Light Fantastique

by Cecilia Dominic

  At the Théâtre Bohème, danger decides who takes the final curtain call.

  Aether Psychics, Book 2

  Hailed as the most talented actress of her generation, Marie St. Jean has something more to her ability than mere talent. She loses a bit of her soul to each role. When the ghostly spirit of the theatre promises her an easy fix, she’s tempted by the chance to finally live a normal life.

  Unfortunately, the man she’s drawn to is the last one to settle for normal. But with the Prussians surrounding Paris, there’s no escaping that temptation, either.

  Violinist Johann Bledsoe thought he’d left his disgrace in England, but a murder outside the Théâtre Bohème makes him wonder if he’s been exposed. Another reason not to stick around once the siege ends, even if Marie fascinates him.

  More murders, steam-powered ravens, and past and present secrets bring them closer to discovering just what lurks within the theatre, and who threatens from without. The only way to save themselves is to reveal their darkest shames—and use the Eros Element in a way that has already driven one man to the brink of madness.

  Warning: Processed in a facility where wine is used as currency and dessert is a reward. If you dislike French cooking and attitudes, move along. Things are cooking in this book, and it ain’t Julia Child.

  Light Fantastique

  Cecilia Dominic

  Dedication

  Classical music has always been part of my life. My Belgian grandfather was the organist at the famous Antwerp Cathedral, and he passed his love of music down to his children and grandchildren. While my opera tolerance stops with Andrew Lloyd Weber’s Phantom, I do have fond memories of my mother listening to Bizet’s Carmen and Strauss’s Die Fledermaus during the holidays.

  This book is dedicated to those share their joy in music with others. I’d particularly like to thank Patsy Arnold, my very patient piano teacher from third through twelfth grade and Jim Parker, my band leader in high school. Also Ronald and Barbara Shinn and Dennis Herrick, college professors at Huntingdon College in Montgomery, Alabama. This book is also in loving memory of Professors James Glass and Harald Rohlig. Here’s hoping those angels are not singing with too much vibrato. Huge thanks goes once again to Dawn P., my archaeologist on call. Any historical errors or exaggerations in this book are mine alone. I did have to change around a few things, but having an alternate version of history is part of the fun of steampunk.

  My gratitude as always goes to my husband and family for their unswerving support.

  Finally, most importantly, thank you to my readers. I couldn’t do this without you!

  Chapter One

  Théâtre Bohème, Paris, 1 December 1870

  Screams were not uncommon at the Théâtre Bohème, mostly because on stage, one was expected to express emotions in an exaggerated way for the benefit of the audience. But the scream that sliced through the usual midday din of the theatre held a note of pure terror, and Marie nearly dropped the costume she held up for the examination of modiste Madame Beaufort.

  “Sacre bleu,” Madame said. “What could that have been?”

  “I don’t know, but I’ll check it out,” Marie answered. “I’ll let you know if the Prussians are upon us.” She handed the dress to Madame and lifted her own skirts to make her way through narrow hallways from the costume room to the theatre itself.

  Now shouting echoed through the wooden and brick hallways.

  “I will not go forward with this!”

  Marie recognized the slightly nasal but resonant female voice as Corinne, her mother’s go-to lead after Marie had left. She had become quite the premiere femme while Marie was away, but rather than sounding snobbish, her tone held an edge of panic.

  “You must. The first performance is next week, and I don’t have time for this nonsense.”

  And that was Marie’s mother, Madame Lucille St. Jean. Marie took a shortcut through a secret passage, which allowed the sound to carry. She emerged in the theatre to see the two women almost nose-to-nose.

  “What’s wrong?” Marie asked before she could stop the words from tumbling out of her mouth. “You two do realize others are trying to work here.”

  “Oh, Mademoiselle.” Corinne’s face melted into a mask of tragedy. “I saw a ghost backstage. It raised its finger at me to tell me I am doomed. I must get away from here!”

  Lucille looked at Marie. “What are you doing here? I have told you that if you refuse to take the stage, you do not belong in the theatre. Go back to helping Madame Beaufort with her pins and pinches.”

  Marie ignored Lucille. This is the most interesting thing that’s happened since I returned. “What did the ghost look like?”

  “He was tall and thin, and his hand looked like a skeleton’s. He wore a long robe, and I could not see his face. He was Death come for me!” She placed the back of her hand on her forehead and swooned.

  “Actresses.” Marie sighed. Two stage hands came and picked Corinne up from the floor—she’d pulled the fainting trick before, but this time she didn’t jump up with protestations at the “filthy peasants’” hands being on her.

  “Well?” Lucille asked, apparently forgetting she’d banished Marie. “What are we to do now? I have a play with no lead actress and apparently a ghost has taken up residence in the theatre.”

  “Not my problem.” Marie turned to go, but her mother grabbed her arm with surprising strength.

  Lucille switched to English and lowered her voice, both signs she didn’t want the workers and other actors to hear and understand what she was going to say to her daughter. Since the American “Civil” War had become a proxy war between England and France, not knowing English had become a point of pride among the common folk, particularly as the hard consonants and flat vowels sounded a lot like Prussian, spoken by the invaders who massed outside the city.

  “And ’ave you forgotten that I am housing you and your friends for free?” she snarled in Marie’s ear.

  “And have you forgotten we’re trying to help replace the faulty gas lighting system?” Marie snapped back. “You can’t have a performance without light.”

  “The professor isn’t proceeding as I’d hoped.” Lucille’s eyes glittered as the gas lights subsided and then flamed back to light. “I doubt he will have anything installed in time for dress rehearsals, and I am not sure I want to try the holiday play with an untested system.”

  Marie couldn’t argue. “Science takes time,” she said, echoing Professor Edward Bailey’s oft-repeated sentiments. But she’d watched him in the laboratory they set up in a room at the top of the apartment building. The space itself received a lot of illumination, but the scientist within didn’t seem to. Seemingly mesmerized by the isolated drop of aether within the glass globe, he would only sit and stare at his equipment. Inventor Patrick O’Connell proceeded better with developing the actual aether lighting equipment, but without the substance itself in usable form, the system would be useless.

  “I cannot support you if we do not have a performance. We cannot have a performance without a leading actress. You are her understudy. Therefore, you must take the stage again.” Lucille punctuated that last statement with a finger held up in triumph.

  “The only reason I accepted the understudy role was because I knew there was no way Corinne would back out. She may still do it.” Marie looked to where the actress had been set, but—uncharacteristic for her—Corinne had left quietly and without any kind of announcement. “Merde, she really was frightened.”

  “Congratulations, Henriette,” Lucille said. “You have tonight to memorize your lines. Rehearsals start for you tomorrow. Now Gerard, let’s get
back to the scene in the graveyard. I’ll stand in for Marie as Henriette today.”

  * * * * *

  Violinist, artist, and now disgraced gentleman Johann Bledsoe snuck in the back door of the theatre. Or at least he tried to, but he ended up holding the door open for the blonde actress he’d bedded two nights previously. Or had that been three? Either way, he tipped his hat and smiled, bracing himself for an onslaught of emotion and reproach.

  “Merci, Monsieur,” she said with uncharacteristic meekness, at least from what he could remember. She’d been a tiger in bed, or at least an alley cat. This change in character intrigued him.

  “Where are you going?” he asked.

  “Away. Death has come for me, and although I know it is futile, I shall run to the ends of the earth to escape her.”

  “All right, then. It figures death would be female.” He watched Corinne hurry away, but before she reached the end of the alley, she turned.

  “Beware, Monsieur! La Mort has come to the theatre, and she will not leave until she has claimed enough souls to satisfy her insatiable hunger.”

  “If it’s insatiable, then she won’t be sated,” Johann pointed out, but she only shook her head and picked up her pace, her satin slippers splashing in the puddles from last night’s rain.

  Johann tried to enter again, but this time Marie St. Jean dashed out and nearly bowled him over.

  “Where is she?” she asked. Her chest heaved, and Johann dragged his eyes away from her generous décolletage, which didn’t need that much help from a corset. Not that he would know. She’d kept a careful distance from him since the incident in Rome when it was revealed how much of an ass he was. Had been. All right, was.

  “Who?” His befuddled mind wondered if Marie ran after death.

  “Corinne, the lead actress in Light Fantastique,” she said and gave him a look that would have shrunk the balls of a lesser man back into his torso. Johann’s balls barely took notice except to shoot an impulse to his brain to kiss her. They said such things frequently about Marie, so he told them to shut up.

  “She ran that way,” he said and gestured to the end of the alley.

  “Merde,” she muttered and picked up her skirts to run after the escaped actress, but a gust of wind made her gasp.

  Johann followed her through the alley. Now he really had to try not to look at the front of her dress to see if the wind had done him a favor and peaked her nipples. “You really shouldn’t be running about without a coat. You’ll catch your death of cold.”

  Another cool gust ruffled both their hair, and he shivered both internally and externally at his unintentional mention of whatever had scared the actress.

  “I should be so lucky,” Marie said through gritted teeth. They reached the street and looked in both directions, but the only thing to be seen was the disappearing back of a cab. “Damn, now we’ll never catch her.” She dropped her skirts and rubbed her hands over her bare forearms.

  “What was that all about?” Johann took off his overcoat and draped it around her shoulders.

  “I don’t need your help,” Marie told him, but she tugged the wool closer around her.

  Lucky coat. “I wasn’t offering it, merely curious, that’s all.”

  They turned back and walked toward the theatre’s back door. The alley concentrated small gusts of wind into blasts, and Johann tried not to flinch whenever one hit them.

  “But perhaps your way with women could be useful,” Marie told him with a sideways glance that brought surprising warmth to his middle.

  “How so?”

  “Something spooked her. She said it was a ghost that looked like Death.”

  “And it wasn’t the costume they’re using in the play?”

  “Of course! Someone was playing a trick on her. She’s certainly been nasty to enough people to warrant it. Thank you!” Marie stood on her toes and kissed his cheek. “I’m going to her lodgings to explain. Then she’ll come back.”

  Once inside, Marie handed his coat back to him and with a grin dashed off, presumably to get her own cloak and go to Corinne’s apartment.

  “Shall I accompany you?” he asked.

  “Normally I would say no, but…” She sighed, and she hunched her shoulders when Lucille’s voice floated down to them from the backstage area.

  “Marie, come quick. The new phantom costume has arrived. You must see this.”

  “Your mother isn’t good for your posture,” Johann observed.

  Marie straightened. “Or my sanity.”

  Reluctant to let this moment of detente pass, he followed her up the narrow wooden stairs.

  * * * * *

  Lucille held the mask for Marie to admire. “It is made from a material that will appear to glow, or at least I hope it will, in the Professor’s new aether light.”

  “What happened to the old costume?” Marie asked, afraid of the answer. “And when did this one arrive?”

  Lucille waved a hand. “I sold the previous one to one of our noble patrons for his parlor games. He has a mistress who likes strange bedroom role-plays. Death should be tattered, but that old costume had so many holes you could see the person underneath. Another reason it was perfect for the Count.”

  Marie had long since grown out of the tendency to blush at the mention of sex, but the image of her and Maestro Bledsoe playing out a scandalous scene with the costume flashed through her brain. He stood beside her, and she couldn’t help but be aware of his broad shoulders and chest that tapered toward a narrow but still manly waist.

  “Well, this leaves us with a problem,” he said.

  “Several,” Marie murmured and widened the distance between them as she reminded herself that he was a selfish sort, as the English would say. “But yes, we’re back to needing to know what frightened Corinne.”

  Lucille put a hand on Marie’s cheek. “Mon Dieu, your skin is cold. What did you do, go chasing after her, you silly fille? You need to preserve your voice, not risk it by running into the cold without a cloak.”

  “I had a coat,” Marie said with a sideways glance up at the musician. He grinned but didn’t say anything, for which she was grateful.

  “As for what frightened Corinne, bah!” Lucille banged her cane on the floor. “She was always a silly, superstitious girl, particularly once she became the premiere femme. As for you, go to the Chambre d’Etoile. You need to practice your lines, and I will send Madame Beaufort to start fitting the costumes to you. They will all need to be let out.” She pinched Marie on the waist.

  Marie moved away from her mother’s critical, prying words and fingers. “Yes, that would be wise, so I don’t burst through the seams on opening night.” The look on Johann’s face made heat bloom in her chest. “I mean, it’s not going to be that kind of show.” Still not helping. I need to get rid of him. She curtsied and said, “Maestro, thank you for your assistance. I’m sure you preserved my ability to perform in this detestable play.”

  “Any time,” he replied with a cough. His cupid’s bow lips were pulled back into a grin that said he tried not to laugh at Lucille’s ridiculous antics. “And I think the costumes will look better on you, anyway. You have a more classical figure.”

  “Thank you. If you’ll excuse me.”

  Marie fled from the genuine admiration in his eyes and the answering expansion of gratification in her middle. Silly girl, you can’t get stupid over a man who does something nice for you. But her mind turned to the feel of the soft wool coat being placed on her shoulders by his large, strong hands.

  Maybe having to take the lead in this play is a good thing. If I’m going to lose part of myself, I’d prefer it go to a role than to a man.

  Now anxiety replaced any warm feeling she’d gotten from the maestro’s complimentary look, and she had to catch herself and lean against the nearest wall while waiting for her heart to stop its poun
ding in her throat. She would have to take the stage again and face the loss of part of her soul.

  Chapter Two

  Théâtre Bohème, 1 December 1870

  “Now as for you…” Madame St. Jean turned to Johann, and he had to take his eyes from the retreating figure of her daughter. He made it a policy not to ogle young women when their mothers were present—he’d almost gotten trapped into marriage that way once—but he couldn’t help himself. Since Rome, he’d found himself slipping in his policies around Marie, and he’d need to find a new distraction soon. One that would stick or at least do a better job of getting her out of his head.

  “What about me?” he asked with the lopsided grin he used to charm women of all ages.

  “I have been looking for a first violin who can lead the stage orchestra in the Overture and Entr’acte pieces with the kind of emotion Berlioz’s music deserves. So far I have not found anyone, but I have heard you play.”

  “You’ve heard me practice,” Johann corrected her. “Not play. I’m taking a break from performing in large venues at the moment.”

  “I am aware of your reputation, Maestro. All of it.” She fixed him with her glittering black stare. “And need I remind you that you and your friends have been staying under my roof with no recompense to this point?”

  “Professor Bailey and Mister O’Connell are working on a new lighting system for you, and I believe Doctor Radcliffe set one of your stage hand’s broken wrist a few weeks ago,” Johann pointed out.

  “Working on is not the same as installing or fixing, and all of you owe me more than a set wrist.”

  Johann took a deep breath and did what he usually did when faced with a difficult woman, ask what she truly wanted. Not just from him, but from life. The answer came to him—Madame wanted to have control down to the smallest detail. She acted with the aggressiveness of someone who had let it slip once and had lost a great deal. He wondered if it had something to do with her hatred of Parnaby Cobb and the past connection with him that Marie refused to talk about.