The Angel's Shadow (The Angels of Music Saga Book 1) by Louise Anne Bateman

Author:Louise Anne Bateman [Bateman, Louise Anne]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2014-08-04T04:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR

After the events of that night, I slept deeply and completely, and if I dreamed I did not remember it in the morning.

On waking, I felt fairly rested and refreshed, and I put that down to my twenty four hour sedation. I do not like doctors, true enough, but their sedatives were another matter altogether.

My first act was to open the French windows and have a daylight look at the splashes of blood that went up the drainpipe between Raoul’s balcony and mine. I was relieved to see that there wasn’t much; maybe it really was a cat that had sustained an injury. The question of where the animal had gone was one I could avoid. The Phantom would have presumably returned to the Opera Populairé.

There was a bathroom adjacent to the bedroom and I was delighted to find that there was a full-sized tub plumbed in, like the one the Phantom had in his own subterranean home. We also had some of them in the communal bathrooms that the ballerinas used, otherwise we had to bathe standing at the sink or use a portable tub, to be filled with hot water bucket by bucket. It was truly what I needed that morning.

When I emerged, wrapped in a towel with my blonde hair hanging in wet lines to my tailbone, the curls straightened out by the water, I found that Mother was back in the room, fully dressed and carrying my own clothes. While I had been asleep, my clothes had been cleaned and pressed by the de Chagny’s servants, and I accepted them gratefully. It was every stitch I had been wearing on the night of the chandelier crash; dress, petticoats, chemise, corset, pantalets.

I held onto the bedpost while Mother laced me into the corset, and as it tightened I reflected that I really did need a new one. It would have been more comfortable to go without, in all honesty, but as I have been ‘blessed’ in the bust department, given my profession, not wearing one would have been indecent.

“I don’t suppose I need to remind you to be on your best behaviour, Meg?” Mother said as she tugged the laces tight.

“Of course not,” I responded crossly. “I’m not a child.”

“No, but neither one of us is used to these surroundings. We’re both going to have to mind our manners.”

“I embarrassed you,” I sighed. She tied the laces in a double bow behind my back.

“Meg, you worried me,” she gently took me by the shoulders and turned me to her. “I am worried about you. You collapsed in complete hysterics, and it’s not for the first time in the last few months, is it? When the cat was killed, your reaction was quite similar.”

“I was in shock!” I protested.

“Meg,” she spoke quietly, steadily. “There were a lot of people on that stage the other night, who also saw Buquet’s body and had the chandelier swung at them. None of them fell to pieces.”

Her words felt like a knife in my chest.

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