Song of Seduction (16 page)

Mathilda sat on the floor, tucked in the crook of Arie’s arm and breathing against his shirt. They held one another, stalled between the barriers of the past and a boundless future she had never permitted herself to anticipate.

“I need to go,” she said.

“If you think you can leave—”

“It will be dusk soon.” And, still recovering from the constant companions of grief and guilt, she was not prepared to stay with him. Time…just a little time. “The Venners will worry—or Ingrid will, at least.” She sighed heavily. “And…”

He shifted, looking wary of whatever excuse she prepared to give. “What?”

“Don’t laugh.” She ducked her head, feeling foolish. “I want to talk to Jürgen.”

He did not laugh. Instead, he nodded with a solemnity that eased the tension in her heart. “Where is his grave?”

“Sebastiankirche, across the river.”

“I will accompany you.” She began to protest but his warning look brooked no argument. He turned and took her hands, sitting cross-legged before her. “Tilda, listen. You are right. Dusk is upon us. Do not ask to walk by yourself at night. I want to go with you, but you will have privacy. I swear.”

She swallowed, looking away from his earnest consideration. Habitual sorrows clawed at her lungs, battling her pride and threatening her hope.

“I am terrified of the river.” Her voice sounded like that of a scared girl. She cringed at the pathetic proof of her fear. “My mother—did the
Kapellmeister
tell you? She drowned herself in the Salzach. Jürgen’s body was found on its banks. I haven’t crossed the river since leaving our house on Steingasse last year.”

Arie offered a slight smile. “Then I will hold your hand.”

After donning their outerwear, they emerged from his studio and walked alongside one another. East on Getreidegasse. Left past the Rathaus. Mathilda focused on the thick, muted sound of their feet striking snowy cobblestones. Had her stomach not been tense with fear and apprehension, she would have enjoyed the least demanding silence of their acquaintance. Arie had been her idol, her instructor, her lover. Now he had transformed into an advocate when she needed his strength. The calm resilience and support of his affection eased her fraying nerves.

She paused at the foot of Staatsbrücke, the bridge connecting the city to the world beyond its watery border. The wind whipped across the half-frozen river and pressed her gown against her legs. Mathilda searched to find the building she and Jürgen had occupied. Perched on the opposite shore, its flinty color blended into low clouds on the horizon. She had called those rooms on the fourth floor
home,
but the sight of it was unfamiliar now, even dreamlike. The moniker had been an exaggeration because—at the very least—no home of her choosing would ever boast such a breathtaking view of the Salzach. She had avoided the west-facing windows, refusing to acknowledge the river’s taunting calm.

Arie offered his hand. “Come.”

The stormy early evening sky darkened his face with shadows. She wanted to caress him, to kiss him, with emotions borne of thanks and a deeper eagerness.

She took his hand.

Her legs ached from the effort of keeping them steady. She crossed the bridge with stiff steps, clenching the marble balustrade and Arie’s entwined fingers. Her breath came fast and hard, but on she walked. The steady rhythm of her pounding heart contradicted her sloppy steps. Dizziness bullied her knees toward collapse.

At last they reached the north bank, but the terror of the wide river proved long to recede. Flickering blisters of light cluttered her vision.

Bravely ascending Linzergasse, the street on which Jürgen had been murdered, Mathilda and her silent Dutch escort arrived at the fifty-year-old Sebastiankirche.

She had not attended Mass at the small Baroque cathedral since Jürgen’s death. Those days seemed impossibly distant, and she looked upon the church’s ornate door and sculpted surroundings with a new appreciation. They crossed the passage leading to the cemetery, past the Chapel of St. Philip Neri and the imposing mausoleum of the most powerful prince-archbishop in Salzburg’s history, Wolf Dietrich Raitenau. The marble chamber shone pale and ghostly beneath the faint glow of lanterns burning within the church’s single tower.

“Have you been here before?”

“No.” He perused the courtyard, examining the architecture with keen, roving eyes.

“Two centuries ago a fire destroyed the central cathedral,” she said, recalling stories Ingrid’s father had told—and postponing her purpose. “Archbishop Dietrich ordered the construction of the Dom atop the ruins, at the expense of the city cemetery. They razed graves and turned the rubble into the earth.”

Arie glowered in the dusk. “The citizens allowed this?”

“They were outraged.” She smiled slightly. “He fled to the
Festung,
the fortress atop Mönchsberg, and lived there in exile until his death. A few caskets were saved and transported here, long before anyone thought to build the church.”

Her maestro released her hand and nodded to the awaiting cemetery. “Go now. I will walk you to the Venners’ house when you are ready.”

Stepping gingerly through sopping, neatly tended rows, Mathilda brushed chilled fingertips along the carved marble statuary and headstones. Having already faced more potent fears, the play of gathering shadows across the snowy graves held no power to frighten her.

Tradition dictated, out of consideration to delicate constitutions, that new widows remain at home in the company of other women during burial rites. Mathilda had not attended the ceremony to commit her husband to the earth, but she knew this place. She had walked its grassy rows, finding his headstone, intending to say goodbye. Yet the words had stuck fast in her mouth. Soon after, she had fled to the Altstadt, cloistering herself within those tight urban streets, lest she go mad from the guilt and loneliness.

At last, she came to the cross marking Jürgen’s final resting place.

Mathilda dropped to the ground, her knees sinking into the topmost layer of fresh snow. The rough edges of marble lightly scored the pads of her fingers as she traced his name. She had imagined remorseful tears flowing freely, but none came.

She had not loved Jürgen Heidel, but she had respected him and cared for him. He had been a studious man, the flexible counter to her stubborn will. And though driven by the demands of his profession, he had been gentle and humorous as well.

As Mathilda exhausted her scant knowledge of Jürgen’s character, Arie’s words in the studio prompted new questions. What had her husband hidden from her? What world, what impulses, had he felt unable to share? She had assumed that he would have no appreciation for the private passions driving her wild with discontent, but she had not dared to find out.

She whispered to him, then, speaking from her heart. “Have I misjudged you? Had I been brave, would you have understood me?” Her words gained strength in the near darkness. “Maybe you tried, but I refused to hear. I should have trusted you. And myself. Because I would like to have known you, without the silences. The chance to share with you—I will always regret losing that. Because I’m different now,
mein Lieber.
I’m brave now.” Her voice broke. “Please understand me, Jürgen. Please, if you can, forgive me.”

As the snow slunk through her skirts, Mathilda covered her face with her hands and cried.

Mathilda turned away from her tiny desk and bid Klara enter. Bright early-afternoon sunshine—a light that finally offered proof of spring’s imminent return—suffused the small bedchamber. She smiled at the maid. “Yes?”

“Lady Venner requests that you accompany me to…to…” Klara pinched her lips together and rocked back on her heels, an unconscionable degree of restlessness for a maid. But her youth and inexperience accounted for her behavior, in part. Ingrid, surely, accounted for the rest.

“Go on, Klara.”

“Well, you’re to come…
near
the parlor.”

“Near?” Mathilda raised her eyebrows, both perplexed and amused. And she had every right to be amused, her heart light.

Mijn liefde.

“
Ja,
Frau Heidel. Near.”

Pulling free of Arie’s hypnotic love words, Mathilda decided to put poor Klara out of whatever fickle misery Ingrid had inflicted. “I know this is not your doing, my dear. What has Lady Venner planned?”

“Frau Kleinmayrn is in the parlor.” Her soft brown eyes flicked to the window, to the quill dangling from the edge of the desk. “I believe Lady Venner wants you to…eavesdrop.”

Mathilda stifled a giggle. But for propriety’s sake, if such a thing yet existed in her life, she smoothed her features and tried to appear temperate. “Thank you, Klara. I can accommodate her request.”

The maid fled to find other tasks. Mathilda made her way to the parlor where someone, most likely a young noblewoman with chestnut hair, had left the parlor door ajar.

Inside, Frau Kleinmayrn sat opposite Ingrid.

Septuagenarian lawyer Johann Franz Thaddäus Kleinmayrn served as president of Salzburg’s highest law office, thereby ensuring his wife a place as one of the most prominent of the city’s busy social hierarchy. She had voiced strong disapproval upon Venner’s decision to marry the only child of a self-made salt trader. Only the combined might of his influence and Ingrid’s fortune had silenced the old gossip.

Mathilda could not guess at the origin of their conversation, but she willingly accepted Ingrid’s invitation to bear clandestine witness.

“But I see nothing wrong with their actions,” Ingrid said. “Not as you’ve reported them, at any rate.”

The elderly woman with papery, blue-threaded skin sat with a stiff back. Indignation flowed from her petite body in surges and ripples. “Perhaps not with any good Salzburger, but you forget this…
Holländer.
His reputation.”

Mathilda pushed two fingers against her lips, leaning closer to the conversation.

“That
Holländer,
” Ingrid replied, “is in my husband’s good graces. We’ve become his patrons, as you likely know.”

“Although why you would support him I cannot understand.”

Ingrid smiled, a sweet expression just short of disdain. She sipped her coffee without haste or agitation. “Venner enjoys his music.”

“Nonsense. Everyone in Salzburg knows he makes no decisions regarding your artistic patronage.”

“Do you presume to interpret the workings of my household? Or my marriage?” Ingrid shook her head, slowly, as if pitying the woman. “However you’ve come to know these things, Frau Kleinmayrn, revealing them shows poor manners.”

“That man performs like a monkey thumping at a pianoforte.” The aging matron wrinkled her nose, accentuating the map of creases defining her face. “I cannot abide your impulse to invite such a creature to perform—”

“In January?”

“Yes, in January.”

“Three months ago?”

“Yes…but to permit him to accompany a widow under your husband’s charge?”

Ingrid sat forward and placed her demitasse on a low table. The delicate porcelain clattered together, the only indication of her gathering displeasure. “Frau Heidel is not my husband’s charge. She lives in our house, but she is her own person. And she certainly doesn’t answer to indictments that she simply
walked
through the city.”

Mathilda thrilled at Ingrid’s defiant words, even as the ominous threat of Frau Kleinmayrn’s accusations set a chill to her earlier happiness.

“You’re making a mistake to condone this, Lady Venner.” The acerbic matron stood and awaited the return of her outerwear. “Good day.”

Fleeing to an adjacent room along the corridor, Mathilda watched with a relieved sigh as Frau Kleinmayrn descended the stairs and departed. Ingrid emerged moments later.

“Tilda? Are you there?”

Mathilda stepped back into the hallway and followed Ingrid into the deserted parlor. “Must you involve servants in your intrigues?”

Ingrid set coffee cups on a tray. “And why not? Christoph uses Oliver for his special assignments.”

“Yes, but Oliver enjoys it. Klara looked as if you’d asked her to swallow a bug.”

“Killjoy.” She patted the cushions. “Come sit. Did you hear any of Frau Kleinmayrn’s sour drivel?”

“I did.” Mathilda crossed her ankles and pushed tense shoulders into the settee’s overstuffed softness. “She saw me with Arie? Walking?”

“On the Staatsbrücke,” she said, frowning. “I thought you were afraid of the river.”

“I was—
am.
But I wanted to visit Sebastiankirche.”

A sparkle of understanding and relief crossed Ingrid’s fragile features. “Jürgen?”

Mathilda nodded.

“I am glad for you, dearest.”

Her friend’s powers of perception had multiplied, but with regard to this topic, Mathilda was thankful. She did not want to explain that tumultuous night.

As if fighting for breath within an eclipsing wave of water, she lifted her face toward the ceiling. “But what do I do now? If Frau Kleinmayrn talks about us, she’ll make our names a scandal—no matter the truth.”

Unhurried, Ingrid arose and crossed to a table. From an etched silver card tray she picked up an envelope. “Especially when Herr De Voss keeps writing to you.”

Taking the letter, Mathilda opened the paper and discovered dear, familiar scrawls. She glanced over the contents. Breathlessly, she said, “He has invited me to join him for a concert at the Residenz.”

“How wonderful!”

She exhaled heavily. “No. If Frau Kleinmayrn is concerned about a little walk…”

Ingrid knelt, setting the letter aside and claiming her full attention. “Is that all?”

“I cannot attend, surely—not an event that public.”

“Will you still see him? In secret?”

When she could not lock distress and raw feelings away, Mathilda grasped at that possibility. “If I must.”

“Tell me what troubles you, dearest,” Ingrid said, her face a picture of sympathetic hurt. “Tell someone before you melt from the inside out.”

A shift had taken place in Mathilda’s heart. Thundering eagerness replaced sound warnings. When had she completely lowered her guard, opening her arms to the violence of a storm instead of making her way safely home? Perhaps she had been running toward these tumultuous days since the night she watched Arie summon magic from dozens of strings and reeds, interlacing their music to form the path to his side.

She would run to Arie until all means of reaching him were barred forever.

“I love him.”

The words hovered between the women, shining with promise and fluid tension. No matter the certainty of her feelings, Mathilda heard a question masked beneath her bold declaration. So much remained in doubt.

Standing, Ingrid wore a sad expression. She crossed the parlor, back to the card tray. Slender fingers tapped the lacquered surface of the table, impatient and terse. “Tilda, I’m afraid you cannot accept his invitation.”

Although Mathilda had said as much, accepting the social necessity of restraint and modesty, her spirits withered. The happy energy she had enjoyed only an hour before soured like old milk. She glared at the black gown she wore, at the white lace cuffs.

Exhaling, she pushed the air and her resignation into the parlor. “You’re right. Mourning will last another few weeks. Months, at most. We can wait.”

“Or you can be our guest.” Ingrid picked up another envelope and twirled her skirts, a girlish and impromptu gesture. The royal seal marked the folded parchment. “Duke Ferdinand invited Christoph and me to the same concert. You can accompany us and meet Herr De Voss at the Residenz.”

Mathilda blinked, speechless and in awe of her friend’s endless surprises. But sheer frustration—a building panic of wanting Arie, wanting a life with him, and fearing the end to her dreams—gave her voice teeth. “And you’ve teased me this whole time?”

Ingrid raised a placating hand. “Only just now, since you read the invitation. I did not open your mail, Tilda.”

“How mean!”

That sweet smile had returned, but instead of condescension, Mathilda recognized traces of sly humor. “No, the proper reply is ‘Thank you, Ingrid.’”

“Thank you, Ingrid,” Mathilda replied in a childish mimic.

“I cannot help it. You’re proving such fun sport.” She stepped closer and squeezed their hands together, a tight knot of keen, animated fingers. “I’m so happy for you, as is Christoph.”

“Christoph merely wants me out of the house.”

“Of course, but in the nicest way. To see you settled and happy.”

“Certainly.”

Ingrid stuck her tongue out. “Now, what will you wear?”

Mathilda tilted her head, the gesture a question in itself. “Why do you ask? I have my mourning gowns.”

“You went to Sebastiankirche to visit Jürgen,
ja?
We both know your mourning is done, dearest, and has been for some time.” She gave Mathilda’s fingers a final squeeze. “Christoph has requested an audience with Father Holtz to request a formal end to your mourning. You will not go to the Residenz wearing black.”