Chapter 17 #3
I smiled sadly, understanding what had happened. “We left Deauville soon after you did. Father was with an orchestra in Rome that fall. The café probably just threw the letters out. Father was terrible about leaving changes of address.”
Raoul looked crushed. “You never received my letters?”
I shook my head.
“Any of them?” he asked with incredulity.
Uncertainty didn’t sit well on Raoul. He was usually so confident, so perpetually at ease with his place and his understanding of the world around him.
It was something I’d admired about him during our brief relationship.
As a lonely young girl, I’d never had a sense of who I was, not until someone came along and assigned me a part.
Watching Raoul glide through life, I envied and admired him.
But now he looked so miserably thwarted. I wondered if this was the first time he’d ever had something not go according to plan, and I found myself wanting to do something to lift his spirits once more.
Inspired, I turned my hand around, letting our fingers knot together as I leaned closer. “Tell me what they said.”
“Oh…looking back, they were probably abominable, full of that exquisite angst that permeates so much of youth. But I remember…I remember telling you how much I enjoyed our time together. I remember writing whole paragraphs on how your eyes haunted me. How I’d go to sleep each night only to have my dreams consumed with the curve of your smile, the blush of your cheeks, your pink-tipped gloves. ”
“So you did notice!” I crowed in triumph.
“I will have a dozen boxes of the finest kid gloves sent here in penance,” he promised. Raoul pressed his lips together, watching me with interest. “And…and if you’d gotten the letters…would you have written me back?”
I pictured my sixteen-year-old self, remembering the way my heart had felt cleft in two when I’d discovered the de Chagnys had left.
Father had tried so hard to console me, saying it was only a youthful lark, a little summer distraction, but I’d felt as though my world had ended.
I’d lost not only the person I’d loved being around most, but the version of me I was when I was with him.
My smiles were wider, my laughter brighter.
I’d loved who I was when I’d been in Raoul’s company.
My answer came easily. “Of course I would have.”
He made a little humming sound of contentment.
“That summer was…” I started. “It was magical.”
“Magical?”
Every part of me noticed the way his thumb rubbed at the back of my hand, warming the soft sweep of skin, and for a moment, I couldn’t respond. “Well…yes…You’d been so terribly gallant, racing to save my scarf. I’ll never forget how you looked when you came out of the sea.”
“I was probably like a great wolfhound, dripping water and long strings of seaweed everywhere,” he said with an irresistible note of chagrin.
“You were like a god of old emerging from the waves,” I hurried to assure him. “So noble and heroic and tanned. Your cheeks were covered with a patch of freckles, and I…” I could feel the dimples in my own cheeks deepen. “I was so smitten with you.”
His brow furrowed. “If only we’d not been thwarted by the damnable post!”
“If only,” I agreed, and we held each other’s gazes, smiling.
I couldn’t remember the last time I’d smiled so much, the last time I’d felt this at ease. I’d forgotten this was a part of being with Raoul. Everything haloed gleaming and golden in his presence. Worries dissolved like lumps of sugar in tea, and the world seemed bright and beaming.
Already, I could feel myself relax as he leaned back against his cushions, recounting stories of the after-party and the little amusing things he’d noticed from his box at the opera. My chest filled with a buoyancy I’d not experienced since Father had died. I grinned. I giggled.
And he…he couldn’t take his eyes off me. I felt captivating and witty, like a rough pebble held in the hands of a master jeweler. I was assessed and placed into the setting that best befit me, and then, oh then, how I sparkled.
“Let me take you out for lunch,” Raoul said suddenly, already brightening in anticipation of my acceptance.
Reality crashed into the sparkling bubble he’d built with all the bluster of a swinging sledgehammer. “Oh…I couldn’t possibly. You’ve already given me such a lovely bouquet and…and all of your morning.” I was shocked to look at the brass clock on my mantel and see it was already past noon.
“I would happily give you double that. Triple, even. Oh, please, Christine, say yes?” He jumped to his feet and held out his hand.
I opened my mouth, ready for a dozen excuses to come pouring out, but they didn’t.
I knew that I shouldn’t. I should stay at home and practice the Countess’s “Poor Fool” aria—Erik would expect me to have it memorized and ready for our next coaching—but Carlotta had returned and my new part was silent.
Surely I could take an afternoon off, one afternoon for myself.
My Angel—Erik—the Opera Ghost—would never know.
“I’d love to,” I said, and took Raoul’s hand.