Unmasqued: An Erotic Novel of The Phantom of The Opera (2 page)

Then, before Christine could blink an eye, Madame Giry had whisked over from her management of the dancers and pulled her forward, thrusting her in front of the managers. “Miss Daaé will be a more-than-adequate replacement for La Carlotta this evening. Her singing has improved enormously in the last three months.”

Monsieur Richard looked down at Christine, arching one brow as he scanned her simple chorus costume, patched where it had been burned by a careless hair-curling iron, and frayed at the skirt’s hem. Christine’s palms dampened as she clasped her hands together, uncertain whether to dread or hope. It was the chance she’d never thought she’d have. “One of the dancer girls? I do not see how—”

“Come, Richard, it cannot hurt to give the girl a chance,” Moncharmin prodded. “After all, who else is there?” He made a sweeping gesture for Christine to step forward onto the main part of the stage, then turned to the maestro and snapped an order for him to play.

Her throat so dry she wasn’t sure any note would come forth, Christine walked to center stage, her full, calf-length skirt bouncing with each step. The platform, which pitched at a gentle slant from the back down toward the gaslights along the edge, seemed
vast and frightening, despite the fact that the seats in the stalls were completely empty.

A few awkward notes as the violinists found their chairs again, and the cellist readied his bow, for the orchestra had left their seats when the accident with the backdrop occurred and had to get re-settled…and then, as if she had waited an eternity, the melody.

She knew the music, and opened her mouth to sing, pushing her breath out as her angel had taught her, keeping her mouth rounded and her notes long and true until the end. As her song poured forth—hesitant at first, then a bit wobbly, then soft, then louder and clearer—Christine basked in the wonder of the most exciting moment of her seventeen years.

She closed her eyes, every detail of the beautiful Opera House printed on her memory, but in her imagination, she added people filling the rows of stalls that curved in an easy arch in front of the pit, and in the gallery beyond. The high, domed ceiling of the auditorium was painted with Lenepveu’s colorful rendition of the Muses, dancing gracefully in a circle of clouds. In the center of the painting stretched a long chain from which hung a magnificent crystal chandelier.

Boxes with crimson interiors adorned the walls of the auditorium, the closest ones near enough that Christine would be able to see the detail of any female spectator’s gown. Massive gold columns separated the boxes, and the front of each balcony was decorated with an ornate design of flowers, fleurs-de-lis, and cherubs. Above Christine’s head, over the proscenium, trumpeted more angels with their elegant instruments.

Even if the managers did not let her sing tonight, she was standing on the stage and
doing it
: doing the thing she had dreamed of, fantasized about, since she was young.

If this was to be her only chance,
he
had prepared her well for
it, and she would enjoy every moment of it. Christine had learned that things changed much too quickly in life, and to seize joy when it was offered…for it was much too rare and precious.

When she finished singing, Christine could not resist making a grand curtsy, though there was no audience to see her. When she straightened up, she glanced first at Madame Giry—whose stern face held the barest sketch of approval—and then at the skeptical Monsieur Richard.

He was smiling.

Now, as they prepared for the evening performance that was to celebrate the Opera House’s two new managers, as well as its new patrons, Madame stood behind Christine and surveyed her in the floor-to-ceiling mirror.

“You look beautiful, Christine,” she told her, critically examining her from the fall of the gown to the pile of dark hair at the top of her head. Their eyes met above the three busy costumiers that poked and prodded at Christine’s headdress, her shoes, her flounces. “He will be very pleased.”

At the mention of
him
, Christine felt the air stir in her small dressing room. It became warm, suddenly, yet the tip of her nose cooled; the hair on her arms lifted. Her cheeks burned while the shift in the air felt like a caress over the back of her bare shoulders and neck. If only her angel would show himself to her…come to her in person, instead of just in that hypnotic, pulling, beautiful voice he used when tutoring her in her singing.

“It is my greatest hope that I shall do so.” She was looking at the mirror directly in front of her, the item that dominated the small, narrow dressing room. The room
he
had insisted she use now that she was no longer in the chorus, according to Madame Giry.

“Come, now, you have done with the fussing!” Madame snapped at the frithering girls, who seemed to have noticed a change in the air and were casting about in fright. “Out!”

She shepherded everyone out and, with her hand on the door, turned to look at Christine. “He wishes a moment with you before you sing.”

Christine was startled. Their lessons, where he taught her to master her untutored voice and to feel the music throughout her entire being, occurred in the chapel, where she prayed for her father and mother, and where he had first spoken to her, or in the conservatoire. But never had he communicated with her at any other time. Would he speak to her now?

Madame was gone, and Christine stood in front of the mirror, looking at herself and the long expanse of empty chamber behind her. The light burned low and warm, yet the shadows loomed tall into the curved ceiling.

She felt him. He was there, her
Ange de Musique
, her Angel of Music.

The air trembled and the gas lamps blinked out with a soft
pop.
Her heart fluttered in her chest; her palms grew damp just as they had done this afternoon. Yet she did not move, but watched as what had been her reflection in the grand mirror slid into nothing but glinting shades of silver, gray, and black.

And then…something light and warm, heavy and gentle, brushed over the back of her shoulders, along the curved edge of the back of her dress. She released her breath, and the warmth closed over her skin. Her heart beat rapidly; he was there! He was in the room with her!

Leather—smooth, cool, pliable—fingered over her skin, the dip of her delicate bones, brushing the long bareness of her neck. Heat rushed in the wake of his touch, sending sharp pleasure down into
the depths of her belly. She closed her eyes, drew in a shudder, and reached out for the cold glass of the mirror in front of her. Her hand imprinted on its unyielding chill, an anomaly from the warmth that burned against her back.

He breathed, standing behind her, and she felt his height, strength, darkness wrapping around her. “On the stage, you will sing for me this night.”

As always, the timbre of his voice frightened her with its intensity, warmed her with its smooth cadence, teased her with its hint of mockery. It embodied the beauty of the music she loved so, with its rhythm and tone and its cool, unforgiving command. And tonight, instead of coming to her from some disembodied location, it was there, behind her, next to her. Touching her.

“I will.” She started to turn, to face him, desperately wanting to see him…but his hands on her shoulders stopped her. Firmly.

“No.”

She had never seen her
ange
, had heard him speak to her only in darkness such as this, or even in the low light of the conservatoire when she visited there alone to practice…in the chapel, when he sang in a low, ghostly murmur whilst she prayed for the soul of her lost father, and that of her mother, who’d died so long ago. Perhaps once she had felt him touch her, as he did tonight, but she had been sleeping and was not certain if it had been a dream.

This—his leather-covered hands smoothing over her shoulders and around to cup her neck, curving around her throat, leaving delicate shivers in their wake—was no dream. She’d often wondered if he was a spirit or a ghost. But the warm solidness behind her answered her question: He was no ghost.

He was a man, perhaps more…but he was no specter to dissolve into thin air. The Opera Ghost was an angel, with a darkly rich voice.

When he sang, a tenor.

When he coaxed, velvet smooth.

When he raged, cold and cutting as a stiletto.

“Christine…,” he breathed in her ear, his mouth close and warm. The syllables of her name were a deep, ringing well of elegant, coaxing tones.

The fingers of her right hand, splayed on the glass of the mirror, slipped a fraction from the nervous moisture beneath her palm. Her other hand reached up behind her head, collided with soft, sleek hair that did not belong to her. She dug her fingers into the heavy strands, felt the shift of his scalp under her finger pads as something behind her moved, pressing into the back of her hips. Hard, solid, hot, he was, and she felt it even through the layers of silk and crinolines. It caused a burst of warmth to flood to the place between her legs and Christine removed her hand from the mirror.

Her fingers were cold and moist, and they sought back behind her, brushing over the top of his head as her left hand had done…and then slid down over his temples, and touched something smooth and unexpected where his forehead would be—lifeless, cool, and yielding. Not flesh, not hair—

He shifted away from her touch, grabbing her hands and pulling them down behind her, between them, trapping them at the base of her spine, where the folds of his cloak billowed about. “Your boldness surprises me, Christine.”

“Why can I not see you?”

“When it is time.” Something hot and warm, faintly moist, touched her neck and sent shivers down to the base of her belly; she tried to turn toward him, but his hands gripped her wrists too tightly. “When it is time,” he repeated, his mouth against her delicate shoulder. “Now…you sing for me tonight. And if you please me, you shall be rewarded with my devotion.”

And then he was gone.

The lights fluttered back to life, and Christine was alone in her room. The only sign of what had occurred was the streak of fingerprints on the mirror…and a glistening trail of moisture along her neck.

The sea of faces, the heat from the hooded gas lamps at the edge of the stage, the strange constriction of the heavy costume…the blur of light and sound and the deep breaths that she needed to take…the mosaic of sensations swam in Christine’s mind as she sang. She felt the music tear from her body as if released by some pent-up energy. She heard the reverberation as the clear, high notes swelled and filled the stage alcove. And then she drew in her last breath and expelled the last note, and the sea of rapt faces turned into a mass of thunderous applause, cheers, shouts.

L’Ange de Musique
would be pleased.

And over the shouts and whistles, she heard it, deep in her heart.…“Brava…
bravissima
…”

And in the wings of the stage, she saw Madame Giry, nodding and beaming with clear, studying eyes.

Christine was left in the midst of the stage to make a careful curtsy in her heavy, formfitting gown, over and over. Flowers, gloves, even hats, were tossed onstage at her feet.

From the box in which they were sitting, the Comte and Vicomte de Chagny watched Christine Daaé’s bowed head as she made her third curtsy. Still the crowd roared and applauded.

“Quite a lovely woman. Very lush,” mused Philippe, the
comte
, settling back in his seat. “It is no wonder the dancer La Sorelli never
cared to introduce her to me during our attachment. Miss Daaé is her name? I wonder where she came from and how long she has been here. I have never seen her in the dancers’ lounge, nor in the singers’ lounge. I wonder where she has been hiding.”

“Her father died some years ago,” replied Raoul, his younger brother. “I do not know how long she has been here at the Opera House. I only learned she was here this week. I have not spoken with her in years.”

“So it is no wonder that you insisted that you would attend tonight, without your regular companion of Mademoiselle Le Rochet.”

Philippe noticed that Raoul had not taken his eyes from the dark-haired figure below. “I met Miss Daaé at the sea near Perros-Guirec some years ago.…Do you recall that summer? You were there too, that first day I met her and her father.”

“I am sure I would not forget such a lovely form if I had seen it before.” No, indeed. He was not accustomed to passing by such lovely womanhood without finding a way to sample it. And an actress, of course, would be simple and easy for the picking…despite the growing strength of the bourgeois, who believed that with the Third Republic and the rise of their class, the actresses had miraculously become modest and moral.

A laughable assumption.

“We were younger then. She was but a girl. I saved her scarf from being blown away by the surf—oh, look at her! She looks as though she might faint!” Raoul stood from his seat as if to rush to her side.

Philippe grabbed his arm and pulled him back. “Sit, dear brother. It is not fitting for a Chagny to make a fool of himself over a singer or dancer, even one as beautiful and gifted as she. And see, the others have caught her. She is not about to crumple to the floor
in front of an entire opera house without someone else noticing.” Indeed, several of the dancers had rushed to her side and caught her as she began to sag. Her face did look pale. Philippe turned and considered Raoul thoughtfully. “You appear quite taken with her.”

“I’ve never met a more lovely, endearing woman. It was an unforgettable summer, and I spent a great deal of time with them. You were too busy with your own affairs to notice. I met her father, a great violinist, who would play for us…and she would sing. Only passably then, but with great promise. She sings more beautifully now than she ever has. Before Monsieur Daaé died, he would tell us wonderful stories about the Angel of Music and Little Lotte…tales from Sweden, where they were from. He never came to love it here in France, and often told us stories from their homeland, for which he was strongly homesick.” Raoul seemed lost in his memories, a fact that greatly annoyed Philippe, who preferred to live for the moment.