Song of Seduction (27 page)

At the conductor’s stand, Arie shared none of the musicians’ affable appreciation. He simply nodded his head. “And again.”

Arie, however, could not rest.

The surprising success of rehearsals did little to quell the doubts abrading his peace. He feared that an audience would only hear a collection of attempts and insecurities—or worse yet, his abiding guilt.

“You’re not sleeping.” Mathilda’s lethargic voice rumbled in her throat like a purr. “I must have done something wrong. You should be as exhausted as I am.”

“You exhausted me greatly.”

But she was right, despite his protest. No matter the oblivion he sought in her arms, within the paradise of her body, his anxieties refused to dispel. The orchestra fared well with the first movement, and they would undertake the remaining three movements over the subsequent week. The concert loomed, a matter of mere days.

“I think I understand them now,” she said.

“Who?”

“My parents.”

Arie roused, wanting to see her. “You did not before?”

She shook her head softly. Her dark hair splayed along the pillow, contrasting with the white linens. “I had no means of empathizing because I hadn’t been in love. I was just a lonely girl.”

“What did you think of them?”

Her face lustrous and pale, she frowned. “Because I was not raised a Jew, I imagined the worst of my father. I thought he must have been some sort of villain, or that he kidnapped or seduced my mother.”

He laughed gently. “Probably the latter.”

She smiled against his chest before sobering again. “But no matter what I imagined, I couldn’t deny the outcome. My mother took her own life. She knew that no one remained to care for me. I had no guardians, no income. And yet she followed him in death—just as she had followed him from Brunswick.”

“How did you come to be with Lady Venner’s family?”

“Frau Seitz, Ingrid’s late mother, was born Johanna Hoyer. She’d been my mother’s personal maid when they lived in Helmstedt, and she accompanied my parents when they settled here.” Her expression drifted like an unmoored boat. “When my mother’s family refused me, Frau Seitz convinced her new husband to take me in. He was new to money and not pretentious in the least. I…Oh, God, I was lucky.”

“And Lady Venner was born later?” At Mathilda’s answering nod, he said, “I can understand your shared affection, then.” He kissed the arch along her slender, bare neck, but melancholy wedged between them. “Your mother…she loved your father.”

“Yes. She loved him enough to turn away from her family, enough to marry a man outside her religion and deny her inheritance. I thought maybe her life at home had been intolerable, or that she’d been mistreated.”

“No.”

“No. You’re right.” She exhaled with a laugh. “But I sympathize with the poor woman. I wonder how long she denied them both. How terrified she must have been!”

“Not just her, I think.” He pulled her flush to his body, kissing her nose and her cheeks. “He was a Jewish musician, yes? Pursuing a Catholic nobleman’s daughter? Reserve a little sympathy for your poor father.”

“Maybe not. Maybe he was an idiot who tortured her with his insecurities.”

“I am not insecure.”

She feigned a blameless look. “I said nothing of you.”

“You mean to imply my handling of our affair.”

“All I meant is that I understand the source of my limitless patience. Mother must have had an ample share.”

“Taunt me more, woman, and you’ll get no sleep tonight.” He dipped his head to kiss her again, then tucked her head into the crook of his shoulder. “You did well today, Tilda.”

“Playing with an ensemble is vastly different than a solo or duet,” she said. “I found it difficult to focus on my own work while listening to what we created.”

Arie shook his head against her hesitations. She had performed with aplomb and poise enough to amaze him yet again. And her steady presence had kept his wobbly courage from faltering. “I witnessed no such difficulties, Tilda. You were as proficient in your bearing as any of your peers.”

She smiled, idly petting his chest. “You
witnessed
me quite a bit. If you keep staring at me as you did, our engagement won’t be secret for much longer. We will have to reveal it or risk a scandal.”

“The way everyone stared at you by the end of the day, I have no more desire to conceal my claim.”

“How did you convince Stüderl to let me play the cadenzas? He is
Konzertmeister
and first violin—performing the cadenzas is his privilege.”

“We struck a bargain. In exchange for this favor, I will write for him a concerto.”

The smile she wore dropped at the corners. “You bought my seat?”

“No, no, of course not. You will not be seated for the performance.” He drew a square in the air. “I bought a little space for you to stand next to me.”

She mashed her lips together. “Arie, I know I’m inexperienced when playing with an ensemble. But next time, I should like to have a proper audition.”

“I know,” he said quietly. “You want to prove yourself just like every other musician.”

“Yes.”

“But this time…”

“Yes, this time is different.” She sagged into his arms, snuggling beneath the quilt. Arie tucked her head beneath his chin and relished the possessive way she slid a knee across his legs. Against his chest, she said, “All will be concluded soon enough, my maestro. Sleep now.”

Her breathing grew deep and even. Her body relaxed in perfect unconsciousness. Distracted, he stroked the length of her arm, the curve beneath her breast. And he made his decision.

Days before, in her attempt to discern Arie’s intentions and perhaps even his character, Lady Venner had asked the wrong question. The choice between Mathilda and his career was simple, for he would forever choose the woman he loved so dearly.

The choice between his fiancée and the truth—that was the test. Ironically, before falling in love with her, he would have found a way to shrug from under his crippling misgivings. He would have packed his guilt into an isolated corner of his mind, justifying his actions as he always did. Only the pure wonder of Mathilda’s regard had awakened his latent sense of justice, setting his future at odds with the lies upon which his career was based.

More than his next breath, he craved a life with Mathilda Heidel, but he wanted that life rinsed clean of his crime. As to the cost, she had said it plainly in April:
You admit your mistake and stand ready for the consequences.

Arie embraced her more tightly, deflecting an unknown future in which she might not be his to hold.

All will be concluded soon enough.

Yes. All of it.

Ingrid knocked and entered.

Wanting privacy to conquer her nerves on her own, Mathilda knew her friend would permit her no such peace. She would insist on remaining supportive, sweet and oblivious. Her stomach roiled again.

Ingrid’s cool hand touched her cheek, then her forehead. “If you are with child, your career in music will be an interesting venture.”

“I am not pregnant. You are.” Mathilda walked away and slumped onto the bed.

Breathe. Swallow. Again.

Concern crisscrossed Ingrid’s face, followed quickly by an irrepressible curiosity. “But you and Herr De Voss have been…”

“Intimate?” Mathilda could not suppress the smile overtaking her dour expression. Nor did she try. She sighed at blissful memories, but her skin did not turn a telltale pink. She was well beyond the capacity for embarrassment, or else she would have collapsed in a mortified heap at some point during each of the nights she had taken Arie into her welcoming body.

No, if she were fated to die of shame, she would have been swept into the abyss during daylight hours. But those sun-drenched moments of trust and raw intimacy had not destroyed Mathilda. Instead, every impulse to hide from Arie and their mutual devotion had burned away.

Returning to Ingrid’s expectant expression, she smiled. “Yes.”

“Tilda, I have never seen you as smug.”

“I said nothing.” She struggled to maintain her look of innocence.

“Not with words, but I have half a mind to blush on your behalf!”

For an incandescent handful of moments, Mathilda forgot about her nausea, the concert, her worries. Once again, she and Ingrid became the adolescent girls they had once been, sharing secrets and private laughter.

With a touch of melancholy, she recognized that, in most regards, Arie had replaced her dear friend. Already she spent more time at his studio than under the Venners’ generous roof, returning before dawn each morning to sit patiently beneath Klara’s ministrations. Soon they would marry, and life would take Mathilda from the best friend she had ever known.

Ingrid sobered too, and persistently returned to her inquiry. “But you
could
be.”

“I’m not pregnant. Would you like me to be explicit?” Her menses had arrived without delay or doubt, just as it had every month since she turned thirteen. Its undaunted regularity raised old questions. “Besides, after having been married for so long, I wonder if I’m even able to have a child.”

Rarely discomfited, Ingrid’s embarrassment surprised them both. “Part of me assumed that…that with Jürgen, you took steps.”

“No, nothing so elaborate.” Sadness colored her voice. She inhaled and pressed the topic from her mind. “I am ill, dearest, because I’m six hours away from the performance.”

“And this is simply nerves?”

“Simply? This is unbearable!”

“Not so shrill, dearest.” Ingrid’s appropriately wounded expression chastised as much as her words. “How was I to know? You’ve said nothing about rehearsals this week. What are they like?”

“Difficult.” She wrung the damp cloth between her hands, the bite of cloth twisting into her skin. “I never realized the competition that thrives off stage. These musicians are like gladiators, how they fight. I wish I’d had more experience so that I might better interpret their little jealousies.”

She censored her description for her friend’s sake, not to mention for the sake of her own sanity. To dwell on the innuendoes and snubs aimed at her relationship with Arie would be to court madness.

“I try to stay out of the fray,” she said. “I just keep my head down and work.”

“Work? For you? Tilda, you are a natural—literally.”

“But playing on my own is a whole different consideration. I’m still untrained, for all intents. My solo performances lack regular meter. I have difficulty with the timing.”

“And the maestro?”

“He shouts in Dutch. Often.”

“At you too?”

She nodded, grinning. “Yesterday, I deciphered the Dutch equivalent of
prima donna.
”

Unlike the other musicians, she had noticed as Arie’s temper shortened. His manner assumed a harder edge with each passing day. She hoped the mounting pressure of the debut was to blame for his altered demeanor. To dwell on another, more worrisome possibility—that he simply could not endure the increasing demands of his obligation—only worsened her persistent nausea. The burden of lifting him from his debilitating ill humor each night proved exhausting.

Ingrid’s eyes filled with a confused sort of sympathy. “How do you tolerate it? Why?”

“For all the difficulties, I cannot return to how I lived. This new life, filled with trials and censure…it’s mine.” She shook her head, unbound clumps of ordinary brown hair spilling over her shoulders. “But the critiques are difficult to endure. You know I wasn’t born with a stomach for public criticism.”

“I would like to meet the person who was.”

“You’re no help.”

A calming touch eased past Mathilda’s unnerving fears. “Will he hold together?”

“He has no choice. This is his responsibility.”

“Well, we will be there,” Ingrid said. “I hope that will be some comfort to you, at least.”

“Yes.” The tears began to build again. In just under six hours, she was going to perform in a symphony conducted by Arie De Voss—in front of the duke, no less. “Unbelievable, is it not?”

Ingrid rose to answer Klara’s knock. “I’ve known you since my first day on this earth. ‘Unbelievable’ was the idea of you settling to a quiet life with dear Jürgen. All of this…this is providence.”

He knew what he had to do, but confronting that chore knotted his nerves and made thin, frayed tatters of his courage. A pit in his gut opened a gulping mouth and offered to swallow him whole, a temptation he welcomed.

The door to the stifling antechamber opened. Arie turned to see who dared invade his place of retreat.

A vision. An angel. His solace.

Mathilda regarded him with the same adoring hazel eyes that had bewitched him from the first. An airy silk gown of lavender trimmed with silver swathed her body—the body he was still learning. She appeared calm, but her bodice lifted and lowered in an erratic rhythm.

He took three quick strides and wrapped her in his arms, clinging to her. Head bowed, he choked on his confession. “I cannot do this, Tilda.”

She squeaked a sound of alarm and surprise. “The symphony?”

“I am terrified,” he said. To admit such a thing to anyone, even to Mathilda, would have been unthinkable a few weeks before. But the woman holding him, sharing her strength, had changed his life irrevocably. He needed to share his fears, lest he falter under their crushing weight.

Mathilda pulled back and took his face in her unnaturally warm hands. “But you’ve conducted before. Why this distress?”

“I cannot lie. No more. Not even Venner—” By her expression, he knew he made no sense. He shook his head and broke their embrace. “I simply…cannot.”

Realization swept over her features. Her mouth opened a little. “And you’ve been torturing yourself this whole time?”

“Torturing more than myself,” he said grimly. “Forgive me.”

“Forgive you?” She stepped before him and ducked below his bowed head, forcing him to straighten and meet her gaze. “Have you insulted my honor of late? Or abandoned me? For what are you apologizing, exactly?”

“Venner was right. Marriage will be a precarious prospect when I have no career.”

“Being near you has been precarious of late, what with this dilemma consuming your thoughts.”

“I am in earnest, Tilda.”

“As am I. We will find a way.”

Arie rebelled against her attempt to ease his distress. He leaned on the far wall and slumped to the marble. Defeat struggled with fitful glints of hope that teased and beckoned, but he could not trust in something he wanted so badly.

Mathilda followed and sat beside him. The skirts of her gown draped around their legs. Her eyes shone with happy, sincere tears. As if performing a sacred rite, she took his hands. “Arie, we have yet to say the words before God and a priest, but I am yours. For better or worse. No matter what you must do, I will stand by you. Trust in that. You deserve my high regard and my love, even more so if you tell the truth.”

His lungs burned. “Tilda.”

“Of all the possible consequences this evening, losing me is not one of them.”

She pulled him into an embrace of such aching sweetness that Arie could not speak. He simply breathed the truth of her avowal as it strengthened him, made him whole and safe. He kissed her neck and her bare collarbone, not out of passion but with thanks and trust. If he endured the coming performance, he would do so because he needed to prove himself worthy.

She whispered against his hair, “I miss you.”

“I have been right here.”

“In a way.”

Arie stroked her arms, fascinated as goose bumps covered her bare skin. She shivered despite the warmth of the room and their embrace. “You are shaking.”

“Perpetually.” Her nervous laugh revealed an edge of terror. “For five days now, my nerves have been unbearable. I fear being able to steady my bow.”

“
Mijn
s
chatje,
I have been a terrible partner to you.”

She traced a bold finger along the inseam of his trousers, causing his ticklish leg to jerk. “I wouldn’t say that. I simply want this done.”

“You and me both.”

She kissed his cheek with an unbearable tenderness. “What will you do?”

“I have not decided.”

“Ik ben hier,”
she said.
“Ik houd van je.”

Arie blinked. “When did you learn Dutch?”

“Not all of it, of course. Just the most important phrases. I thought ‘I love you’ was a good place to start.”

He pressed the back of her hand to his lips. His eyes burned. “Tilda,
ik houd van je.
”

But then he could delay no longer. He stood on trembling legs and pulled Mathilda to her feet. They regarded each other for one last moment, sharing that breathless expectation.

He touched her cheek, recalling with a twinge of guilt that the night marked her formal debut with an orchestra. To buffer her apprehension, he offered the only advice he knew to give. “Stay in the moment if you can. It can be glorious.”