What an infuriating woman.
Erik glared down at the papers strewn about him and grimaced. He'd been unsettled ever since the vicomtesse and the coppersmith had entered his house earlier that morning, and Erik had only grown more agitated as the sun crept lower along the horizon.
Tapping his fingers in an irregular pattern against the scarred wooden surface of his desk, Erik tried to make sense of his mood. He could blame his frustration on many things, he supposed. He'd let Petros down today, scaring away the woman who might be the key to unlocking the mystery of what had happened to his friend's family.
Erik's guilt only intensified as he recalled Petros's reaction to his display of temper. His friend had trailed after him, finally cornering Erik in his bedroom. Petros had stayed by his side as Erik had struggled to regain control over his breathing, over the panic that had threatened to smother him like so much poison gas.
And by choosing to comfort him, Petros had never gotten the chance to approach the vicomtesse about his family before she'd stormed out of his house.
She'd not be back, either. The vicomtesse had been livid, her cheeks flushed with fury as she'd upbraided him for his lack of gratitude. And perhaps she'd been right, at least in part. Erik had never appreciated all that he'd possessed until he'd lost it all.
Picking up a pen, Erik tried to scratch down the tortured melody that had been twining through the back of his mind for most of the last month, but it was useless. The music wouldn't flow through his fingers like it used to, leaving him even more frustrated than ever.
He pushed himself away from the desk and strode to the window that overlooked the front drive. Brushing aside the curtains, Erik stared out into the darkness and tried to forget everything that had happened that day.
But all he could think about was Petros's subdued expression at supper a couple of hours ago, how his friend had prepared their food in silence. When Erik had tried to apologize, Petros had brushed it aside, which had only ignited the unease that always simmered in his belly. Erik owed the man so much. He should have pushed through his own discomfort for Petros's sake.
Why hadn't he? Erik had been poked and prodded and studied with varying degrees of distaste and pity for months before he'd retreated to Rouen and hidden himself away from the world as best as he could. He hadn't lashed out like that since the early days, when he'd been drugged half out of his mind on morphine.
What was it about the vicomtesse that had sent Erik's anger soaring to new heights?
Erik allowed the curtain to drop back into place, obscuring the faint outline of the trees bathed in moonlight outside, and began pacing the length of his room with his hands tucked behind his back.
Thirteen steps. Turn.
Thirteen steps. Turn.
The familiar pattern reminded Erik of the marching drills he'd been subjected to when he'd first joined his regiment. As if those had ever been needed. They hadn't been toy soldiers marching in a straight line for a parade. They'd been real men, and they'd only marched into a muddy warren of tunnels that often became a charnel house.
Those who had managed to survive the slaughter had returned home in various states of brokenness. Everyone told them that they were the lucky ones.
But on nights like these, Erik wondered if the more fortunate hadn't been the men who had died. At least for them, the war had ended. The voices in their heads were silent. They hadn't come back to a world that no longer made sense to them, only to be badgered by people who didn't, who couldn't, understand what they had endured.
Thirteen steps. Turn.
And that damnable woman had come along today preaching to him about how he should feel, when most days Erik felt nothing at all except a vague sense of weariness that fogged his brain.
You should be grateful.
For what? He'd wanted to scream it at her, but his words had tangled in his brain. Erik couldn't even remember what he'd said, just that his rage had boiled over and he'd wanted to inflict as much pain as he could on those around him.
Had he mentioned her husband? Erik hoped not. That would be low even for him.
Erik recalled when her husband had died. He'd been in Rouen for a few months by then, his mangled flesh trying to reknit itself into some semblance of a face after he'd dismissed the doctors and surgeons for the last time. The local newspaper had poured over the details of the young de Chagny's death like it was a great national tragedy.
As if men weren't dying by the dozens in the trenches every week. Every day, even.
But the de Chagny whelp had been young and handsome and titled and, above all, rich. That had made all the difference. He'd been the noble who hadn't needed to risk his life, who had sacrificed everything for the sake of France.
What a bloody fool.
Perhaps it was an uncharitable thought, but Erik didn't care. If he was sure of anything, Erik knew with every bone in his wasted body that if he'd had a loving wife like the vicomtesse waiting at home for him, nothing would have pried him from her side.
Not honor. Not acclaim. Not country.
Not death itself.
Thirteen steps. Turn.
The photograph in the paper had done her no justice, Erik reluctantly admitted to himself. In the picture she'd appeared wan and painfully fragile, like she might shatter if someone looked at her the wrong way. The woman in that image wouldn't have been able to withstand his blistering outburst without dissolving into tears.
But she'd more than endured his temper. She'd matched his ill humor with ire of her own, and those ice blue eyes had flashed with a surprising burst of heat.
The Vicomtesse de Chagny wasn't some ghost of her former self like the newspaper had tried to portray her. She was no doubt a grieving widow, but she was so much more than that. She was vibrant, alive, gloriously so, and she'd made Erik feel...something. Something different than the bitterness that had plagued him long before he'd lost his face.
It had been so easy after he'd been wounded to hide behind the rage, to snap and growl and chase away alone who might want to get close to him. He'd been doing that for most of his life, and his injury had only exacerbated that urge.
Of course, it hadn't worked on Petros, the great idiot. That man always seemed oblivious to the hints that it would be best to back down.
Just like the vicomtesse.
He didn't even know her given name. Erik was certain that he'd likely read it somewhere before, perhaps in one of the countless articles about her husband's noble sacrifice.
Thirteen steps. Turn.
Why was he so focused on her? Why was it her face that kept clouding his mind?
Because you wanted her, a sinister voice taunted him.
Erik came to an abrupt halt in the middle of his room, shaking his head in an effort to clear it.
The voice wasn't right.
Surely not.
He was no saint. Although Erik had often prided himself on being beyond such base needs, he'd succumbed to temptation a couple of times after he'd been drafted into the army. He'd needed that connection to a life that was fast becoming unrecognizable to him, to keep the madness that threatened to overwhelm him at bay, at least for an hour or two.
But ever since he'd been hurt, Erik had turned that part of himself off, content to spend the rest of his life alone, save for the infrequent visits from Petros.
Or so he'd told himself. He'd not experienced any sparks of desire at all in the past few years, and he'd considered himself lucky to be spared that indignity, at least.
But now it seemed that he'd be subjected to more torture after all.
Sighing, Erik tunneled his fingers through his dark hair and dropped onto the mattress. He was a fool, and well he knew it. The Vicomtesse de Chagny was far beyond him. Even if he wasn't ugly, even if he wasn't haunted by memories of the war, even if he wasn't living in a house that had seen better decades…he'd never deserve a woman of her caliber.
He'd known all of that from the beginning, of course, but it hadn't stopped him from wanting her, had it? Just for a moment, a tiny lapse in the normally impenetrable armor that he wore.
But in that second, Erik had wanted, had ached, had craved, and the walls he had built to protect himself had threatened to crumble.
And he'd reacted in anger, because that was all he remembered how to do anymore. In the process, he'd jeopardized Petros's mission to find his sisters and insulted a woman who hadn't really deserved his wrath.
For the first time in a long while, Erik experienced shame, and he didn't care for it.
Tomorrow, he vowed to himself as he stared at the water-stained ceiling above him. I'll make it all right tomorrow.
He'd go to Petros and apologize first thing. His friend deserved far more than that, and Erik would give it to him. Even if he had to go to the damned coppersmith's shop himself and get on his knees to beg for another chance, Erik would do it.
Erik would swear to be on his very best behavior while they made him a mask. He wouldn't snap at the vicomtesse or anyone else. He'd sit there and allow them to poke and prod and gawk at his face for as long as they liked, as long as it took for Petros to work his charm on the vicomtesse.
He'd keep his distance from that woman, as much as he could.
And then, once Petros found out what had happened to his sisters, once Erik had repaid his friend's kindness as much as he could…
Well then, he'd owe nothing to anyone.
Maybe then he'd be able to shake loose of the fetters that bound his weary soul to this earth, and he could be free of everything at last.
What an infuriating man.
"Are you certain that you're not ill?" Victorine peered over her spectacles at Christine from across the room and set aside the newspaper she'd been reading. "You scarcely said a word at supper."
Christine had been getting better at keeping up conversation lately. She'd credited making the masks, of finding a way to use her art when it felt so stubbornly blocked in every other way. But tonight, she'd stewed in her anger, and apparently her sister-in-law had noticed.
Of course she had. Victorine noticed almost everything.
Georges stopped rooting about his shelves stacked with toys and turned to face her, his blue eyes wide with sudden alarm.
"I promise I'm fine." She smiled reassuringly at her son, who hesitated for a moment before returning to his playthings. As soon as his back was to her, she allowed the smile to disappear. "We went to see someone about making a mask today, and he was rude and I'm still seething about it."
"Why was he rude to you?" Victorine frowned, turning her full attention to Christine. "Is it the same man who requested that you come to his cottage?" When Christine nodded, her sister-in-law shook her head in disgust.
"To be fair, I think it was his friend who wanted us to come, not M. Guérin himself." Christine was about to explain how M. Mnatsakanyan had been most accommodating and gracious as a host, much more so than the man who actually owned the cottage, when Georges ran up to her with a box in his hands.
"Play Mama." It sounded more like an order than a request, and Christine smiled indulgently at her son.
"Yes, of course I'll play with you, my love."
Georges grinned at her and then dumped the contents of the box onto the floor between them. When Christine glanced down to see what he'd chosen, the breath caught in her chest.
Dozens of lead soldiers lay in a heap, a few of their disarmingly blank faces turned towards her. Most of the figures had blue coats and red trousers, but someone — Raoul, she supposed, as her heart slowed to a near crawl — had painstakingly repainted several of them in the more modern French navy colors of blue and white.
"Oh Christine, I'm so sorry." Victorine shot out her chair and rushed over to them, almost flinging herself down onto the ground in her rush. She began to scoop up the soldiers to put them back in their box. "I thought that Georges might like to play with them this afternoon because they belonged to his father. Raoul used to love these, and I thought that…I'm sorry, I shouldn't have."
"No." Christine reached out her hand and rested it on Victorine's, halting her mad scrabble to get the soldiers out of sight as soon as possible. "No, it's all right."
Picking up one of the soldiers who had been repainted, Christine held it close to her face. Raoul had taken the time to paint a face on this one, and the soldier had yellow hair and a small slash for a smile.
She could almost see him as a boy, his tongue in the corner of his mouth as he concentrated on this tiny expression, never knowing that his son would only ever see this soldier's face and not his own father's.
"Your father wore a uniform very much like this one, Georges." Her throat thickened with emotion and her eyes filled with tears, but she still forced a smile onto her face. "He looked very handsome. The last time I saw him, he stood at the railing and waved and waved until he became just a small dot. He later wrote to me that he waved until he could scarcely see the shore, because it was so difficult to say goodbye."
Victorine's hand rested upon Christine's arm and gave her a small squeeze. Georges stared transfixed, and Christine wondered if he had ever heard her speak of his father before. She'd always told herself that it was too painful, and it was, but she wanted her son to know that she had loved his father, and that his father had loved the both of them just as much.
She set the navy officer that reminded her so much of Raoul down and surveyed the rest of the soldiers. Choosing one that had a large silver gash on his face from the bayonet of his fellow soldier, Christine held up that one for Georges to see as well. "And now Mama helps to make masks for hurt soldiers like this one, so they can be happy again."
The words drew M. Guérin to mind, and Christine's mouth twisted as she recalled how angry he had been. It would take far more than a mask to make that man happy.
Except he hadn't truly lost his temper until she'd told him that he should be grateful, and now that Christine had had time to think about it, that had been wrong for her to say. She'd been angry too, angry that this man who didn't seem to care if he lived or died should be the one to survive the war when Raoul hadn't. Raoul would have been grateful for every moment they could have spent together as a family, just as Christine would have been.
But she and Raoul had had one another. A child. A brother and two sisters who would have been glad to embrace him no matter how scarred, no matter how bitter.
And M. Guérin had none of those things, as far as Christine could tell. There had no been signs at his cottage of a wife's touch, a sister's fondness, a mother's love, a child's adoration. Everything had been cold and sterile, save for the warmth that his friend had shown.
How presumptuous it had been for her to tell him that he should be grateful when she knew so little about the man. She didn't know if he still suffered from pain due to his injuries, if he still woke in the middle of the night prisoner to memories, if he still wept for the men who had died around him.
She turned the little toy soldier in her hands and studied its poor face. The words M. Mnatsakanyan had spoken when he'd first come to the shop to convince them to visit his friend's cottage echoed in her mind.
When he first returned to Paris, Erik told me that he felt as if he was no longer part of the human race, that his features were so destroyed that he'd never be able to fit in anywhere again.
How could he possibly feel grateful for anything if he didn't even feel as if he was part of humanity any longer? To be so divorced from his fellow man?
A mask may not make M. Guérin happy, but it might be a good start. Christine had seen the difference it made in many soldiers' lives. M. Martin, Maël-Louis's son's best friend and the recipient of their first mask, had stopped by the shop the other day with his new wife. They were expecting a child now, and they'd both been aglow as they'd told them.
When Christine had looked at M. Martin, she hadn't seen a disfigured soldier. She'd seen a happily married husband, a man who looked forward to the birth of his first child with the woman he'd loved for years.
What if it could make a difference like that for M. Guérin? Christine didn't know his hopes or dreams, but maybe he only longed to be able to step outside of his own front door without worrying about whether he would fit in with everyone else.
She could help with that.
Christine had finished a mask earlier in the evening, and she wanted to drop it off to Maël-Louis's shop tomorrow morning. And while she was there, she decided that she would discuss M. Guérin's case with him. If Maël-Louis agreed, then they'd try again make a mask for the man.
Raoul was never going to return to her, and that would always hurt. But it wasn't fair for her to take her anger out on someone else simply because he had survived what so many other men, including her own husband, hadn't.
Tucking the little soldier with the facial gash into the pocket of her skirt, Christine helped Georges unpack the other soldiers from the box.