Song of Seduction (10 page)

“I want you to meet her.” Although Mathilda had convinced him of her authenticity, he also knew that a less talented, more desperate soul—Arie de Voss—had fooled astute music aficionados since he was nineteen. “For four weeks now, I am trying every method I can devise. She astounds me. I am convinced her talent is a miraculous gift.”

Haydn nodded in silence. They crossed the worn cobblestones of the wide church courtyard, within which stood bare chestnut trees and a statue of St. Peter. Graying skies and a pale blanket of snow bleached the color from the cathedral’s green copper dome and the red-and-white Romanesque blocks of its façade.

The
Kapellmeister
stopped at the private entrance to the
Kloster.
“I’m curious, De Voss. Arrange an introduction at your next convenience. I will hear this widowed marvel for myself.”

Mathilda had yet to recover from the news. After sharing a quiet meal with Ingrid, and merely a day past her most recent lesson, she had not expected to spend time with Arie De Voss. Thinking of him, yes, and waiting for their next meeting—but not sitting with him in the parlor, each on opposing fawn-colored settees.

He absently picked at the upholstery. “How is Lord Venner?”

“He is well,” she said with a smile. Ingrid complained that he was a little
too
recovered, missing supper for a second night in order to tend Council business at the Residenz. “Quite well, actually.”

“
Goed.
I am glad to hear it.”

He glanced about the room, absorbing the details and resisting her unspoken questions. The mantel clock ticked a persistent reminder of the silence lengthening between them. Mathilda had thought them past this uncomfortable mess.

With a glad heart, she had noticed a change in him. Gradually, over a few weeks of measured but consistent time together, he had started to smile—sometimes without hesitation. He dressed neatly and kept the studio warm for her weekly arrivals. They said little to each other, as twirling melodies and her stilted attempts to sight-read filled uneventful lessons. But their companionship had started to ease and broaden.

Friendly formality took the place of exhausting banter. Sidelong glances replaced overt appraisals. And a very polite gentleman, one who closely resembled the chivalrous idol she had imagined, masked the real man.

By repressing his surly arrogance, De Voss had transformed into a living version of her most intimate, embarrassing fantasies. Mathilda had yearned for his respect, and he offered it freely. But she had also wanted him to see her as an individual, not an anonymous admirer. She wanted to know him in return. His new graciousness smacked of something…ordinary.

Now he paid her a visit, apparently content to sit in a foul humor and unravel his genial progress.

Her patience wasted, and thinned, and finally snapped. “Maestro, why are you here? I don’t mean to be rude, but—”

“No, no. You are right. I am here unannounced. Forgive me.”

“There’s nothing to forgive. I…you seem distressed.”

He inhaled. “I dined with Kapellmeister Haydn this evening. When he asked about my new students, I did tell him about you.”

Surprise tickled beneath her ribs, a fluttering sensation of importance that startled and excited her. “You mentioned me to the
Kapellmeister?
”

“I did.” A grin briefly escaped the dark confines of his mood, only to fall again. His blue eyes finally found hers. “And he recognized your husband’s name.”

Ice formed over her heart. “Oh?”

“Mathilda, was he killed?”

“He was.” Anger and fear overwhelmed her manners after only two syllables. She wanted to flee, but pacing proved the best compromise. She took to her feet and began marking anxious patterns across the carpeting. “Are you curious? Intent on prying? Would you have come here unannounced had you learned he died of a fever? Or a fall from his horse?”

He frowned. “Yes. To hear it from you. At Carnival, you were upset when I inquired to others about you.”

“And you want details.”

“If you wish.”

“And if I do not?”

His calm met her agitation, swirling the atmosphere in the room. Three unhurried steps brought him to her side. He took her hands, the only physical contact they had shared in weeks. “Then I will not trouble you further.”

Whether with his touch or his words, or perhaps by some combination, De Voss eased the turbulence. He was a mystery to her, but he was no stranger, no curiosity seeker. Her mind settled. And her knees began to shake.

He guided her. “Come. Sit.”

They settled onto a settee. He freed her hands before she was ready to let go.

Greedy to stare if she could not touch, Mathilda studied his wrists where they poked from the cuffs of his coat. Despite long, graceful fingers, his wrists appeared powerful. Sturdy. Masculine. Tendons, bones and muscle. Sandy hair fanned over his skin like wheat in a field.

And the words came.

“A blacksmith’s son discovered his remains along the north bank of the Salzach. He was stabbed in the chest during a brawl in an alehouse along Linzergasse. Witnesses said he’d been attempting to administer aid. He was left for dead for his trouble. Two men were hanged for the crime last summer.”

His voice rumbled like a muted peal of thunder. “How did you learn of it?”

“I was putting the wash up to dry,” she said. “Guardsmen and a colleague of Jürgen’s walked through the common courtyard. Their faces, their whispers—everything tilted to an odd angle. I knew something terrible had happened.”

Moments that had passed companionably within the walls of his studio stretched tense there in the parlor, weaving a steady pulse into Mathilda’s ears.

“I will go,” he said.

She jerked her head up. “You come here and ask questions, only to leave? What is this about?”

Roughly, with a return to old habits, he raked unsteady hands through his hair. “Do you want more of my bad humor that upsets you? More of my teasing? I cannot offer condolences for fear of making more mistakes. I do not know what to say to you, Mathilda.”

Leaving was easier than doing battle against the helplessness he felt. He could offer no sweet words, and he certainly could not stand to the challenge of making right the wrong she had suffered. As a boy, he had endured a similar injustice, and no one’s words, no matter how wise or kind, had ever healed his pain.

But he did not leave, did not even move to stand. He leaned nearer.

Need and compassion blended, pulling him to her heat. Closer now. His hands and hers, together again. Two people sharing a capacity to injure, even with the best of intentions.

He had no reason to look at her for a few added heartbeats. He had no reason to notice the gentle disarray of her hair, where frazzled curls tangled around an earlobe. And he had no idea why that teasing glimpse of flesh snared him. To deny the need to taste was to deny air to a suffocating man.

He
was suffocating.

During the frantic seconds when he thought to take her earlobe into his mouth, a hard stab of desire shot from his brain to his groin. A catalog of temptations teased him with possibility. Yes, the earlobe—to start. Then the hollow behind it. And her neck. Her mouth. At the touch of his lips to her flesh, she would greet him and share the impulsive taste of a first kiss.

Mathilda.

She should not have seemed willing, but she did. She breathed deeply through her nose, inhaling the tension flickering between their skins. The air vibrated. Eyes of dark moss and gold watched him—encouraging, rejecting—until a glint of adoration returned. Welcoming. Her soft expression turned hungry with shared need. Her mouth opened in a silent invitation.

Did she expect him to abuse her trust, her grieving vulnerability? Was she waiting for the moment he would cross an invisible barrier and disappoint her again?

Unbidden questions doused his passion. Certainty folded into hesitation. He pulled away, retreating from the scant inches separating his face from hers. Force of will did not compel him to release her hands; fear did. And greed.

A weak creature, he had no qualms with pushing his luck to the point of disaster. But he was selfish, too, and he wanted to see her again. He wanted more of the quiet companionship of their lessons—week after week, every week, until she could no longer bear the idea of being separated from him. Every week, until mere Wednesday afternoons became a terrible confinement from which togetherness would set them free.

Arie De Voss no longer wanted to be alone.

He gave up one kiss for the chance at future kisses. In the hopes of satisfying his passion more thoroughly, more completely, he relinquished a sweltering moment of lust.

She asked questions too. He had moved to kiss her and he had not, in fact, kissed her. Confusion, a provoking blend of relief and frustration, deepened the hue of her eyes.

But she banked her questions and pulled away. Arie felt a shift in the room as they each retreated to safe emotional corners. “You’re right,” she whispered. “You should go.”

Blood fizzed in his ears and thudded along his rigid shaft. He shifted subtly on the settee and forced calm through his demanding body. His brain had made a decision, but his body still wanted release. He wanted Mathilda.

And he felt the bizarre need to apologize. He longed to reveal his thoughts and explain his strange behavior, to ask her forgiveness, but he had called that evening to talk about her husband. Even Arie would not be so crass as to further despoil the memory of her marriage. He had done damage enough.

Instead, he would wait. He needed time. And he would give her time.

With as much steadiness as he could summon, he said, “The
Kapellmeister
would like to meet you. Shall I arrange for our next lesson?”

She swallowed, her eyes turned aside. “Of course. But next week is Ash Wednesday.”

Verdomme.

He had forgotten about the impending holy day. He would have to forego seeing her for nearly two weeks. While their shared hours passed like the flash of a spark, menacing weeks of separation spoke of his increasing dependence on her company.

“He also invited me to play in a piano competition,” Arie said. “Will you come?” She looked ready to refuse, but he persisted. “I will very much like knowing you are there.”

She bit at a cuticle before tucking both hands into her lap. “I cannot attend by myself. If the Venners are willing to accompany me…then, yes. I will attend.”

Inside the boisterous establishment, the press of bodies and a roaring fire made a hazy memory of the biting cold. Arie’s senses tottered under the rush of impressions. Candles and waxed-covered chandeliers cast a bright, inviting light over men playing cards, tables surrounded by feasting patrons, and an ensemble of wind musicians. Smoke created a wispy haze just below the ceiling.

A piano competition. What was he thinking?

Foremost, he was thinking of the four students he stood to lose in five months’ time, upon their graduation from the university. No matter his remaining pupils, he would run out of funds in short order. Hours spent battering and blasting new compositions into life consumed valuable hours—hours he should have been using to seek tutoring opportunities. And the Venners’ monthly stipend only reached so far.

Haydn’s fortuitous mention of a public piano competition thrilled Arie with the possibility of a financial reprieve. The promised purse might be enough to see him through Easter, especially if he behaved on fasting days. Summer would bring outdoor concerts and new commissions, but on that wintry eve, summer seemed a distant land.

On the second floor, glasses clinked and patrons negotiated wagers over a din of laughter and talk. He pushed past dozens of milling drinkers and wondered if it was too much to hope that Mathilda might attend. She had offered her assurances, but he did not trust her sense of obligation. When Arie had departed the Venners’ manor, she had still worn a dazed expression like a soldier recovering from the crash of cannon fire.

Her absence might be for the best, though, because he needed every shred of concentration to win the contest. She would distract him, and unwanted memories played cruel enough games within his brain.

He had not needed the ready cash of a piano competition since leaving Budapest. Since stealing
Love and Freedom.

Anxiety flashed down his muscles. His fingers tingled as if recovering from exposure to the cold. But he was a master pianist—and had been even before deceiving his way to fame. Tetchy nerves and the sharp edge of doubt could not overwhelm that plain knowledge.

The reward purse was already in his possession. He
knew.

He found the tight clump of musicians awaiting the contest’s commencement. Most of the contenders were nameless newcomers, but Arie identified Joseph Wölfl, a native Salzburger and pianist he had defeated during a competition in Nice.

The competition would not be as simple as he had imagined.

“Wölfl.”

“De Voss.”

“I thought you lived in Paris,” Arie said.

“I thought you were too accomplished for such a spectacle.”

Arie regarded his adversary, whose impressive height and enormous finger span served to intimidate his rivals. But for once, nothing would rumple his confidence. “The money is mine before we begin,” Arie said. “I see no reason not to claim what belongs to me.”

Wölfl laughed and slapped him on the back with more force than was amiable. “De Voss, I forgot how damned arrogant you are.”

Grinning through his dislike, Arie remembered Wölfl as a reckless, vain man with few markers of true musical genius. Although he had studied under Leopold Mozart and Kapellmeister Haydn in his youth, Wölfl never managed to play above the caliber of a stiff
mechanicus.
Akin to the best-trained animals in a Carnival exhibition, he lacked soul and originality.

In short, the man reflected everything Arie feared about his own deficiencies.

A fleshy barmaid passed him. She held two massive steins of strong ale in one sturdy hand and a platter of steaming
Knödeln
in the other. Although her arms strained and dampness stained her garments, she offered Arie a fresh, inviting smile. Neither the dumplings nor the overworked maid appealed to him, but the ale might calm his clammy nerves. He had not had a drink in almost three weeks.

He arranged his face into a mask of professional detachment. “And how is Paris?”

“Terrible.” Gripping the handle of his own stein with easy assurance, Wölfl downed a gulp of ale. “We must buy water because filth still clogs the Seine. Buildings collapse almost daily, like reminders of the Terror. And Bonaparte continues to close theaters. The bored
merveilleuses
can only sustain so many artists. The rest starve or flee.”

“I can see why your birthplace might hold a renewed appeal.”

“I never wanted to return to this backwater,” Wölfl said with a snort. “But such is life. Maybe I’ll try London…after I claim your winnings.”

Arie and his chief rival listened and waited for their turn at the instrument. Six other musicians competed by process of elimination. Playing for a handful of minutes, each man expanded on a ten-note motif that Hans Stüderl, the court’s
Konzertmeister
and first violinist, had jotted on a slip of paper. At the end of each piece, the crowd’s rowdy shouts determined whether the performer would remain in contention.

Second only to Arie as the most famous of the evening’s competitors, Wölfl took a turn before the keyboard and produced no small murmur of talk from the audience. Arie concentrated on his performance because success depended on finding the giant Salzburger’s weakness.

Wölfl opened with the same ten-note theme each performer used, and from that uniform beginning, he produced a quick counterpoint below the original melody. The composition sounded intensely Viennese, piercing and oddly nasal, as his powerful hands roamed the keyboard with light, rapid touches. His long limbs worked the keys and pedals in an overwrought display of technical skill. A sheen of sweat formed on his brow.

The crowd loved him. Applause thundered through the building upon Wölfl’s conclusion, thrusting him to the forefront of the competitors.

Unimpressed, Arie found a renewed wellspring of confidence in the man’s excess. Agitated scales deserved no place in music of quality. Whereas Wölfl had not progressed since the last time they dueled, Arie had grown, accomplishing much since those days as a desperate, hungry, glory-bound lad. Although still desperate and occasionally hungry, he knew his craft.

Wölfl flashed prominent teeth, daring his Dutch rival to top the grandiose, crowd-winning display. He pantomimed dusting the piano bench, apparently confident of his triumph.

Arie strode to the top of the tiny stage, a raised platform just wide enough to support the petite pianoforte. The last of his debilitating nerves ebbed. Old memories vanished. He settled gingerly on the bench. Every thought and barrier fell away, leaving only the unpolluted joy of performance in their wake.

He
knew.

He reached for the penciled jot of music and turned it upside down.