Song of Seduction (23 page)

Oliver and Herr Mullen had tried without success to fix the axle, afterward deciding to leave the carriage tipped on its side to serve as a makeshift shelter. She pressed her back against the up-ended passenger bench and its soggy upholstery. A drenched horsehair blanket covered her body, and the ruined mass of silk that had once been her dress clung wet and useless to shivering limbs. Oliver, wearing a blanket over his coat and hat, stood guard along the dark trail.

Biding time before their rescue—an imminent rescue, she hoped—Mathilda dwelled on her anger. It obliterated every fragment of doubt, rejection and sadness. Only her latent, stubborn concern for Arie’s wellbeing held fast within the storm of her escalating wrath. She promised that when she found him safe, probably sleeping in some cozy village cabin, her fury could burst forth without hindrance.

Oliver returned to the shelter of the upturned carriage. His boots, she noticed, extended over his knees in the style of the military. He settled into the opposite corner and wordlessly uncocked a pistol. Although his preparedness should not have surprised her, Mathilda shivered at his cool competence. When had he turned into a soldier?

“Oliver?”

“Ja?”

“Why are you here?”

He stared with unwavering eyes, but he tipped his head to the left in a way that reminded Mathilda of a half-grown boy. “Lord Venner asked me to accompany you.”

“I knew as much.” Shifting in the mud, she grimaced as the clinging wetness invaded the last layer of silks. “Let me rephrase my question. Why are you so loyal to him?”

He grinned, looking very much like Venner when the nobleman teased Ingrid. “I’m a soulless mercenary who appreciates a generous employer.”

She giggled spontaneously, taken aback by his humor. Then she sneezed. The tension resting heavily on her breastbone began to ease. “Will you tell me?”

A darkness that had nothing to do with the evening gloom enshrouded his face. He shook his head. “Years ago, in Anhalt, Christoph performed a great kindness for a person very dear to me.”

“Wait, did you call him Christoph?”

Swift panic ruffled his features. He could have denied it, and Mathilda would have believed him—except for that look. “You refer to Lady Venner by her given name.”

“I do, but you know our history. We’re like sisters.”

“Yes. Siblings will do that.”

A yelp and scratch of a wild animal pulled Mathilda’s gaze to the fathomless black just beyond the shelter of the upended carriage. Oliver cocked his pistol again and needlessly ordered Mathilda to stay out of sight. He ducked from under the carriage, stepping into the brunt of the rain.

Frau Schindler, a remarkable cook and gracious hostess, had noticed how his clothes hung in loose drapes on his thin frame, insisting that he stay for dinner after the music lesson he provided her children. She had refused to relent until he tried all of her culinary creations. He had nearly eaten more in a single evening than since arriving in Henndorf.

As a strengthening rainstorm pattered against the roof, Arie lounged in the fire-lit parlor of Schindler’s home. His stomach was full to bursting. Sleep beckoned. And most important, he had finished his symphony the night before—the last of an endless parade of sleepless nights he survived on the outskirts of the small village.

He should have been content. But his heart was gone. He had left Mathilda in Salzburg and rightfully, predictably even, he felt miserable.

Beset on all sides by the laughter and talk of a boisterous quartet of children, Arie made up his mind. He would return to Salzburg in the morning. He would beg Mathilda’s mercy and spend the rest of his life atoning for the madness that had driven him away. She would smile and offer her tireless forgiveness, wrapping him in the sanctuary of her supple arms. Bliss would replace misery.

As his drowsy, well-fed brain considered the details, the scenario seemed simple.

Her words, however, would not allow the rest he craved.

How did we come to this?

In the cold aftermath of his guilt-ridden resentment, he understood all too well the confusion she had expressed between sobs. In her embrace—both accepting and bestowing such sweet, heated kisses—he had discovered a perfection he would likely never find again. And he had sent her, barely dressed and hating him, into the fading blackness of dawn.

Frau Schindler’s food and the warmth of the quaint family scene softened his brain, but Arie knew the improbability of a glad reunion. He would need to convince Mathilda to speak to him again. Only then might he consider how to rekindle the fires of their affair, flames he had doused with insecurity and doubt.

The door to the neat, spacious burgher home burst open, admitting a gust of wind and a shower of raindrops. Markus Schindler entered amid a flurry of squeals and talk from his four children. He unfastened his cloak and doffed his hat in time to receive a fond kiss from his wife.

Arie sat up but averted his gaze. Envy clawed at him. Since he was old enough to talk, he had wanted to be a famous composer and a respected musician. But at that moment, he wanted nothing more, nothing less, than Mathilda. To be greeted by such warmth and happiness, such open adoration…

The dream twisted powerfully in his gut, taunting him with his mistakes and poor judgment.

Schindler spotted Arie. “What is this? I’m not enough for you, Magda, that you keep a foreign man on my couch?”

“He was not late for supper,” she teased in return. “You are. I like a man who appreciates me well enough to arrive on time.”

“Forgive me, woman.” Kneeling, Schindler took the two youngest children, both girls, into his arms. “I was merely solving the problems of our little corner of the world.”

Arie had learned that Henndorf once accommodated prisoners of war collected by Napoleon’s armies. The difficulties of boarding such an unexpected incursion had tested the small community’s leadership. Patient and fair, Markus Schindler had confronted the challenges, quickly advancing to the position of mayor. In the respect they engendered among their people, Schindler and Venner held much in common. Never having thought of himself as one in need of such examples, Arie held both politicians as models of worth he now wished to emulate.

A brusque knock sounded. Schindler opened the door to admit a soggy stocky man with wet hair plastered to his head. “Herr Schindler?”

“What news? Wait—Mullen? Is that you under so much rain?”

“
Ja.
Seeking your help, sir, with Venner’s man and the young
Frau.
”

Schindler shook his head in confusion, but Arie jumped up. Past the ice encasing his lungs, he asked, “Venner? Lord Venner of Salzburg?”

His words halting, Mullen related the day he spent traveling from the Blue Pike tavern.

Alarm gathered in Arie’s brain, demanding action. “And the girl? What is her name? How does she look?”

“Eh? Nice young
Frau.
”

“Frau Heidel?”

“
Ja,
that’s her.”

As if his fantasies had come true, only to dissolve into nightmare, Arie grabbed his overcoat and headed for the door.

Arie bellowed into the rain. He strained for any hint of human voices, but the downpour created a wall of unchanging noise. Holding tight to the reins, he steadied his balance and followed Schindler up the muddy slope. He could hardly remember the last time he had sat a horse. Every jerk and twitch of the animal’s hooves on the slippery ground seized Arie’s heart in panic. He was going to fall off the blasted thing.

No, he was going to find Mathilda.

The dinner that had so contented him only a few minutes before now tussled in his stomach. His muscles were leaden, weighed down by weeks of inactivity and very little sleep. Dizziness clouded his vision as effectively as did the slate curtain of rain. He shoved his hair back from his forehead and shouted for Mathilda once again.

He urged his stallion farther up the slope coated with silken mud. The animal’s foreleg slipped, tossing Arie forward. He grabbed thick fistfuls of mane and stayed there, hunched close to the horse’s strong neck, until his heart eased its frantic thump.

“Here!” came Schindler’s voice. Arie could just make out the bright white flanks of the man’s mount.

Arie straightened, his heart jumping for a very different reason. Mathilda. Was she hurt? Would they search the whole mountainside only to come away empty handed? The possibility raised a sickly bitterness in his throat. Too much remained unfinished between them. He needed her safe and whole and
his.

Catching up with Schindler, he watched as a familiar shape emerged from out of the rain. “Oliver!” he called, relief giving him an excited strength. “Where’s Mathilda?”

“She’s here!”

After swinging down from the saddle, Arie slogged through inches of mud that sucked at his boots. The chilly rain shoved past the collar of his coat and seeped down his back.

Oliver met him halfway and clapped him on the shoulder. “I didn’t think you had it in you, Maestro.”

Arie managed a wan smile. “Barely. Where is she?”

“Here.”

Venner’s valet led him to the overturned carriage. The rear axle had snapped cleanly in half. Arie glanced down the hillside, which seemed to drop off as neatly as a cliff. The whole carriage could have slid right to the bottom. That no one had been killed seemed a miracle.

He knelt in the mud and peered inside. There, huddled in the oppressive shadows and wrapped in a horsehair blanket, was the woman he loved. “
Beste God,
Mathilda.”

Her eyes widened. “Arie?”

Before he could take another relieved breath, Arie lifted her out of the carriage and gathered her into his arms. She pressed her face against his bare neck as sobs hiccupped out of her slim torso. “Are you hurt? Mathilda?”

“No, I’m well.”

He could only say her name again and hold her closely. Blood kept a noisy tempo in his ears, but the hard edge of his worry began to ease.

Schindler had managed to light a torch. The sputtering flames cast an unsteady light over his face. “Ah, and so we find you well, Frau Heidel. Good thing, too. This
Höllander
would’ve worn himself ragged looking for you.”

“I believed someone would find us,” Mathilda said, touching his face, “but I never imagined it would be you.”

She spoke as if he were a knight coming to rescue a fairy-tale princess. Arie shook his head. “I will stick to composing,
liefde.
I sit a horse like a sack of turnips.”

“Do not worry yourself,” said the cheerful woman. “A pair of Schindler’s clerks escorted him back to his cabin. He’s resting.”

Mathilda wanted to take Frau Schindler at her word, but she could not help her fretfulness.

Never had she expected Arie to ride to her rescue. He had charged into the night to find her, animated by the significance of his mission. She had been so cold, so stiff. It had been bliss to hold his body tightly as they rode carefully down the slope. He would never be the world’s foremost horseman, that was certain, but he had eased their mount through each harrowing step with a surprising amount of poise and patience. Only upon arriving at the Schindlers’ home did she realize how wan and thin he had become.

But civility and an overwhelming thankfulness kept her from charging out of the house to discover his whereabouts. The Schindlers had opened their home to her and had provided Arie with a place to stay. In gratitude, she endured an informal late supper as anxiety spoiled what food she managed to swallow.

Oliver, by contrast, ate heartily, as did Schindler. He regaled his brood with tales of courageous rescues, using the evening’s events as an opportunity to reminisce about the daring deeds of his youth. While the children tired, his stories grew more and more eccentric to hold their attention. Frau Schindler interjected now and then, correcting or flatly refuting her husband’s tall talk.

After an hour of such merrymaking, she put a stop to the stories and laughter. “’Tis well past bedtime for little ones.”

As the lady of the house worked her bustling magic once again, this time whisking her young quartet to their bedchambers, Schindler pulled a battered and well-used violin down from a parlor shelf.

He offered the instrument to Mathilda. “Give the children a treat.”

“How did you know I play?”

“Herr De Voss.”

Arie talked about her? She wondered what to make of the news. But the sight of Schindler’s violin pinched her stomach. Irritated nerves and fatigue promised a notably poor performance. “Please, Herr Schindler, not tonight.”

“Fine, fine. You can play for us tomorrow.” He tucked the violin beneath his bearded chin. “You’re welcome to stay in one of the guest cabins down by the lake. No one uses them until the summer season. Your man Oliver—I gave him directions. The lad’s done well getting you this far, so perhaps you’ll forgive me if I stay here and let him finish the job.”

Mathilda smiled with relief and gratitude. “
Danke,
Herr Schindler. For everything.”

Winking, he said, “Consider free music lessons as the most sincere expression of your thanks.”

Her host launched into a hearty, fast-paced jig. His expressivity and energy compensated for an informal technique. Moments later, his wife shushed him from a bedroom. He smiled conspiratorially at his guests before slowing the tempo and deepening the mood. His lullaby bid a tender musical adieu to a day that had been, for Mathilda, one of firsts and surprises.

“Shall we?” Ever courteous, Oliver offered her a blanket to wear in place of her wet, ruined pelisse.

The bright moon waned just past full, lessening the absolute darkness of night and illuminating the liquid surface of Wallersee. Three cabins, each spaced by several hundred yards of tall grasses, ringed the lake’s southern shore.

“This is Herr De Voss’s cabin,” Oliver said.

“And mine?”

He pointed to another single-room structure, dark and deserted. “There.”

Mathilda considered her options. Society said she had but a single path—the path leading to that distant cabin. She should simply continue walking and sleep by herself. When morning came, she would have opportunity enough to talk to Arie. But what her hosts never learned about which cabin she chose would not hurt them. Or her reputation.

“Can you keep a secret, Oliver?”

He did not move from that impassive pose, his arms loosely clasped behind his back like an officer at ease. “I’ve not said a word about the morning you came home at dawn.”

The blunt reminder of that night hitched her breath. “I forgot. My apologies, Oliver. I am in your debt already.”

“No matter,” he said casually. “But you wish to stay with Herr De Voss tonight? I assumed you would.”

“Please, don’t say anything.”

“On my honor,” he said.

“
Danke,
Oli—”

“But I ask that you do me the same courtesy. Please keep the secret I revealed by the carriage.”

Mathilda shook her head. Fatigue and worry dizzied her senses, leaving her unable to comprehend his request. “You revealed nothing material. I’m left with just enough to make poor conjectures. You seemed to imply that you and Venner are…”

“Brothers?”

He stared at Wallersee, moonlight and shadows accentuating the hawkish quality of his features. In that moment, he appeared older. More reserved. A tight grin, the kind Venner sidled to Ingrid when he thought nobody saw, picked up the corners of his mouth. “Half right, at least,” he said. “But I will appreciate your discretion. The truth is his to reveal, if he so chooses.” Oliver stepped back and bowed formally. “
Gute Nacht,
Frau Heidel.”

“
Gute Nacht,
Oliver.”

Bewildered, she watched Venner’s brother retrace his steps to the Schindlers’ house, his lantern held high. The flame progressed down a gentle slope, around a bend and into a copse. Behind those trees hid the sleeping hamlet of Henndorf. And standing by the lake, Mathilda could make no sense of their exchange.

If she didn’t have resources enough to understand Oliver, a man to whom she had no strong emotional connection, what chance did she have of understanding Arie? Or of standing up to him? She had envisioned sharp wits and a ready response to every possible argument, but weariness, shaky nerves and the wonder of his unexpected rescue blunted her indignation. Her anger, her accusations—all gone. She felt clumsy and tired. More than sleep, she simply craved the peace that her love for Arie had yet to afford.

She knocked quietly, and the thin plank board door rattled on its hinges. When Arie did not answer, Mathilda entered the cabin. The too-large boots she had borrowed from Frau Schindler clattered on the wood floor, echoing like beats on a timpani.

Her single candle cast wobbly shadows across every surface. For two weeks, he had lived like a musical hermit. A pianoforte haunted a dark corner. A washing stand and porcelain bowl huddled against a wall. And sprawled on his stomach across the room’s largest piece of furniture, the double bed, Arie De Voss lay fast asleep.

He wore a nightshirt, and a bare leg poked from beneath a quilt he had kicked into disarray. Even in the candlelight, his skin was a stark shade of white. The bones of his wrists, ankles and face stood in shadowed relief. His hair was a nightmare of sandy-brown tangles—the only detail of her maestro’s familiar physical presence to remain unchanged. He appeared a pale ghost of the intimidating man who had performed at the Venners’ ball.

She leaned nearer and brushed a wayward lock of damp hair from his forehead. His smooth skin was cool to the touch and smelled freshly washed.

Kneeling next to the bed, she eased unsteady fingers along the ridge of his brow, down his cheek, to his lips. The faintest smile played across his slack mouth.

“Arie?”

“
Bent je daar,
Tilda?”

She said his name again. “Can you hear me?”

A sound like a low, sleepy purr rattled from him.
“Kom hier en slaap met mij.”

“Arie?”

“I said, come here and sleep with me.” He opened his eyes, cobalt blue, entirely lucid. “You need to learn Dutch,
liefde.
We can have a secret code.”

Without time for a breath, Arie dragged her across his chest and claimed her mouth with a hungry, restless kiss. Mathilda laced her fingers at the base of his head to imprison her errant lover, to assure herself that he was real, there, kissing her. She nuzzled the skin of his neck, inhaling his scent. Her buzzing brain swam in inebriated spirals, listing.

Anger sucked at her pleasure, but he worked to steal her wits. The stroke of his tongue, the grip of his hands on her thighs—she was losing her mind.

No,
lost.
A long time ago.

She returned to his mouth for another melting, intoxicating kiss and kneaded Arie’s biceps. As addled as she was, struggling to remember the reasons why she should be furious at the man she kissed with such abandon, his weight loss was alarming.

Mathilda pushed from his body, distancing herself from the maddening source of her every ill and happiness. She had traveled from Salzburg for the first time in twenty-two years of life, and for her troubles, she wanted more than oblivion. She wanted answers.

Drawing on the wrath coiling inside her, she sat upright and scowled. “How hard can I hit you without breaking you in half?”

“You want to hit me?” Breathing evenly through his nose, his apparent indifference infuriated Mathilda. Temptation urged her to reach between his legs and prove that he was not nearly as calm as he tried to appear.

“Of course I do, after what you made me endure.” Her fists clenched reflexively as frustration surged through her muscles and bones. “Take off your shirt.”

He arched his left eyebrow but said nothing. Sitting up, he shrugged out of his nightshirt. In the slanting light of Mathilda’s single candle, the stabbing planes and valleys of his body stood in relief despite his relaxed pose.

“I half believe you starved yourself so I might take pity on you.”

“Do you pity me?”

“No. I want to pummel you, but you refuse me even that satisfaction.”

Arie freed an impish smile. “Perhaps I can provide a different satisfaction?”

“Absolutely not.” She resisted the impulse to scramble away from his grin. That grin was dangerous. His smirking humor was dangerous. She would find no answers if she succumbed to his mirth. “I want words, De Voss. Explanations and apologies. Both.”

He watched her with the very confidence that slipped from Mathilda’s grasp. “And then the satisfaction?”

“Not unless your creative talents include poetry, Maestro.”

“No luck,” he said. “Even in Dutch, I have no talent for words. My mouth, however…”

“And even in German, you make jokes at my expense.”

“No, no, Tilda. For your benefit. I remember how you enjoy my mouth.”

He leaned forward and caught her hands, drawing her closer to the headboard. Searching through the layers of her borrowed gown, he found her bare legs. Mathilda straddled him, atop him. A rush of sexual power caught her unawares. Desire flared between her thighs. She shivered.

But her shoulders slumped in defeat. “Do you know what your leaving did to me?”

Arie stared, tracing the skin of her cheek. “I have an idea.”

Mathilda shuddered at his pointed reminder of the weeks he had spent waiting for her.

“Let me recall,” he said. “Doubt?”

“Yes.”

“Anxiety?”

“Yes.”

“Perhaps, a sense of rejection?”

“All of that, yes. Add the fact I had no knowledge of your whereabouts.” A feeling of panic returned, recalling her heart-stopping climb to his studio—hoping to find it abandoned, fearing that he had taken his own life.

Arie stroked the pad of his thumb along a tear she unwittingly shed. “I had no thought of that,
schatje.
Truly, I did not.”

“Then why?” A sob broke loose from her tense lungs. “To remind me how abandonment feels? I need no reminders.”

“Tilda, that night…I hurt. I cannot—” He choked on his confession, every affectation melting away. “I did not think my leaving would matter after how I had treated you.”

“You were ready to let us go, just like that?”

“At first, no,” he said. “I intended to return to Salzburg and atone for my behavior. But I needed to prove myself, to show you my worth. I needed to do this on my own.”

“Do what?”

“Finish my symphony.”

She stilled. Her eyelids opened wide. Even now, even as angry and heart-sore as she was, Mathilda could not bank her passion for his music. Six years ago, he had hypnotized her from afar. At that moment, touching her legs with idle strokes, he still held her captured.

“You finished?” she asked.

“Yes.”

“And what of ‘Mathilda’s Movement’?” Bitterness soured her voice.

“That is private,” he said tenderly. “Yours and mine, and maybe for Jürgen too.”

“But you left it behind.” She described her investigation of his studio with Kapellmeister Haydn. “Why?”

“I—” He swallowed, his Adam’s apple jumping in his throat. “I wanted to make sure I did not…borrow anything.”

“You would’ve done that? To me?”

The skin along his cheekbones and the bridge of his nose scorched in a hard blush. “I refused to, even after you offered it to me. That is why I left it behind, to avoid an easy means. Now, I know the symphony is…it is mine. That much I can say for certain, good or bad.”