A/N: Thank you so much for the wonderful reviews- hugs to each of you. And now...
X
Over the course of the next three days, water poured from the sky and soaked the ground making any potential outdoor excursions a misery to be avoided. For the first time since she arrived at Montmarte, Christine did not mind being held prisoner to the weather. The dark halls and empty chambers might be gloomy, the present company often nonexistent, usually regrettable, but at least the cheerless manor provided safety that the ongoing peril of the outdoors could not offer.
Immediately after the attack, on their return to the manor, she sought out information about the man Findley while Raoul went in search of her uncle to break the news of his lost driver. Only she and Raoul stood at the gravesite in the drizzling rain on the morning of his burial, the poor man having no family, and Christine thought it despicable that the earl made no appearance out of the respect due him, as his driver of over fifteen years.
Raoul had been mistaken. She was not fearless. But neither was she willing to run from what she did not understand.
And certainly he was mistaken in what he believed to be genuine.
Since that dreadful night of terror, Christine carefully played over in her mind, again and again, the memory of all that transpired. She forced herself to recall details and attempt to come up with a satisfactory solution where none was to be found.
She eliminated the possibility of wolves. Those glowing orbs of death had been at a level with the top of the carriage window – so unless such beasts were enormous, standing at least five feet tall, wolves did not fit the pattern. Nor did she know anything of their mannerisms but doubted for all the strength they possessed that they had the ability to violently rock a carriage nearly off its wheels.
Bears perhaps had been their assailants. That made more sense for the rocking and the growling, but did their eyes glow blood red? Then, too, were bears capable of making serpentine hissing sounds? She had never seen such a beast up close, not a living one. La Carlotta Gudicelli had a white bearskin rug in her dressing room at the Opera House, but its eyes were polar blue.
Perhaps their nocturnal foe had been a beast common to these parts of which she had no knowledge? An animal escaped from a circus perhaps?
Christine turned in frustrated distress from the miserable view of the bleak day outside her window. She did not relish spending an unbearably slow revolution of the clock holed up inside her room. Nor did she have any desire to encounter members of her eccentric family. The earl, with his chilling smirk, no doubt with regard to the dreadful future he was secretly planning for her, made her shudder in wary distaste whenever their eyes should meet…Raoul, with his tenacity to corner her and speak of that night in an attempt to force her to admit what she would never say, grated on her every nerve. And then there was Lucy.
Dear Lucy…
Since the night in the maze, she had become more withdrawn, if that were possible. Often her young cousin sat in the window seat, her pale face forlorn, the color of her cheeks having drained away, and whispered to the doll she cradled while staring out the diamond panes at the endless rain. Her exuberant appetite had waned, and a physician had been sent for the previous morning, when Lucy had been unusually difficult to wake, her uncle obviously worried as well. But after a brief examination, the man found nothing inherently wrong, stating a mild case of dyspepsia and, out of the earl's hearing in an aside to her maid, that Lucy was simply being Lucy, which had earned him a conspiratorial nod.
Christine began to pace, restless and upset. She cast yet another glance toward the wardrobe then away again. She could go downstairs to the library and find a novel to try to lose herself in. Or perhaps she should ring for a maid to bring her something to eat, though it was two hours until supper…
Oh bother.
She approached the tall armoire and opened one of its twin doors. Momentarily diverted from her reason for doing so, she caught sight of and took the spangled mask from the high shelf, her thoughts becoming entwined in the night of the festival.
She had not worn a full costume, unable to afford one, but agreed to let Raoul purchase the mask for her from a craftsman's stall in the village. Though her dress had been navy with silver-gray piping, she had chosen the crystal white, and not the deep blue that matched more closely. She'd worn no wings, but upon tying the sparkling mask around her head felt a little more like an angel.
And Erik had called her his Angel…
Just as once, long ago, another man had done, a man she had then erroneously thought her true angel.
She sighed at the bittersweet memory that still brought tears to prick her eyes, and quickly set the mask back in a corner of the dark shelf.
As a lost, lonely child, newly orphaned, she had clung to the radiant hope her unseen Angel had given, and just as suddenly had ripped away, thrusting her back into the echoing void of darkness.
Disgusted that he still had such an intrinsic hold over her emotions, she callously swiped a beginning tear away with her fingertips.
Why, why now was she thinking of him! Of either of them?
The Count cel Tradat did not wish to be near her, and neither, apparently, had her Angel of Music.
When she finally divulged her closely guarded secret to Meg one empty night in a moment of quiet despair, at first her friend had been incredulous, then suspicious – certain that one of the cast or crew had been toying with Christine. Or perhaps, more frightening, someone with an unbalanced mind had stalked her steps, with the intent of luring her into danger.
Christine had nodded in silent agreement, as expected, not wishing to be put in a position of defending what she failed to understand. But at no time over the ten years following did she believe such harsh assessments to be true.
She simply lacked the pure voice the Angel required and the skilled companionship the Count sought after. The Angel demanded perfection; the Count reviled innocence. She had been unable to please either man with her awkward naiveté.
Christine let out a disgusted hiss of breath. This would never do. She simply must cease with festering in self-pity. Her life had been enriched before she'd arrived and met the taciturn castle dweller of Berwickshire, and certainly would attain satisfaction again. Once she escaped this dark corner of the continent and found her way back to the glamorous lights of Paris, once she resumed her place on stage in the career for which she had been trained, all would again be well.
She knelt to collect the box from its dark niche beneath her dresses. Taking it back to the bed, she stared at the scratched and dusty lid a long time before pulling away the cover. She could not bring herself to collect the one item sure to give her equal amounts of joy and pain, so picked up the oldest journal instead.
The cover of the dark brown leather was unmarked, cracked and peeling, the pages held together by thin pieces of frayed cording knotted at the left edge. Just handling it she worried that it might crumble into powder.
She slipped up onto the bed, rearranging her skirts about her legs and making herself comfortable for a lengthy read. Setting the book down on the coverlet before her, she carefully opened to the first page.
The calligraphy was faded, the looped words somewhat difficult to decipher. She gasped a little to see the date, and note that the journal was over a hundred years old.
The fifth day of October, in the year of our Lord, seventeen hundred and thirty one -
The accounts within these pages I, Heinrik Van Helsing, swear to be the unabridged truth thusly experienced within the scope of my amateur accomplishments. The horror of the reality of what shall be revealed should not be shared or undermined, and as such cannot be expressed to those beyond the select few, namely, those chosen of the Van Helsing bloodline, as determined throughout each generation.
I am informed that the terrors that inflict our family began two score and ten years ago, on the evening that my grandfather, Gabriel Van Helsing, entertained for dinner an associate from the land of Transylvania, the latter being a well-respected man with an abysmal story to tell…
Christine read on, intrigued to learn the mystery despite her misgivings. Her eyebrows lifted higher the further she read, and she couldn't help the groan of a chuckle that escaped her throat.
Despite his noteworthy introduction, Heinrik had little talent with entertainment of the written word. Instead of delving right into the mystery of the Transylvanian guest, he wandered back to his current life, every few paragraphs straying to emphasize his inadequacies, roaming hither and thither between one day and the next then back again. After three entire pages of detailing every establishment he had visited and why, none of those activities detrimental to the stated subject of the journal, along with his pedantic shortfalls as one of the so-called chosen, Christine closed the book.
If Raoul thought to gain her sympathies through this drivel, he was sadly mistaken. Still, something within these journals had convinced him to abstain from sound reason and embrace the incredible.
She leaned the back of her skull against the headboard. She needed liquid refreshment. A glass of spirits to dull her senses might be more beneficial for the seemingly endless dark cloud she felt caught under, but she settled for ringing the maid for a soothing cup of hot tea instead.
A short time later Daisy entered with a tray bearing a teapot, cup, and a platter of iced biscuits. Christine thanked her, but as the maid set Christine's small repast upon the end table, the china clattered, the maid's movements fraught with tension.
"Daisy…?" Christine looked curiously at the normally bubbling young woman who had been morosely silent the entire time. "Is anything the matter?" She clutched the bedpost in alarm. "It isn't Lucy?"
"No, Miss. Lucy's the same as always." Daisy glanced at Christine, then away again.
"The Vicomte then?"
"No, Miss, though he asked your whereabouts this morn and last night, when you didn't show to supper."
The feigned headache had been her excuse, and thankfully her great uncle had not demanded her appearance at the table.
"I don't think I feel able to attend tonight either. Please, make my excuses."
"As you wish, Miss. The Vicomte did ask that I pass a message along to you - he said it is quite urgent that he speak with you soon."
Christine nodded in resignation. She supposed that she could not evade Raoul's tiresome persuasions forever. Perhaps he would be satisfied when she told him that she'd begun reading the journals.
The girl continued to look troubled as she gathered the breakfast dishes, now and then darting an anxious glance Christine's way.
"Daisy." Christine stopped the girl's exit with a hand to her arm. "What is troubling you? Tell me, has something happened?"
Indecision was written plainly on her round face. "I shouldn't say…" she fidgeted, "though hang it all – 'tisn't right such things be kept from you. You should know, Miss. You've been kind, and it's just not right what's being done to you…" A flicker of apprehension clouded her eyes. "Though if he finds I misspoke, it'll be the end of my time here, and like as not my mum's too…"
"Please, if it concerns me, tell me what you know. I won't betray you, Daisy."
"Well, Miss," she said glancing behind her as if she expected someone to barge through the door, "James, he's the footman, was telling us servants that he was with his lordship early this morning while his lordship was writing a letter. He seemed quite pleased as he went about it, congratulating himself on a task well done. He mentioned your name and that soon his worries would be over and you wouldn't be his problem any longer. Sorry, Miss." The girl seemed genuinely remorseful. "He gave James the letter to be delivered – it was addressed to Lord Lomax."
The very name sent a shudder up Christine's spine.
"The Vicomte, is here now?"
"Yes, Miss. Last I saw he was speaking with his lordship."
"Thank you, Daisy." Christine walked to the door.
"But, Miss - your tea."
"It'll keep." But the need to speak with Raoul would not, and if his lordship was there, well, Christine had a few choice things to say to him as well, not that it would do her any good. Not that anything she could say or accomplish here would do her any good…
On her descent down the stairs, she ran across the parlor maid, Florence.
"Oh, Mademoiselle Daaé, the Vicomte is quite urgent with his wish to see you. He's in the front parlor."
That would be his third attempt today. She thanked the maid and went to join him.
Raoul turned from the window as she entered the room. Lines of worry creased his brow, his usually bright eyes clouded with the same emotion. He slipped a hand into the pocket of his green velvet frock coat, tucking away the paper he'd held.
"Thank God, there you are. I trust you're feeling better?"
The question, though polite, was distant, spoken by rote and lacking earnest concern. His mind clearly lay elsewhere.
She curbed her desperation to share with him what she'd just heard and laid a gentle hand on his sleeve.
"Raoul, what's wrong? Something is obviously troubling you."
"Christine, I'm sorry, but I must go."
"Go?"
"Yes. Today. I must leave for Bordeaux. I received word; My grandmother lies on her deathbed and is asking for me." He shook his head. "The old biddy outlived two husbands, three sons and one daughter." He spoke the words softly, not out of disrespect but as an endearment. "She was as tough as the day is long. It's difficult to believe this day has actually arrived."
Christine swallowed hard, the urge to beg him to take her with him strong, however inappropriate. The family certainly didn't need a stranger underfoot during their time of mourning. After his refusal to accompany her to Paris, she did not truly believe Raoul would allow it should she have the effrontery to ask.
"I'm sorry, Raoul."
The soft words were sympathetic in their sincerity, but held a deeper meaning he did not yet fully understand.
He lifted his palms to cup her face. "Christine, my dear, I detest the idea of leaving you here to deal with matters alone, but I have no choice. I cannot say much, not at this time…" He pressed his lips together and blew forcefully through his nose as if something just occurred to him, "and with the present situation, I'm afraid those plans may have to wait. But you mustn't worry, Lotte. I have spoken with Uncle, and he has agreed not to pressure you into an unwanted marriage at this time."
His words held a trace of doubt that did nothing to assure her.
"You spoke with him today?"
"No, it was on the night of the ball. Why, have you heard something?"
She looked into his troubled eyes, the golden-brown lashes damp, and noted the weary set of his shoulders. She could not in all good conscience increase his burden. It no longer mattered anyhow.
She had decided.
"No, Raoul. Do not concern yourself over me. I will be fine." She kept her tone well-modulated, surprised her voice didn't tremble. "Go – take care of your family. Take care of yourself as well."
He looked at her intently a moment, clearly hesitant to leave her, then pressed his lips to her forehead.
"I will return as soon as I am able, Christine. I swear it."
She nodded with a faint smile. "Goodbye, Raoul."
He strode swiftly for the back entrance that was situated near the stable, and sadly she wondered if she would ever see him again.
With heavy steps, she ascended the stairs to her room and turned the key in the door.
She folded the napkin with the iced biscuits into a manageable bundle. Tying a large, pocket-like pouch above her petticoats and beneath her gown, she slipped the napkin inside it. She included her hairbrush and her lace-edged, monogrammed handkerchief that Meg had given her for her birthday.
The jewel-inlaid dagger she had never returned would be sorely needed, and she fashioned a belt for it from her woolen scarf, lacing it through the loop at the top of the sheath and tying it around her waist.
There was little left to do but wait until the household retired to their rooms for the night. With more than three hours of her vigil left to go, she would drive herself mad with all the reasons that she should not undertake this reckless venture. There were predators in the forest that could attack in a blind instant. The journey was long and treacherous and beset with the unknown. Yet it was the predator that lay in wait, set on destroying her future through a mockery of a marriage, that she feared the most.
Hoping to force her protesting mind into a lull, she reclaimed her ancestor's journal and settled down in a chair to read, bringing her cup of tea with her.
After several more pages of meandering back and forth also calling himself inadequate, at last his entries changed as he spoke of sightings and encounters. He never called those he wrestled with by the name Raoul used, instead referring to them as "abysmal demons of the darkness." Not to be taken in its literal context, surely. Enemies of Heinrik Van Helsing, yes, but only evil, predatory men with the skill of warriors. The mysterious dinner tale one of murder and betrayal, certainly, but nothing to do with the preternatural.
She read on, her opinion unchanging, until she heard the grandfather clock on the lower landing chime the tenth hour.
Her heart drummed against her ribs and she closed the cover. She went to replace the ancient book in the box, moving to close the lid, then hesitated.
The pull was too strong.
She slipped her hand inside to retrieve her mother's journal, glancing at the leather cover only briefly before slipping it into the pouch beneath her gown. It was all she had of her mother, and she could not leave it behind. Deciding to finish what little remained of the first journal, she reclaimed it as well but left the journal of Raoul's mother untouched.
Once she stowed the box away, she took her cloak from the wardrobe. The one item remaining, it was all she could manage, and she pulled it around her shoulders.
Without a backward glance, she slipped through the darkened manor and out into the night.
x
By the light of the lantern, she saddled Mist. She had carefully watched Raoul each time he saddled his horse, and relied on that now, choosing a man's saddle and not the sidesaddle to throw up over the horse's back. Knowing that no helpful platform would always be there to aid her in mounting, once she resisted him always tossing her up into the higher saddle by insisting she wanted to learn on her own, Christine felt riding astride was her only option.
She had planned for this night and memorized every detail, though managing on her own took longer than expected. With each squeak of leather, each buckle of a strap and jangle of harness, she glanced toward the entrance, fearful of being caught.
She supposed this made her a horse thief, but she had every intention of finding a way to return the horse once she arrived to Paris.
With her hand grasping the cinch near the horse's mouth, she led Mist from the stable and offered him a lump of sugar she had snatched from the tea tray on her way out of the bedroom.
Mist followed her lead like a docile lamb, with only a soft whicker and snort of breath. Christine hesitated, recalling her fall from this animal. She had not ridden since that day.
"Now Mist, you will be good, yes? It's just us now, but there's nothing to fear out there."
A lie most assuredly, and she hoped the belying tremor of her nervousness would not carry through to the horse. She patted his neck and took in a calming breath.
She had carefully watched Raoul mount each time they'd gone riding, and with her strong, dancer's legs felt she could manage this too. Tucking her skirts up, she set her foot in the stirrup and grabbed the saddle, propelling herself upward and swinging her leg around to the other side. Her mount was awkward and inelegant, but she landed with a rustled thud firmly on the saddle, and she breathed a relieved sigh at her success.
Taking the reins firmly in both hands, she stowed old childhood fears of the darkness into the nethermost region of her mind, and gently tapped her heels against Mist's flanks. To her relief, the gelding obeyed and walked toward the forest road, the only road that led to the village. From there, she would take the road that her stagecoach had taken on the day of her arrival, and leave this godforsaken corner of the world forever behind.
After the attack on this same road the previous week, her escape into the night was most assuredly reckless, but she would be more foolish to remain at Montmarte as a trapped pawn in the earl's contemptible schemes. With Raoul gone, she no longer had an ally to help her, and she didn't dare linger there another hour.
The perpetual shadows of day had deepened into the blackest shadows of night blending in with lighter shadows - all of them dark - the pale moon weakly providing what beacon it could as a guide. The torrential rains had at last ceased, the road slick with mud. Christine refrained from setting off at a gallop, her pulse madly thrumming the order to flee while she still could, but her inexperience in the saddle and the wretched condition of the road kept her at a sedate pace.
If the need presented itself, she could try to outrun any beast that might attack, and if that didn't work, she had the silver-bladed weapon that hung from her waist.
The forest of trees loomed thick and deep, dark and ghoulish on either side. She told herself that their imagined breaths and eerie groans was only the faint wind that stirred the branches. Nonetheless, she shifted the reins to one hand, placing the other on the hilt of her dagger.
This far into the thicket, she was almost blind with the darkness, barely able to see the road ahead, but Mist plodded on what to him must be a familiar path, and she felt grateful for the horse's insight.
After long minutes of traveling, she heard what sounded like a faint cry for help.
Christine pulled sharply on the reins, her fist tightly clutching the leather straps as a wave of stark fear caused her heart to thunder. Again the cry came, from somewhere ahead she thought, and nervously clenching the hilt she prodded Mist to proceed.
Her eyes had somewhat adjusted to the prevalent darkness, and soon she spotted a dark mass on the side of the road. As she drew close, fist tight around the dagger, she made out the mass to be a horse lying on its side. And with his legs trapped underneath, was a man.
Christine dismounted and hurried to the poor wretch's side, crouching down beside him. He clutched a large silver cross against his black shirt front. From the white collar at his throat she presumed him to be a man of the cloth. She couldn't see his face clearly, but the whites of his eyes shone in fear.
"Please, please," he whispered. "Find help! Before they come back…"
Struggling to push away the terror his words produced, she assured him she would. It took her a few attempts to mount properly, but soon she was again firmly in the saddle. She could not go back to Montmarte, no. Never back there. But the castle could not be far.
She kept her attention focused in the direction from which she had seen it while traveling by coach. A light mist began to fall and she pulled her hood over her head. At last, the ghostly turrets rose between the lofty trees, and she exhaled a thankful breath.
Soon she found the narrow length of road and approached the great monolith of Castle Dragan. Her eyes widened at the impressive sight. The pale stone stretched high and wide, the watery light of the moon casting the tall walls in a dim glow. Amid two square turrets, whose scalloped parapets she had seen at a distance, were three round towers of varying heights. Through several of the many tall, rectangular windows she saw a welcome orange glow, relieved the servants must still be about not to have doused the flames.
There was no moat, no drawbridge as she had read such castles contained, and no portcullis shielded her way to the set of towering doors either. Swallowing her apprehension, she dismounted, her feet landing with a splash. No stairs led upward to the main entrance, and she kept firm hold of the mare's cinch, unwilling to risk losing her only transport home.
After a slight hesitation, she raised her hand to the wolf's head knocker, giving the iron ring several heavy raps that reverberated through her arm. And she waited.
The door swung inward, the force of which made Christine take a shocked step back, but no servant stood there to greet her.
The sight of the man who loomed before her, eyes golden and glaring from behind his black mask, left her at a loss for words. His wide shoulders blocked the light from within.
"What the devil do you want?"
xXx
A/N: Uh-oh...
Next up: a confrontation and a revelation
