Page 28 of Angel’s Flight (The Phantom Saga #4)
Christine had never blushed so fiercely in her life. She couldn’t even look at him with such ideas in her mind. She busied herself with the food instead, setting out the bread, cheese, and meat on the little desk in their cabin. “I... Never mind.”
“I didn’t mean to scandalize you, Madame.”
Christine jumped because, of course, Erik had materialized right behind her. He laughed warmly at her shock, peering into her face as she attempted to glare at him. “I’m not scandalized. I’m simply confused about...” Christine swallowed, her mouth going dry as she tried to name what had happened.
“What I needed last night?” Erik asked softly, and Christine was unable to look away. Even so, she didn’t want to do this with his mask on. Gentle as ever, she lifted it from his face and set it aside.
There was her husband, the man she loved with all his flaws and failings. The man she wanted to protect and heal.
“I don’t understand why you would want me to hurt you,” Christine said at last. “After all you’ve been through – all that pain – why would you need more?”
Erik’s golden eyes were thoughtful, but not scared or ashamed. “I’m not certain myself, but pain is different when it comes with pleasure from you. It feels liberating. Safe in its own strange way.”
“Safe,” Christine echoed, thinking back to how Erik had been the night before. A calm that had overtaken him in his desperation to obey and repent to her that had been beautiful and intoxicating. “I made you feel that way.”
“How did you feel?” Erik asked, touching her cheek and pushing back her hair in that soothing, entrancing way of his.
“I felt powerful,” Christine confessed, letting go of her shame. “Like there was one thing, at last, I could control. I guess that felt safe too, but...”
“But what?” Erik pushed, not allowing Christine to look away from him, even though she tried to.
“It still feels wrong to have enjoyed hurting you,” Christine whispered. “It feels cruel.”
“I know you would never really hurt me,” Erik breathed back. “I know you would stop if I asked. I know you know the difference between inflicting a sensation upon me I ask for and pushing me into the darkness. I trust you.”
“I don’t know if I trust myself,” Christine half-laughed.
“We don’t have to do it again if you’re not amenable to it,” Erik said with no judgement in his tone, but Christine was still sure he was disappointed. Perhaps because she felt a pang of panic herself at the possibility of closing that door.
“I didn’t say I didn’t want to do it again.”
Erik raised an eyebrow, or what he had that passed for one.
“I just need time to consider and adjust,” Christine went on, even as a terribly wicked thought whispered in the back of her mind. “Or plan.”
“Plan?” Erik asked, so soft and awed Christine blushed again.
“Well, we won’t be doing anything on this damn ship, so don’t get too excited,” she chided, playfully pushing him away.
“Are you still feeling ill?” Erik took up a piece of bread to offer her. “Something plain may help.”
“Howard helped – with the seasickness, I mean. He had some concoction with ginger.”
“He’s an interesting man,” Erik muttered. “I still can’t comprehend why he’s helping us. He must value Jack quite dearly to aid his friends.”
“He also thinks we’re very interesting,” Christine said as she and Erik sat on the creaking bed that took up much of their cabin. “I didn’t have the heart to tell him how truly boring you can be.”
“How dare you.” Erik gave her a playful glare. “I’m the most unconventional passenger on this ship.”
“Perhaps,” Christine shrugged. “But I haven’t heard any of them go on for hours about the failings of English architecture or, God, what was it the other night? Some chemist obsessed with milk?”
“Pasteur is doing amazing things,” Erik squawked. “As I was saying—”
“You’re not helping your case, you know.”
Erik gave her another scowl. In his face, to anyone else, the expression might have been terrifying or horribly ugly.
It only made Christine laugh, because he was as harmless as a lamb right now, her terrible phantom.
He was hers to tease and adore and needle, and she loved him.
It brought her joy, even as they rolled along the sea to destinations unknown, just to love him.
To hold him close as long as she could before he strayed again.
Paris
S haya had made sure that he wasn’t followed today.
It had not been easy. He’d had to go all the way to the Marais and waste his entire morning reading the paper at the Place des Vosges, driving his shadow to boredom before disappearing into a library.
After that, the detective had slunk off and Shaya had finally made his way to the Opéra.
Shaya had begun to piece together a story about the man assigned to follow him.
He was young and impatient. He thought himself an expert at tracking his prey.
Perhaps he’d been a hunter in his youth, then become a soldier because he wanted to keep playing with weapons.
That didn’t pay well, so now he had found work for a firm of private detectives.
He was new at the job though and had been assigned the tedious job of following a foreigner throughout Paris day in and day out.
Of course, Shaya didn’t know how long this man had been watching him. Maybe he was so accustomed to Shaya’s comings and goings that he didn’t feel the need to put in the extra hours. Maybe he had already seen something.
There was an increase in the sound of movement, signaling an exodus of dancers and singers from the stage and the end of rehearsal. Shaya stood from his seat beside the window and turned to survey the crowd. He was unobtrusive, but little Giry’s reaction to Shaya almost gave away the entire game.
Her eyes – which were already permanently wide – somehow grew larger and her face fell into an almost comical look of dread when she made eye contact with Shaya.
He stifled a chuckle and nodded before turning and walking out of the building.
He trusted the young dancer to follow, which she did.
At least her footsteps were quiet: that was promising.
He walked a little way down the Rue Auber before stopping at a café and looking at the young woman who stopped beside him. “Are you hungry, Mademoiselle Giry?”
“Always,” Meg replied, looking suspicious and annoyed.
“Excellent. I find it’s a bad idea to discuss important matters on an empty stomach.” Shaya entered the café, and Meg rushed after him, sitting quickly when he found a table.
“Do we have to eat before we talk?” Meg leaned in close. “I need to know if you really meant if he is... Or was...”
“You can say it aloud, Mademoiselle. No one is listening here.”
“How do you know?” Meg asked in a furious whisper as a waiter appeared. She looked at him like he might have been a gendarme – while he looked at Shaya and Meg the way all waiters in Paris looked at customers – like utter nuisances.
“Two hot chocolates, please,” Shaya said to placate the man. Meg continued to stare at him. “I know we are safe because it’s my job to know and the man who has been following me of late is not here. He wouldn’t come this close.”
Meg gasped. “Someone has been following you?”
“We’ll get to that later,” Shaya smirked. “Tell me: what have you discovered about the ghost?”
“I haven’t discovered anything,” Meg snapped back, then frowned. “I finally saw the truth. I think. There is no ghost. There’s always just been a man.”
“You sound disappointed.” Indeed, the young woman’s face was somber, as if she was speaking of some sort of heartbreak.
“It’s one thing to have a ghost in your theater – all proper theaters do have one, I’ve been reliably told – but the Opéra’s was the most interesting.
It was all rather magical. To think it’s all been a man is so disappointing.
And frightening.” Meg shuddered, and Shaya wondered if she was remembering Joseph Buquet.
“It was all quite the tragedy, that’s true,” Shaya sighed. “I regret my part in making it worse.”
“Your part?” Meg’s eyes went wide again, not leaving Shaya’s for a moment as the waiter deposited their chocolats chauds . “Do you know him? Is that why you came here from Persia?”
“I knew him, yes,” Shaya corrected.
“You speak as if he’s dead, but you just told me he’s not a ghost.”
Shaya had to consider his next word carefully. There was a fine line between revealing that the ghost was a fiction created by Erik and revealing Erik himself. “He is. The man who became the Opera Ghost died soon after the chandelier fell.”
“I don’t understand,” Meg whispered. “So is the Opéra truly haunted now? No. It’s too different. Something has changed.”
“Follow that line of thought, Mademoiselle,” Shaya said as he watched Meg’s mind work.
“It’s someone else? But who?” Meg asked in awe of the revelation.
“I do not know, but I mean to find out. More importantly, I mean to discover why.”
Meg opened her mouth as if to answer then shut it quickly before taking a sip of her chocolate. Shaya wondered what her theory was and if she would share it with him at some point, but he didn’t wish to pry right now. He had other business.
“I told you I needed a favor. I need your help to help me solve this – a woman on the inside,” Shaya explained. “And I also need help with another mystery that may or may not be related. I’m not sure.”
“Does it have to do with whoever has been following you?”
Shaya smiled. “Like I said, you’re a smart girl. Yes. I need help to find out who has hired detectives to spy on me. Since I can’t walk into their offices and ask, I need an assistant.”
“And you want that to be me?” Meg let out a rather undignified guffaw. “I don’t know the first thing about detective work or subterfuge!”
“Perhaps not, but are you willing to learn? I know you do not know me well, but I promise I'm a trustworthy teacher.” Shaya took a sip of the thick, rich chocolate as he regarded Meg.
“Why would you trust me?”
“The ghost trusted your mother,” Shaya confessed. “And in the end, I trusted him. I wish to continue to honor what he saw in your family.”
“And you have no one else to ask,” Meg finished for him, sitting up a bit straighter.
“That is also a factor.”
Meg Giry gave him a long, discerning look before a sly smile spread over her young face. “Well, I’ve always been a good student. Start teaching.”