Chapter Four

They fled the abandoned livery when the horizon had the blue hint of twilight as soon as the rain relented. Anna filled her lungs and breathed the fresh scent of air after a storm. It lifted her spirits but did nothing for Erik’s distant and solemn mood. His eyes held an unfocused intensity she’d not seen before. His body occasionally twisted like he rotated puzzle pieces in his mind or like there was a knot across his neck, he couldn’t entirely undo. Anna slipped her hand in his and studied the contrast of her small fingers intertwined with his extraordinarily long, skeletal ones. The stallion ambled dutifully beside them. She let the cadence of his hooves fill the silence until she mustered up the courage to speak.

“Erik, tell me about the Comte de Chagny.”

Bad move. Erik stiffened and released Anna’s hand. “I do not want to discuss it. It would be wise to let it go.”

Anna bit the side of her cheek and pondered whether to listen to his needs or not. She knew her ability to defy him would only amplify his already darkened mood. At times prudence called to leave Erik to his thoughts.

A voice from a distance tossed caution to the wind. “Maestro. Anna.”

Anna grinned and stole a fleeting peek at Erik’s twitching lip, before turning in the direction of the voice. Pappy plodded up the road behind them, his old mare dredging up mud with each drag of her hooves. Erik stopped short.

“What did I tell you, old man?” he snarled, as he turned around.

A leather pouch soared through the air and bounced off Erik’s chest. Coins rained from it to his feet.

“Now, I am following you,” Pappy shot back. “I find it disagreeable to wake from a warm bed of hay with pompous rich folk staring at me asking questions about your ugly mug. Nevertheless, it does pay off.” He gestured toward the coins. “That’s money for your whereabouts courtesy of the newly ennobled Comte de Chagny.”

Erik’s back became rigid as he scanned the coins. He pinned Pappy with a stare that made Anna move cautiously between them.

“Gendarmes arrived?” she asked.

“A couple of hours after you left,” Pappy grumped, dismounting. “I don’t take a liking to being tracked because I’m heading in the same direction as you two.”

Erik drew breath but didn’t speak. Next, she knew the trees flew around her in a circle as Erik abruptly swung her onto their horse. He snatched the reins and sent the old man a seething glare.

“Calm down, Maestro. I’m not stupid. I told them you were going to Belgium and headed them north. The only reason I protected you was to keep unjust harm from coming to that little lady.” He nodded toward Anna as he approached their stallion, dragging his unwilling mare behind him. “What do you say to us finding another village to plunder? You’re stuck with me, and I could use some coffee. Unless you have some in here?”

Brazen, crazy, kook. Anna liked him. She watched as he rifled through the satchel slung across their saddle.

Erik yanked out Pappy’s hand. “Do you have a death wish, old man?”

Pappy jerked his wrist free to resume his meddling. He replied by holding up a grubby hair ribbon and conducting the air with it. “Yup, sing me a requiem when you kill me. Your voice sure is pretty.”

Anna sucked her lips between her teeth in an effort not to burst out laughing, but it was to no avail. Pappy was the just the relief she needed.

“Oh, Erik, come now!” Anna swallowed her laugh. “That was funny.”

He didn’t think so. His thin lips pulled into a deep frown and poured out more sadness than if Anna saw his entire face. Snatching the ribbon from Pappy’s hands, he headed down the path alone.

“Erik?” Her plea was met with the harsh wave of the back of his hand.

“What is it with that one?” Pappy scowled. “Why on earth would a gentle creature like yourself be married to him?”

Anna stared at Erik’s distancing cloak, then briefly to the question on the old man’s face. “We are not wed in the eyes of God.” The wrinkles at the corner of Pappy’s eyes deepened. “There’s much you don’t understand. You’ll get used to him. Leave him be until you know who he is. Trust me; there is so much goodness in his heart. Whatever he dwells upon, it’s not our place to know just yet. It’s best we don’t complicate things.” She regretted the words as soon as she said them. A major complication was on its way, but putting it aside for a while longer would be fine.

She hoped.

The campfire crackled and remnants of the rabbit they had stopped to eat still smoldered on the coals making the night air a mix of wood and charred meat. It was blissfully silent for a change. The old man had faded off to sleep; bringing Erik the break he needed from his unrelenting questions to compose his music.

Seating by the fire, the notes and stanzas finally pouring out his fingers calmed the rising storm in his mind. The noise had cracked open like Pandora’s Box upon learning of the death of Philippe de Chagny. Music dampened the sound like a drug did for a desperate addict.

“What are you writing?”

Erik looked up. He had been so focused on his music that he was surprised to find Anna standing beside him. He searched beyond her to study the night. Scanning the darkness had become habitual. For now, all seemed safe, but he knew they’d not stay in the area long.

“The Madrigals,” he replied with a glance up to her. She seemed confused.

“I thought Madrigal was a song you wrote for Christine to explain why you rose from your faked death. Is that why you have been sullen since that Philippe person died? Because his death makes you think of her? So much so you have to write her another song?”

Anna folded her arms and looked away. Rising, Erik stepped toward her knowing he’d have to yank that sword of jealousy out of her chest. She had it all wrong.

“I told you, Anna. I do not want to discuss Comte Philippe.” Notes exploded in his mind as soon as he laid a hand on her shoulder. Merely a single touch of her could ignite the most exquisite sounds. It took nothing for one of his arms to encircle her tiny waist. He drew her back against his chest liking how Anna could always calm the noise in his head. He’d not have her if not for Philippe.

“My operas have several movements,” he explained. “This one has nothing to do with any messages for Christine.” Erik hesitated before entwining their fingers. Being this close to a woman could still fill him with such a welcomed, yet foreign sensation. He gestured to the score scattered beneath the tree. “This is an Abendlied.”

“A what?”

“An Abendlied. A song that is contemplative and quiet in its theme.” He turned his head to the stars. “Their sound is mournful, like a soul weeping its sins toward heaven in the hope of finding something deeper and better than itself. They tell of the reflections of human life as well as the beauties found within simple things.”

“I know what they are, Erik. My mother sang them to calm me at night. I thought they were lullabies.”

“They were often used as such.” His fingers found their way up her neck. He caressed her like a sculptor does fine marble. “This Abendlied is solely for you, Anna. I am putting in this opera all I cannot give you right now.”

“Would you write it as a lullaby?”

“No. I would never desire to write such.”

Nothing prepared him for what stammered past her lips next. Erik’s hands clasped air as she broke away; leaving him standing there smacked stupid. It took a few moments before his thoughts cleared. When they did, he found her stroking the mane of their sleepy stallion, stealing glances in his direction. He came up behind her wanting to calm her anxiety, though an invisible hand had reached into his gut and cinched his stomach.

“Can you repeat that?” He laid his hands across hers to stop her from tangling the stallion’s mane.

“You heard me the first time. Go away!”

Shock rocked him back like a blow from a man five times his size. Erik turned, his head spinning, his heart pounding out of control. Sickness churned his stomach. His selfish needs to feel love; his desires as a man for a woman were going to be made flesh? How could it be? Anna had never been with child before. She told him she thought she couldn’t bear children. When he heard that, such relief had filled him. Many times without a worry in the world he poured his passion into her.

Panic coiled around his body, constricting his chest. It was a blessing she was barren! How could he subject her to bearing a child such as him? Erik had been born a demon, a cruel mix of monster and man that turned his mother into a hateful shadow of a woman. Erik’s knees slammed into the ground as he dropped beside the fire. He grasped desperately at his mask. What pitiful creature would she bear? Anna would nurture and carry his child safe from the world until it was born and the world saw it for what it was—his child.

Anguish curled his body forward, the heat of the coals rising from the fire, cruelly telling him he wasn’t dreaming. He did nothing in his life that warranted such a noble title as “father.” His mother had wanted him until the moment he was born, and then there were no arms to hold him; No one to love him. Not a single parental kiss ever touched his flesh. Masked the instant he entered the world he grew up a living corpse—an unwanted, unloved, reject.

Erik crushed himself against his knees trying to hide from the fear making him pant. He squeezed his eyes tight and tried to force aside the image of Anna’s horror when the time came for that child to be born. For that child to be rejected!

Erik snapped his head up.

Anna would reject that child and him!

His eyes locked with hers before she swung her head back into the stallion’s mane. See? Even now she couldn’t look at him. Struggling to his feet, Erik’s confusion turned to outright anger. If there were one aspect of life he wouldn’t tolerate, it was rejection. Their lives were complicated enough; he now had this to face?

A frustrated shout burst past his lips as he kicked the nearest rock. He hated not being in control. Each move in his life was as carefully calculated as his music. Displace anything, change anything, and the tune would shift. Unpredictability didn’t enter his life until Anna left him those infernal packages of paper, ink, and figs. Her compassion coaxed him out of his prison to rejoin the world, and now this was the result? Erik looked at his shaking hands. He didn’t ask for this, and there was nothing he could do about it.

His face blazed beneath the mask.

Damn you, Philippe de Changy. Why did I let you meddle with my life?

Erik paced in small circles, a dull ache winding from his jaw to the back of his neck. Each time he looked at her, Anna refused to meet his eyes. If she couldn’t even look at him now, how would she treat that child? He wouldn’t be the one to blame for that infant’s misery, and no one would reject him ever again.

Anna had seen him at his worst when madness had made him do unthinkable acts, but it would be a cold day in hell before he let her see him like this. The last place he wanted to be was anywhere near the camp—could she blame him for running? Erik stormed beyond the stallion and into the trees. He didn’t bother a glance backward.

“Erik?” Anna called as he passed.

“Not. Now.”

The camp faded into silence as snapping twigs and branches died with his footfalls. Anna pictured smoldering trees in his wake; his fury could have lit the forest ablaze. Anna sank in front of the fire. She added a log and watched, unblinking, as the sparks floated away.

She got what she expected, but it still made her sighs hard enough to blow the wisp of smoke coming at her sideways. When her welcome wore out, she was accustomed to being cast aside. In her past, she’d stay in one area long enough to work off her father’s debts. Then she was dismissed, either running from the law or some other mistake her father had made. It was only a matter of time until she met Erik’s needs and she no longer warranted his attention. It didn’t surprise her, but his rejection stung.

How stupid could she be? He loved the Vicomtess de Chagny. It was as obvious the fire in front of her. Anna squinted as she puzzled through her thoughts. Vicomtesse? Comtesse? Anna assumed Christine was the latter now if this Philippe person had died. Just perfect. More power, more beauty, more allure for Erik. Anna didn’t know music or have the magnificence of his former musical protégé. She absently rubbed the fading scar on her temple trying not to remember all she did to clear Erik of the accusations against him at the Opera Garnier. The Comtesse de Chagny had a deeply rooted connection to him and what did Anna have? Their friendship developed slowly, but love? That idea was thrust upon them suddenly, and then Erik’s past hit him right between the eyes. It launched them into whirlwind decisions and then the throes of a manhunt. They never had a chance to figure anything out, let alone this.

Anna wiped away her tears and stared into space. He still thought of the comtesse. The whisper of her name would be on Erik’s lips at night when he tossed and turned. Anna was the second and least complicated choice for love, that’s why he kept her around. She didn’t mind being second best; being nothing was something she was used to, but now…

The thumbs Anna pressed against her temple did nothing to force away the sudden throb in her head. Where was the joy she should be feeling? She was pregnant! Instead, fear wrapped its fingers around her and choked out any glimmer of happiness. She was a wanted woman, how was she to endure this while pregnant? What life would this child lead with an unjust bounty on her head? Never had fear made her so cold.

“Damn it,” she choked as a sob bubbled out her mouth.

“Anna?” Pappy groggily woke. “What’s wrong? Where’s Maestro?”

“Off walking.”

“Why are you crying?”

Pappy’s face warped as she looked at him through her tears. “You really like me, don’t you? You barely know me, but you want me around.”

Pappy groaned as he struggled to sit up. “Of course. You’re honest, spirited, much like my little girl was.”

“He hates me, Pappy! I can’t be like her, and now I’ve ruined everything for him.”

“Can’t be like whom? That fancy vicomtesse you told me about? I thought you said he didn’t love her.”

“He does Pappy. I was a huge diversion for him. I should have left the opera house when he told me to. I’m not useful to him anymore, and I’ve been in his way all this time.” Anna didn’t want to believe that. The mind and heart have a funny way of concocting all sorts of lies to cover up fears. “I’m preventing him from being with his true love. I only wanted him to be happy.”

Pappy scanned the camp. “Anna, what on earth happened?”

“I’m pregnant.” When Pappy jerked back with huge eyes and an open mouth that turn into a gaping grin, Anna stuttered, “No! Don’t! Don’t you smile over this! I can’t do this, Pappy. We’re on the run!”

Pappy didn’t listen, but smiled wider. “Don’t expect me to be a nursemaid or anything. I’ve my limits. That can be Maestro’s job.”

“Erik was so angry with me, he left.”

The old man’s smile dropped, and his gaze went cold. “That dog! I knew something was wrong with him the day I met him. I never did understand why you two were together and now I know. It’s all just his filthy needs. That selfish, rotten dog! You listen to me.” Anna swallowed more tears, as Pappy looked her directly in the eyes. “You’re too good to be mixed up with him. He’s not in his right mind. I’ve seen it in those strange eyes of his. And this whole manhunt, mein Gott, you don’t deserve this. Maestro is too old for you anyway and, well, so am I, but at least I’ll take care of you and your baby! Do you hear me?” Pappy’s head whipped back and forth as he searched around him making Anna fight her tears more. “Which way did he go? I’ll find him and I’ll—”

“Pappy?”

“What, Liebling?”

“Promise you won’t leave me?”

The anger in Pappy’s face faded, his shaggy brows pulling together as he gestured for her to come near. His comfort helped set her fears straight. Anna scanned the trees around them as she crawled toward Pappy, and once wrapped in his arms, she forced her tears deep into submission. She could be afraid, what woman wouldn’t under the circumstances? Her fears flowed into something she didn’t want to cap off.

She’d rather Erik see how he hurt her when he had the gall to show his face again.