Song of Seduction (17 page)

She loved Arie—not a musical genius, not a figment, not an idol. She loved the man.

And she wanted to express her emotions in the way that had come to dominate her life. Through music. Words and thoughts failed to fly, falling short of the miraculous language she had discovered. Passive listening, no matter how engaged she became in hearing a composition, only made her yearn for that spark of creation. Arie had taken her heart and put in its place an unending need to perform.

With the door closed behind her, Mathilda glanced across her room. She had left Jürgen’s medical bag at the foot of her bed, and its familiar black leather shape reached her like a touch. But the touch was gentle, tolerant of her frailties. She smiled, surprised but gratified by her placid reaction to his memory.

Leaving the bag where it sat, she found the violin case and opened the latches. The cloth she used to muffle the strings draped across the instrument. She tossed it to the floor. Nothing would silence her this evening, not doubt or gossip or manners. She wanted her violin to announce what her heart sang and sang, an endless chorus.

Tuning the instrument, finding her stance, Mathilda inhaled.

Beginning with the sonata Arie had played at the Venners’ ball, she gave voice to all she imagined, sought, desired. Another piece followed without pause, then another. Arie’s improvisation at the piano competition. The cantata for Duke Ferdinand. The movement she had helped compose. And finally,
Love and Freedom.

A frivolous grin spread her mouth wide as she revisited that landmark symphony for the first time since their inaugural lesson. Even alone, there in her room, she could not hide the flush of embarrassment as she recalled the girlish fantasies she had fostered about her maestro. Never had a woman known less about a very complicated man.

But joy banished her embarrassment. She performed
Love and Freedom
with happy gusto, glorying in the wonder. She followed the notes, chasing a musical bird across the aching blue of a bright summer sky, swooping and twirling with the force of a steady wind on her face. Restive fingers quieted the noise in her head and in her heart…until she heard something altogether different.

She played it again. And again. She studied and parsed and dissected. And somewhere in the third movement, she heard the truth.

Arie did not write this.

She had not seen Arie since they walked home from Sebastiankirche.

She had not seen him since making her discovery.

Mere days had passed, but her anxiety at the thought of seeing him again, especially in a public setting, stirred Mathilda’s stomach to a restless nausea.

Upon arriving at Residenzplatz, they strolled to the main entrance of the duke’s palace. The grand bulk of the Dom and its high towers faded into shadow, while the lofty Glockenspiel loomed behind them, tolling the early evening hour. The palace’s wide double doors opened opposite the Hofbrunnen, a fifty-foot fountain featuring carved horses emerging from a diamond-shaped pool. Water would not shoot from those motionless mouths for another few weeks, when the threat of freezing temperatures had safely passed.

Two ornately uniformed footmen bowed in precise unison. “Welcome, Lord Venner,” said one man. “The
Konzertmeister
is expecting you. This way, please.”

Stüderl appeared within moments, dressed in the resplendent formal costume of his courtly station. The midnight blue frock coat with red piping bore Salzburg’s black eagle coat of arms, the garish colors of which made him appear wan and aged.

“Lord Venner!” Emerging from such a distinguished face, his incompatible high-pitched voice distracted Mathilda. He inclined his wigged head. “So glad you could attend tonight, my lord.”

“Lady Venner informed me that I could not refuse.”

Stüderl bowed to Ingrid. “Good evening, Lady Venner. And Frau Heidel, how wonderful! I’m pleased to see you again, of course.
Willkommen!
”

The
Konzertmeister
ushered them deeper into the palace, through the marble portal bearing the coats of arms from four ancient prince-archbishops. Up the stairs and through a long arcaded hall on the second floor, Mathilda indulged in the breathtaking splendor of the Residenz. Massive scarlet draperies and Venetian mirrors lined one wall. Above their heads, illuminated by substantial crystal chandeliers, frescoes depicted the history of Alexander the Great.

“This is Carabinierisaal,” Stüderl said over a shoulder. He waved a hand at the cavernous length they traversed.

Mathilda pulled her gaze from the ceiling. “What does that name mean, sir?”

“‘Carabineer’ was the name of the personal cadre of bodyguards Wolf Dietrich imported from Italy. This was their hall for lodging and meals,” Stüderl said. “Herr De Voss will perform his new symphony here in May.”

They continued until they reached the entrance to another grandiose hall, also devoid of people. Ingrid gently shoved her toward the doorway before whispering, “The concert will begin at nine. I’ll come for you before then.”

Mathilda frowned. “Whatever do you mean?”

“I’m leaving you here.”

“By myself?”

“Good evening, Frau Heidel.” As handsome as a daydream, Arie appeared.

Ingrid turned away with a grin and continued on with Venner and Stüderl. So that had been her game. Mathilda knew she should thank her friend for arranging this private interlude, but the surprise of her Dutch maestro’s entrance diminished every thought but one.
Oh, Arie, why did you do it?

He offered his arm like an invitation, the gesture momentarily brushing aside her question. She simply luxuriated in the way his gaze flowed over her face, her body…her lilac dress. His expression turned comical.

“You…you—” He pinched his eyes closed with a sound of impatience. When he opened them again, he stared with a staggering expression of need and nameless hunger. Quietly, solemnly, he said, “This is not a mourning gown.”

“Colorful, isn’t it?” She offered a small smile, almost embarrassed by his riveting scrutiny. “Venner discussed my circumstances with Father Holtz.”

His eyebrows lifted. “And?”

“He released me from my mourning.”

Arie drew closer, cupping a free hand at the back of her neck. He gently kissed her cheek, his breath feathering across her skin. “No, Tilda, you did that already.”

An unexpected shyness overcame her. No longer as beholden to the past, she remained daunted by the emotions she wished to express more fully. The freedom to love him intimidated her still, even as questions—terrible doubts—threatened to steal that opportunity. She wanted nothing other than to sink into his arms, but she stood quietly by, connected to him through interwoven fingers.

Arie urged her through the doorway and she stopped short. They stood in Rittersaal—Knight’s Hall—where, six years earlier, she had seen him conduct
Love and Freedom.

His performance had transformed her. Marvels of art, fashion and architecture that should have proven fascinating became mere distractions. The span of her attention had been for Arie alone. Every aching note had amplified her attraction, thrilling her with one person’s capacity to capture the restless need in her soul. That such beauty existed in the world had been frightening and liberating.

Even at that moment, standing alone with him in Rittersaal, Mathilda could not say which had affected her more, the man or his music. The combination had ignited an embarrassing passion that strayed toward irrationality. She could not forget his composition, nor images of the maestro coaxing his magic to life.

But what if he had deceived everyone?

She floated into the vacant room, her eyes running to find every secret. Rittersaal contained two hundred gilded chairs lined in tidy rows. The rich golden parquetry stretched between snow-white walls in a diagonal pattern that amplified the hall’s open, airy feel. More gilding decorated the borders of the ceiling frescoes and chandeliers. A modest elevated stage sat at the base of a half-dozen floor-to-ceiling windows, overlooking one of the Residenz’s three courtyards.

Opulence. Luxury. Dreamland.

Tallying the room’s magnificent features against her own attributes, she suffered the spiraling return of her former hesitance. Despite the excitement that heightened her senses, a chill of the unfamiliar urged her to flee. Anyone would recognize her as a pretender, a woman reaching beyond her station toward a distant, exclusive perch that only the most privileged ever graced. The Residenz was no place for Mathilda Heidel, no matter her natural abilities.

She should have told Arie
no
somewhere, sometime along their foolhardy path. She should have stopped herself.

His arms surrounded her. Mathilda flinched. Although alone, the public setting of his unexpected embrace yanked her back into the world. Fear left her lightheaded. No longer an anonymous widow, neither did she belong in that place. And her buoy, her maestro, could not be trusted.

He looked the same, felt the same, but Mathilda’s infatuation wavered after six unshakable years. She had labored for days to find fault with her suspicions and rationalize her discovery. But the possibility that he had defrauded the world, abusing her misplaced esteem, pressed and goaded. Solid ground beneath her feet was threatening to dissolve.

She whispered against his neck. “What are we doing here?”

“A concert.”

“But who is performing? Why here?”

“You do not know?”

“No,” she said. “Because you revealed nothing about the concert in your invitation, Ingrid decided to keep it a secret.”

He drew back to look at her face, grinning like a good-natured maniac. “I like that. I will follow her example.”

“Arie!”

He offered a quick squeeze and freed her. “In time, Mathilda. You will not be disappointed.”

She looked at him sideways, crossing gloved arms across her middle. “I’m unconcerned with disappointments, but I would like a little more forewarning than you permitted at the Stadttrinkstube.”

“You wound me with your suspicions,
mijn schatje.
”

My treasure.

“In German, it is
mein Schatz.
Quite similar.”

He grinned. “My treasure teases me.”

A familiar surge of heady joy flared at his possessive intimacy. He certainly knew how to reach her. She returned his smile, but questions sat on her tongue. She was not a suspicious person by nature. That Arie gave her cause to doubt made her wary and frustrated.

“I read your mind, Tilda.” His low murmur caressed her. “You
do
belong here.”

What had she told Jürgen? That she was brave now? She dipped her head, angry at her cowardice and concealing the true direction of her thoughts. For now.

“I do not,” she said.

“Not among princes and bishops, granted. But certainly on stage.”

“The Stadttrinkstube is one matter, but this…”

“This is merely a different stage.” Arie abandoned her to her amorphous fears, seeking the conductor’s platform. His sonorous voice carried across the distance like the bass notes of a piano, resonating beneath her breastbone. “Give me tonight, Tilda. I will show you that.”

Arie turned on the conductor’s platform and looked at her, a tiny figure in the vacant concert hall. “What is this?” he asked.

She shone like a lantern at midnight, lit from within by the thrill of a secret game. “I sat in this spot for your Salzburg debut, here in Rittersaal. You conducted
Love and Freedom.
”

“Six years ago.”

“I was sixteen. It was my first experience with concert music outside church.” She smiled softly, laughed a little. Her expression revealed much of what she had experienced that evening. “You wrote every note in my memory. I was unconscious of the process, but I memorized the entire score. I had only wanted to take in as much of the experience as I could, not realizing the extent to which I was successful.”

“And like that? You took it home with you?”

“I played into the night, alone in the attic.”

The weight of her words burdened Arie with too much meaning. Even months on from their introduction, the extent of Mathilda’s capabilities shocked him into awed contemplation. However, more than the familiar tug of envy and disbelief that often accompanied his realizations, he could hardly believe his long-past performance echoed into the present.

Through Mathilda.

He turned to face the musicians’ empty chairs and glanced to the right, catching sight of her out of the corner of his eye. A single face in the crowd. She had sat in that chair, developing her marvelous gifts. He imagined how she must have appeared, eager and watching him like a worshiper before her most treasured idol, because she looked at him that way now.

With a renewed, distracted energy, he wished
Love and Freedom
had been his creation—not for the fame or renown, and not even to salve the stab of his conscience. He yearned for that fruitless wish in order to deserve Mathilda’s humbling regard.

“Play something,” she said. The acoustics of the hall carried her words to him. “I will be your audience.”

Arie smiled at the intimacy of her demand, the sound of which shattered his hopeless wish. No matter how much he wanted to, he could not reshape the past. But perhaps he had acquired skills enough to earn her esteem. Properly, this time.

“What shall I play?”

“Love and Freedom.”

Struck in the gut, he tensed. He could almost see the cogs of her mind working, poking at his refusal. Arie fought the impulse to look away. “No. Another choice.”

Her shoulders tense, she crossed one hand over the other. “Then the fourth movement of your new symphony.”

“Mathilda, I have no fourth movement.”

“You do. We played it together on Sunday afternoon.”

“You wrote the motif.”

“I did, but you built it into a movement. Without you, it would have remained some wild rant.” She paused. “Besides, Herr Stüderl mentioned something about preparing to perform your symphony. You know it’s ready.”

“I know no such thing.”

“Give me tonight,” she said, echoing his earlier request. “I will convince you that your symphony is complete.”

Arie shook his head against the temptation to accept her offer, dreading its cycling return. The first movement described a lost man. The second told the story of that same man discovering his muse. A particular, unforgettable afternoon in February had inspired the rampant sexuality of the rhythms in the third movement. What could be more fitting than concluding his tale with a creation they had forged together?

Writing the blasted thing myself.

Stüderl had reserved Carabinierisaal on Arie’s behalf for a May debut. He had mere weeks to complete the work, but he would not accept Mathilda’s assistance.

“The second movement,” he said. “I will play that for you.”

He settled atop the bench and limbered his fingers, unable to recall a more conspicuous moment in front of a piano. In the studio, with Mathilda his only companion, she had held an instrument as well. Now he would perform in honor of his most important admirer, for her alone, and Arie wanted to offer nothing but his most sincere effort.

Playing, he delivered every note with the intense yearning and care it deserved. He reserved none of his passion or mastery of the medium, yet he did not rush. He allowed his mind to become utterly absorbed.

Until—

He stopped mid-bar.

As if she had been holding her breath throughout his performance, Mathilda gasped into the yawning silence. Her sound of surprise replaced the piano’s exquisite tones.

Arie did not enjoy petty infighting between musicians or the nervous anxieties that beset him, without fail, among wealthy patrons. More often than not, his students drove him mad with repetition and tedium. He barely trusted his own worth. But at least he understood the small universe of the piano, its rewards and toils.

Now doubt invaded the hall. Not even in those early months, barely nineteen and conducting another man’s symphony for the first time, had he felt this disoriented, this nervous. Vertigo rolled him from floor to ceiling. No longer limited to the realm of composition, his weaknesses threatened to consume the gift he had always trusted: his skill at the piano. Never had he experienced such defeat.

But the solution revealed itself, both wonderful and obvious. Dangerous.

“I cannot continue.” He made room for her on the piano bench and turned to meet her bewildered stare. “Will you come here?
Alstublieft?
”

Since Mathilda’s arrival into his life—or he into hers, for he could not determine whose influence had been stronger—nothing worthwhile existed without her. She set his good sense alight, leaving ash in its place and allowing the phoenix of his music to rise high.

Her expression still revealed her uncertainty, but she walked toward the pianoforte in a shimmering cloud of watercolor-purple silk. He wanted to pet the curving slope of her nape, to feel the wisps of fine hair there, but he settled for skimming its length with his gaze.

“I cannot do this without you,” he said huskily.

Her brow furrowed and hazel eyes searched for any hint of his intent. He did not object to her fearless appraisal because he wanted her to see how desperate he had become.

“Arie, I don’t understand. Why did you stop playing?”

Her bravery promised to soothe his doubts. Would she refuse him anything? But her generosity frightened him because of his own history of taking more than he had a right to.

“I have a proposition,” he said. “Perform with the court orchestra for the debut of my symphony.”

Mathilda stared, her mouth agape. He watched his appeal reverberate inside her head as she weighed each word for candor and feasibility. Quick as ever, she replied without a hint of hesitation. “Impossible.”

But Arie had witnessed hope in her eyes, a hope begging him to prove her wrong. He obliged. Taking her soft, clever hands in his own, he loosed his acid thoughts and asinine hopes.

“You are the most infuriating, enjoyable part of my life. For months that has not changed.” He locked his gaze with hers in a war of wills, one they both seemed eager for Arie to win. “Your violin echoes in my mind long after you go.”

“I’m glad to be of assistance. You should know that.”

He spoke in a rush, fearing her rejection. “But here, just now, I realized how much I depend on your opinions and abilities. I cannot imagine debuting my symphony without you. I must have you with me on stage.”

“But I cannot.” She worked her lips, pressing them tight and chewed with fretful bites. “The nuns at Nonnberg perform in their symphony, sometimes even for the duke, but a woman performer? On her own? It would never be allowed.”

Arie grinned then, fully. The tight band of fear loosened around his heart. “Is that your sole reservation?”

She nodded.

“Good,” he said. “Then tonight will be as I hoped.” From a pocket in his waistcoat, he removed a tiny pouch of charcoal-colored velvet. “I brought this for you.”

That same unrelenting curiosity crumpled her brow. When Mathilda opened the little purse, a delicate silver chain fell into her hands. “My necklace?”

“I promised to fix it. Have you the pendant?”

She shook her head. “I have not needed it—not since…”

“Since when, Tilda?” A riotous blush stormed across the rounded tops of her cheeks. Her sudden awkwardness revealed everything to Arie. He prompted, feigning innocence. “Since our first kiss?”

Mathilda laughed in reply. The glorious sound of her embarrassed joy filled the expansive hall. “Yes,” she said, both beaming and blushing. “Since our first kiss.”

Her laugh invited revelry and peace. But Arie could not indulge her summons when the sparking memory of stage fright ripped through his skin.