he once presented to the world, and he thought himself only a monster, but he was her Angel – no more than a man, flawed and imperfect and utterly alive…
He had pounced like a wildcat claiming its mate, but his strokes in an instant became languid and deep, exciting her to the deepest center of her core which again soon burned with a need for release. Her hands trailed in adoration down his back, over each raised scar, blessing it with gentle touch, further still, until questing fingers grazed his taut bottom. Lifting her legs high against him, she hungrily grabbed him to her, arching as she did and burying him deeper with the next slow plunge.
He gasped at her utter lack of inhibition, so different from the timid creature they'd both once known. His eyes were black with desire, half-closed, and smoldering as they met the mirror of hers.
"You are the most passionate woman in existence, in this era or any other," he whispered against her lips, cradling her face in his hands, his thumbs brushing her lips before his lips again took their rightful place. Their kisses came deep and thorough until the fire that licked through them built to a degree that demanded absolute gratification. His mouth tore from hers, his thrusts coming more insistent and fierce, and she clung to him as once again warmth exploded, throbbing within. With a low, deep growl and an intense shudder Erik joined his wife in their blessed nirvana.
x
As they lay in a flush of spent passion, Christine settled her head against his shoulder, tucked beneath his chin, and ghosted her fingertips against the dusting of damp curls on his chest.
"And what, my dear Phantom husband, shall we do now?"
"Do? I am content to slumber the remainder of the day with you, here in my arms."
She giggled. "I meant for our livelihood. You said you had an idea."
"Ah, that. Should the weather clear, tonight I will gather the men for a meeting, where I will inform the renegades as to our new modus operandi…"
"Modus…?" she repeated, the word unfamiliar to her.
"Operandi - our means to make a livelihood."
A slow smile stretched across her face at the silence that followed. "Have you drifted to sleep, or is it a secret and I must wait to be informed with the others?"
"It is quite simple, my dear," he said, matching her smile as she craned her head to look curiously up at him. "You will do that which you suggested and for which you were created – you will sing."
"As I sang by the well?" She looked at him in incredulous amazement. "Do you remember?"
"I do, and yes, exactly that. We shall inject into these heathens' lives a touch of much needed refinement."
"But Erik…" Her smile slightly faded as she lifted her head to look at him. "The first opera wasn't performed until the 17th century! None of the master composers whose songs you taught me have even been born and won't be for a long time."
"You remember your lessons well," he said, pleased.
She shook her head. "Yes, but - won't it be dangerous to change history by introducing the opera before it was proposed?"
"I should think introducing the opera at an earlier epoch in time would be highly gratifying and without repercussion," he countered and huffed in amusement. "To sing as you have been taught would not dethrone kings or start wars. The area we would traverse would be small in comparison to the vast lands and kingdoms that will sadly be excluded from witnessing your sublime talent."
"We will be leaving the forest then?"
"We cannot stay here, what with the present-day Vicomte quite literally hours around the bend. We shall stay only as long as it takes to make preparations. He is likely still in Paris, searching for us there."
"What kind of preparations?" she asked, intrigued despite her hesitance to repaint history.
"Building sets and fashioning costumes, with what we have and can find; testing what talents might lie within the camp."
"Others will perform as well?"
"Those who are agreeable and wish to remain. Those who prefer to continue a life of pilfering may find one elsewhere. And those wretched souls who have no talent can help behind the scenes."
It sounded incredible, desirable, obtainable… and then she frowned as she remembered.
"What of your mask? It stands out like a beacon. Surely someone will see and recognize you as the bandit, Le Masque, who has a bounty on his head."
"I can easily remain concealed and absent from the public eye; I have experience with that, I need not remind you."
"But you shouldn't have to," she insisted, and propped herself up on one forearm to look at him. "Of all the talent, your voice is the most majestic, an angel's voice I once was easily led to believe. I would not always wish to sing solos – I would hope that you will join me onstage. Think, Erik, how beautifully our voices blend in duet."
She saw the wistful light in his eyes as her words created memories he seemed to consider. "Perhaps, we could manage a way. Throughout time, thespians have been considered an eccentric lot. We could fashion masks for everyone to wear, when we enter a village and as we perform, and call ourselves The Masked Troubadours."
Christine giggled like a schoolgirl. "Oh - I love that idea! At the Bal Masque, I only had a mask on a stick, but it might be exciting to wear one like that in pretense."
He sobered. "It can be rather wearisome as well as a discomfort."
Instantly she realized her blunder. "Oh, Mon Ange, forgive me. I wasn't thinking. You never need wear one when you're alone with me." She slipped her hand up to cradle the ravaged side of his face.
His smile was slight, but his eyes were gentle. "You, Christine, are an angel in the flesh. It would be a sin to cover up such flawless beauty with a mask."
"But if I alone go unmasked, it might cast suspicion." She shrugged. "I don't mind wearing one if it will allow you to take the stage with me."
He let out a heavy sigh. "What I wouldn't give to play my violin and accompany you."
"Perhaps there's a shop in the village where you can purchase one?"
"That is doubtful, since Andrea Amati has not yet been born to invent the first violin," he replied with a touch of humor. "Never mind. There are instruments said to inspire the violin's creation – the rebec, for example. Perhaps I can obtain one from a merchant and learn to play it."
Recalling his genius skill with those musical instruments she'd heard him play, Christine did not doubt that he would master whatever he could find.
"Tobias would make a wonderful addition to the troupe," she enthused, "He has the voice of a cherub, and once told me that his brother plays the fife and can also sing when persuaded. We could put on short plays, taken from the operas! The other men will sing or play as they can –"
"And you will be the star attraction," he said in velvet tones, clasping her hip and bringing her close. "Known to all as the resplendent La Diva."
"The masterful Phantom and his damoiselle, La Diva," she corrected, lightly tapping her fingertip against his chin, her dearest hope having him perform with her.
"As you like," he said, and she rewarded his surrender with a long, delicious kiss.
"But perhaps we are getting ahead of ourselves and putting the cart before the horse?" she queried softly. "What if none of the men agree?"
"Then it shall be only The Phantom and his damsel who take to the road. Whatever the case, we inform the others with the dawn and begin preparations then. Sleep now, my dark Swedish beauty, we have a long day ahead."
Christine smiled and slid closer, half on top of him. "And if I am not yet sleepy? Will you sing to me?"
"Sing?" He considered and shook his head. "No, not tonight. But I can help you arrive to the point of utter exhaustion, if you so desire."
"Would that, perchance, be to revisit the Point of no Return?"
He smiled wickedly, and she relished the sensation of his strong arms wrapping fully around her.
"Oh, yes, my dark, masterful Phantom, I most avidly desire…"
xXx
A/N: So, Christine heard the worst of Erik's past and has become strong enough to accept it. Yay, Chrissie! Now he has a plan for her to sing, as they always dreamed. How to go about it successfully and without capture could pose a challenge – and to convince the men to give up pillaging for performing might present a problem... ;-) (muahaha!)