Angel Hands (12 page)

The rain lashed against the window, and she dozed fitfully in bed, waking to listen to its pelting rhythm. There was a slight noise, something inside not outside, that she couldn't quite identify, something that made her sit bolt upright.

Then the darkest shadows of her room moved, and he stepped out into her line of sight.

"You!" she exclaimed, forgetting to pull the sheet up modestly over herself.

He let out a disgusted sigh, brushing droplets of water from the sleeves of his coat. "You just had to pick a fourth story flat on a busy street, didn't you?"

"What?"

"This visit took some planning."

She found herself prey to too many emotions, so settled for glaring at him. "I wonder that you came at all."

"I thought it was only fitting."

"Fitting? For what?"

"To call upon you before we were married."

For a moment, Mireille seriously doubted she had heard correctly. It sounded so wrong, yet suspiciously like he had said something about getting married.

"I beg your pardon?" she said slowly and deliberately.

"On Friday, we shall have a small, private ceremony at five o'clock at the registry in Rue de la Guimette."

"I'm sorry, I think I must still be half asleep because my Opera Ghost has just waltzed into my room and announced that I will be marrying him in two days’ time. You'll forgive me if I seem confused."

"Stupid girl! Think! It is the best and only possible solution to your problems...and to mine."

She couldn't help but smile, thinking of Raymond as the trump card she held.

"I have no interest in marrying you, monsieur," she replied demurely. "Even if I had, there are still eleven months of mourning that must pass before I may marry."

"Since when were you conventional?"

"Since my circumstances changed so...drastically."

"You are being difficult."

"Am I?"

"You are a penniless orphan now."

"Thank you for your condolences."

"Do you really want any more sympathy?" he snorted, taking a step closer to the bed.

"No," she admitted, realizing that she was thankful for him not bandying about the banal words of sympathy and loss. "But what I still don't understand is why you think this scheme would serve any purpose whatsoever," she added.

"I have my reasons."

"Do share. You fascinate me, as usual."

"Do you want to marry Carcasonne?"

"Of course not."

"Then you had better marry me."

"Ridiculous!"

"Guillaume Dubienne didn't think so. He thinks it an excellent match and signed the marriage contract this afternoon. The ceremony is set for Saturday at noon."

"What?"

"At three o'clock on Friday, you will express the need to take some air, just a turn about the block. You will proceed to the corner of Rue Montpiété and Rue Masbourg. A carriage will be waiting for you there. Take nothing with you, lest you rouse their suspicions."

"This is ridiculous! This cannot be happening—and, go back to the part about my cousin signing a marriage contract with Carcasonne. How on earth would you even know about such a thing?"

“Carcasonne uses your office now.”

No further explanation was needed, though she wondered at him still haunting the opera house when he declared he no longer lived there. She supposed business would take him back there on a regular basis.

The thought made her laugh for the first time in months.

“You do understand what you are to do on Friday?” he said haughtily.

The entire absurdity of her situation only made her laugh harder.

"This morning, I had no prospects, and now I have three offers of marriage," she said, shaking her head and hiccupping.

"Three?" The word was sharp.

She looked up, realizing she had slipped and played her best card by accident. She felt her cheeks burn slightly and looked away, as she mumbled, "Raymond announced his wishes."

His silence was as loud as yelling, and she didn't dare look at him.

"Three o'clock on Friday," he said softly, but his words were sharp and slicing. Then he stepped back into the shadows. There was a stirring of the curtains and a quick breeze, and he was gone.

"Three o'clock," she whispered to the shadows, and only silence answered.

16. Of Agents and Provocateurs

Mireille sat in the small sitting room, staring at the porcelain clock on the mantel. The hands were at 2:49 and traitorously inched closer to 2:50. It wouldn't be long before she had to decide whether to walk away from everything and marry a madman or face...face marrying a different kind of madman.

The fact that she had put off making the decision this long was probably the most disturbing thing about all of this. She had let the opportunities to run away, to elope with Raymond, to protest to her guardian all slip by her without protest. Now, her only choice was the one choice she ought to have dreaded the most.

She watched as the minute hand slid over another notch. 2:54.

She felt numb and sick. What was the Opera Ghost up to? What was his game, his plot, strategy? Where did Kristin Dahlèn, or rather la Vicomtesse de Chagnard fit into all of this now that she had retired from the stage? What was this all about? Would this be a legally binding marriage? Would he marry her before a priest? What in heaven's name was he doing?

There was only one way to find out.

Rising, she went to her room and fetched her slightly shabby black mourning bonnet and tied it into place. She took nothing with her, as instructed.

Her mind was foggy and frantic as she feigned calmness and returned to the sitting room. Agnes Dubienne, Guillaume’s widowed aunt and her erstwhile chaperone, looked up and frowned at her.

"Where are you going?" she asked peremptorily.

"Just to get some air, madame," Mireille replied dutifully. "Merely a turn about the block."

"Alone? That is not appropriate. Take Jeanette with you."

"But I shall return in a few minutes. There is no need to take your maid away from her duties."

"I say you will take Jeanette!"

"And I say I will not," Mireille retorted with some heat. "I will be back in a quarter of an hour."

She inclined her head with the barest amount of civility she could get away with and stormed out of the room. Before anyone could follow her, she quickly slipped down the stairs of the building and out the front door.

She made her way through the busy streets to the corner of Rue Montpiété and Rue Masbourg. Just as the Opera Ghost had promised, a nondescript closed carriage waited there. Taking a deep breath, she walked right up to it. Glancing up at the coachman, she nodded, and he bowed his head in return, as if acknowledging that she was the person he had been waiting for.

The carriage rattled through the streets, and Mireille sat quietly, staring out the window, but hardly paying attention to the easy rolling of everyday life past her eyes. A pit in her stomach started to form as she realized what she was truly doing, what she was committing to. What was she thinking?

Suddenly, as if she had just awakened from a dream, everything became painfully clear to her. It was like the Opera Ghost had cast some sort of spell on her when he came to her that night, just a few days ago, and just like an idiot, she had allowed herself—because of her grief, but that was really no excuse—to fall under his spell and be swept along.

Angrily, she reached forward and banged on the carriage wall.

"Stop at once!" she yelled. "I wish to get out!"

There was no response, and if anything, the carriage picked up speed. She banged on the walls again, and then gave up on that. She tried the doors, but they had been set to lock from the outside, and she was locked in. Frantically, she tried to lower the windows, only to find they were locked. She ripped off her half-boot and started banging it against the glass of the window, striking with all her might.

The window cracked, a spider web of destruction spreading over it, and finally shattered enough for her to knock out the most jagged pieces and stick her arm out to try and reach for the handle.

"'ere now! Stop that!" the driver yelled at her.

"Then stop the carriage!"

"Orders is orders, mam'zelle. Now you get back in there before you get hurt!"

It was too late for that. Careful as she had been, the glass had sliced through one arm of her dress and into her skin. Blood was flowing freely down her arm and dropping in big, ruby tears onto the wood and leather of the carriage.

Injury didn't stop her from trying to reach the door handle on the outside. Her hand grasped it, and she tugged instinctively, not realizing how heavily she was leaning on the door. It swung open while the carriage was still in motion, flinging Mireille into the street, her arm still hung around the door. If she let go, she would be thrown into the deadly chaos of the other carriages; horses and omnibuses nearly collided with her, and yet, she was too weak to pull herself back in. Her head struck something hard. Blood dripped onto her face from her arm, and she felt herself trying to hold on to consciousness just long enough to...to...

The carriage jerked to a stop, and she was vaguely aware of someone roughly shoving her back into the compartment, and that was all she knew.

***

She woke slowly, with memory coming back piecemeal to her. Blinking hard, she tried to adjust her eyes to the dim light around her. She sniffed, catching the scent of heavy incense. Slowly, she became aware of heavy silks around her body, and the bed she lay on was low and wide, and enclosed by light, gauzy curtains that made everything else in the room blurry.

Sitting up gingerly, she winced as her arm screamed in protest. She glanced down at all the bandages that were wrapped around it and made a face. Suddenly, she saw something else in the room move. A tall, dark figure rose from some sort of chair and seemed to carry the shadows with him as he approached the bed.

Mireille shrank back, even though she guessed who it was, proving herself right when the Opera Ghost gently pulled apart the sheer curtains at the foot of her bed. Beyond him, she could catch a glimpse of low couches, silk pillows and brass ewers on low, carved tables. Ornate glass lamps burned low, and carved sandalwood screens stood in the corners. There were tall windows with bars over them and a double door at the far end of the room. The room itself was small, but with high ceilings and crown moldings that put her in mind of a much older building, perhaps something from the 17
^th
century. The place reeked of Oriental elegance, but that was just background to what she really beheld, which was the man who had caused her so much trouble in the past, and who was clearly still causing her trouble.

"Well?" she demanded angrily.

He said nothing but smiled a bit. He wore his dark jacket, but no vest or cravat. It was as if he had been there some time and simply made himself comfortable.

"I'm waiting,” she snapped.

He let his eyes roam speculatively over her body, and she suddenly realized she was wearing not only an entirely-too-clingy silk nightgown, but that there wasn't that much of it, either. She pulled the covers up over her chest, looking up at him furiously.

He chuckled, a low, seductive purring sound that made her toes curl in exactly the wrong sense of anticipation.

"I want an explanation," she hissed.

"Would you care to see your apartments?"

"No, because I shan't be staying here. Where are my clothes?"

"Gone."

"What?"

"You shall wear what I provide you now."

"I most certainly will not. You had better return my things to me at once, you...you..."

"Say it!" he hissed, his eyes narrowing.

"You scheming, arrogant, selfish piece of shit!"

His expression flickered with surprise. "I wasn't expecting that," he murmured.

"What, you thought I was going to call you something derogatory to do with your physical appearance? That's not your fault, and so I can't pick on you for that. But I can call you on the carpet for you behavior, which has been reprehensible in its entirety!"

He stared at her, then faster than a snake strikes, he grabbed the covers with one hand and twitched them out of her grip before she could think, leaving her uncovered in her revealing nightgown. She scrambled to push herself back on the bed, but he grabbed her ankle and dragged her forward, the movement pushing the silk up her legs until it clung just barely below her hips.

He savagely yanked her into his arms, one arm wrapped around her waist and holding her up, the other firmly holding her jaw so that she couldn't turn away.

"Stop this!" she gasped, struggling as much as she could while still trying to keep the nightgown covering the important bits. "What do you want from me?"

"Isn't it obvious?" he growled, his breath hot on her skin.

"No! Not that!" she cried out, even though her body was crying out for exactly the opposite.

"Am I that repulsive to you?" he asked quietly.

"No, no, of course not that, but –" she didn't get a chance to speak any further because he suddenly laid her back down on the bed and bent over her, his hand moving from her waist to caress the curve of her hip and thigh as he held it against his side. He braced himself with his other arm and lowered himself until his face was almost touching hers.

"Then what exactly are your objections?" he breathed.

Her mind was a complete blank for a moment and she couldn't think of a single reason why she shouldn't let the Opera Ghost ease the burning in her body. She fought her way back to the edge of coherent thought and squirmed out from under him, pushing herself back towards the headboard.

But he matched her move for move, keeping her under him and moving on his hands and knees like some giant jungle cat stalking its prey.

"Why me?" she gasped finally, when there was nowhere left to go and was backed up against the headboard.