Clockwork Phantom

Chapter 1-2

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 n*****s. “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.