Master Daaé was a famous violinist who traveled and took Christine with him everywhere; thus, she had no home, no friends, and merely saw city after city from coaches and small hotel rooms. It was not until that long-ago summer by the sea at Perros-Guirec that her father decided to stay in one place. But that was years after Christine had seen, and fallen in love with, the beautiful lady.

And tonight, with shaking knees and churning belly, she'd become that beautiful lady of her dreams.

And now all would be well. She would be happy and loved and safe.

Now, as Christine reached her dressing room, a deep, masculine voice penetrated the high-pitched tones of her girlish companions. "Miss Daaé?"

The voice, not the disembodied one of her ange, but an earthly one, was close behind her and drew Christine from the task of unlocking the door of her room.

As she turned, his name came to her ears, hissed in the undertow of voices from the excited girls… "The Vicomte de Chagny! It is he! The new patron's brother!"

She turned and saw him, recognition following immediately. "Raoul!" she exclaimed without thinking, for he was a friend of her childhood, one whom she'd come to know for a short, happy time during that summer by the sea.

How handsome he had grown, how tall and chiseled and elegant he was, from his slender fingers to his small, clipped mustache. His long blond hair, clubbed at the back of his neck, gleamed golden and tawny in the light. Clear blue eyes smiled at her, taking her back to those days when they'd played together and listened to her father's stories about the Angel of Music. She recognized that he was wearing a naval uniform and was not surprised, for he'd loved the sea, even all those years ago.

She wondered what Raoul would say if she told him she'd been visited by a true ange, and that he'd been tutoring her for months. And that it was because of his tutoring that she had become the beautiful lady.