Hello dear readers. I am so sorry to have once again gone so long without posting a new chapter. I had a serious family health crisis last year. But things are much, much better now, and I'm looking forward to getting back to normality. A warm and heartfelt thanks once again to my beta reader, Mary Skater, who never gives up on me.

Chapter 47. August 1887.

Now that they were, finally, living aboveground, the weather turned inconveniently hot. Christine was miserable, and refused to finish unpacking. She lay about the house in a sheer dressing gown, fanning herself and complaining, and was incredibly bad-tempered most of the time. Strolls in parks were suddenly a thing of the past. Neither macaroons nor chocolates mollified her, and she would not go to visit Mama Valerius except in the evenings when it was a little cooler, which meant that she could not stay long because Erik would not hear of her having to make the trip back home in the dark.

This was a complication which Erik had not foreseen. He was bothered by cold, not heat; he had never been as uncomfortable in the East as most Europeans were. He had expected Christine to be happy that they were living in a normal house now, but the opposite had happened. Were his abilities at pleasing his wife really that abysmal? Nearly as upset as she was, he decided to find a way of efficiently cooling the new house, but that was of little help with the present problem.

And there were other difficulties. Erik's new workspace was in a small room on the upper story. It had been meant to be a bedroom, and was right next to the other one that they had turned into their actual bedroom. This was a problem because if Christine were in the main bedroom, she could hear him working, which meant that she could hear him talking to himself, swearing, and slamming things. If she were awake when these last two happened, she would come into the workroom to scold him, as if using bad language were the worst thing he had ever done; if it were night-time, he would accidentally wake her, and her reaction then was a good deal more than mere scolding. He resolved to do all he could to get the new house built as fast as possible. He had already found and purchased a lot, and was in the process of hiring workers. Erik would be supervising the building and doing some of the more important parts of it, but he had no desire to do the menial work.

But all this, of course, had caused an alarming decline in funds, and he was determined to build them back up as fast as possible – and that meant completing as many automatons and curios as he could. He had taken to seizing every moment he could to attend to this. This morning they had been nearly out of provisions and Christine had gone to the market. Since she was finally out of the house, he was hard at it, his sleeves rolled up and a wispy strand of grey hair falling in his eyes as he bent over an intricate piece of clockwork. He brushed it away impatiently. Trying to juggle planning for the new house, building these blasted toys and adding to the growing stack of pages that comprised the Dante score meant that he was back to sleeping only a few hours a night. He ignored his fatigue and went on working, until he heard the front door open and his wife's footsteps coming up the stairs. Damn. He could have had this bit finished if he'd only had another hour. Christine had originally been in the habit of going out to lunch or shopping with her friends in the afternoons; he had been hoping she would do so again today, but apparently not.

She came into the room, wearing a pale lavender gown that was as gossamer as a spider's web, only a thin layer of it over her shoulders and lower arms, where her low-necked and short-sleeved corset cover did not reach. Little curly tendrils had escaped the knot on the back of her head, and her feet were dainty in purple silk buttoned boots; her figure curved sweetly in all the right ways. There, see, dolt? he told himself. You spend decades cursing your loneliness, and then you are angered at being interrupted by such a vision, and one which is yours? But she was pink in the face and scowling, and he found he could not immediately remember the last time he had seen her smile. His gaze slid back to his work, a safe place in which to lose himself and forget things.

"What are you doing?" Christine asked crossly.

"Working. What does it look like?"

"You needn't be sarcastic with me!" she snapped. "I was trying – "

"And you needn't be out of temper with me when I have done nothing to deserve it. I am sorry you are uncomfortable. The current heat wave is not my fault."

"I never said it was." She surveyed him balefully. "And why aren't you bothered by it?"

He shrugged. "Warm weather has never bothered me. This is nothing to the heat of Persia, or of Indochina or Panama."

She scowled again, and he had the distinct impression that his indifference to the weather was irritating to her. Her next words confirmed this. "Oh, well, that's wonderful for you."

What did she want? For him to be cross as well?

"I suppose you won't take me to any of those countries, then."

"I – what?" Erik set down his tools. "I was unaware you wanted to visit any of those places."

"I told you I wanted to travel. You never remember anything I say."

This seemed grossly unfair to Erik, given how much he played and replayed her words in his mind in an effort to make sense of them. He replied coldly. "Well, if you wanted me as an escort to either Persia or Indochina you are out of luck, as there is a price on my head in both. Panama I might manage, if you can accustom yourself to hot weather. I suggest you try a bit harder to accomplish that if you wish to go to South America, or we will both be miserable on that trip."

"Don't worry, I won't trouble you with my company if that is how you feel," she retorted, turning away. "Travel wherever you want, then, and do it by yourself. I'm going to lie down." The door slammed behind her.

Erik cursed volubly under his breath. If indeed she had wanted him to end up in a mood as bad as hers, she'd succeeded. He went downstairs and out of the house, and the inhabitants of the Palais Garnier soon found themselves being terrorized by a vengeful ghost stalking abroad.

At home that night Christine was contrite, bringing him a glass of wine and his slippers when he returned some time after dark. As he accepted them he wondered sardonically how much of this was due to actual remorse, and how much to the fact that it was cooler now with the sun gone.

"I am sorry I have been so irritable."

"No doubt that is in part due to your condition. Blame Erik if you want." He waved a hand at her sullenly, and buried the nose of the mask in his wine glass. When he surfaced, she asked, "Did you have dinner yet? May I bring you something?"

"If you wish."

She brought bread and cheese and cucumber pickles, and ate with him. They were both mostly silent, and Erik wished it were not too warm for a fire; the crackling of the flames would have filled the void. Eventually Christine said, "Do you want to go upstairs?"

"You are tired, then?"

"No," she said definitively, and, taking his empty plate from him and setting it aside, she sat in his lap and began to kiss him. This was far, far preferable to either eating or stilted conversation, and he gratefully seized his change of luck. His hands ran up and down her smooth arms, laid bare by the loose sleeve of her robe. It was so thin he could see the pink of her flesh through it, and he brushed it aside and laid his mouth to her throat. Her skin tasted faintly salty, and he flicked his tongue against her neck, making her give a little moan, and then continued down. She was wearing only a light mesh summer corset, but it still made her breasts swell up enticingly underneath her chemise.

"Erik…let's go upstairs."

"No; all the heat of the day will have gathered up there." Her laces were knotted underneath a large hook at the bottom of her corset; they came loose quite easily.

"The neighbours…" She squirmed against him. But he was making short work of removing their clothing, and would not be dissuaded. He shifted forward, got both hands under Christine and stood up with her in his arms, cradling her close.

"Hush, Christine, you will be much more comfortable down here. Make less noise than usual if you are worried about the neighbours hearing anything." He had not yet met the neighbours, did not intend to if he could help it, and certainly wasn't going to have Christine's current mood turn bad again just to save them from having to overhear a man claiming his rights to his wife. Such was the price of living amongst others.

He laid her on the hearth-rug and set immediately about his marital duties, totally ignoring the fact that although the curtains were closed, the windows were open. In short order she had forgotten all about the neighbours, and Erik was nearly boiling over with adoration for her. Surely no one had so beautiful a wife as Erik had! He had her there in the little parlour, fast and intense and thrilling, and gloried in her cries of fulfilment and the flush that suffused her face at the end. Erik had a wife, and one whom he could bring pleasure to, one whom he could lie with on the floor in a sweaty tangle of satiated limbs. Life was good, heat or not.

In the morning she requested his attentions again…and this time he could not. The spirit was more than willing, but the body was unable. It was deeply disquieting. This had happened before, when their indulgences had been excessive; the inescapable realities of age. Christine was tenderly understanding, but her kindness only made him more humiliated. Thinking of how close she had come to marrying a much younger man who undoubtedly would have suffered no such failure, he provided her with as much satisfaction as his hands were capable of – which was a very great deal indeed. Holding her close afterward, brushing the damp hair off her forehead, he thought grimly of the yawning gap between them, and of the fact that she would not be that old if he were to expire in the next decade or so. Not that old; and still fatally beautiful. Another man would snap her up in a heartbeat. He was sure that she would have all the choices in the world of suitors. By some miracle she had chosen him this time, but no matter how vast his talents, one thing he could not do was to make himself younger for her. There was no devil who would appear to him and promise youth in exchange for Erik's soul – and, he reminded himself bitterly, Christine would never forgive him if he accepted that bargain anyhow! Likely the devil would consider that a waste of time in any case; why bargain for something which you surely had coming to you eventually if you only waited long enough?

It was Sunday, and he resentfully considered actually attending church with his wife and going to confession, largely out of a perverse desire to thwart God and the devil both. For if Erik repented, the former would have to accept his blackened soul into the Shining City, and the latter would be cheated out of what he presumably considered a certainty. But, as was her custom, Christine did not press him to go with her, and when it came time to say something he found he could not bring himself to do it. So she went off alone again, and he turned irritably to his music, and the story of Dante's journey through hell, to heaven.

It was now more than a week after moving into the rental house, and they were still living amongst boxes and packing crates. Later that afternoon Erik turned his attention to them, in a worse mood than ever after reading the newspaper.

"For God's sake… Damn it all."

"What are you swearing about now?"

"Because I can not find what I am looking for."

"And what is that?"

"The box with my spare masks."

"You don't need those right now anyway, you are at home with me."

"Says who, woman? What if someone comes to the door and neither of the two whose whereabouts I currently know are immediately to hand?"

"Then I will answer it and give you time to hide."

"As a matter of fact, someone shall be coming to the door today, but there is no need for me to hide from him, as he has seen my face many times."

"Oh, the Persian is coming by for a visit?"

"Yes, tonight."

"That will be nice, and the parlour and dining room are in order at least. It has been a bit since we have seen him. I confess I am glad that Madame Fortier shall be cooking dinner this time, and not me." Erik had insisted they hire a cook and a maid of all work, as well as purchasing as much food as possible ready-made, so as not to heat up the house further by using the stove. Neither servant lived with them, however, in deference to Erik's desire for privacy. They were both perfectly happy to be paid higher than the usual for their positions, and to return home to their families every night rather than only on their half-days.

"Well, that is what she is being paid for – and he is not coming till after dinner."

Christine set down the hairpins which she had been about to put into her mouth, and turned to look at her husband. "Oh? Why?"

"Because he is merely coming over for a game of chess, and so you may want to vacate the parlour after dinner. That way you need not listen to his doubtless tedious conversation."

"Don't talk like that. And, wait, he's coming over after dinner?"

"That is correct."

"Did he have an engagement with someone else for the dinner hour itself?" Erik, baffled, said, "I have no idea. Why?"

"Did you invite him to dinner here, and he declined?"

"No. Why would I?"

"Erik, why would you not?"

"Because I do not care to have to listen to him for an entire evening. This way he can come and play a game of chess for an hour after we dine, and then I can be rid of him."

"Erik. Don't be so unsociable." Christine rose majestically and announced as she went past him, "You can find it in yourself to sit at the head of your own dining table and be civil with the man whom you told me was your oldest friend. You don't fool me; I know you enjoy his company much more than you will admit to. I am going downstairs to write a note to him inviting him to dinner as well as your chess game."

"He will know you did so all on your own, and without my approval!" he called down the stairs to her.

"I do not doubt it!" she responded, as she went into the parlour and sat down at the little writing desk in the corner.

Christine ultimately found herself too tired to stay up after an excellent dinner comprised mostly of cold dishes, with chilled wines, and was more than happy to let the men adjourn into the parlour by themselves with the chess board and the brandy decanter. She thus heard none of their after-dinner conversation.

"And how, pray tell, is married life treating you these days, old friend?"

Wine and Christine's smiles had lightened Erik's temper somewhat, and exchanging repartee with Mihr was always enjoyable. "I can tell I have attained entrance into the middle class: I employ servants, and life is currently deadly dull."

"Is it indeed?"

"Yes. I have finished all the curios for which I had buyers, though I suppose I could make one or two more to serve as samples of my work. Most of Paris is on holiday, as it is August, and there is little happening. No concerts; no opera. I can not push Christine's voice just at present, and so our lessons are mere placeholders, meant to prevent her from total regression, and therefore devoid of much in the way of creative thrills. I have no piano and no organ unless I go back to the Opera, and Christine does not like to be left alone at night, so both that and night-time walks are largely out of the question for the moment. There are only violin and harp for me to fill my time now, until I must begin again my labours at the automatons and assorted other mechanical trifles that keep my wife in silks and boxes of chocolate, and myself in enough paper and ink to compose with."

"This time of year is always quiet in these parts. What did you use to spend your time doing during it?"

"Roamed. Took the horse for rides into the country. Frightened the odd person at the Opera. Went to the Bois at night-time. Travelled if I took a mind to. Most of that I can not do just at present. I find I do not like the risks involved in taking Madame Villeneuve out after dark in deserted areas of parks, I have banned her from horse-back riding until after her confinement – and she has now banned me from having much of any fun at the Opera."

The Persian's teeth showed white in his swarthy face as he grinned.

"So you have been finally tamed after all, O Trapdoor Maker. I see that all it took was the right woman to have you eating out of her hand. You are a changed man, and a most devoted husband. She did not need long to train you to her liking; had I known that this was all that was required to bring you to heel, I should have been dragging comely young ladies down to your lair day and night, till you took a fancy to one of them."

"Oh, do go to the devil and save me the trouble of sending you there, daroga," said Erik as he considered the chessboard.

"Well, shall we talk of literature, then? You must be getting a good deal of reading done. I confess my duties have been light as well due to the season; the fewer people that are in Paris, the fewer of them are making trouble. To fill my evenings, I have taken up the task, and a great one it is too, of rereading Les Miserables."

"For God's sake, daroga, why do you want to read that a second time? I should think once was more than enough. So far as I know, water torture was always far more the forte of the Chinese than your folk."

"As a matter of fact, I rather liked this story. Besides, it vastly increased my knowledge of my adopted country's language."

"Don't I know it. And who was it that you came to with your interminable lists of words whose meanings you did not know?"

"It is not my fault that Hugo never knew a descriptive term he did not like. And if he could use six or seven of the things in a row, all to describe one poor solitary noun, so much the better."

"The man is properly a poet, not a novelist. He should never have tried the latter. Have you read any of his poetry? Night on the Ocean is quite moving. Though I do admit that it gave me rather a horror of dying at sea."

"I find that unlikely in your case. And I would have thought your favourite work of his would have been Notre-Dame de Paris."

"Be quiet, you old fool," grumbled Erik, taking one of Mihr's knights. "Did no one ever tell you that abusing one's host is terribly bad manners?"

"Ah, I see I have gained the upper hand. I can always tell: you descend into insults." The daroga claimed one of Erik's pieces, and asked, "Do you think that Les Miserables will ever be turned into an opera?"

"God, I should hope not. Heaven help the poor librettist who has to prune that plotline down. The only man who would not be daunted is surely Giuseppe Verdi."

"Oh? It always seemed to me to be rather more in Monsieur Wagner's line – though of course the question is academic anyway, as he is no longer with us and therefore will not be writing an opera on this subject nor any other. But surely a setting of this book would require bombastic music and an enormous cast?"

"That it would, but even were Herr Wagner still alive, he would not be likely to set Les Miserables. It is not a plot of his favoured type. He had no time for anything that was not some great piece of mythology which he could shape to his purposes. The real-life tribulations of the lower classes never seemed to interest him in the slightest, whereas Signor Verdi is a master at that sort of thing. Think of Nabucco; of La Traviata, of Rigoletto."

"True. It would be quite the production, given the enormous cast that would be needed."

"Undoubtedly. And all those who could both act and sing well. Especially Valjean and Javert." Getting into the spirit of the moment, Erik scowled admonishingly at the imaginary cast. "The production would live or die on their merits. If you cast a poor singer in either role, the entire show would fall apart."

"Indeed. Well, no doubt any director worth his pay would see to it that no such mistake would be made when choosing the cast members."

"One would hope so. But I've never yet underestimated humanity's endless capacity for imbecility and incompetence, and I have never yet been disappointed. If the production's sponsors did not have sufficient respect for the music or the story, I expect a director could be found who would make a pig's ear of the project."

"No doubt you are right. I would certainly never claim more knowledge than you about music."

"Nor about chess, daroga. Checkmate."

They cleared the board, poured more brandy, and played another game. After Erik had let the daroga win that one, midnight found the level in the bottle greatly reduced, and Erik sitting uncharacteristically slouched in his armchair with his long legs stretched out and his hands hanging over its sides.

"Daroga, I wish this accursed hot weather would break, and soon. It bothers Christine much more than I had anticipated."

"Hot weather is part of summer," said Mihr, shrugging. "Tell her stories of how much worse it is in Persia."

"I tried. It just annoyed her. Sometimes it seems as though everything Erik does annoys Christine."

"Obviously not, given her condition," said the daroga dryly, and Erik waved a slow finger at him.

"Shame on you, daroga…talking like that about a man's wife. Would you speak so to her?"

"Certainly not. One speaks differently when among mixed company than when alone with an old friend in his parlour."

"Rented parlour. Must get on with the new house…"

"It is a shame we have put the chessboard away," observed Mihr. "In the condition you are in I might actually win a game on my own merits for a change. I would never have thought that you would turn into a drunkard in your old age."

"Erik is not too drunk to strangle you, daroga. He is only refraining because giving in to that impulse would upset Christine."

"Yes, I expect Madame would object to bloodshed in her parlour, despite her usually charming disposition."

"What a good thing you have not seen her in some of her moods."

"Pot and kettle, Erik."

"Indeed."

"She was a vision at the foot of your table tonight. You are a lucky man."

There was a pause, and then Erik said, all at once and as though he could not hold the words back for another moment, "It all seems too good to last."

"Oh, I think it will," said the daroga firmly. "Anyone can see the way she looks at you."

"I still do not understand it. It seems so impossible." Erik stared at the floor.

"Improbable, I grant you, but obviously not impossible. Western women do not marry of their own free will men they despise."

"I…daroga…" With his spinning head resting in his palm, Erik lamented, "I keep thinking I shall wake up one morning and discover that this has all been a dream."

Mihr sat forward. "Erik, listen to me. This is not a dream, and she does love you, I am sure of it. If you keep thinking like this, you will only drive her away. Are you trying to create a self-fulfilling prophecy?"

Sighing, Erik leaned back against his chair, staring at the ceiling. "Daroga…the boy is still in Paris."

"The who?" The Persian's black brows knitted together, then comprehension showed on his face. "Oh – do you mean the Vicomte de Chagny?"

"His mission has been delayed yet again. I read of it in the papers."

Mihr rubbed a hand over his face and exhaled slowly. Then he stared through his fingers at Erik, and said, "Please tell me you are not still obsessing over him."

"I confess I had other things on my mind a good deal, and let this issue slide. Very careless of me."

"Erik."

Ignoring the daroga's tone, Erik went on, "I rather thought he had already departed. But then I read that not only had he not, now it is going to be another two months before he leaves. Two months in which for him to cause trouble."

"Surely you do not still think he is a threat to you, Erik. The girl married you. What more do you want?"

"I want him as far away from Christine as possible. As I am not permitted to kill him, his being in the Arctic seems a workable substitute. And the navy is so damned incompetent that they can not even carry out their own plans on schedule. Perhaps I should do something."

"Erik. You must stop this now. No good can come of it. The Vicomte de Chagny is nothing to you anymore. You won and he lost. Leave it alone – and stop that, you've had enough to drink."

"It is my house, daroga, I shall do as I like. How am I to know that she will not change her mind now?" Erik's beautiful voice was filled with melancholy, and he took a gulp of brandy before continuing. "Tell Erik, daroga. It makes no sense to him."

"Nothing women do ever does. Don't try to understand it. Take comfort in the reality of the situation, and do stop borrowing trouble."

"Erik never needs to borrow trouble. It finds him all on its own."

"Hardly," said Mihr, scoffing. "I think you've generally had a bit to do with the matter when you've gotten into it. But listen to me now, Erik. Your wife is not going to leave you, if for no other reason than that her religion forbids divorce. You know that."

"But I am so much older than her…" Erik choked that sentence off. He had been thinking of his failure in bed that morning, but under no circumstances was he going to tell the Persian about that. Instead he said, "Like calls to like. Perhaps she will soon wish she had married someone her own age. I am old and cantankerous, and it will only get worse from here."

"Nonsense. It can be very good for a woman to marry a man older than she is, one already established in life – "

"Oh, well, that's no reason for her to choose me over him, he will be coming into a great deal of money soon."

"His family did not approve at all of his desire to marry an opera singer," Mihr reminded Erik.

"They could not have prevented him from inheriting what was coming to him no matter what they thought of how he was conducting himself," Erik commented. "French law held no help for me there."

"Oh, you looked into it, did you?"

"Yes," said Erik mulishly. "I was desperate to find any possible reason for her not to marry him."

"Erik, the evidence would suggest that she wanted a mentor, someone to fill in for her father. Many women do. It is natural for a woman to be led by her husband; this is likely easier when he is older than her and more experienced in the world."

"I do not think my experience of the world ought to be shared with her."

"In small, sanitized bits, perhaps. I do not think you can permanently keep from sharing any of your background with her. She knows a little already, and if you refuse to talk to her about it she will know you're hiding something."

"A little of the story every night, then?" Erik said, smirking crookedly. "But I want her to stay with me for much longer than two and three-quarter years."

Mihr looked confused, and Erik clarified, "One thousand and one nights is about that long."

"Ah. Of course. I should have guessed. Well, by that point the child will still be quite young, barely out of infants' clothes, and for all we know there may be another one as well by then."

Erik shuddered. "God, spare me. I have barely got used to the idea of having one child…two, though…"

The Persian shrugged. "Who knows what will happen? But she is highly unlikely to leave the father of her young child. Children are a bond between two people that can never be broken."

"I would not have her stay with me and be miserable," sighed Erik. "That is why I sent her away in the first place, daroga…"

"She does not seem to me like a woman who is miserable."

"Truly?"

"Yes, Erik."

"You know, daroga, I value your opinion above any other man's," said Erik. "But I'd never tell you that."

"Of course not," said Mihr, smiling. "Come, man, it is getting very late. Show me out and go up to bed. I predict you shall have a dreadful head-ache in the morning."

The Persian's prediction came true, and Erik lay in bed long after Christine got up. She brought him tea and dry toast, and cold compresses for his head and kisses for his clammy brow, and he recalled Mihr's assertions the previous night about her feelings for Erik. Marvellous as it was, that sentimental old idiot might have been right.

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