Page 79 of Angel's Fall

“Am I to dine with the family or remain up here like a prisoner?”

“I can’t imagine you’d be good company, but Raoul may demand it. I’d rather they send up a tray. I forgot to do it for lunch. Apologies.”

“You make me not want to say what I must to you.” Christine braced herself as the woman gave her another cold look.

“Do you have some fresh insult for my brother? The man who has – despite everything you’ve done to him – deigned to save you and redeem you with his name?”

“No, only for the manyouintend to marry,” Christine answered calmly. “Antoine is—”

“Yvette, leave us,” Sabine snapped before Christine could finish. The maid gave them a nervous look and rushed from the room. “What do you have to say about my fiancé?”

“He raped and beat my friend. He’s horrible.” Christine didn’t even try to keep the hate out of her voice. Sabine’s face remained implacable.

“It’s strange to hear suchcritiquesfrom a woman who has been ruined. By a criminal and a killer, if I am not mistaken?” Sabine shrugged. “Is there anything else?”

“Don’t you care?”

“Antoine has been stumbling into my room while Philippe passed out in a puddle of brandy for years. Nothing you could say of him would surprise me.” Sabine’s face was full of a brittle, hardened sort of fury as that not even her veneer of propriety could fully conceal. Christine was horrified.

“He’s taken advantage—”

“I’m as ruined as you, butIunderstand that a man with a family name wanting me at my age and in my position is better than withering away to nothing. Or throwing my life away for some romantic dream,” Sabine went on, as if she’d said it to herself a hundred times. “That’s what you need to learn. Marry the man that will protect you from a world that would happily see women like us thrown to the wolves.”

“I won’t—” Christine began to protest, but Sabine raised her hand for silence.

“We can bear what happens in the dark –you know that as well as I. What we cannot do is survive alone. So be grateful, do your part, and marry the handsome rich man. At least the one who wantsyouactually loves you beyond all reason. Have his heirs and forget all the darkness. At least during the day. Pretend the rest is just bad dreams.”

“I don’t want to survive. I want to live,” Christine whispered, and Sabine gave a scoff. Just in time, the door opened again. This time, it was Raoul. Christine’s heart sank to see his ashen face.

“Thank you for helping her,” Raoul told his sister. “Would you mind if Christine and I spoke alone?”

“I do mind, but no one cares, so go ahead.” Sabine swept from the room. Raoul closed the door behind her.

“I want to go home,” Christine said before Raoul could even begin, and he shook his head immediately.

“We will find you better accommodations soon, I promise,” Raoul stammered, avoiding her eyes. At least he looked uncomfortable and guilty.

“What about Erik?” Christine demanded. “Where do you have him? Is he hurt? Do you truly intend to hand him over to the police, even if you know it will kill us both?”

Finally, Raoul looked at her, his eyes entreating and hopeful. “What if I were to let him go – on certain conditions? You told us, when we saved you, to take you and let him be. What if I did that?”

Christine stared at Raoul, horrified that once again she was being offered a devil’s bargain to save one life at the price of her heart and soul, yet also filled with hope. “What do you mean?”

“Agree to marry me and start our life, and I will let him go free. He’ll leave France and go to the Americas and never trouble us again. I’ll even give him the money.” Christine heard the words but they refused to make sense in her head.

“He’d never agree to that...”

“He would. He’s already has.”

“He’s what?” The world was crumbling underneath Christine again.

“I had a telegram. From Antoine. A negotiation occurred. Erik will leave because he... He knows you would have a better life with me than he can offer. All he wants is to hear you sing one more time, tomorrow night, inFaust.”

Christine sat on the bed, no longer able to support herself. “But the Opera is his home. He could never leave.”

“Isn’t it for the best?” Raoul entreated, kneeling before her and taking her limp hands in his. “We can be together, and he will live. We will all be free! Christine, isn’t this what you meant when you said you’d go with me to save him?”

“And if I don’t do this, you’ll throw him in jail and parade him through the streets?” she asked back numbly.

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