Page 51 of Angel's Kiss
“Give that here!” She snatched at the coins.
“Information first, if you please,” Shaya said, clasping his hand, and the woman scoffed.
“Fine. But I better not see this in the papers, or the mistress will have me whipped before I’m turned out on the street.” Shaya raised an eyebrow. From all he had heard of Carlotta, it was hard to have sympathy for the ordeal she’d experienced the night before. “But she’d have to write that and she ain’t that patient.”
“Write it down?”
“She’s got no voice!” the maid crowed, as if it was the most delightful thing. “There has to have been half a dozen doctors in and out of here, and none of them can say where it’s gone or why. The hag claims she was poisoned. She keeps writing that over and over anytime she wakes up from the stuff they’re giving her.Poison. Doctors think it’s hysteria. That’s what I heard one say before she threw a lamp at him.”
“Does she say anything else?” Shaya asked, the weight of having all his suspicions confirmed settling on his shoulders. “Or write, I guess.”
“Only two things: she writes ‘ghost’ and a name, ‘Christine.’”
“She thinks Christine Daaé is behind this?”
“Who knows what the bitch thinks! It doesn’t matter now. She’s done for.” Shaya blanched in alarm and the maid laughed. “Oh she ain’t dying. But one of them doctors said she may never get her voice back, and that’s as good as dying for a lady who lives on her voice, ain’t it?”
“I would not disagree,” Shaya muttered as he handed the girl the coins. “Thank you.”
“Good luck with whatever it is you’re doing,” she said and walked away. Shaya turned in the opposite direction, following his well-trod path home. He needed some rest, in all truth, and it was long past time for morning prayers.
Some days he wondered if it mattered when he missed one or more of his five daily turns towards Mecca. Allah knew his prayers; they had been the same for seven years. He prayed for strength in his cause. For righteousness and steadfastness. And for justice. Always for justice. And some days justice had a very different name and he prayed for revenge.
––––––––
It was Christine whowoke alone this time. She knew it before she opened her eyes. Despite the blankets atop her, there was a warmth missing from the bed, and she missed it. At least Erik’s music was there in his stead, the lilt of the piano wafting from the parlor in a familiar melody. She mused on it as she stretched, considering how Erik’s skin was often so cold but at his core, he was as warm-blooded as any man. He must have left a while ago because she could feel no trace of that heat on the sheets beside her.
She wished she could. It was an idle desire, born of a relaxed mind at the edge of slumber. Maybe she had dreamed something of the kind too, nestled against him and feeling so safe and cherished. In the still of the morning in his bed, with an angel’s music in her ears, and his kiss in her memory, Christine wished and dreamed many things. She wondered how it would feel to kiss him until his skin was warm under her touch, and how deeply he would kiss her and touch her in return. The place she wished he would touch flared with an ache between her thighs.
It had been so long since she had let herself remember the way her angel had touched her in the darkness. The thoughts had come many times, yes, but she had pushed them away. But now she let her mind explore, along with her hand, and the piano sang with the melody that she recognized now. The one her angel had sung to her in their most intimate and sinful moments.
She listened to her angel play their secret song, floating on waves of perfect melody, and groped at the throbbing spot through her nightdress. She wouldn’t do more. She couldn’t. Not inhisbed. She couldn’t bring herself to go past that barrier of linen and feel how wet his music and the memories made her. But it felt so good to touch herself. And yet it paled in comparison to what the angel had given her. To what Erik could give her still.
Christine’s breath was quick and shallow now, as she rubbed hard, desperate for more, her legs a vice around her hand. She listened as Erik’s melody grew in intensity, and she called on the memory she had resisted the most, of her first night in this bed and his mouth on her sex, his deft fingers within her, bringing her higher as that melody entranced her. She had kissed that mouth. She didn’t fear it, nor the man it belonged to now. If she was brave, perhaps...
She bit her lip, the idea of letting Erik taste her again pushing her closer to climax as the music rose to a crescendo...then stopped. Christine gasped, denied release, trying to hold on to the momentum, but it was gone. She withdrew her hand, panting and about ready to crawl out of her skin with need. She could hear the faintest sound of Erik’s quill on parchment. Of course he had to stop to write things down. She groaned in frustration. Then blanched as the unmistakable sound of the piano bench being pushed back thundered through the house.
Shit.Shit.He was going to come back in and find her in this state and Christine wanted to dig herself right into the catacombs to escape. He knew what that music meant and was going to walk in and know what she had been doing the instant he saw her with cheeks flushed and, Christ in heaven, she could feel her damn nipples hard against the fabric of her night dress and he could so easily see them. She was going to die of shame!
Acting on pure instinct, she sprang from the bed and rushed to the bath, shutting the door behind her just as Erik called her.
“Christine?” She turned on the water by way of reply. “Oh. I’ll, uh, leave you to that.” She shoved her face into the frigid stream and screamed at herself inside her head. She was a fool and trollop and an idiot and probably damned. She stood up, face dripping, and expected to see her reflection in the mirror. But there was none. Remembering where she was and why there was nothing reflective at all in this otherwise well-appointed bath that sobered her fully.
She closed her eyes and breathed deep. Erik wasn’t the kind to judge her, but he was the kind to see her run away intohisbath rather than look at him and think it was because of some offense of his. Christine sighed and finished seeing to her needs in the bath as quickly as she could and hoped she was composed enough to pass for normal when she came out. She did not find Erik in his room, but instead back at the piano, scrawling away at his latest composition. He looked comfortable and ruffled, his dark shirt unbuttoned at the collar and his vest open. Once again, he was wearing the mask.
He looked up at her when she cleared her throat.
“I’m sorry, I wanted to get myself decent,” she half-lied when she saw the worry in his eyes.
“I understand. I’m sorry if I woke you. I was inspired,” he said, and Christine smiled shyly.
“It’s beautiful.” Christine ventured closer, peering at the music and trying to discern Erik’s tangled notations. “Unlike your handwriting.”
“I think it’s passable for someone with no formal instruction in the art,” Erik grumbled. “And it’s not like I’ve ever had to worry about anyone but me ever reading it.”
“Do you ever sign your work?” Christine asked, growing so bold as to leaf through the sheaves of music piled on the piano.
“I’d need a longer name for that, and I’ve only ever gone by Erik, so, no.” Christine leaned on the piano lid, trying to discern his thoughts. It was much harder to do with his mask on, and she found herself missing the expressiveness of his bare face, despite its horrors.
