343Chapter 41 — The Best Laid Plans
For someone who'd claimed to be in such a hurry, Raoul's mother certainly took her time leaving.
Minute after minute crawled by as the beaming Comtesse asked question after question—which of Raoul's father's three names the child would be taking; how soon they should put in a compelling donation at the Lycée Henri-IV; if Tuesday would be a good day to bring the layette she'd been assembling since the wedding—while Raoul sat rigid on a chair opposite his ashen-faced wife, covertly pressing a fist to his belly to dampen the sick roiling of his stomach, nodding along to Christine's murmured equivocations.
A half hour in, his eyes stung from holding back tears and his jaw ached from the forced smile he couldn't let slip, yet there was no need to worry that he might not be hiding his distress well enough; his mother's rapturous gaze slid right over the assured redness of his eyes and the twitching of his smile. And Christine…
Of course Christine did not—could not—look at him.
Despite all appearances, it turned out the Comtesse did not intend to stay forever. Just as her droning voice started to become a high-pitched whine in Raoul's head—as the heat from the gaslights slicked his forehead with sweat, as the too-tall, too-bright walls of the salon began to close in around him—at last she departed, just as she'd arrived: suddenly and without warning. With a last flurry of kisses and congratulations, she bustled off, insisting that a servant could see her out and promising to return within the week.
Though exactly what there would be to return to was just one of many questions that hadn't yet been answered.
When Raoul shut the door behind her, a thick, tense silence fell over the room, sucking out all the air, making his head swim. He put out a hand to brace himself against the door frame.
It would be dishonest to say that the thought of fleeing didn't cross his mind at that moment; if ever there was a time that Raoul would be justified in taking off to get absolutely stinking drunk, this was it. The conversation they were about to have would be so much easier after marinating himself in brandy until the sharp, brittle feelings growing in his chest like thorns softened enough that he could tuck the worst of them away, into the place where all the other things he didn't want to feel went. And maybe, with enough alcohol and denial, he could come back and truly be the idiot he'd pretended to be, the idiot she must believe him to be, and he'd ask no questions, just smile and celebrate, and they could both pretend everything was fine.
But nothing was fine. And he was done being an idiot.
Slowly, Raoul turned to his wife and cleared his throat. "Well," he said, with an attempt at a resolute lift of his chin, "I won't humiliate myself any further by asking if it's true."
The words had the hard edge of conviction, yet his lips quivered when he tried to set them into a line—because of course he still hoped, of course he did, for a simple misunderstanding, some silly story to explain away the whole thing, anything, anything other than the crushing look of remorse that was on his wife's face.
"I'm sorry, Raoul, I'm so sorry, I was trying to tell you—" she was saying, pushing herself up onto unsteady feet, scrambling around the furniture, reaching for him with trembling hands.
Raoul took a quick step back. "Were you? Because as I recall, the only thing you told me is that after all these years you've decided you'd like to sing again, and somehow I'm to believe that has nothing to do with him!"
"No, I—" she said, stopping short. She buried her hands in her skirt. "Well, yes, but that was—that was before. Today, though, today I tried to—ever since this morning. I wanted to—"
"Well it's a bit late now, don't you think!" Raoul huffed a disbelieving laugh. "Starting the third month? How is that even possible? I mean, just last week you, you had your—your…"
His words dried up as tears began to leak from Christine's eyes. "I'm so sorry…"
"What do you mean?" Raoul's brow pinched in confusion. "What are you—"
The realization landed with the keen force of a boot heel to the gut, stealing his breath, blacking out the edges of his vision. He might have gasped, he couldn't be sure.
"You lied?" he asked, his voice cracking over the word. "You lied to me, and said your monthly had come—and it hadn't? You told me it had failed, yet you knew you were pregnant?" His voice was rising with each question, strained and tight. "You had me bring you back there, again and again, when there wasn't any need?"
Christine covered her mouth with shaking hands. "Yes," she breathed.
There were a few truths about himself Raoul had always held fast to, those things that made up the core of who he was: he was a good person, he put others first, and he was in possession of an inner strength that allowed him to keep his head up, to stand tall and deal with difficult situations with fortitude and nobility, no matter what.
As it turned out, he was wrong about that last one. He began to weep like a child.
Raoul slumped against the door as the tears came hot and painful, along with a pressure in his head, a hollowing in his chest. Despair squeezed his throat tight as a hand, as a rope; his voice came out as thickened and ragged as it had after he'd collapsed onto that dank stone floor and pulled the noose from his neck. "How could you, Christine? I trusted you."
"I'm sorry, Raoul, I'm so sorry." She closed the distance between them, clutching at his arm as if she were the one drowning in hurt, blindsided, swept away by a crashing wave of betrayal. "I didn't mean for it to be like this."
"No? What did you mean for it to be like?" Raoul pulled his arm out of her grasp and tried to dash the tears from his eyes. "What did you think was going to happen? How long were you planning to hide this from me? How long were you going to keep lying to me?"
She winced at the forcefulness of his words; despite himself, Raoul felt a pang of shame.
"I didn't want to lie! When I realized, I panicked, and I just—I just thought if I could have a little more time—"
"More time for what, exactly? All those hours down there, Christine! While I sat around waiting for you like a fool. For weeks! Were you two still—" His stomach lurched; Raoul flung up a hand. "No. Please, don't answer that. I don't want to know."
He turned and staggered away, because he truly didn't want to know. But it had been too late: there would be no erasing from his memory the way her eyes had darted down to the floor, or the hot red shame on her flushing face.
Raoul collapsed on the sofa and held his head in his hands. "Oh God," he moaned, between gasping breaths, truly afraid he was about to be sick. "Oh God…"
The implications of this revelation were too big to process, too much to bear. All those years shielded by selective memory and self-serving denial, and now he was being assaulted by every fear, every suspicion, every lie he'd told himself, all at once.
"I don't understand…" he said.
But that wasn't really true, was it?
He understood far more than he wished he did. He'd been deliberately stupid, and this was the payoff.
That stupidity hadn't only been self-serving though! It's what allowed him his limitless confidence in the power of love and hope and trust, which was what Christine had valued most about him. That confidence should have been an asset, not his downfall.
Yes, it had been an incomprehensibly stupid idea to reunite the two people who he'd risked his life to pull apart. He'd known it was a gamble, but one he could take because he was certain he couldn't lose—all that love and hope and trust was meant to have ensured that. But now, his trust had been trampled, his hopes of a future they were meant to be working toward together now crumbling under his feet. And their love…
He wiped his face with a sleeve, the skin chafing under the damp wool, and forced himself to look up to meet Christine's eyes. "You told me you love me. Was that a lie, too?"
"No, Raoul, never. I do love you, you know I do."
Raoul looked away. "I thought I knew. I really did. But…if you love me, then—"
But…he couldn't finish the sentence. Couldn't ask the one question that he needed to ask above all others. The one that would lay bare the path before them, force open his eyes once and for all, no more blinders, no more willful ignorance, no more strategic idiocy. The one question which he was not certain he could bear to have answered:
Why—why? Why had she done it?
Why, if she loved him, would Christine still be drawn to that man—that awful, old, ugly man—when she had Raoul, the complete opposite in every way—better in every way—right here? Why would she choose to return to his repulsive arms, over and over, when it meant betraying her husband and risking her marriage?
Why wasn't Raoul enough for her?
Why was he the answer?
But, once again, he knew already, didn't he? He just hadn't wanted to know.
Only a real, actual idiot would think he could refuse to hear Christine when she tried to make him understand how much she needed music, yet be shocked to learn she'd found what she needed with the man who was music itself. She hadn't responded to the question of whether there was any separating the two, music and man, but she didn't need to. That understanding had always been within Raoul, buried down as deep as possible, along with so many other treacherous questions and answers, tamped down by years of certainty of their unqualified happiness. And that's exactly where they were supposed to stay!
There was a soft shuffling of silk, a tentative touch at his shoulder, and Christine sat beside him. Raoul stiffened, but did not move away.
She looked down at her clasped hands. "I understand if you can't forgive me," she said, very quietly.
Raoul's head shot up; he frowned at her. "Of course I can forgive you, Christine."
It hurt, just a little, that she wouldn't know that. There was no minimizing the hurt and betrayal and confusion Raoul felt, but with all they'd been through, all the love they shared, the life they'd built, could she really think he would give up on her—on them?
"Maybe not right this moment, but…eventually. We can make it through this."
She bit her lip. "I know you believe that. But Raoul, you should know—"
"No!" Panic surged through his chest, sending his heart galloping into his throat. He drew in a calming breath. "No…It's all right, it doesn't matter. I know all I need to know. This is…" He exhaled heavily. "This is all my fault, anyway. You would have never been in this situation if it wasn't for me."
"Maybe…maybe not this exact situation, but that doesn't make any of this your fault. I made choices, and…" She dropped her gaze to her lap, where her fingers wound themselves around a bit of ribbon trim. "Well, not all of them are defensible. But they were mine to make, not yours. And I'm so sorry that I've not been honest with you. I've been selfish, and—" the tears were coming again "—and I've been a terrible wife, and the truth is—"
Raoul shot to his feet. "Don't tell me! Please, Christine, don't tell me. It's easier if I don't know."
"But how can you forgive me if you don't know what you must forgive?"
"Please," he insisted, forcing down the rising edge of hysteria in his voice, ignoring the anguished plea that had been in hers. "I can't bear it. Not right now."
With a defeated groan, Christine hunched into herself, pressing her face into her hands. Her shoulders went slack. She didn't speak anymore.
Again Raoul sank down on the sofa next to her, letting his head fall back against the cushion. He pushed the heels of his hands into his eyes and sighed.
What a mess this had all become. What a fucking mess.
And he couldn't even ask himself how they'd ended up here. Not for the first time, he had been the one to insist they carry out a scheme so half-baked and absurd that it could only end in a fucking mess. How could he keep repeating the same mistake again and again?
Well, the reason was simple.
Since the day Christine first reentered his life, Raoul had only one goal: keeping her in it. That single-mindedness had led him into mortal danger on more than one occasion, had convinced him to justify unspeakably stupid risks, to chance potential disownment and ostracism, to put his own wants and needs aside for her happiness. Raoul knew how it might look—like he was nothing but an absolute idiot, a spineless sap besotted by love into eating a pile of shit with a smile, a milksop cuckold who thanked his wife for making him one.
But…Raoul didn't care what it might look like. He loved his wife—he loved her. And, in this case, the danger and heartache and jealousy of sharing her with another had been a small price to pay for that love. He'd been certain he could bear the unbearable, because it would all be worth it, in the end. It was supposed to be worth it.
And, in the end, against all odds—this time, the scheme had worked.
It…had worked.
Dropping his hands, Raoul stared up at the ceiling, letting his vision slide back into focus. It hadn't fully registered in the face of the devastating way the news had broken, but now…
Like a smooth stone one might keep in their pocket to stroke when agitated, Raoul had often imagined the celebration of this years' long dream becoming reality. Of picking his wife up in his arms and spinning her round, of their shared smiles, of their shared tears. Yet, when it finally happened, there had only been the tears.
Of course the moment was always going to be tainted, the circumstances of the conception being what they were; it was the price of a dream coming true at a great cost, and Raoul had accepted that price without hesitation. The sheer elation, he'd reasoned, along with the relief of the impossible coming to pass would wipe away the pain of what had been sacrificed to make it happen.
But it hadn't. And it might never.
And yet…a little wriggle of positivity tickled in his chest.
"You know…despite everything…" Raoul sat up, the beginnings of a smile creeping across his face, "I'm—I'm still happy."
"You are?" Christine looked at him skeptically.
"I am, I really am," he said, blinking, a bit dazed, as it began to sink in that what he said was, in fact, the truth. "It's finally happened! We're going to have a baby, Christine!" Raoul took her face in his hands and kissed her creased forehead, her tear-stained cheeks, her taut lips. He pulled back and frowned. "Aren't you happy?"
"I…" she chewed at her bottom lip, "I've wanted to be happy…"
"Then let's be happy!" He threw his arms around her and held her tight. "God, I still can't believe it. This is real? You're certain? You're really certain?"
She nodded, with a small smile which grew wider and more steady by the second.
"This is wonderful, Christine! A family—our family." Raoul dropped to his knees before her and kissed her belly, once, twice, a third time. "I can't wait to meet you, little one! I hope you've been good to your mother so far." He took Christine's hand. "How have you been feeling, have you been very ill? I'm so sorry I wasn't there for you, I can't believe I haven't noticed anything. Would you like to go rest?"
"I'm fine now," she said. "I've been feeling poorly in the evenings, mostly. The carriage and the boat have been difficult. That's actually how—"
"September, is that what she said?" Raoul hadn't meant to interrupt, but joyous excitement was bubbling up from within him and there was no holding it back. "That's perfect! We'll be all settled in the house by then—we'll get to raise our child in Perros! Oh, we have so much to do to get ready, we'll need a cradle, and a pram, and we'll have to pick out new wallpaper for the nursery—the nursery! it really is such a perfect nursery, isn't it?—and we can engage a governess if you'd really like, but I'd much rather—"
"Raoul, Raoul," Christine laughed, but it was a nervous, brittle-edged laugh. "You're getting far ahead of yourself! It's early still, and—and we don't know how…things might turn out with it. What if it doesn't…work out, or…" Her clasped hands twisted in her lap. "What if it's not—if it's like…"
"Oh, Christine," Raoul drew her close. "Don't worry, my love. It's going to be alright, no matter what." He spoke with easy confidence, because of course he was confident that all would be well—they deserved it, after all they'd gone through, didn't they?
She pulled away and stared down at her twisting hands. "It's just…I thought I felt sure that even if it was born…different…that it would be alright, because how could I not love my child? But you—will you feel the same?" If she'd given him the chance to answer, Raoul would have waved away all her concerns, gone back to talking about future family outings to the beach, but she continued on. "Last night, Erik said things, things that I can't stop thinking about. He said that, if this child is born like—" tears began to fill Christine's eyes again, as Raoul's own eyes began to narrow in confusion, because it—it almost sounded as if… "—if it was born like he was, we'll resent it, and won't want—"
"I'm sorry," Raoul cut in. Unblinking, he leaned forward, nails digging into the seat hard enough to shred the silk. "Are you saying…he knows?"
Christine's face paled. "Oh, Raoul. I assumed you… You really didn't…?" Her eyes darted from his gritted teeth to the whitening knuckles of his hands.
Raoul fought to breathe against the tightening in his chest. This was a heart-crushing blow of fresh devastation, yet beside the extra helpings of pain and humiliation, there was also a new, wretched grief. That man had taken so much from him, how could he have taken this, too!
At the same time, though, a thought was surfacing, prickling at the edge of his awareness, like being tapped on the shoulder by an old friend announcing their unexpected, but very welcome, presence. A realization, an explanation—one that was simple and clear and infinitely more comfortable to consider than any other. It was so obvious, Raoul's face burned with shame for not realizing sooner.
He sprung to his feet. "This was all him, wasn't it!"
Not that he needed an answer; of course it was. He'd seen it happen before, hadn't he? For all Christine might claim that the demon had changed, Raoul remembered very well what he was capable of.
"Did he force you to keep coming? Threaten you?" He thrust his hands through his hair. "That bastard, I'll have him arrested!" It was an empty threat, but still, it felt good to make.
"Raoul, no!" Christine scrambled to her feet and seized him by the sleeve. "No. It was me. He didn't even know, at first. I chose to hide it, from the both of you."
Raoul shook off Christine's words as easily as he shook off her hand. "And after that? After he knew? Then whose idea was it?"
"Well…his," she answered, very quickly, "but it was because—"
"Because he's trying to keep you, Christine!" He grasped her by the shoulders. "Muddle your mind, hypnotize you! And I all but served you up on a platter to that shameless fiend. I'm a fool, I'm a goddamn fool!" Raoul spun away and slammed his fist against his thigh; it stung, but not nearly as much as the knowledge that he'd done this. He'd delivered her right back to the arms of that dark seducer—and surely enough, she'd been seduced! "Did he sing to you in that devil's voice of his? Did he?" he demanded. "God, how could I have believed his word could be trusted? How stupid, to let myself believe he was any different from the villain he's always been!"
Christine was shaking her head, hands splayed over her mouth in affronted horror. "No! It wasn't like that."
"You don't have to lie for him, Christine!"
"I'm not," she insisted. "It's the truth."
But of course she would believe that. That was the thing about mesmerism, wasn't it? The victim was convinced of a reality that simply did not exist.
"And he never sang, Raoul. Never—he never…" She squeezed her eyes shut and took a sharp breath, and something twisted sickeningly in Raoul's stomach. "He didn't sing, but, you asked what I needed more time for, and—"
"No!" Raoul jumped back, nearly toppling a small table; he reached out to steady a wobbling brass urn. "I don't need to know," he said, keeping his eyes on his hands. "All I need is for you to promise me we're through with him, and you'll never see him again. Just tell me it's all over."
There was a pause before Christine answered.
Much too long a pause.
"What if I can't?" she said, very quietly.
Raoul whipped his head around so sharply he felt something crack. "What does that mean, you 'can't'?" he asked from between clenched teeth, rubbing his neck.
"I don't know, I don't know!" Christine covered her face with her hands and let out a sob.
"Well," Raoul swallowed; with great effort, he kept his voice slow and even, "why don't you try to explain it to me?"
"But it's impossible to explain!" She flung up her hands, then collapsed onto the sofa. "How could you ever understand? I hardly understand myself. It doesn't make sense, how I can feel as I do. It's like being torn in two, like different versions of myself exist, and I feel forced to choose which one is the real one—the right one. And what if what is right…isn't just one or the other?" It was spoken as a question, eyes raised beseechingly to his, palms pressed over her heart. But it wasn't one he could answer.
With his arms hanging heavy at his sides and his pulse thudding hollow in his ears, Raoul could only stare back.
She dropped her gaze to her lap again. "And—and even though it's been…hard, on all of us, in different ways, these last months, I've also felt more complete than I—than I ever have. Which is so selfish of me! It's all so complicated." She paused to swipe away the tears spilling over her cheeks with the back of a hand; absently, Raoul dug in his pocket for his handkerchief. "And he—he is so complicated. I can't pretend that he hasn't done terrible things in the past, or that he doesn't still have some—some troubles that aren't quite… Well, he's still working on a few things..." Wincing, she took the handkerchief from Raoul's limp hand. "But I can't help how I feel! It's just another thing I don't expect you to understand. And I don't know what to do! It was already complicated, but now there's a child, and I don't think it matters what I—" she continued, and she kept on talking, and explaining, and Raoul did try to listen, but everything was muffled, like his head was wrapped in cotton. Though what did it matter? She was right. He couldn't understand it.
And not just at a sentence by sentence level, though that was also an issue; he'd found himself struggling to follow along, trying to make sense of words that simply didn't belong in a sentence together.
No, beyond that, on a philosophical level, it was nonsense. How could someone feel more complete by splitting themself between two people? And how could one of those people be him. How on earth could she place a man like that—hateful, dangerous, demanding, and unstable—on anything like equal footing with Raoul, her husband who had been there, at her side, for years, providing love, safety, comfort, and stability. No, he didn't understand, and never would.
But…maybe he didn't need to.
Besides all the tricks that trickster was surely employing to cloud her reason, bewitch her and warp her mind so that his will was hers—Christine was pregnant. And that meant she was not herself. She was emotional! Temperamental! And of course she would have developed feelings for a man she'd been intimate with—they'd discussed that at the beginning, it was an expected complication—feelings now further heightened by biological influences. She would get over those feelings. That man was never a real option, that was the point of choosing him. With time, she would come to her senses. That's all they needed—time.
And if she could lie…Raoul could lie, too.
So cutting off her unnecessary explanations, he took her hand, and told her, in a voice carefully tinged with benevolence, "I understand."
Christine was silent for a moment. "You do?"
"Certainly. I understand that you…" Raoul gave a little cough, "have a connection, and there are, ah, feelings there that are…complicated? It's not as if I haven't known that," he said, which wasn't a lie; knowing wasn't the same as accepting. He moistened his dry mouth. "And of course it is always difficult to part with, ah, a friend—when you know you won't be seeing them again, that is. I remember how upset you were when Meg left, and in some ways, this isn't really so different, is it?"
"Well, that's just it…" Christine glanced up at him, with an edge of apprehension in her look that hardened Raoul's stomach. "I'm not asking anything of you right now. I know I have no right. But…" She steeled herself, and Raoul held his breath. "But I don't want to be forced to banish him from my life again."
Inwardly, Raoul sighed with relief at his near miss with disaster; he'd only intended to give the impression of receptiveness, not open the door to a request he would not—could not—say yes to.
But this—this he could give her.
Settling next to her, he gathered her up in his arms, her cheek pressed against his chest. "Of course not, Christine. I won't ever force you to do anything." He stroked her hair with a soothing hand. "I can arrange something."
It wasn't a lie. Not really.
In his mind, at that very moment, Raoul was, in fact, arranging something.
And when all was said and done, no, he wouldn't force her to banish the other man from her life.
If all went according to plan, there would simply be no need.
She would choose it herself.
…
Raoul worked quickly.
By the time Christine had finished dressing the following morning and joined him at the breakfast table, the household was already abuzz with preparations.
"What's going on?" she asked, hesitating beside the chair Raoul had pulled out for her, her eyes tracking two housemaids as they hurried past the open door.
"I have a surprise. His face split wide with an irrepressible grin. "We're taking that trip to Italy!"
Obviously, he'd been realistic enough to be prepared for her look of open-mouthed surprise, and sufficiently clear-eyed to know there was no hint of delight in it, yet a bitterness far sharper than coffee coated Raoul's mouth as he took a measured sip. "Now's the perfect time, before your confinement, don't you think?"
"Now…? Right now?" she stammered.
Gritting his teeth to keep his smile in place, Raoul stood, and with a hand on her lower back, gently guided Christine to sit. "This has always been the plan, right? Once you're pregnant, we stop immediately. He knows this. And so do you."
"But you said—"
"Yes, I did," he conceded, pushing her chair in nice and tight. "And you said you weren't asking anything of me right now. He's not been banished. But you don't really need to be spending all those nights down there anymore, do you? It's not good for the baby." Raoul took his own seat and began to load Christine's plate with pastries and fruit and cheese. "Once we're settled back in Perros, we can talk about it more. A little trip shouldn't be the end of the world, no? Besides, I think it's important that we have some time together to reconnect, to work on repairing things between us before the baby comes. Don't you think?" He gave his wife a tight smile, and her pale cheeks flushed.
As Raoul slathered butter onto her croissant, Christine's restless fingers fiddled with the silverware, straightening the forks, rearranging the tiny spoons. "Shouldn't I—" She picked up her teacup. "Shouldn't I at least say goodbye? It feels wrong to leave suddenly, without a word." She took a quick sip of tea, swallowing it hard.
Raoul bit back a laugh. As if he would give the fiend such a perfect excuse to try to run off with her again!
"Unfortunately," he lied smoothly, "he's already back in Brussels and won't return until after we've departed."
"Oh," she said, and if there was disappointment in that single syllable, Raoul chose not to hear it; having had some time to think on it, he'd decided a touch of willful ignorance wasn't such a bad thing, actually.
As Raoul chattered away about all the sights they would see on their trip, Christine silently sipped her tea, leaving the food on her plate untouched.
"Will you at least allow me to send a note?" she asked suddenly, interrupting a rather interesting aside about the Roman Empire. "I'll let you see it first."
Raoul considered her with a frown, for the first time this morning taking in the dark hollows under her eyes, the deep crease between her brows. He sighed. "I suppose I can't see the harm in it."
Of course, he of all people really should have remembered how much trouble could be caused by a note.
One day a man might ACTUALLY listen to Christine, but unfortunately, once again, today is not that day.
I hope everyone's having a nice summer! Mine has been much busier than I'd expected, and between that and the fact that after a month or so of working on it, I decided I needed to scrap my first draft of this chapter and start over, the wait for this one turned out to be about twice as long as I'd hoped. But here we are! Big things are happening, and they're gonna keep happening, starting with our next thrilling installment: Erik checks his mail.
Thank you all so much for reading! I've loved hearing your thoughts on the story so far, and seeing familiar names after all these years. I still owe some personal thank yous to some incredibly kind and thoughtful messages; sometimes I get a little shy and too dorky-feeling to respond in a timely manner, but please know that they have touched me deeply and are so very appreciated. I'm so grateful for the support. And a special thank you to Deb, for her eyes on this and for helping me get through the rough patches!