Chapter 32. July 1887.

Christine turned over in bed, stretching luxuriously. She had been having a lovely dream, but even a few seconds after waking up she already couldn't recall much of it. Oh, well. That was the way of dreams, wasn't it? The ones you had while you were asleep, at least. She blinked at the ceiling, wondering why she had a vague feeling that something was wrong.

"Oh!" She sat up suddenly and grabbed for the alarm clock. What time was it – oh, no. Three o'clock! She threw off the blankets and leapt out of bed.

Earlier that week, Madame Giry had invited Christine to tea, at four. There would be just time to get there by that hour, if she rushed. Christine ran for her armoire. Throwing off the wrinkled chemise she had been sleeping in and pulling a fresh one over her head, she thought of the story which Adele had told her when, shortly after the wedding, Christine had gone to visit her and asked how she and Erik knew each other so well. The older woman had indeed told Christine some of the tales she had learned in her long association with Erik, and the small china teapot had had to be refreshed twice.

Dragging a gown out of the closet and pulling it on, Christine thought of the things that Adele had told her. That scar on Erik's throat was the mark of a time long ago when he had escaped death by a hair's breadth. In the section of the brash new city of San Francisco known for good reason as the "Barbary Coast," Erik had double-crossed the band of criminals he was working with once too often, and their leader, upon discovering his treachery, had flown at Erik with a knife.

"I'll take that devil's voice from you, right along with your life, you scum!" Erik had been only twenty then, his skills at hand-to-hand combat not yet fully developed, and the attack had happened so quickly that Erik had barely had time to defend himself. The knife had slashed his throat before he could knock the man away from him. Deep enough to leave a scar, but – barely – not deep enough to do any damage to his precious voice. Erik had come away from the encounter determined that he should never be in such a situation again, driven now to find a weapon that would be lethal from a distance. The other man, for his part, had not come away from the encounter at all. His intended victim's throat had soon healed, and the scar was easily hidden underneath collar and cravat.

"And where are you off to, wife?"

Christine, hurriedly putting on a brooch, turned to see her husband standing in the bedroom doorway, and said, "Out to take tea with Madame Giry." She fumbled to fasten the pin, her sweaty fingers slipping on it. "Oh, dear!"

"Why such a hurry, Christine?"

"I took a nap and slept too long. Now I am going to be late if I don't hurry." Christine went rushing past Erik and snatched a hat down from its shelf.

"A shame," Erik commented. "I should have liked your company."

"Well then, come to tea along with me," said Christine absently, plopping the hat on her head over her coiled hair and sliding hat pins into it. "I doubt Madame would mind. She likes you."

He shuddered. "God, no. Sitting with my hat and stick next to my chair and making small talk about the weather and the latest scandals? That is not included in the list of Erik's talents."

"You'd have more to endure than that," said his wife tartly, leaning closer to the mirror and perfunctorily fluffing the fringe of curls on her forehead. "When there is a man present at a tea, it is his duty to fetch and carry for the ladies, and walk round the table with the trays of sandwiches and cakes, offering them to all."

"It is?" His brow furrowed. "Is that not the responsibility of the servant?"

"No, it isn't. You send the servants out after they bring the tea things, so the guests can talk freely. And in any case Madame only has a girl who comes in a few afternoons a week, not one who is there all the time, and she isn't trained to wait on table."

Erik looked further baffled, and then shrugged and visibly abandoned that topic of conversation, in favour of looking at her admiringly.

"You are very pretty today, Christine. That shade of pink becomes you entirely too well. Do ladies always dress so finely for teas?"

"This isn't that fine," she scoffed, digging through a drawer. "It's only a plain silk with a summer-y overskirt."

"All the better," he assured her, stepping forward without warning and, turning her to face him, pulled her into his arms. She squeaked in surprise and annoyance. "Much more elegant. Dare I ask how much all this lace cost me?" He lowered his mouth to her neck, which was exposed in a v-necked bodice, due to it being the height of summer.

"I love you," he breathed in her ear. "I was just working on one of the love duets in the Comedy, and it made me think of you…"

"I love you too, but I am late, and…" Ignoring her words, he began nuzzling her throat, the fingers of his left hand stroking her back.

This was decidedly not fair, thought Christine, her resistance ebbing. He knew perfectly well how it affected her when he kissed her neck, and he was using that to his distinct advantage. With an effort of will she gathered her rapidly fleeing wits and shoved at him.

"Not now, I haven't time! I told you, I'm late already! After I get back. And lace – Erik – is fashion – Erik, stop that! How many hands do you have? Ten? – Fashionable!" Christine huffed in frustration as she extricated herself and smoothed down her overskirt, which was in fact entirely composed of ivory lace, draped and swagged asymmetrically over a pleated pink organdie underskirt. "And you don't want to know how much it cost, I assure you." She grabbed a purse and stuffed a clean handkerchief into it.

"No, indeed, I don't," he agreed, and his voice had turned to velvet, smooth and gliding. Christine's hands stilled, and all of a sudden she had trouble remembering what it was she was in a hurry for. Whatever it was, surely it wasn't that important…was it?

"I have... more pleasurable things on my mind just at present..." Erik had moved around behind her, and now he embraced her once more. She did not fight him. "My Christine…my love…you are the most beautiful woman in the world." He went on speaking, in a tone so low and throbbing that it reverberated through her body and all the way down to her toes. A sweetly languid desire overwhelmed her, and she leaned bonelessly back against him, tingling deliciously all over. He was kissing her neck again, the back of it this time, and singing enticingly now in an irresistibly compelling way. His hands slid possessively onto her hips. She felt herself relaxing, as the beauty of his voice worked its subtle wiles... how wonderful it was all going to be…

The clock chimed loudly, right above her head, and jolted her back to full awareness. She looked up at it, and saw that several minutes had passed. She would be late for certain now. Why had she consented to allow him to embrace her like this right when she needed to leave? Her purse was lying on the floor at her feet; when had she dropped it? "Erik, please, let me go!" she insisted, twisting in his arms. "I shall be late! Please!"

"Thwarted by a clock," he said ruefully, releasing her reluctantly. "And me a clockmaker. Are you quite sure you must go right now?"

Crosser with herself than with him, Christine put her hands on her hips and scowled. "Would you like to be the one to explain to Madame exactly why I did not appear at tea after accepting her invitation?"

"You win," he informed her. "No, indeed, I would not. Words might actually fail Erik under those circumstances."

Christine snorted. "That, I would like to see. I am going, now. I will be back in two hours or so."

"You realise I shall enact a heavy price later for my forbearance now, don't you?" he asked.

"Oh, Erik," she said, exasperated, and he turned abruptly fearful.

"You are not angry with me, Christine? It is only that I love you." Her heart melted, just as swiftly, and she said, "No, I'm not angry with you, just upset with myself for being late. I should like to stay here with you, but I can not."

"I shall return to my composing then, and anxiously await your return. Come back soon, Christine, and I shall show you how much I love you."

"I love you too," she answered, and that light of cautious happiness, which always made her heart ache with mingled tenderness and pity, shone in his golden eyes. She rose onto her toes and pulled his head down to kiss him, long and lingeringly, before heading out of the house and toward the street above.

Christine was halfway to the Girys' flat when she came to the appalling realisation that Erik had used his voice to manipulate her for the first time since they were married. She had thought they were past that. Briefly, she was thoroughly furious, stopping dead on the side walk as she remembered with utter revulsion the way he had broken her mind like one would break a horse to ride. There was burning shame there, too, at how credulous and naive she had been. These things she had tried very hard to forget, because she had to in order to be married to him, and after an initial burst of impotent rage and sickness, her mind rushed to try to explain it away.

He had stopped when she insisted he do so. Surely... surely that meant something, didn't it? And... and this had been the first time he'd done this deliberately since their marriage. Had he been doing it deliberately? Or maybe... maybe he didn't realise he was doing it? Perhaps he sometimes accidentally let that unbelievably enthralling tone slip into his voice without meaning to? After all, they had not been arguing, or doing anything else that might have made him feel he needed to control her like that again. Surely after nearly four months of marriage, he couldn't have been that bothered by her pushing him away, when she needed to leave? She never refused him, otherwise.

He must have done it unintentionally. It had only been for a few moments. He couldn't have meant to use his voice maliciously on her again. Church bells chimed the hour, and she began walking again, not wanting to be any later than she already was.

She really ought to tell him how much the fact of his hypnotism of her repulsed her now. It made her ill to think of just how well he had worked her like a marionette, and how easily it could have slipped into disaster for them both, had he chosen to press his advantage when she was alone underground with him and completely helpless, with no one knowing she was there and no one who could possibly hear her if she screamed. He could have done anything he liked to her, anything at all, and there would have been nothing she could do about it, and if he had sung to her first she wouldn't even have put up any resistance. Had he mesmerized her and then told her to go out and murder someone, she could not swear that she would not have done it. It was galling to admit just how much power he had had over her, and could still have, should he choose to exercise it.

But of course he had power over her. He was her husband now. He could say where she could go and not go, and what she could do and whom she could see, and whether she could continue to sing at the opera or not. That was no more than the power any husband had over his wife, as God had ordained.

But Erik's voice... that was different. The things he could do with it, the way he could manipulate people, but especially her...

Due in no small part to Erik's actions, Christine had developed a horror of losing her will and her ability to reason. It made her gorge rise now to think of it. To become nothing more than a witless, helpless puppet... to have no sense of what she did or why she did it... Her mind made her who she was, and she could not imagine anything more terrible than to have it stolen from her again. And if Erik chose to do so, he could.

But... she had married him anyway. Married him believing he would never do such a thing to her again, and so she had never mentioned to him how much she had once hated him for it. She did not hate him now, nor had she when they kneeled together to be married, and she could not allow that to come between them again. She must tell him how she felt about it. If he had unwittingly slipped into an old habit, as it seemed he had, then once he knew how much it bothered her he would not do it again. She would find a way to bring up the subject, and lay it once and for all to rest.

O-O-O O-O-O