Grace took her time shoving feather boas and old tiaras into a carpet bag that morning. Mai, it turns out was as obsessed with queens and princesses as Grace had been with the concept of music at that age. She was going to bring her a present. Or rather... a carpet bag full of them.
   Grace left a little later than usual, but picked up the pace as she walked, completely unaware that she was being followed, too caught up in the image of Mai's delighted smile.

     When she arrived, the first thing she did was cook breakfast for the ladies and tell Mai stories, as Catherine had once done for her. It scared her, to be standing in the kitchens, the sleeves of her old dress rolled up her forearms, telling stories to a little girl, just as much as it filled her paused heart with joy. She saw herself in Catherine's role, in both the good and bad ways. Catherine had been a woman who had been beaten down in life. She'd had good times, yes, but still, she'd ended up dying as a cook at a brothel. And yet she had also found delight in be coming friends with a little girl who needed and wanted to bond with her.

   Mai needed Grace as much as Grace needed Mai.

   After breakfast, Grace took Mai out into the alley, where a few flowers grew through the cracks in the pavement, and played dress up with her. They pretendes Mai was a Queen, abd Grace her dancer, and Grace even showed Mai a few positions.

   But Grace still had to work, so she brought Mai back inside.

     Neither one once felt the dark, burning ichor eyes scrutinizing them.

                                   🌹

   It had surprised Erik, to see Grace playing with the child. He didn't like children terribly  - now at least, since his Celine had left - and she didn't strike him as a girl who would ever want children. But somehow, there she was, genuinely smiling, letting her brightness shine through the tears in the veil of the role she normally played. She was being kind, loving, and friendly to the little girl, no doubt a revolting bastard child between a Frenchman and a whore.

   He was tired of watching though, and the brothel was beginning to empty. The perfect time to find out what he needed to. If he found Grace was... partaking in such activities, he was more than prepared to fire her. It would hurt, yes. But he would not allow her to divide her attention between this and her work for him. Whether he needed her to play the role of Renata or not in January.

      He drew his hood far down over his face, concealing the white mask beneath. Heaven forbid that gave away his cover.

  Painted, half dressed women reclined on sofas or stood in corners, entertaining a few gentlemen. From the sounds coming from upstairs, he judged that a few more were also... currently busy.

    A young brunette with a painted face that had not yet begun to show the consequences of years of drink and debauchery approached him, a coquettish smile decorating her grotesquely red lips. Oh god if Celine were doing this at the moment he'd never forgive himself.

   "May I help you, Monsieur? I am not entertaining anyone at the moment." She slid her hand up his shoulder, feeling the muscles of his arm. He shrugged her hand away, disgusted by her and the memories she brought forth.

   "I wonder why," he replied. "But you can help me. I'm looking for a Mademoiselle Grace -"

   "Grace does not take visitors!" Erik's eyes snapped to an older blonde woman who had been seated on a sofa. Her face betrayed sudden anxiety and pure horror. Well that was interesting.

    "And what would you want Grace for? I'm sure I'm much more fun than she," said the brunette.

   Erik ignored her, walking over to the blonde.

   He produced a leather pouch from beneath his cloak. All of the women except for the blonde eyed it; all of them able to sniff out money more easily than a bloodhound could a dying rat.

    "There are fifteen hundred francs in here. Perhaps now, I might see Grace?" He smiled, thinking that bribery would work.

   To his utter shock, it almost didn't. "I'm sorry. But Grace never -"

   "Felicette!" A man's voice scolded.

   He entered the room, and instantly, from the affect he had on the women, Erik knew he was the proprietor of the establishment. The ladies all cast their eyes to the ground, became stiff. Erik found he nearly pitied them.

   The man glared at the woman - Felicette, and smiled at Erik. "I can take you to Grace, sir. Please follow me."

    He took the bag from Erik before leading hin upstairs. "She doesn't usually take visitors, but for this price I will make an exception. I wondered if any of her old friends would stop by sooner or later. You will not be disappointed once you break her Fiesty attitude, I promise."

   So she's entertaining up there after all...

                             🌹

    "Bitch!"

    Grace was making the bed in Felicette's room when the Monsieur called for her. She knew it was her because he had stopped calling the other ladies that term, saving it only for her.

   She stepped out into the hall to find the Monsieur  with another man who wore a cloak.

   Erik wondered why she wasn't dressed like a prostitute. He could understand why she wouldn't leave the theatre like that... but she wore the most... unwhorelike clothing possible. A ragged old white blouse tucked into a brown skirt, with a checkered shawl over her shoulders, with her hair tied up and face unpainted. No bright colors, no feminine assets pushed up on display like the other women. It was odd.

   "What, do you want me to do his laundry too? Maybe instead of a house of prostitution you should open a laundress' shop."

   The Monsieur forced a laugh, but Grace could tell from his eyes that he wanted to sew her mouth shut. This man must be important.

   "How silly of you, dear Grace."

   Since when did he call her Grace? It was Bitch or Celine to him.

   "But no. You are to... entertain this man. He offered a price for you which I could not refuse."

   Grace's face went apple red in a second. "I told you I will not -"

   "You will. Or the deal is off."

    Grace thought a moment. Judging from the man in th cloak, he was tall and skinny. He probably was all bones and no muscle. Maybe a teenager testing the waters. She could scare him out of it perhaps. Sometimes the ladies got lucky and they ran away before the door had even closed.

   She smiled sweetly, and took the man's arm. "Of course, I'd be delighted." She flung her most charming expression at them both before leading the man into the room, and closing the door behind them.

   Grace pulled him over to the bed, turning slightly, still smiling. He hadn't backed out yet, and they were so close to the bed... maybe she needed to threaten him.

   Facing away from him, her hands went to her bodice, and from behind it looked as if she were going to undo the buttons. Deviously grinning, she spun around, pushing the fellow into the bed post, placing the knife she had retrieved to his chest. Never did she go a day here without a weapon of some sort. She didn't trust the monsieur and other men might be stupid.

   She worried vaguely at the feeling of hard flesh under her arm. This was not a bony schoolboy after all...

   Erik raised a hand and let his cloak fall away. "Hello Grace. Care to explain what you're doing before I do something you'll regret?"

   She stared at him, dumbfounded.

   "Come, come, no quick retorts? Have you been selling your bits of your brain along with your body? I guess this won't be so bad after all. It seems I'll enjoy -"

   Grace slashed at his throat with her knife but Erik was no stranger to blades and swiftly blocked her attack disarming her simultaneously. What the hell was he doing here? What was happening? He looked so angry. Her flight or fight kicked in and she would not win a fight against him.

   Grace was an animal trapped in a corner now. She breathed heavily as her eyes darted around the room. There was no where for her to go, and she needed to get away from him. He was no longer, in her mind, the great gentleman he had thought him to be, no. Now he was no worse than the men down the hall using the women in the other bedrooms. She had to get away from him before she became one of those women. She ran, past trauma clouding her mind.

   She spun around his outstretched arm, jumping on then off the bed, taking everything off the tables she could and blindly throwing the objects at him. A very large candlelabra sat on a bookcase, and she aimed to get that. Erik, however, was right behind her, refusing to allow her to bash his head in with a candle holder. And damn her shortness, even on her toes she couldn't reach. She ran across the room again, his fingers narrowly missing her back, her mousy hair. She settled for a pair of rusty scissors. If she was lucky he'd get tetanus after he killed her.

   Unfortunately the moment she turned around, ready to brandish her new weapon, Erik was bearing down upon her. And he knew how she fought and dodged her incoming knee with ease. His arms encircled her, restraining her own. However, this was his mistake. As he pinned her arms to her sides, she scratched his thigh with her scissors.

   Cursing her and permitting fury to over come reason he carried her, kicking and screaming and slashing to the bed, where he promptly threw her down and climbed on top of her, restraining her flailing limbs with his own stronger ones. If she wanted to wrestle he'd wrestle the breath out of her and then berate her until he got some answers. Foolish child.

   Grace had difficulty breathing, given that she had not fully recovered from the previous nights' events and the fact that there was a man practically lying on her, and said man was not exactly being gentle about being on top of her. Her corset didn't help much either.

  Still she struggled, terrified.

   "Will you stop!" Erik yelled at her.

   "No! Get off me!"

   "And have you stab me? I think not - give me those damn scissors before you gouge your own eyes out."

  "No! Get off of me, you bastard!" He really was a monster, a monster who she knew would eventually have his way with her less she come up with some way to kill him.

   "Give me the scissors!" He dug his fingers into her hand, and she was forced to relinquish her weapon.

   Immediately, Grace burst into tears, unable to see any way to stop him.

   "Why are you crying? What is wrong with you!"

    "I'm not a prostitute!" She cried out, violently hyperventilating and sobbing underneath him. "I'd rather die before you touched me! Get off!"

   He stared at her, trying to comprehend what she just said. She wasn't a prostitute. She thought he was -

   "What are you talking about? I'm not going to lay a hand on you, damn it! Even when you were little, you thought I was going to rape you - I'm not going to rape you!" He became distressed as the crying didn't stop and her pusle began to beat erratically under his fingers curled around her wrists.

   "You didn't know me when I was young!" Actually, he did, it seems. But she was not having that conversation now. "And... if you weren't... going to do something... of that vile nature... why... were you... chasing me?"

  "Because what else could I do, did you expect me to just allow you to stab me? Why were you trying to stab me?"

   "Because you were chasing me and I thought you were going to hurt me!"

   Feeling her heaving for air under him, Erik threw the scissors across the room and slid off her, deciding pinning her down any longer could not be healthy. He settled against the head board as she sat up, gasping and glaring murderously at him.

   "Would you care to tell me - once you can safely breathe and stop crying, why you are here if you are not a whore?"

   "That's offensive."

   "Becaue it's true?"

   "I... I clean, cook, do the laundry, and take care of the little girl. Felicette's daughter. It's part of a deal I made with the Monsieur. I am trying to buy the women their freedom. They're... friends of my other parents." That was not precisely a lie. Though Erik did spot it.

  "That's what you needed the money for. Why didn't you tell me?"

    "I wasn't sure if you would understand, and I didn't want to degrade myself in your eyes. If you haven't noticed, neither of us trust very many people besides each other, so..."

     "You could tell me anything." If she had, he probably would have just offered to buy the women himself.

       "I only have a week and a half left, it wouldn't really have mattered now. I didn't think Guy would tell - he did, didn't he?" Another reason she hated him.

    "Yes. And you will not be working here another week."

     "I have to! Did you not listen to anything I just said?"

        "Yes, and I'll allow it on the condition that you permit me to accompany you. What if it had been another man who offered that price for you? You would not be sitting here unscathed." Speaking of being scathed, Erik looked down at his bloody leg and pressed a handkerchief to it. The initials E. F. D. demanded of Grace that she must eventually have a certain conversation. But that was for another time.

      "It's less then two weeks. And I'm not very desirable anyway!"

    "On the contrary, you are quite pretty."

      Grace just stared at him. "And I'll bring Leo. He's terrified of Leo."

    Erik glared at her.

   "Fine."

     But they were still not done. Erik tugged Grace up from the bed and proceeded to abruptly drag her down the stairs. She complained the entire way. The Monsieur sat in the parlor, counting money.

      "Grace, please go outside a moment," Erik said. Grace complied, figuring he was going to make some threats. The mere idea of the Monsieur being afraid brought to her great delight.

     "How much will you charge for the women if Grace does not fulfill the rest of time?"

    "I don't know why you keep calling her that. Her real name is Celine. Did you know that she's actually the daughter of one of my dead whores?"

   "Answer the question."

    "Fifty thousand francs."

      Erik smiled. "In that case, we have a deal. I'll drop Grace off at her home and come back with the money."

         A/N

     I hope I made Erik scary enough he. Probably didn't because he is often a squishy that needs to be held and protected. Grace on the other hand... let's hope he doesn't get tetnus! Thanks to my lovely readers! A

      Alexa