Page 50 of Our Strange Duet

I was a terrible friend.

“Has the cast list been posted on the call-board yet?” It was the only thing I could think to contribute to the conversation.

She shrugged. “Maybe? I heard it first in the managers’ office, with Mother.” She let out a sniff, as if holding back a burst of laughter. “You should have heard the madness. It seems as though the Opera Ghost was quite busy last night.”

I froze. “Oh?”

“Everyone—the managers, Carlotta, even the new patron—received letters from him this morning.”

I wanted to know more, wanted to know what the letters said, but couldn’t get past the one detail. “Raoul was there?”

Meg’s blue eyes sparkled knowingly. “He came looking for you.”

“Me?” I squeaked.

With glee, she nodded, and whatever else had happened in the managers’ office was forgotten. “Oh, Christine! It’s so romantic!”

My smile fell uneasily. “Is it?”

She clasped my hands. “Of course! You were childhood sweethearts, and now…and now…” Her whole body wriggled, her excitement impossible to contain.

“It’s not like that,” I began, hating to see her face fall. “He did come to my dressing room last night, and he did remember me,” I admitted. “But…it’s been years since we last saw each other. I was barely sixteen. It’s not as though—”

Another knock sounded at the door, interrupting whatever sensible denial I was about to fabricate.

Meg tilted her head toward the entry. “Early in the day for deliveries, isn’t it?”

I pushed off the couch, extracting myself from our tangled skirts. “I just hope it’s not my landlord. Rent isn’t due until the end of the week.”

But when I opened the door, an enormous arrangement of flowers greeted me. The bouquet was so big—bursting with fat roses in every shade of pink imaginable—I couldn’t see the delivery boy carrying the fragrant mass until he turned sideways. My mouth fell open.

“Raoul!”

Meg scrambled off the settee and raced over to lean heavily at my back. Her gasp rang loudly in my ear. “They’re beautiful!” she exclaimed, filling the gap with the words I should have said.

Raoul’s smile widened; he was all but beaming.

“They are,” I agreed, recovering from my surprise.

“I wanted to send over a little something to celebrate last night,” he said modestly, shifting his weight from foot to foot and causing the flowers to sway wildly.

“Come in, come in,” I said with haste, then recoiled, wondering if I might have offended him with my familiarity. He was not a colleague or a close friend stopping by the apartment after a rehearsal. He was a gentleman, an actual vicomte, and the opera’s most esteemed patron, and—though we’d once been sweethearts—I did not know the particulars behind this extravagant offering.

Perhaps he’d come as a representative of the theatre and its board. The flowers might be a tangible token commemorating a job well done, an appreciation for stepping up in the midst of a tricky situation.

But as I noticed the hopeful look in his eyes, I thought not.

In that moment, just before he stepped into my apartment, filling it with a riot of color and perfume so potent it made my head spin, Raoul smiled at me again, and all I could see was the sandy, summery young man who’d given me my first kiss and stolen my heart in the process. It was as if no time had passed at all and we were back on that beach in Deauville. Father was still alive, and my world was nothing but afternoon picnics, flavored ices, and dappled sunlight.

I couldn’t help but return his grin as I stepped to the side, allowing him entrance. “Please come in,” I invited, this time warmly and with a proper sweep of my hand.

He stepped inside and searched for an appropriate surface to put the vase upon. I hurried to clear away a section of the kitchen counter. Cups of tea had piled up, littering the space. I always abandoned any notion of housekeeping during the week leading up to a show opening. Endless hours of rehearsals would keep me at the theatre, and when I finally could return to my apartment, I’d be too exhausted to do anything but fall into bed.

Now, I flushed scarlet, mortified to guess at what Raoul must think of me.

“I’m sorry to have come over unannounced,” he said as if reading my mind. “Perhaps I…” He glanced toward Meg and then at the little capelet I still wore over my shoulders. “Perhaps I came at a bad time?”

“Oh…no,” I began.