The Maestro's Mistress (22 page)

‘Darling, I want you to come up
to town and have dinner with me and Roland,’ he told her.

Tara’s heart fluttered. A meeting
with Saul’s influential agent could only mean one thing.

‘It’s too late to get a
baby-sitter for Alessandra,’ she said steadily. ‘Bring him here.’

A pause. Tara imagined his face
momentarily taut with annoyance at not having things go exactly as he had
planned them. She really would have to start standing up for herself. ‘I’ll do
a super little supper,’ she teased. ‘Terribly elegant. As good as the Ritz.’
She really wanted to ask him if Roland had liked her playing but she could
hardly bear to hear the answer.

‘Of course you will,’ he said.
‘You do
everything
superbly.’

Her heart racing Tara searched
the refrigerator, praying that Mrs Lockwood had left something suitable to
enable her to fulfil her reckless promise. Mercifully there was a whole cooked
salmon, assorted salads and a selection of excellent cheeses.

‘Perfect,’ Tara murmured,
browsing through Saul’s selection of wine in the stone-shelved larder and
selecting two bottles she considered appropriate. It pleased her sometimes to
be domesticated. The professional women around Xavier were all rather helpless
in that direction and she knew that Georgiana would be struggling to recall the
ingredients and procedures necessary to scramble an egg.

By eight, Alessandra was fast
asleep, the food all arranged and a new recording of the Mozart Jupiter Symphony
with Xavier and the Tudor Philharmonic in the CD deck. Minutes later the
Porsche roared up the drive closely followed by a big shiny Bentley. Tara
stepped out of the door to watch the drivers alight, curious to see the great
Roland Grant in the flesh.

For a man who was the founder and
president of the largest classical music management firm in the world he struck
Tara as surprisingly unassuming. Unlike Saul, whose eagle features and tall
frame marked him out in a crowd as something special, Roland Grant was somewhat
grandfatherly in appearance, anonymously dressed in a dark suit and a sober
silk tie. His manner was quiet, gentle and charming like someone from another
era.

Tara guessed him to be around
sixty. He was small, stocky and silver haired. But in common with Xavier he
lived and breathed music. From the moment he took her hand in his and squeezed
it firmly he talked about it ceaselessly.

Through the pre-supper drinks and
the meal itself a procession of famous names rolled off his tongue like butter
from a hot knife. He seemed to know everybody and to handle their affairs also.

‘At Grant’s we have a vast
warehouse of talent,’ Roland explained to Tara. ‘We are interested in any
artist, any fixture no matter how small or big. We supply great opera stars to
the international stage of the world and we also supply lesser talents and
has-beens to the provincial circuit. Am I giving you an adequate idea of what
we do?’

‘Oh, yes,’ Tara said slowly. ‘But
where do I come in?’ She glanced swiftly at Saul but his eyes were at their
most remote, staring into some unknown distance. He was not going to interfere
in this particular dialogue.

‘My telephone has not stopped
ringing since you played last night,’ Roland said evenly. ‘Whatever it is you
want, you could have it for the taking just at this moment.’

Tara laid her knife down and sat
back in her chair. ‘Such as?’

‘Engagements to play with some of
the greatest orchestras in the world. The New York Philharmonic, the Chicago
Symphony, the Swedish Radio…’

Tara could not fully take in what
he was saying. ‘Am I really that good?’ she asked, the familiar disbelief about
her musicianship gripping her.

‘Your playing has a quality of
individuality. You bring warmth and colour to the platform,’ Roland Grant told
her, his clear blue eyes holding hers.

He’s talking about personality,
Tara thought. She wanted to be told about quality of technique and musical
interpretation. Her eyes appealed to Saul. He stared back at her his eyebrows
slightly raised. He was like a harsh tutor watching a hesitant child making
valiant thrashing attempts in deep water.
You must swim or drown.

‘Do people want me because I’m a
great player or because I’m Saul  Xavier’s mistress – a juicy celebrity?’ she
asked brutally.

Roland looked her hard in the
eye, as though to say,
does it matter?

Oh yes, it does thought Tara.

She got up and went to the kitchen
on the pretext of fetching more wine. As she thrust the corkscrew into the
bottle neck she heard Xavier coming up behind her.

‘Tara,’ he murmured, turning her
innards to liquid. ‘My sweet nymph.’ He wrapped his arms around her enclosing
shoulders, ribs, breasts, heart. Everything.  She twisted in his arms and
pressed herself against him, sliding her hands over the hard bones of his chest
and encircling the firm flesh at the back of his neck.

‘Roland Grant is interested in
money,’ she said flatly. ‘Commodities that people will buy. I’m not interested
in that. I want to be a musician.’

Saul smiled down at her. ‘My
darling, musicians are commodities. Whatever made you think otherwise?’

‘Don’t tease. And don’t be so
damn cynical.’

‘You do Roland a disservice,’ he
said mildly. ‘His love of music is entirely genuine – as are his proposals.’

‘Cooked up between the two of
you?’ she suggested spikily. ‘I would love to have been a fly on the wall when
you chewed me over in the privacy of his office.’

‘You would have been extremely
pleased with what you heard,’ Xavier said evenly.

She squared up to him. ‘So what
did
you think of my performance last night?  You never said one word – not one.’

‘No, I was afraid I was going to
lose you.’ His grey eyes stared down at her with cool challenge.

Her forehead creased in a frown
of perplexity. If only he would be direct. If only he would give her a straight
opinion. There was no one on whom she would pin more faith.

‘Your playing was impeccable,
Tara, he said softly. ‘You demonstrated all the required range, accuracy and
precision. Your interpretation was full of spontaneous sensitivity and you
created some sweet chemistry with the audience. In short, my sweet one – you
were delicious.’

She stared at him, suspicious
regarding the last adjective, yet beginning to be convinced.

‘So – shall I lose you?’ he
enquired.

‘What do you mean?’

‘Now is your chance to jump on
the concert circuit bandwagon. Is that what you’re going to choose?’

Tremors of apprehension seized
her. She felt the quiet menace of Saul’s will licking around her like a python’s
tongue.

‘Is that what you want Tara?’ he
demanded coolly. ‘Living out of suitcases, flying from one soulless capital to
another, playing the same dozen or so concertos time and time again?’

Tara was stunned. ‘Are you trying
to stop me?’

‘You must make your choice. We
all make our own lives, however close we are to each other.’

His eyes suddenly softened.
‘Darling Tara,’ he said gently, ‘I would never try to stop you from doing what
you wanted. I would be a fool if I did. That would be the certain way to lose
you.’

‘Is that why you were so…fierce
last night?’ she asked. ‘Because you were frightened of losing me?’

He pulled her to him and sighed.
‘Oh my precious one,’ he said, brushing his lips over her neck and her hair.’

Tara felt a lump of emotion in
her throat. Slowly she disengaged herself from his arms. ‘I’m a hostess,’ she
reminded him with a wry smile. ‘I have my guest to consider.’

But whilst Roland and Saul talked
together over brandy and coffee she sat a little apart, her mind ranging over
the myriad new possibilities for the future. It struck her that for Saul
musical talent was an everyday phenomenon, commonplace. He had worked with
countless brilliant singers and instrumentalists, a never-ending stream of
them. And newcomers were coming forward all the time, snapping at the heels of
the established artists.

Saul had already been through the
heady business of flying the world and absorbing acclaim. Success, prestige and
wealth had been part of his everyday life for years. For him, the family unit
he and Tara had formed here in this provincial English house with little
Alessandra was something very special, utterly precious.

And yet, of course, Saul would
have no intention of giving up his own career ambitions. Tara saw that it was
the old story of the woman making compromises whilst the man had it all:
career, worldly success and the satisfaction of family life. And then she
thought of the reality of an extended existence in faceless hotels, rarely
seeing Alessandra once the child was old enough to go to school and could no
longer be carted around like a pet dog.

She wondered if Roland Grant
would press her to make some sort of commitment or, failing that, at the very
least offer an indication of his hopes and intentions. But he seemed to pick up
on her troubled indecisiveness and in the end made no attempt to put her under
further pressure.

He took her hand in his before he
left, thanking her for her hospitality, making it seem as though this evening
had been nothing but a delightful social occasion.

Saul, as she had expected,
declined to make any further comment. After switching off all the lights he sat
down at the piano and began to play Debussy’s
Clair de Lune.
The wistful
evocative melody stole through the silent darkened room.

Tara stood beside the window and
watched his long fingers caressing the gleaming keys. Her eyes travelled
upwards to move over his remote, carved features, pearled now in the
moonlight.  She felt a tremble of pure ecstasy. The continued mystery of Saul Xavier
bound her even closer.

Later he made love to her with
exquisite gentleness. She could think of nothing but his nearness.

She would think about her career
the next day.

CHAPTER
19

The prospect of lunching with
Saul at The Ritz gave Georgiana a good deal of anticipatory pleasure. It was
some weeks since he had been in touch with her and she had begun to feel
neglected.

In the beginning, just after he
had cast her off, he had been very careful to maintain regular contact. He had
made it his business to keep checking that she was not lonely, that she had
enough social engagements and little trips to Europe and America to keep her
happy. In fact it had seemed to Georgiana that he had cared for her well-being
with a loving concern he had not shown her for some years.

She had liked the consideration
and attention. It had been like a warm blanket of love and appreciation
settling delicately around her. The pain of his rejection had begun to ease.
And since she came to know Tara and darling little baby Alessandra she had
discovered an unexpected new interest in life. There was such a lot she could
show them – about being a female. Such a lot she could give.

Hunting out amusing little items
of clothing for Tara had been a thoroughly enjoyable pastime, although it had
not improved Tara’s taste in choosing for herself. And apart from buying chunky
bottles of heady fragrances and lacy underwear, she showed no inclination to
spend a lot of money – a diversion Georgiana had always found most delightful.

But it was little Alessandra who
provided the most pleasure and satisfaction. Georgiana spent hours searching
out clothes and books and toys for the baby. Lavish parcels were regularly
despatched to the Oxfordshire house. And Tara always responded with a charming
and grateful letter.

But as Georgiana’s links with the
baby and Tara developed so her contact with Saul decreased. Georgiana knew that
he was busy. She had read in the newspapers that he was to conduct several
concerts at the Proms and planning to make a series of films with the Tudor
Philharmonic playing complete cycles of the Beethoven and Brahms symphonies.

Even so, she was offended and
troubled that she he had ignored her for so long. For whilst it was true that
she was used to living her own life, and that she was more than relieved to
have had the threat of sexual expectations finally lifted from her, she was
still his wife. He still owed her some consideration.

Nevertheless being taken to The
Ritz seemed some sort of olive branch, and she prepared for the event with
great care. Facing him across the table, enjoying the soft fall of aquamarine
blue silk around her flawless, toned body, she noted that he looked drained and
tense. Older.

‘You will wear yourself out,’ she
told him.

He made a low sound in his
throat. It could have meant anything.

It would be all the sex,
Georgiana decided. She thought about her husband’s sex life a great deal,
gaining a quaking thrill of pleasure from imagining him and Tara in the act of
congress. Tara was an earthy type of girl, with her strong short-nailed fingers
and her small bosomy body. There was something primitive and basic about her.
She was the sort of female designed for all the grunting, thrashing about and sweating
of sex. Whereas she, Georgiana, was created from finer more delicate fibre. And
pleased to be so.