Chapter 11 - A Night at the Opera

Things were finally starting to look up for the Vicomte de Chagny.

His plan was progressing better than he'd dared hope, and though he couldn't yet see a light at the end of the tunnel, he could now at least believe one would eventually appear.

The strategy involved many steps, each taxing in its own way. The first had, quite literally, nearly killed him, but the risk to life and limb had paid off in the end: enlisting a proxy was sorted. The night he returned from beneath the opera, he'd crawled out of his filthy clothes and into bed, and immediately dropped into a blissfully dreamless sleep, satisfied that soon, all his problems would be solved. It hadn't mattered that he hadn't technically gotten an agreement from Erik - Raoul had seen all the answer he needed in his eyes.

Raoul gave himself a once over in the hallway mirror, adjusting his collar and smoothing his hair. He looked much better than he had in weeks; his skin was clearer, his eyes less red. It was incredible what adequate sleep and a few days without cigarettes and alcohol (well, without much alcohol, anyway) could do for a man's appearance. That had been the second step, and it had been a crucial one. He knew he'd never be taken seriously if he came to her stinking of drink and desperation, so it had been necessary to swiftly recreate himself as her charming, attentive savior, ready to sweep in once again with a plan to ensure her happiness.

Once he'd accomplished that, the following steps had been completed with surprising ease. But the one he was now preparing to face...that was the one that made him wake each morning in a cold sweat.

"I hope I haven't kept you waiting long."

Raoul turned at the sound of his wife's voice to see her descending the stairs in a swish of shimmering sapphire silk, pleated and ruffled and heavily bustled. He took her hand as she stepped onto the landing. "Not at all, my darling," he said, pressing a kiss to the back of her gloved hand. Against the deep blue of the gown, her skin was as pale and luminous as pearl. "You look absolutely incandescent."

"I think that's just nerves," she giggled, and flicked open the lace fan hanging from her wrist to cool her flushed cheeks.

"Are you certain you're ready for this?" Raoul asked, his voice weighted with just the right amount of concern.

"As ready as I'll ever be." Her smile was tight but not forced. "Honestly, we probably should have done this ages ago."

Raoul hesitated for a moment before replying. "I didn't realize you wanted to."

She dropped her gaze. "I don't think I realized I wanted to," she said softly, glancing up at him through lowered lashes. "I'm glad you asked." She smiled the smile of the shy little chorus girl she'd once been, and Raoul's stomach did a quick flip in his belly.

"As am I." He smiled in return and offered her his arm. "Well then, shall we?"

…

Raoul wasn't much of an admirer of architecture, but the sheer grandeur of the massive marble building never failed to inspire awe, with its soaring columns and majestic arches showcasing a small museum's-worth of art, all crowned by the regal copper dome. The winged statues which stood sentinel on the rooftop glinted gold in the setting sun. It had been less than a half-dozen years since the night they held each other under the shelter of a gilded wing and made promises of never-ending love and companionship, though tonight it seemed a lifetime ago.

"Still nervous?" Raoul asked, though it was an unnecessary question; Christine was clutching her fan tight enough to snap the tortoiseshell.

"A little...It's just…" A crease appeared between her brows. "I know I shouldn't care, but knowing we're going to be watched…" She looked out the carriage window, her gaze drifting across the looming opera house. "Every expression scrutinized, every word judged..."

Raoul took her hand and gave it a gentle squeeze. "Just pretend no one else is there. Before you know it, you'll be so absorbed you won't even notice."

It took an incredible amount of focus to maintain his balance as he led her up the stone steps. His head spun and his legs wobbled as if he'd put away a half a bottle of brandy, despite not having had so much as a drop.

My god, he thought - if even a simple trip to the opera had this effect, it certainly didn't bode well for how he would handle the...meetings, were she to actually end up agreeing to his plan.

It had taken much longer to get to this point than he would have liked, but blurting it out over breakfast would never do; finesse was required. There had to be careful planning, gentle ingratiation, and, of course, some testing of the waters. Out of social obligation, they'd been to plenty of theatrical performances over the years, at every opera house in Paris...except for one. Her reaction to his suggestion of a night at THE opera could be used as a gauge of her receptiveness to a subsequent suggestion involving the man who was so intimately connected with it. Or so he hoped. That first hurdle had been cleared: there was no horror, no furious disbelief, only a few moments of stunned, quiet contemplation, followed by shy acceptance. He couldn't have asked for better.

Assuming tonight went well and he'd assured himself of a decent chance of success, tomorrow he would sit her down and lay out his plan to start their family, presenting it as rationally and businesslike as if he were proposing they invest some money in a speculative venture. That's all it was, after all: a business arrangement, of sorts.

As they made their way to the velvet-lined box overlooking the stage, already aglow with flickering gas lights, he saw her face shining with a radiance he hadn't seen in years, and increasingly, he felt his chances were looking good...quite good indeed. Then the music began and she was enraptured. Only a handful of patrons stared and whispered, but Christine gave no indication that she even noticed. As the evening wore on, she leaned close to him, very close, and slipped her hand into his, the sweet warmth of it enough to sustain him through another week or two of sleeping alone, at least.

Then, on the drive home, she pressed her cheek to his shoulder, and Raoul's heart thumped with the certainty that he really would be able to fix everything, after all.

…

He'd prepared himself for the spell to be broken the moment they stepped back into their home, chilled by the brisk autumn night and filled with nothing but echoes — so unlike the place they'd just left, vibrant and alive with music and warmed by the heat of so many bodies. So he wasn't surprised when Christine turned to him and announced that she was heading to bed. He responded with his standard acknowledgement of weary resignation, and turned his thoughts to resisting the siren call of the spirits waiting for him on the sideboard in his study. It wasn't until the second time she asked if he would come to bed that he realized his ears were not playing tricks on him.

Honestly, even then Raoul couldn't quite believe he'd heard her right, but he sure as hell wasn't going to wait around to see if she'd ask a third time.

…

Tonight wasn't the first time that Raoul had underestimated the power that music had over Christine, but it was the first time that its effect had such a pleasing result.

Their reunion had been frenzied and desperate, and over much sooner than usual — though in his defense, it had been a while. Afterward, he held her on his chest and waited for his racing heartbeat to slow before allowing himself to speak one of the multitude of soppy sentiments which bubbled in his breast.

"I've missed you," he said, finally.

They'd left the table lamp burning in their haste, and its amber glow illuminated Christine's upturned face. Her brows pulled together in an apologetic frown. "I know...I'm sorry," she said quietly. She drew in a breath. "Raoul, I know I should explain, but...I'm just not sure I'm ready."

Raoul's heart fluttered in his throat. Such openness after long weeks of silence was unexpected, but even more unexpected was the sudden realization that he didn't actually want that openness, not now. Assuming the worst and being assured of it were two very different things, and the distinction had never been so clear. He swallowed down his rising panic. "Please, Christine," he said, only a touch too quickly, "you don't need to say a thing. I don't need to know." She smiled gratefully and settled back onto his chest. He held her close. "Whatever has been going on, it doesn't matter," he murmured into her hair, the curls like silk against his lips. Syrupy warmth pulsed through his veins, flowing into his limbs and making them heavy. He stroked her back with a languid hand, love-drunk and near-delirious with optimism. "All that matters is the future," he said, and hugged her to him tight.

The stiffening of her body was just slight enough that he could tell himself he was imagining it, if he wanted to.

Oh, did he ever want to.

Raoul squeezed his eyes shut, held his breath. Yes...he could convince himself it was nothing. He could let the moment pass, and simply enjoy the feeling of her skin pressed against his. He definitely wouldn't think about the fact that she was almost certainly doubting his place in her future at this very moment— Too late. The air left his lungs like he'd been kicked in the gut.

Both husband and wife lay very still, the top of her head tucked just beneath his chin, his arm a dead weight over her ribs. The air between them was charged with expectant silence.

Raoul's stomach began to contract into a queasy knot, like he was teetering high upon a precipice, peering down at an unfathomable drop. He'd truly had every intention to stick to his plan for a rational, well-reasoned proposal — or, at the very least, to not have to make his case while completely naked, only minutes after what had not been his ah, finest performance. But before he knew it, his mouth was moving and, God help him, he could not stop it.

"Christine, do you still want a baby?" The quavering words were not at all the ones he'd planned.

The silence which followed in the question's wake stretched on long enough that he began to worry — or was it hope? — that she hadn't heard him. When she finally spoke, her voice was strained and raw, like it had clawed its way out of her throat. "Please Raoul, don't ask me that. It's not a matter of what I want."

Raoul winced, turning his face toward the shadows beyond the bed. He'd known there was very little chance that she would come back with a firm and decisive No, but even the dreaded Yes would have been better than this non-answer, spoken with such guilt-inducing anguish that he couldn't even look at her. He took a deep breath, set his jaw. "No," he said, pronouncing each word with his most resolute inflection, in an effort to convince himself as much as her. "It's all that matters. If that's what you want, then you should have it."

"Raoul…" she began, trailing off into a sound somewhere between a laugh and a sigh. "That's just not how life works." She spoke gently, but with a quiet weariness which only deepened his guilt. "You forget, I wasn't born into this privilege. I've experienced loss before. I know it hurts, and it's hard, but sometimes…" She sighed. "Sometimes you don't have a choice."

"But…" he whispered, his heart thudding beneath her cheek, "you do have a choice."

She sat up, clutching the sheet to her chest. "What is that supposed to mean?" she asked, frowning.

Raoul swallowed hard, but his dry mouth was no help for his dry throat, and his words came out like gravel. "If not for me…"

"No, Raoul- "

"It's true — we both know it," he insisted.

She fell quiet, her bottom lip caught between her teeth.

He pushed himself up so their faces were level. In the flickering lamplight he couldn't tell if it was tears he saw shining in her eyes, or only a trick of the light. "I won't be the thing that keeps you from what you want," he said, more steadily than he'd expected. "If I can't give you a baby, then..."

He pulled in a breath through his nose, said one last prayer to God that he wasn't about to make the biggest mistake of his life, and forced out the fateful words in a quick exhale.

"...then maybe it should be someone else."

Christine blinked at him once, twice. Her lips parted, breathless. "Are you saying I should leave you?"

"No." He locked his eyes on hers, willing her to see straight into his soul...to comprehend the boundless limits of his devotion. "No, I'm not."

Her brow furrowed. "I don't understand."

He took her free hand and clasped it between his clammy palms. The diamond ring he'd placed on her finger years ago pressed painfully into the spot where the flesh was most tender, but he held tight. "Christine, I love you, and I will always love you, no matter what," he said, the words spilling from him in an unstoppable stream. "And I would love any child...just as if it were mine. You know I would."

Raoul watched as his wife's eyes slowly widened with understanding.

She let out a soft gasp.

"Oh my God."

She jerked her hand away, holding it to her chest like it had been scalded.

"Oh my God!"

As Raoul's useless lips tried to find the right words, Christine threw back the covers and scrambled out of bed, snatching up her dressing gown from a nearby armchair. "This is because of the drinking, isn't it?" she demanded, wrapping the gown around her and tugging the belt into an untidy bow. "You're not yourself, you haven't been for weeks!" She wrung her hands, pacing the length of her vanity. "This is my fault, I knew I should have said something, but I-"

"No, no — see? I'm completely sober!" Raoul cried, shuffling over to the edge of the bed. A shift in her posture told him he'd better stay put, and he sat back, raising a placating palm. "I've been overdoing it a little, I admit, but that's all in the past now." He tried an apologetic smile, but she appeared unmoved. "Look, I know that giving my blessing for you to ah, engage in...amorous congress with someone else is a little...unconventional," he continued over her tart laugh of disbelief, "but this isn't some silly, spur of the moment idea. I've spent night after night thinking about it!"

She raised her brows. "Oh, have you?" she replied archly.

"Not like that!" he said, cringing away from her withering look of disgust. "I just meant that I've given it a great deal of thought, and I really think this could be the solution to all our problems. If it works, then we—" He swallowed hard, trying to loosen his suddenly tight throat; he needed to sound emphatic, not pathetic. "—then we'd have everything we've ever wanted, and things can go back to how they were between us, only better! We could be happy again," he finished, his voice breaking over the final words.

Christine took a step back and collapsed onto her vanity stool. She touched her fingertips to her lips. "Oh Raoul...I knew things weren't right with us, but I didn't think they were this bad." Her voice was sad, subdued, and she looked at him with such hurt in her eyes that Raoul was struck with the sickening feeling that he'd been very, very wrong about her.

The table lamp sputtered — the oil was nearly out.

Shadows flickered across Christine's pale, drawn face. It would take no more than five or six steps to reach his wife, if only he'd go to her.

"How could you want me to..." She shook her head as if she couldn't believe the words leaving her mouth. "—to...be with another man?"

Raoul flinched.

...be with another man...

So much had happened since the day he'd learned the terrible truth amongst his mother's hot-house roses. Now, the buzzing thoughts which had filled his head every minute since — each a different consideration to manage in his quest to keep Christine at any cost — fell silent, and all that was left was the memory of her empty chair, her stammered excuses, and his mother's smug satisfaction as she described the handsome stranger — another man — spotted with his cherished wife.

How could HE want that? Raoul had to bite his tongue to keep from laughing out loud.

Blazing words burnt his lips and he spat them at her before he could stop himself. "What, you don't think you could?"

Christine's mouth fell open in shock, or at least the approximation of it. "I can't believe you'd ask me something like that!" She was indignant, but, Raoul noted with grim satisfaction, her cheeks were burning.

She hadn't actually answered, either. In fact, Raoul now realized, nothing she'd said tonight had been a clear denial of unfaithfulness. The taste of vindication was sour on his tongue.

And yet...it changed nothing.

His head began to fill again with the familiar drone of his swarming thoughts. Maybe he was right. But the truth was that whether her cheeks burned with shame, or with resentment, or with something else entirely — whether she'd only met with that man for some innocent reason, or whether there had been more — none of that mattered, none of it made him want to clutch her to him any less. No, Raoul's love for his wife was truly unconditional. He couldn't let himself sabotage his efforts over something so inconsequential as jealousy, not when he'd come this far.

He held his hands to his face, exhaled heavily. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean that."

"No?" She narrowed her eyes at him. "Tell me you didn't mean any of it."

Raoul dropped his hands to his lap and held his head high. "I can't. I won't."

"Then I don't know what to say to you!" Christine sprang up from the stool, then whirled around and dropped to her knees. She stretched a hand into the darkened space beneath the vanity and pulled it back clutching her little satin slipper.

That was his cue; letting her escape without an answer was not an option. Raoul clambered out of the bed and shuffled into his discarded trousers. "Just say you'll consider it! It's not such an outlandish idea, really." He closed the space between them, shrugging on his rumpled shirt. "It wouldn't mean anything, it's just a means to an end. And no one else would ever have to know!"

Both slippers now in hand, Christine straightened up and gave him one last incredulous look. "Goodnight, Raoul," she said firmly.

And then she was spinning away from him, her gauzy white dressing gown floating behind her like a ghost's trailing shroud. "Wait!" He lunged after her and grasped her wrist, more forcefully than he'd intended.

She turned back with a gasp. "Have you gone mad?"

He tightened his grip as her eyes flew wide. "I don't know — maybe I have!" His voice was ragged, wild. "All I know is that I can't lose you!"

He released her wrist and took a stumbling step backward, blinking as if he'd stepped into a sudden flood of brilliant sunlight. "Christine, I'm so sorry…" he whispered, with what felt like the last breath of air left in his lungs.

He reached out a hand toward her.

She took a quick step back.

For a moment she just looked at him, her expression again unreadable, only now it wasn't the familiar stony blankness which left him floundering, it was the complete opposite: an immeasurable swirl of emotions, rapidly churning. Recognizable fragments - anger, hurt, disbelief, despair - abruptly surfacing and then sinking just as quickly. Completely unfathomable.

Raoul felt like he was about to be sick.

Finally, Christine shut her eyes. "I need a moment, please," she said quietly.

Raoul nodded dumbly, scrubbed a hand over his face, and wandered out of the room in a daze, wondering how in the hell he'd managed to mess things up this badly.

…

He hadn't wanted to bother with a fire, but now the cold was beginning to seep deep into his bones.

Just across the study waited an easy solution: a bottle of liquid heat, ready to spread its warmth from head to toe, conveniently numbing the aching in his chest along the way.

It would be easier than feeling.

Raoul found himself standing in front of the tray of golden elixirs in their crystal bottles, without any memory of how he'd gotten there.

Just one drink, maybe two, and the wait would be easier. He ran a thumb around the rim of an awaiting glass.

Easier, yes...but nothing worth anything in life was easy.

And nothing was worth more than Christine.

He gathered up the decanters in his arms and carefully made his way to the large potted palm which stood near the window. Two full months of a bank clerk's salary-worth of spirits soaked the soil, as Raoul emptied bottle after bottle until not a drop was left. He'd catch hell from the housekeeper, no doubt, but tonight he had no desire to be spotted with an armful of alcohol on his way to a sink.

Raoul rummaged in the old armoire, a hulking, garish thing made of burled walnut and brass knobs polished smooth by the touch of almost a hundred years of de Chagny hands. From its recesses, beneath a pile of blankets of embroidered Oriental silk, of rich velvet and Irish lace, he pulled out a quilt. It was thin and worn, and sewn from faded squares of soft, simple cotton. Christine's — one of only a handful of things left from her life in Sweden.

It didn't quite eliminate the bitter chill he felt, but it would be enough, for now.

For now, he could do nothing but wait.

Big thanks this chapter to N-N for the awesome beta work. One day I'll learn when to end a chapter, but for now, there's you. xoxo

Tumblr users - I have set up shop over there! For now, I've mostly been reblogging gifs and art that have inspired me, but with plans to share pictures of the places and such that I use for reference as well as little sneak peeks and the like. Check it out! flora-gray

The next chapter will be shorter and be up within a few weeks at most. I have been lagging with replying to messages and reviews because almost all my spare computer time is spent on writing, but I always eventually do, and each one has been a treasure to me. :)

Thank you for reading!