Page 16 of Angel’s Flight (The Phantom Saga #4)

“Absolutely not,” Erik spat, surprised at his vehemence. “We are to leave the past behind, and I have tried Ireland. There’s nothing for us there, and it’s the absolute opposite of a great city.”

“It could be different with me,” Christine tried again, and Erik found himself wincing as she went on. “Or is Ireland like Vienna? Or Venice and Prague? Another place you’ve seen and suffered, so I am not allowed to decide if we could try again there.”

This was a familiar argument. He had left a trail of pain and enemies and destruction over Europe for decades before settling in Paris. There were few places left he hadn’t been run out of or eventually run from.

“America then, I guess,” Erik sighed. He hated arguing with her. It made him so afraid. Afraid he would say the wrong thing or that her rightful anger would finally make Christine realize what a mistake she had made, yoking herself to him.

“Let’s get back. We’ll talk more after we hear from Jack,” Christine muttered, clearly seeing his acquiescence for the surrender that it was. “Maybe he knows someone who has made the journey.”

“Maybe.”

The idea of such a journey nagged Erik the whole way back to Jack’s home.

Until now, it had been a quiet little house, located near the cathedral where his family had served as music directors for generations.

There were others there, of course, including Jack’s widowed mother and grandmother next door, but they had left Erik and Christine entirely alone to recover and rest after their flight from Florence.

However, Erik realized as they approached: the house was no longer quiet. The windows were full of light on the bottom floor, and people teemed inside. He could hear the raucous chatter down the street, and on instinct, he froze.

“Jack must be home,” Christine said reassuringly, taking Erik by the arm. “Everyone has come to greet him, it seems.”

“I didn’t realize he was related to the whole city,” Erik muttered.

He wasn’t in the mood for this. He wanted nothing more than to retreat to their room (or even better, a nice dark cellar where no one would find him) and lose himself somehow, be it in a book or a composition, or even making love to his wife for the first time in days.

There was a need for her that had begun to skitter under his skin, and not merely for her body.

Erik’s mind had returned at the most inopportune times to what she had done the day he met Jack.

How she had dominated him and how much he wanted her to do it again. ..

Erik shook himself from the thought as they caught sight of Jack in the sea of relatives and neighbors that had flooded his house.

“There you are! Come in, we have enough food to feed an army!” Jack called.

Erik dearly wished he were back in the Opéra with a wall to disappear behind.

There was nothing he wanted to do less than mingle with strangers.

He didn’t have the energy right now to even find the darkest corner where he could hide so that no one would look too long at his face and discover it was a mask.

He didn’t want to make up lies or avoid questions. He just wanted silence.

“You can say you’re ill, if you want to,” Christine murmured beside him.

Of course she knew. Of course, she understood how anathema this situation was to his very nature.

Even so, guilt fell on Erik’s heart like an avalanche at the words.

Guilt that she had known immediately what he was thinking, shame that he even had to think it, and more guilt in knowing that he had no will or power to stay.

He hated to disappoint her, but she would be fine.

“I already ate, and I need a rest,” Erik lied to Jack when he reached them. He didn’t like the sad way Jack’s face fell, but the young man couldn’t possibly ask this of him. “Give your family and friends my regards.”

“Of course,” Jack muttered.

“You will still have me,” Christine said with a smile, and that certainly brightened Jack’s expression. It soured Erik’s mood further when she put her arm through Jack’s, and he swept her away into the festivities.

Erik became a shadow as he maneuvered through the house and up to their rooms, where he closed the door tight behind him before tearing off his suffocating mask.

He could still hear the party downstairs.

Christine’s sparkling laughter cut through the din and Erik imagined her smiling at Jack and all those strangers that could make her happy.

Was this what it would be like for them when they found a place to settle as Christine wanted?

Would he always be locked away somewhere, leaving Christine to her friends, while nature denied her a real family of her own?

Erik shook his head. They never talked about the fact that, month after month, her courses came and nothing quickened in her womb.

Erik hated how grateful he was that at least he had been saved from passing on his cursed blood, but he knew how sad it made his wife.

She had grown up dreaming of a family like the one she had shared so briefly with her own parents. Happy and loved, together in the sun.

Now, here they were, lost and frightened, separated in the growing dark.

––––––––

C hristine felt as tired as she ever had after a performance as the celebration of Jack’s return to Lucca finally began to ebb into the night.

At least she had been able to practice both her Italian and some of her English.

The man who had given Jack his non-traditional moniker had come with him from Florence and was named Howard.

He was from Cornwall. This had delighted Christine, given Cornwall’s proximity to Brittany and thus Perros.

Hearing him speak the Celtic language that the two locations shared, even if she didn’t understand it, sounded like a bit of home.

Howard was a student of language, and he had met Jack not in Florence, but in Milan, where Jack was set to return as a student in the fall.

Howard, however, had completed his studies and was currently seeking a position “doing something somewhere pleasant that wasn’t too strenuous,” according to him.

He had gamely translated for Christine whenever some member of Jack’s circle came to greet her and feel her out.

Eventually, he just answered for her when asked about her husband or if she had children and where she was bound next, and he didn’t comment at all about the sadness that he surely could see growing in Christine’s eyes at each question.

It was Christine and Howard who remained in the courtyard as the crickets buzzed and the stars twinkled above.

Christine could see a candle burning in the room she shared with Erik, and part of her wanted nothing more than to go to him and weep for how upended and confusing everything was.

Another part of her was angry at him for leaving her alone again to face questions she couldn’t answer.

“Where’s Jack gone?” Christine asked Howard, in French, thankful that he spoke the language.

“Oh, I saw his mother pull him off for a lecture,” Howard drawled, taking a puff from a cigar.

The smell reminded Christine of the balconies and salons of the Opéra.

She was glad Erik was too protective of his throat to ever touch them.

“I think she heard at last about Jack’s assignation with a married woman.

In Jack’s defense, his lover is married to a horrible man. ”

Christine raised an eyebrow. “Was that really your business to tell me? Or do you just like being salacious?”

“The second, of course,” Howard said with a devilish smile. “Though, perhaps, it’s a bit of a warning. Half the people who meet Jack fall madly in love with him, and I wanted to save you any trouble.”

“I’m quite in love with my own husband,” Christine grumbled. Howard shrugged in an insouciant way that intrigued her. He reminded her of a friend she missed very much. “Are you among that unlucky, lovestruck number, Mr. Ashe?”

Howard took another inhale from the cigar and looked Christine over. “You’re a lady of the theater – or were. I think you understand me.”

“I do,” Christine smiled.

“My infatuation with Jack was a passing thing,” he went on with a shrug. He was fair in his coloring, almost pale, and his water-blue eyes looked nearly gray in the night. “I shall recover. Will you?”

“Recover from what?” Christine asked lightly.

“Whatever it is that has sent you fleeing here with your mysterious husband, who Jack can’t stop praising as the greatest musical mind he has ever encountered. I was utterly jealous on the ride here. Yet, there seems to be some great tragedy following you.”

Christine froze as rending metal and gunshots echoed in her mind. She saw blood. Broken bones and scars and snapped necks. She forced herself to breathe and focus on Howard’s apologetic face.

“I can’t talk about it. I should go to bed,” Christine managed and stood without letting Howard see she was shaking.

“Signora Christine!” Jack’s voice called before she could escape, and the young man bounded into the courtyard. “I’m so sorry we haven’t had time to speak alone. I have the telegram for Erik that he was waiting for.”

“I’ll take it up to him,” Christine declared, grabbing the missive. “We can talk in the morning.”

“I’ll see you then too,” Howard called as Christine rushed away, paper clutched in her hand.

It was a relief to see Erik hunched over papers at the small desk by the window. He jumped up and turned to her, an expression of contrition and worry visible behind the mask he had not taken off. Because he didn’t feel safe. Neither did Christine.

“I’m sorry I was...” Christine began.

“I don’t begrudge you enjoying the party,” Erik said immediately.