Angel Hands (22 page)

He watched as Mireille became stronger and more herself with each passing hour. It still shocked him, though, when she would get up from the sofa and, dragging her blanket with her, dump herself unceremoniously in his lap, demanding to be 'kept warm' while she napped.

Holding her was precious agony, each moment a grain of joy pulled remorselessly down through the hourglass by unforgiving time and gravity. His heart was full of love for her, and it seemed in those minutes that his love was enough to seal all the cracks and fissures of his soul.

Every step towards wellness Mireille made was also a different kind of agony, one that burned as it cut a million new fine lines into his heart. He had promised that when she was well, she could leave.

As he sat by the fire, watching her cradle her teacup in her hands and stare into the flames, he realized that by the next morning, she could reasonably be considered fully recovered.

Though she had said nothing of her plans, he knew his Mireille—no, not his Mireille, not any more. She would have charted her course with precise and pragmatic detail.

He tried not to imagine her chosen path taking her back to Raymond Lefebre. However, he couldn't deny that she might very well seek refuge in his arms.

Curse or penance? He couldn't decide why it was that he forever played the role of the spurned lover. Forcing himself to face the truth was not easy, but he admitted that, until now, his heart had been as monstrous as his face. He had been no lover. His 'love' had been parasitic, capricious, and selfish.

He smiled sardonically to himself that while no man appreciated beauty more, he had had just about his fill of the fragile, bittersweet beauty of goodbyes.

"Why are you smiling?" Mireille asked.

"I am comparing my life to an opera," he replied, chuckling. "I cannot decide if it is a farcical tragedy or a tragic farce."

She made a disgusted face. "As a very wise young man once told me, life is what you make of it."

"Monsieur Lefebre?" He tried to sound nonchalant.

She stared at him, then laughed. "No, Pierre Buprès."

He found himself laughing as well, and remembered another piece of advice from that wise young man about wooing and talking.

"On the rare occasion I don't feel like strangling the scamp," he conceded. "I find him rather pleasant."

"I could have strangled him for following me to Brasserie St. Auban the other day," Mireille mused, but her sidelong glance told him that she had guessed about the spying mission undertaken at his request. "I still might."

His cheeks grew warm, and he looked away. An amused, "Hmmm," from Mireille told him that he was forgiven. Mostly.

"What is that you are reading?" she asked after some moments of silence.

"It is a letter I received with a tentative list of productions for the season in Milano, Vienna, and Madrid."

"I thought you said we were not going to try and compete with the large established opera houses."

"We are not, but it is always good to be aware of what they are doing. It seems that tragedies are in vogue this season."

Mireille nodded thoughtfully. "A series of small comic operettas would certainly set us apart."

"Exactly." Warmth filled him at her quick wits and sharp business sense. Just as quickly, though, cold took its place as he remembered that she would be leaving soon.

She yawned and stretched. Now that she was no longer ill, he found he could not help the way his blood stirred at the sight of her pale arms and neck, revealed by her nightgown tumbling about her shoulders. By the light of the fire, her hair gleamed like honey in sunlight.

"Well, it's something to think on," she said noncommittally, standing up and inadvertently allowing the light of the fire to reveal other things that made his Adam's apple bob up and down. "But, I am tired now and shall go to bed."

He stood up, as a gentleman always did when a lady rose. With a courtly gesture, he motioned for her to precede him. She gave him a curious look, then turned and walked toward her bed. He followed her, intending only to offer any assistance she might require, and then leave. Quickly.

Reaching around her to twitch back the covers for her, he straightened to find her facing him, and suddenly standing so very, very close.

Her hazel eyes were dark and full of questions, but his mouth had gone dry and had no answers. His fingers flexed and clenched with the urge to touch her cheeks and neck. He inhaled deeply, hoping to capture her breath and imprison it within his lungs.

He trembled with the effort required to restrain himself from throwing her back on the bed and tasting every inch of her skin, then pounding into her until they screamed each other's names.

It was impossible to read her expression, and he had ceased trusting himself to know what she was thinking. It was clear that he was an abject failure in that department.

No, he could not know what she was thinking, nor what she...wanted.

Though, a trick of the shadows almost convinced him that her expression was an invitation, that she wanted him.

He jerked back, shocked at how close their faces had come. One breath, one little second of teetering off-balance, and they would have kissed. He closed his eyes and heart, beating back the grief. She could not possibly want that, not from him.

"You should get into bed," he said gently, stepping back from her.

She frowned but nodded and got into bed, curling into a little ball as he drew the covers back up and over her.

"Goodnight, Mireille," he said from her doorway.

"Goodnight," she mumbled. "Sleep well...once you're done booby-trapping my opera house for the night."

Could one laugh while one's heart was breaking?

It seemed eminently possible.

***

Mireille studied the shadows on her ceiling. Their indistinct shapes and constant shifting seemed a fitting metaphor for her confused feelings.

Tomorrow, she could announce her plan to leave.

She had thought it all through in great detail. She would not ask him for money, well, not as part of some atonement for him. No, she would only ask for the equivalent of a manager's salary for the past two months she had worked at the Opéra de Versailles. That was fair. It would assuage some of his guilt and give her a bit of necessary ready cash.

Then she would pack the few toiletries and clothes she owned. She had no compunction about taking these, even though he had paid for them. After all, what was he going to do with corsets, garter belts, petticoats, and black bombazine dresses?

A ridiculous image of him dressed as a woman, but with his mask and cape, stalking about the opera house flashed across her mind, and she snickered silently. For a brief moment, she wanted to tell him about it and hear him laugh.

That thought quickly sobered her. He would not be laughing when she told him she was leaving. She had no doubt he would hold to his end of the bargain. Except, it wasn't a bargain. It was a gift from him, one without strings or tricks.

She would pack her things, take the money of her salary, and hire a carriage to return her to Paris, taking her straight to the Opéra de Paris. She would find Raymond and apologize for her abruptness the other day, explain that she had been overwrought and falling ill, and then ask him to accept her hand in marriage.

She tried to smile at the humor of her asking him to marry her, but it didn't feel quite right. There was no question in her mind that this was the right thing to do, and in point of practicality, this was the only thing she could do. Without family, friends, or fortune, marriage was her only recourse.

Raymond would love her, be gentle with her, and take care of her. She would know the pleasure of being mistress of her own home, no matter how small the establishment. With Raymond, she guessed they would have a maid and a cook, but not much else. Still, that would be enough. Eventually, there might even be children. Her heart lurched at the unexpected jolt of tenderness she felt at the thought of her own child. Yes, there would be children, and Raymond would be an excellent father. He would be an excellent husband and companion as well, for she knew he respected her ideas and opinions. They would have interesting discussions about the latest productions, and there would surely be excursions to museums, galleries, and cafes to fill their evenings and weekends.

It would be a safe, pleasant life. An ideal life. She was confident about the logic and workability of her plan.

Why, then, did she still wish her current husband had pushed her down on the bed and made rough, passionate love to her, making her burn for his touch and irrevocably binding her to him with songs and seduction?

Clearly, the fever had damaged her brain, and her husband had been too kind to tell her.

That was the only explanation.

Well, the only acceptable explanation.

***

"I'll say, monsieur, but that's a fine bit of carpentry there!" Pierre Buprès exclaimed in admiration.

He concurred silently as he tested the sliding of the false panel, using the pressure of his fingers to bring the panel back into place on the wall. He inspected the plane and seams to make sure it blended perfectly into the rest of the wall.

"Did you fix the other one yet?" Pierre asked.

He stilled. "Which other one?"

"The one in the prop room. It squeaks a bit."

"I have not told you about that one."

"Well, I'm not the resident opera ghost for nothing, monsieur."

He frowned. "I thought we agreed there would be no more of that. Not here."

Pierre sighed dramatically. "I'm so good at it, though. It seems such a shame to let all my talent go to waste."

He agreed it was a pity to let talent go to waste...any talent. A bubble of bitterness at the loss of Kristin's voice floated up in his soul then popped in the realization that he mourned her talent but did not feel the sting of it in his heart. The world had been deprived of her music, but it was by her choice, and she was a human being with the freedom, free will, and right to make the choices about her life.

Reeling from the wonder of these new insights and feelings, he barely registered Pierre's words.

"Is madame really going to leave us?"

He opened his mouth to demand how Pierre knew of his private conversation with Mireille, but he stopped. There was no point in denying it, and no doubt the boy had been practicing his opera ghost skills.

"It is up to her," he said instead, as evenly as he could. "But, it would not surprise me if she did. She does not want to stay here."

"Did she say that?"

"Some things do not need to be said. They are simply fundamentally true."

Pierre canted his head to one side. "Maybe she won't leave. Maybe she will stay here with us."

He decided the strange twinge he felt in his heart was actually pity, the first pity he had ever felt for another living being. Pierre would miss Mireille. The boy had been distraught when she was ill, an indefatigable dog-on-duty, ready to run any errand or do the smallest thing to help his mistress.

"I would begin to accustom yourself to the idea," he said as kindly as he could.

Pierre made a dissatisfied sound. "You should try to make her stay."

"No."

"You won't fight for her? Why?"

"Enough, young Buprès." His voice carried the softest hint of warning. He would never harm the boy, but his patience for enduring a catechism on his bad decisions, broken heart, and atonement was wearing thin. 

He worked in silence for a few moments, testing the pressure point of the panel, causing it to slide open.

"Is it true you are a composer, monsieur?" Pierre asked, obviously searching for another conversational tack.

He looked at his hands on the wall panel. "I was once called an Angel of Music, and my hands could create great beauty on an instrument. I was also an Angel of Death, and these hands made an art of robbing men of their lives."

"Hrmph," Pierre said, unimpressed. "Meaning no disrespect, monsieur, but I'm pretty sure angels don't have hands. If they did, they would slapped some sense into you and madame by now."

He gritted his teeth.

"You love madame," Pierre continued. "It wouldn't take much to get her to love you, too. So, why not? Why not be happy?"

"I do not wish to 'get' her to do anything," he replied testily. "I would wish her to choose to love me."

"'Get,' 'choose,' it's the same thing. Nothing would get done in this world if we didn't try to change each other's minds about things. If you want my advice-"

"I don't."

"-I say it's never too late to try. You've done the talking and the flowers thing. It's time to up the ante. You should kiss her!"

He didn't even wonder, anymore, at how Pierre knew about the heliotrope he had given Mireille. The suggestion to kiss her unleashed a torrent of images that were in no way appropriate to share with a boy of Pierre's tender years.

"We won't discuss it any further, if you please," he said frostily, dragging his mind back from the precipice of forbidden pleasure.

Pierre sighed and got to his feet. "Well, monsieur, in that case, I'm off to bed. Oh, and I changed my mind. Slapping wouldn't work. The angels would need to knock your heads together to get you to see the light. Good night!"

He stood alone in the dark room, unable to explain or confess that the angels had already pummeled his mind, his heart, and his conscience until he no longer recognized them...

Until he was no longer the broken, bitter, hateful ghost.

Until he was nothing more than human.

30. Of Business and Science

It was absolutely intolerable.

He would not stand for it any longer.

He would go straight up to her and demand an answer.

As soon as he found the courage to do so.

Another week had passed, and absolutely nothing had changed. Mireille had simply resumed her old routine, forcing him to play along with feigned detachment. All the while, his heart was straining, stretched thin and taut.