Noah turned to Aslan. “It sends the wrong message. We should have dumped him in the river and let him swim for a few hours against the current.”
As Johnson unlocked the car with an electronic warble and Giorgio headed to the second one, Aslan shook his head. “If they’re uncertain about when the ax will fall, fear does more to keep people in line.”
Quinn shivered. Suddenly, she was cold.
The charm of the evening was broken. Like Cinderella, Quinn crept back to her bedroom, feeling ill at ease. Being bought into the inner circle around Aslan meant being reminded of his true nature. She had ignored it until now.
She was still wide awake when she reached the bedroom. Quinn put the shawl aside and wondered how on earth she would sleep when the sun was shining in the window.
The Pandora’s box Aslan had opened was still idling in her middle, making her want to dance, then dance some more.
Quinn loaded up music tracks she remembered being played last night. As Mozart and Strauss filled the air, she tried to fall back into the spell dancing had woven. While dancing, she could feel none of the weight bearing down on her for the last few weeks. If she could just slip back into that mood…
Only, her mind kept returning to the way Mitchell disassembled the handgun with one hand. She thought it could only be done in the movies, with special effects. He had broken down the gun with the expertise of a man with more than a passing familiarity with small arms. Of course, he had been in the military, but still…
As she turned in gentle circles around the room, Quinn remembered something Dima said while they were eating their salad lunch. Quinn had asked why the CIA were interested in a businessman and contractor, instead of investigating other governments. “Isn’t it your job to find out the secrets of Russia, and China?”
“Political espionage has become perverted over the last decade. Governments are in bed with businessmen, industries build their own political parties. If a multinational loses their secret formula for manufacturing synthetic oil, it isn’t just the multinational which fails. The country’s economic stability is destroyed. Such economic disruptions topple governments. We spend as much time investigating economic and technical espionage as we do hunting down spooks.”
Quinn had almost forgotten that offhand observation. Now she remembered it, and coupled it up with Mitchell’s expertise with the handgun. He was ex-military, yes. Could he be more? If intelligence organizations spent as much time investigating industry as they did governments, how unreasonable would it be to expect they may have someone inside Aslan’s organization?
There was no direct proof of Aslan’s criminal activities. If what Dima suspected was true, it made sense to put someone inside to learn more or find proof. After all, Dima had inserted Quinn into Aslan’s household.
She had managed it by taking advantage of lucky breaks. Only, if there was no such thing as good luck, except for what one made for themselves, then Dima had made her luck. Only, she wasn’t directly interested in Aslan, only his connection to the Kobra.
Given Aslan’s biological weapons interests, surely other intelligence organizations would be interested in him? Was Mitchell, the American former military man, working for another intelligence organization?
Her thoughts were not helping her relax enough to sleep. Quinn picked up the hem of her dress and tried a few more experimental turns. It wasn’t quite the same as dancing in a ballroom full of people, yet the music still held the magic.
She spread her arms and rose onto her toes. Then, her heart thundering, she bought her knee up sideways, and executed a pirouette. Her arms came up into the fifth position, their motion giving her impetus to complete the spin.
Noah was standing at the door, watching her.
Quinn dropped her arms and let the loop of her dress drop off her wrist. Her skirt settled back to the floor. “How long have you been standing there?”
“I heard the music. Isn’t that what they were playing tonight?” He moved farther into the room even though she had not invited him. Had she left the door open? She couldn’t remember. She had been distracted, so perhaps…
Noah tilted his head as Tchaikovsky came on. She knew that expression. It was the face someone wore when they were transported by music.
Startled, she said, “I got the impression you couldn’t stand the music, that you couldn’t wait to leave.”
Noah stayed six paces from the door. Because the room was so large, it put him closer to the door than anywhere else. “I don’t dislike music,” he said. “I just don’t know anything about it. Not the way you do.”
“We all start where you are,” she said. “The trick with music is to listen. These days most people have forgotten how to listen properly.”
“That is all it takes? Just listening?”
“Well, it is a start.” Quinn shifted on her feet. “Is there something I can do for you?”
“It’s not that I won’t dance,” he said, his voice low. “It’s just…I don’t know how.”
Quinn’s breath caught. She had not once considered this possibility. Even Giorgio, who had never had a dance lesson in his life, swung her about the floor with more enthusiasm than technique, and it had been fun.
She didn’t know what to say. Noah was trying to make amends for the evening. It was so unexpected, she was flat-footed and wordless.
He didn’t move from the neutral position by the door. The door was open behind him and anyone passing the room would see him there. He was minimizing any threat she might feel from his presence in her room.
“Have you had any more headaches?” he asked her.
She was embarrassed. Did she think so little of the man that his attempt at polite conversation left her speechless?
Her uncharitable perception of him made her try to meet him halfway now. She gave him a small smile. “It isn’t exactly a headache. It’s more like a constant pressure. Here.” She touched her temple. “Even worse here,” she added, pressing her fingers to her belly. “You know?”
“I do know,” he murmured. “Mine has lasted three years so far.”
Quinn looked at him again, trying to re-examine him in this light. “What could you possibly have a headache about?”
Noah turned his head as Tchaikovsky ended. The deceptively simple piano notes of Ludovico Einaudi’s L’Origine Nascosta rippled through the air.
Quinn hurried over to where Noah stood and held up her hand. “Listen!” She urged him. “Listen to every note. Listen as it builds up.”
Noah’s gaze shifted to the middle of nowhere as he listened. Quinn listened, too. She loved this piece. It was so simple to start with. A few notes on the keyboard. Then it built up. Violins swept it up and up, like a sun bursting above the horizon. “And here…” she whispered, as the music gathered and rose.
As the final note rippled through the air, Noah lifted his hand to the back of his neck. He didn’t speak, although she recognized the gesture. The music had sent fingers up his spine. He had responded to it.
She smiled at him. “See?”
Noah nodded. He looked puzzled. Stunned, even.
Music hath charms that soothe the savage breast. The quote popped into her mind unbidden.
“If Einaudi can do that to you, then you should try Prokofiev,” she told him.
“Prokofiev,” he said, sounding doubtful. He stumbled over the pronunciation.
“Or any of the Russians,” she added. “Try Prokofiev first. He is a little more accessible if you never listened to music before.”
Noah rubbed the back of his neck again, this time more with frustration than with wonderment over the magic of music.
Someone stopped outside the bedroom door in the middle of the passageway, drawing her eye. Quinn looked past Noah. Mitchell held up two bottles of beer. “The Giants go live in fifteen minutes.”
“It’s five in the morning, Mitchell.”
“And yet, you’re still awake. I’ll be in the theater!” He walked away.
>
Noah moved toward the door. “American football. That’s a sleep inducement, if ever there was one.”
Quinn giggled. She pressed her fingers against her mouth to keep the sound in.
Noah gripped the bedroom door handle and brought the door almost closed. “Good night,” he told her. He shut the door.
Quinn reluctantly took off her gown and packed it away in the closet. She looked at the bed. She would not sleep, not for an instant.
Instead, she dressed in jeans and a T-shirt and the one pair of sneakers she owned. She underpinned her hair and scrubbed her scalp where the pins had been pressing against it.
She moved through the silent passage to the back of the house, where a previous owner had installed the soundproof home theater. She pushed open the door and was assaulted by the sound of a marching band and frantic commentators talking about injuries and contracts and who would come out on top today.
Mitchell sat up from his slouch in one of the big reclining lounge chairs installed on the four tiers at the back of the room. Each tier held eight of the recliners. He was alone in the room.
His smile was radiant. He picked up the other beer bottle and held it toward her.
She settled in the lounge chair beside his and took the beer. “Please tell me you have popcorn, too.” The big screen at the front of the room showed all the pregame razzmatazz.
He tapped the neck of his beer bottle against hers. “For you, I will sprint to the kitchen and make some.”
Quinn tucked her feet under her. “I bet a twenty on the Redskins.”
“Done.” He didn’t ask her what currency she was betting with. It was if they both knew. US dollars, of course.
Three hours later, Quinn thought she was just about ready for sleep. She felt mellow as she made her way back to her bedroom. It was nearly eight-thirty yet the house was still and silent, which let her hear music through a bedroom door as she passed.
It was not her room, so the sounds of Wagner at high volume was startling. She stopped, her head down, listening.
Before she reconsidered the wisdom of it, Quinn pressed her hand on the door handle and opened it slowly. It was not a huge surprise to see Noah inside.
He had stripped the tuxedo jacket and tie. The top few buttons of his shirt were undone. Otherwise he had not changed his clothes.
He had not noticed the door open. It was a measure of how sharply he focused upon the music. Noah would not normally fail to notice someone entering any room he was in.
Quinn shut the door, to spare anyone else who was trying to sleep. She crept closer to the chair he sat upon.
Perhaps it was the movement in his peripheral vision which warned him. He looked up at her, his brows coming together.
Then he got to his feet and moved over to the sound system. She thought he would halt the music and lifted her hand to protest that he should not disrespect Wagner, of all people. Instead, he spun the dial. The volume dropped to a level which let her hear her heartbeat once more.
“From Prokofiev to Wagner,” she said. “I’m impressed.”
“There have been a few steps between. I listened for a few minutes. I thought it might put me to sleep,” he admitted with a grimace. “Now I can’t seem to stop.”
Quinn nodded sympathetically. “It can sometimes happen that way,” she assured him. “I’ve seen it before. What were the stops between?”
“This one, just to begin.” He tapped at a computer tablet propped up against the sound system. The tablet was the source of the music. He’d signed up for a live streaming service, so he could range across the music and dip in where he was curious.
Wagner stopped. A lilting melody replaced it. Quinn recognized it. “Die Fledermaus,” she murmured.
“I only know that because it says so on the screen,” he said. “It’s fascinating. There are pauses in there which make me hold my breath. They seem to stretch and make me wait for the next note.”
Quinn smiled. “I don’t know who, but someone said music is only possible because of the silences between the notes. Otherwise they would just be one blaring note.”
His gaze met hers. “That actually makes sense. Does it happen…I mean…people just stumble over music this way?” He seemed puzzled. Even distressed.
“People who fall in love with music late in life do tend to get hit by it, like a runaway truck.” She studied him. He did not seem to be faking his enthusiasm. It was he who had spoken about the silences between the notes first. It was he who had run his fingers up the back of his neck in reaction to Einaudi.
He had learned to listen.
Noah lifted his finger, to point at the speakers. “They played this last night, didn’t they? I didn’t hear it then. Now it’s as if I can’t unhear it.”
“They played this and a great many more like it. This is a Viennese waltz,” Quinn told him. “And this is Vienna, the home of the waltz.”
They both listened for a few more moments. Noah stepped closer to her and picked up her hand. “Is dancing like listening to music, I wonder?” He turned, bringing her around with him. It wasn’t inelegant.
“Do that again,” she said. “Small circles within big circles.”
He shook his head as he turned her around once more. “And that makes sense too.” He completed a few more circles. His footwork smoothed out as he familiarized himself with the movement. “There has to be something more to it than this,” he breathed.
“At its most basic, no,” she said. “You listen to the music and move the way the music tells you to.”
“Basic?” The corner of his mouth lifted, then he bent her over his hands in a classic dip, which was only a little rough. Quinn did not fight the movement, because throwing her weight against it might injure either of them. She let herself be lowered, keeping her balance on his hand.
Noah’s black eyes met hers. “You were a good dancer, weren’t you? You made that easy for me.” He put her back on her feet without effort.
Quinn’s heart gave a little jolt. No one had ever told her that before. “There is a trick to it. Mostly, not fighting it so neither of us is hurt. Even the lightest dancer is still a hundred pounds of weight you have to move about.”
She spoke absently, only half her attention upon what she was saying. She couldn’t tear her eyes away from Noah’s face.
He lowered his head slowly, giving her all the time in the world to halt this. It didn’t occur to her to step away. His lips touched hers. She knew he was sharing the joy he had just discovered.
Their bodies came together, his arm around her. His lips pressed harder. The kiss shifted from an easy sharing of pleasure to something deeper, more profound and yet simpler.
It was only when he released her and took a small step back that Quinn realized she had not considered for a moment telling him to stop. She blinked at him, the broad daylight too bright for her vision.
Noah was breathing hard. His gaze shifted away from her face. “You should get some sleep.” His voice was rough. “When you are sleep deprived, your judgment goes out the window.”
She nodded. She didn’t have the courage to speak because she thought her voice would betray her. It would reveal her trembling. She opened the door, stepped out and closed it again.
She stumbled back to her room, feeling deep exhaustion pulling at every muscle. She tore off her clothes, got into bed and pulled the covers up over her and laid shivering.
It was exhaustion, just as he said. It explained why she had kissed him. Why she had let him do it.
Sleep deprivation. That was all. If she slept, this would not happen again.
[20]
Monday, December 23rd
Quinn didn’t think she would sleep. It was a shock to wake and discovered it was dark outside. Her alarm clock told her it was past midnight. She had slept so heavily she hadn’t moved on the bed at all.
The house still silent beyond her door. Nothing moved.
As she drank water and used the bathroom, she fe
lt the ache in her face and the lethargy in her limbs which said she was still tired. Sleep was pulling her down again.
She didn’t argue with it. Quinn rolled back into bed and closed her eyes.
She woke early the next morning, fully alert. She showered and wondered if it was too early to go in search of breakfast. Normally she rose much later. She did not know the household routine at this hour.
Quinn caught herself humming as she took time to do her hair and makeup. She almost laughed at herself. A single night of dancing and she reverted back to childhood. It was pathetic.
Besides, she couldn’t forget whose house she was in. It was why she fussed over hair and makeup and dressed in silk trousers.
Quinn didn’t expect to find anyone else up as she made her way downstairs. Yet, when she stepped into the small, informal dining room they used for breakfast, she found Aslan there. He looked up from his newspaper and returned the tea cup he was holding back to its saucer. “And I thought everyone would sleep for another day, yet.”
“I won’t disturb you if I have some breakfast?”
He shook his head. “I must be about soon, anyway. Did you enjoy yourself at the ball?”
“You know I did.” She pulled out a chair one down from the head of the table where he sat.
“There is a whole season of balls yet to come,” he said. “That is, if you would like to repeat the experience?”
Quinn couldn’t help smiling. “Pandora’s box, remember?”
Aslan looked pleased. “I’ll have Toni get tickets for the opera house ball in January. That’s the big event of the season.” He looked as if he was about to say more but halted. His eyes narrowed. “You’re wearing the necklace.”
Quinn put her hands to her neck to touch the gold pendant. It had seemed perfectly natural to put it on this morning, as if she had done so a thousand times before. Which she had, only not with this necklace.
“I was reminded of the power of music recently,” she told Aslan.
The maid stepped into the dining room and looked at Quinn expectantly.
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