Song of Seduction (11 page)

Because Arie would be there.

He had almost kissed her. Not her lips, but perhaps her throat or earlobe. And she had wanted him to. The possibility terrified her, naturally, but only because she would have been obliged to reject him. Recollections of the half breath between their lips struck Mathilda with a powerful longing and a confusion she dared not contemplate.

She sought her
Fraiskette,
but the comforting weight of amber and silver did not hang from her neck. Sifting through the folds of her gown, she located a concealed pocket and the pendant. The panicky sensation of falling from a towering precipice receded, if only momentarily.

Her
Morgengabe.
The present Jürgen bestowed on their wedding night in honor of her virginity.

I should have liked to give it to you.

She clutched the charm and found no solace in the swirls of silver filigree worn smooth by troubled fingers, nor in the firm oval of the amber cabochon. De Voss had so altered the significance of the simple piece of jewelry that it no longer eased her anxieties.

At least she did not feel conspicuous in the Stadttrinkstube. The impressive multi-story building positively teemed with people of all ages, incomes and states of romantic attachment. One of the only social establishments in the city to welcome even an eligible
Fräulein,
the alehouse was a respectable place where men and women mingled freely, widows included.

Venner angled for a table, claiming seats for their party before signaling a serving girl for ale. Pressed to the back of the overcrowded second floor, Mathilda strained to see the stage.

“Is he here?” Ingrid’s voice teased, both playful and knowing.

Mathilda frowned at her friend’s conspiratorial tone. How transparent had she become? Of late, Ingrid had been reading her moods and silences like words on a page. She could not decide if she had changed, or if Ingrid was simply maturing.

“By the stage. I saw him when we arrived.”

Ingrid stood on tiptoe. She gripped the back of her chair for balance in order to see De Voss and the other musicians. “Tilda, dearest, is he equally hard-faced in private too?”

Standing next to her friend, across an interminable distance, Mathilda caught sight of him again. A yawning valley of people separated them, preventing her from admiring the details of his face. “I admit, he is a grim character.”

Ingrid observed him with a more critical, detached eye. A scowl creased her forehead. “I would never look twice at him,” she said with a hint of apology. “He always manages to appear a fright. His hair, that frown. But when he plays—Tilda, I can understand your attraction.”

“He’s my music teacher.”

“I know.” Her smile was angelic. Her green eyes laughed and laughed.

She would have enjoyed playing Ingrid’s happy game, finding romantic intrigue within every stray glance, but Mathilda did not have the heart. She was not asking to love the maestro; she simply wanted to believe in him. And he made that task maddeningly difficult.

A maid arrived with ale. Venner and Ingrid took their seats and chatted. Despite her attempts to follow their conversation, Mathilda could not look away from the stage. She watched De Voss talk with another, taller musician and read tension in her maestro’s posture, in the angle of his neck. And Ingrid was right—goodness, his hair. Did the man even own a mirror? Although impeccably dressed in that same black suit, his hair remained a tousled fright of nervous energy.

The taller musician took his vigorous, furious turn at the piano. Hypnotized patrons swelled in number, jamming into the corners of the massive room. Several women and even a few men stood on chairs to secure a better view. Mathilda and Ingrid joined them, balancing and straining to see over hundreds of heads.

The man named Wölfl concluded his performance with a repulsively ornate flourish of scales and superfluous ornamentation, winning the affection of the crowd despite his lack of finesse. De Voss remained poised at the edge of the stage, his face an impassive mask of concentration. Absentmindedly, he picked at the fine lace trim poking out of a coat sleeve, his cerulean gaze turned inward. Mathilda could almost see his mind working, dissecting his rival’s uninspired improvisation. Although motionless and unassuming, he was hard at work.

Ingrid caught her eye. “Do we have our winner?”

Mathilda could not answer. If he proved the musician—the man—she had believed him to be, she would gladly foretell his triumph like an oracle. But certainty escaped her.

“Wait and see,” she whispered.

With the gravity of a condemned man to the scaffolds, he took the stage and settled on the bench. Then he turned the scrap of paper upside down.

“What’s he doing?” Ingrid voiced the question shooting through countless minds.

Into the hushed anticipation, Mathilda answered with an inarticulate, gleeful sound. She understood his intention immediately. Her solitary laugh drew stares from faces near and far.

Arie’s included.

Across the expanse of humanity separating their bodies, he grinned. She became his conspirator.

Upside-down, that scribbled motif stood backward and flipped on its staff, with soprano notes sinking down and the low notes rising high. He intended to violate the spirit of the competition’s rules but not the letter. As had every other competitor, he would base his improvisation on the same basic string of tones, transforming the motif into a radical mirror of a now-tired theme.

They regarded each other in a wordless exchange. Yearning and admiration seared Mathilda’s lungs, as if she were breathing in the midst of a bonfire. She wanted to hold fast to time and freeze that instant of understanding and terror, of resignation and joy. The moment she devoted herself to him. The moment she knew him.

Half of the continent believed him a smug, haughty fool, while the other half thought him disagreeable and ill-humored. A recluse. An uncivil renegade. Mathilda knew differently. He was a lonesome and unfathomably apprehensive man with a sense of humor so well hidden that it was as good as invisible. She laughed because she understood the playful, subtle boastfulness of his game. He smiled in recognition of the one soul who saw him—insecurities, temper, disheveled hair and all.

She blinked.

And he began.

Using those black and white keys and his devilish vision, Arie slowly coaxed his mirrored theme into life. A parade of ten individual tones resonated through the wide, crowded, expectant alehouse. He repeated those notes once and again before inducing a flood of variations in
tempo rubato,
a rhythmic configuration where the tones of the melody fell offbeat to the underlying bass line he created spontaneously.

Still gentle and without the hurried, flaunting displays of speed upon which other musicians relied, Arie pulled from that tinny, abused pianoforte a sonorous, almost percussive sound of deep, primal impulses. His harmonies threatened the limits of the tonal system, challenging his listeners to dare with him, to claim a world scarcely beyond their sight.

Not even their weeks together had prepared Mathilda for what he played. She could not believe the music emanating from his hands, so different from his previous compositions. Celebratory cantatas, sacred Masses, and the courtly, romantic themes of
Love and Freedom
all scattered. Forgotten. He twisted wicked need into melody. Bare footfalls on hard-packed ground. Supernatural ceremonies. Life and death, bittersweet, all under a wide and watchful sky.

He invited her into a heathenish place she had not the vocabulary to describe. Hot color flowered across her skin. Her balance tilted as she strained to comprehend and keep hold of every note.

Somewhere along the wide and fathomless river of sensation, Ingrid took her hand. Mathilda clasped those grounding fingers, pulled to earth after a wondrous flight across imagination. Arie concluded his performance with a clap of melodic thunder followed by the gentlest repetition of his mirrored theme, just ten little notes filing one by one into silence.

An awed hush erupted into the dissonant cry of a thousand hands wildly applauding their victor. Shouts. Whistles. The room went mad for him. Mathilda’s own hands throbbed from the exertion of her manic applause, a release to the tense fire he had built to such heights.

Hans Stüderl raised his hands to catch the attention of the crowd. He cried into the din. “May I present your victor, Arie De Voss!”

Past upraised arms and bobbing heads, Mathilda caught sight of Arie. He stood and bowed in humble gratitude.

As the applause subsided to a manageable noise, Joseph Wölfl protested Arie’s trick. His frustrated plea sounded across the room. Some booed. Stüderl intervened with a stifled half grin. “Stand down, Wölfl. He only played what was on the paper, and he certainly outplayed you.”

Wölfl stormed off the stage, brooding, but Arie stayed his flight.

“My colleague is right in his anger,” he said. Confused whispers roamed across the audience. “I will not take the prize unless I prove the best musician here. I do not believe I am.”

His unyielding gaze snared Mathilda, appealing to her across the multitude. “Frau Heidel, Konzertmeister Stüderl brought his violin.”

“But you won, De Voss,” Stüderl said. “The money is yours.”

Arie ignored the man and spoke directly to Mathilda. “I will give the prize to Wölfl unless you accept my challenge.”

She froze, violently shaken by his words. The luxury of a simple breath became a hazy memory. The world tilted and swam. Colorful shots of light crossed her field of vision, blinding her to countless questioning stares. A rush of sound, her own blood pooling and pulsing in her ears, drowned the noise of disbelieving murmurs.

But she could hear Arie just fine. “Come and play,” he said.

Ingrid pinched her upper arm until Mathilda jerked from her stupor. She caught her friend’s wide, disbelieving eyes. Within the disbelief, she found an audacious excitement.

Mouthing the word
go,
Ingrid urged her on.

To step off the sheer precipice of her chair was Mathilda’s first challenge. Numb with the effort of keeping her balance, her legs refused to support her weight. Touching her feet to the sticky wooden floor, she stumbled. Nearby patrons steadied her before shuffling aside. Bodies receded to create a serpentine path between tables and chairs and people.

Mathilda floated to the stage, to Arie’s side.

And her expression…Mathilda’s face appeared a curious blank.

Only when she reached his side, joining him on stage, did Arie understand the emotions she struggled to curb. He wanted to step back, to flee from the fury he had sparked within her, but he held fast. Beneath her obstinate resolve to hide her gift, Mathilda needed to perform. Arie knew it. She merely required an indelicate push to reveal that gift to the world.

In front of innumerable onlookers, they sparred in a private skirmish. Her furious whisper hissed the opening volley. “Why do this?”

Arie drew strength from the playfulness they had shared only minutes ago, in those moments before his solo. He grinned. “Tonight is a night as good as any for your debut.”

“I hate what you’ve done to me.”

“Take your revenge, then. Humiliate me.”

“I should, by walking off this stage. That man can have your money!”

“You cannot. The violin is already in your hand.” He leaned nearer, ensuring that even Stüderl would not hear. “And you are having too much fun.”

Before Mathilda had the opportunity to act on her volatile mood, Arie retreated to the safety of his piano bench. Instead of a tirade or physical violence, his prodigy attacked him with a violin interpretation of the same improvisation he had just produced. She twisted and swayed, imitating the initial parade of notes from the mirrored motif. The melody and counterpoint in
tempo rubato
followed, as well as the percussive assault on the harmonics of music.

Beyond the technical accomplishment of her performance, reconstructing a singular instance of music that no one should have heard again, her passion stirred Arie to an intense alertness. During any improvisation, while the mechanisms of his brain worked toward sudden invention, he sensed the rightness of his work, but he was never able to indulge in listening to the whole of his accomplishment.

As Mathilda revisited his improvisation, returning that musical gift to him, Arie heard darkness and imagination. He heard radiance and brilliance.
In his music.

Unbelievable.

Before Mathilda concluded that miraculous echo, Arie joined her. At the pianoforte, he added color and depth to her instrument’s high soprano, accompanying her to the delicious world of discovery and trust he had conjured for them alone. Darkness and light battled. An armada of fears threatened to overwhelm any brightness or hope they fashioned. He declared his intentions and opened his heart through music, fearing the worst but yearning unconditionally.

Perhaps she heard his declaration and became frightened. Maybe she reached the limit of her expertise or stamina. Whatever the reason, Mathilda dragged her bow across the strings and produced an unruly screech, stopping her performance cold. Arie, not missing a beat, concluded the recital with a silly little parody of
“La Marseillaise,”
the French anthem.

Their audience, silenced and amazed, erupted into laughter and a riot of unrestrained applause. Mathilda bowed graciously before stepping aside and presenting Arie as their champion.

He accepted the praise hurled at him from all corners of the room, just as he halfheartedly accepted Mathilda’s admission of defeat. He would not ask whether her dissonant screech had been intentional. For the moment, she had acquiesced.

She moved to descend from the stage but stopped and turned. How differently she regarded him now. Her expression sparked with a luminous combination of wonder and heady excitement, robbing Arie of any awareness other than her.

Alone, he would have pushed impatient fingers into the pile of curls, dragging her flush against his body and kissing her with all the senseless passion she provoked. He would have enticed and cajoled with his lips, his teeth, begging her to join him at the brink of desperate madness—the very place she seemed willing to abandon him, still wanting.

But in that teeming, smoky public house, he could only devour her with his eyes, seeking to unravel the mystery of his fascination. He did not fight the impulses but reveled in those sensations, so new and thrilling to his forlorn soul. Whether she read the radical tumult of his emotions, he could not know. She merely returned his wide-eyed expression with a calmness he envied. And feared.

Perhaps he was alone after all, alone in a one-sided attraction.

“You earned your money, Maestro,” she said. Arie could barely hear her over continued applause and happy, drunken conversations. “But you can owe me a complimentary lesson.”

He grinned. Sudden relief forced a pent-up breath to tear from his lungs.

Dreaded memories, the strain of his financial difficulties, and the pressures of competition collapsed. The thrill of a capital performance overran every malicious thought. The mischievous curve of her lips withered his worries to nothingness.

“Tuesday afternoon, then,” he said.

A plea and a command, both.