The Maestro's Mistress

by Angela Dracup

  Of course she wanted him, she told herself. What had she been thinking of these past few years? She had suffered some hormonal imbalance probably. That kind of thing could play havoc with a woman’s sexuality. Even as she reasoned with herself she knew that her feeble arguments were self-deluding lies and deceptions.

  But she would not be deflected from her purpose. There was more at stake here than the simple issue of sex - which after all was surely no more than a distasteful inconvenience. Losing Xavier and all the trappings of her position as his wife were prizes she was simply not going to relinquish.

  The Mozart tinkled and thundered capriciously. A young woman nearby got up and stumbled out, obviously ill. Georgiana almost envied her the early escape. She felt sorry for the girl as well, just as she felt sorry for the majority of women who were physically unremarkable. And how awful it must be to be small and dark and so top heavy.

  At the end of the concert she took a taxi home and opened a bottle of Bollinger. Xavier was particularly fond of Bollinger, relishing its yeasty fragrance and doughy aftertaste. Georgiana would have preferred something a little lighter, but tonight was to be one hundred per cent geared to his preferences.

  She drank two glasses herself and felt suitably unwound.

  It never occurred to Georgiana that her chosen methods of seduction were clumsy and crude, cringingly commonplace. Ultra stylish – and much admired – for her taste in clothes and her amusing dinner parties, Georgiana was little more than a child when it came to sexual sophistication. She was sure she was doing everything that was expected and that it could not fail to please.

  Arrayed in a peach satin nightdress and a cloud of Jolie Madame eau de toilette, she waited for Xavier to return, mercifully oblivious of the disastrous mismatch between the scene she had set and the emotional upheavals of Xavier’s day.

  He did not return until four in the morning, looking uncharacteristically haggard and exhausted.

  Georgiana, stretched out languorously on the sofa saw him stare at her blankly. It was as though she were someone he had seen once or twice before but could not quite place.

  Having waited in a state of tension for him since midnight she was inwardly incensed. He had been with one of those girls: one of his own choosing, at his own instigation. An assignation that had nothing to do with her, Georgiana, his wife.

  She fumed. She willed herself to be calm.

  ‘You’re still up,’ he said.

  ‘I wanted to see you. I never see you these days.’ She smiled. She tried to recapture the feelings and demeanour of the young bride Georgiana who had been so in love with her stern, famous bridegroom.

  ‘No. I’m sorry about that.’ He sat down, his upper body slumped forward, his long arms hanging between his legs.

  ‘You’ve been working so hard,’ she chided him sweetly. ‘You’re getting to be a complete workaholic.’

  Xavier looked at her, noted the brittle, girlish coquetry glittering in her eyes. His mind was full of Tara and their child, he did not want to think about Georgiana. He had lost all motivation to expend mental energy on her problems. He suspected she had not been very happy recently and maybe not very well. He wished she would get a lover or a potential new husband. He wished she would go away somewhere else and be happy. Or simply dissolve.

  ‘Have some champagne,’ she said, coming across and sitting beside him.

  He took the glass.

  She raised her glass and clinked it delicately against his. ‘Happy New Year, darling.’

  ‘Happy New Year.’ The response was merely automatic.

  ‘A new year, a new start,’ she said.

  ‘Yes.’ If only she knew. He considered the kindest way to tell her.

  ‘I do love you very much,’ she said, sounding a little pathetic.

  He said nothing.

  She put her glass down and placed her hand on his crotch.

  Xavier could not have been more surprised and dismayed if she had pulled a knife on him. Slowly she began to rotate her hand, her blue eyes staring into his.

  Xavier felt revulsion. He wanted to swat her off like a troublesome insect.

  Still smiling she slipped her arms out of the straps of her nightgown and allowed it to slither down to her waist. Her small, girlish breasts gleamed like creamy pearls in the soft light from the lamps.

  Xavier thought of Tara’s breasts, heavy and voluptuous like ripe fruits trapped in an invisible net. Vaguely he registered Georgiana getting to her feet, wriggling out of her gown and presenting her perfect, unblemished body to him.

  She stood for a moment, triumphant and yet uncertain. And then, incredibly, she was taking the initiative, reaching for his hand and guiding it between her thighs.

  Xavier felt the texture of her flesh, greasy and perfumed, anointed with some expensive lubricant. His hand rested in hers and then as she withdrew it so his own dropped away from her, dead as a stone.

  Georgiana looked down at him in bewilderment. Her face showed the pain and confusion of a child who has tried so hard to please, only to be rejected.

  Reluctantly, and with a huge effort of will, Xavier forced his mind to focus on the woman before him with whom he was sharing this awful moment. Holding back the impulse to fell her with a single violent blow he schooled himself to be gentle, for it was not her fault that he no longer felt any emotion for her. Instead he pulled her to sit beside him on the sofa. He let his arm rest around her shoulders.

  And then he told her.

  She sat very still, unflinching, wordless. Her face became closed and unreachable.

  He guessed she had simply shut him off. His wife had an awesome capacity to ignore that which did not please, nor fit with her view of the world. ‘Georgiana,’ he said, shaking her shoulder. ‘You must listen.’ There was no kind way to do this. He must be honest. Speaking the truth was often brutal and cruel, but he had never shied away from it.

  ‘This isn’t some sudden whim of mine. I have been thinking about it for some weeks. I have hardly slept. Georgiana!’

  Her face was white as death, the china blue eyes blank and staring.

  He lifted her in his arms and shook her as though attempting to wake someone from drug-induced sleep. She was limp and yet in some way ferociously resisting him.

  ‘Our marriage has been sick and ailing for some time now,’ he informed the beautiful marble-like features. ‘We are not doing ourselves any good to go on in this way.’

  It was like trying to communicate with a corpse. He groaned with weariness and mounting frustration. ‘For God’s sake, Georgiana. Our marriage is dead!’

  He fancied he saw a flicker in the blue stare.

  ‘We shall see each other, still be friends,’ he coaxed, cringing at the notion. ‘And you will have nothing to worry about regarding money. You can have everything you want.’

  Still nothing.

  His patience was at an end. ‘Tara is having my child,’ he said, the cruellest cut of all.

  There was a long silence.

  Suddenly she let out a chilling and primitive scream. A howl of animal rage. Just one. And then she pressed her lips tightly together. There was not another sound.

  He could do nothing with her. She was encapsulated in some impregnable world of her own. He gave up. He picked up the crumpled nightdress and manoeuvred it over his wife’s body, moving her limbs as though she were a doll.

  He carried her to her room and laid her in bed. She turned on her side and closed her eyes, shutting him out.

  He had wondered for some time now if Georgiana was biologically ill. He had no idea how serious it might be. He would make contact with her therapist and ask his advice.

  He sat beside the bed, keeping watch over her. In his mind he was several miles away in a clinical hospital room where a small marvel of female humanity was suffering in the struggle to save the life of his child.

  CHAPTER 14

  Saul’s house on the outskirts of Oxford was a mock Tudor pile set in four acres of o
rnamental garden.

  Tara chuckled with mockery as he drove the Porsche through the tall wrought iron gates which opened automatically and then closed with a ringing clang behind them.

  ‘Shut up,’ he growled, loving her refusal to be impressed with the trappings of success. ‘I don’t take it seriously either.’

  ‘But you bought it.’

  ‘I have to have a place somewhere outside London.’

  The drive was a smooth grey road, bordered on each side with tall bushes whose glossy leaves gave every appearance of having been polished by hand. The road swooped and curved, revealing glimpses of spreading lawns beyond the thick foliage of the bushes. Tara registered the trailing branches of weeping willows, the stiff fingers of a huge monkey puzzle tree. There was a distant glint of turquoise water promising the opportunity of some relaxing swims.

  The grey road ended in a circular gravel sweep. The house presiding over it was huge with a high front door of heavy oak, arched and studded like the entrance to a castle.

  Tara stared at it and then burst into laughter. ‘Will the staff be lined up waiting? Is there an evil, jealous housekeeper who will strike terror into my bones?’

  Saul smiled. ‘There is Mrs Lockwood. She comes in every day from the village where she lives happily with her husband and children. I very much doubt her capacity for serious wickedness.’

  Inside the house smelled of beeswax polish and freshly cut flowers. The huge hallway was panelled in dark oak. There was a cream and dusky pink marble floor, on which one solitary silken rug from the former Persia lay in softly glistening ripples.

  Tara looked around her. For a moment it was hard to think of anything suitable to say.

  Saul took her in his arms and kissed her face. He then took her on a tour of the house. It was vast.

  ‘Who dusts the skirting boards?’ Tara enquired, having regained her usual spiky assurance.

  ‘Not you.’ He spoke in a manner which prohibited all challenge. ‘Mrs Lockwood organizes people to come in and do all that, also the cooking. I’d advise you simply to steer clear.’

  ‘So what do I do all day? Apart from being a brood mare?’

  ‘Oh – I have a few plans,’ he said softly.

  ‘What about the promotion job with the orchestra?’ she asked tentatively.

  He looked down at her. ‘No.’ His eyes were hard.

  ‘No longer on offer? Don’t get the idea my brain’s about to turn to porridge just because I’m pregnant.’ She stared up at him with challenge.

  His face was stripped and austere. You almost lost this baby, Tara. There is no question of taking any risks. You need peace. You need calm and rest. Then after the baby – well…’ His hand curved in an upwardly spiralling gesture, suggesting the possibility of all manner of interesting heights to be scaled.

  She realized there was little point in protesting. And secretly she was relieved. Just at the moment she wanted to concentrate on very little besides loving Saul.

  In the huge main bedroom Tara rushed at him like a playful calf, surprising him with a sharp lunge, catching him off balance so that he fell onto the king-sized bed. Kneeling over his hips she declared love on him with a vengeance.

  Their lips and tongues entwined. He gazed at her with his mysteriously remote yet deeply sensual eyes. She could feel their hearts beating in rhythm, their breathing perfectly synchronized as they lay together like one body.

  ‘How did you get so bony?’ he murmured, his fingers tracing over the spikes of her rib cage.

  ‘How do you think?’

  ‘Pining?’

  ‘Shame on me,’ she said. ‘When were you going to come for me?’

  ‘When you’d had long enough to sweat.’ He smiled at her. He loved all the verbal fencing. She was so sure, so resilient. But then suddenly her breath-catching young vulnerability would show through the self-assurance like a flash of naked flesh beneath torn fabric.

  She narrowed her eyes dangerously. ‘I’m going to make you sweat.’ She reached down.

  He grasped her hand, stilling it and holding it prisoner.

  ‘Oh!’ Her eyes widened with understanding and horror.

  ‘I’m sure I don’t need to remind you what the doctor said,’ he told her, his eyes suddenly icy.

  Tara recalled the interview with the gynaecologist before they left the hospital.

  He’d been a smooth, patronizing jerk. On one occasion he’d even referred to her as “the little lady”. And he’d made coy remarks about play pens when he meant vaginas.

  ‘Wise to leave the play pen empty for the next month or so if you want to make sure it’s going to be full later,’ he had jested.

  Tara had taken this as a warning to refrain from strenuous sex. At least for a while. If possible. With Saul lying next to her now she didn’t believe it was.

  ‘You’re not suggesting we don’t make love for weeks and weeks,’ she gasped in horror. ‘My God, I’d go mad. I couldn’t bear it.’

  His eyes held hers, compelling, magnetizing. He was in total, awe-inspiring control. ‘You are having a child, my darling. That means you yourself are no longer a child. You have to learn patience and restraint. I’m quite used it,’ he informed her. ‘A little more privation will make very little difference. Besides which, anticipation always sharpens up the appetite.’

  The last statement he believed to be true. The one before was an outright lie. He did not know how he was going to keep himself from penetrating her wonderful firm body and losing himself in the ecstasy of making love to her. But he knew that he would just have to exercise the greatest self control of his life if he was to ensure the safe delivery of his baby and the continued adoration of his new lover. He would also have to find other ways to entertain her.

  He smiled down at her, his outward mask of control now firmly back in place after his anxiety during those first terrible hours when he did not know if she and his baby would live or die.

  ‘Oh my God!’ said Tara, looking up at him in awe and despair. ‘Oh, my darling,’ she wailed, the pathos enough to break a heart of iron.

  He bent to kiss the pulse beating at her neck. ‘Turn over,’ he whispered. Slowly he released her from her white cotton T-shirt and her dark blue jeans. He unhooked her bra and watched her squirm with pleasure as he brushed the darkening nipples with teasing fingers.

  Pulling away her ridiculous thong, he placed an arm beneath the swell of her belly and raised her hips. Then he began to kiss her. All over – lingering, tantalizing until she was gasping like someone drowning.

  His fingers found every throbbing crevice, every welcoming fold of flesh. His lips traced the paths his fingers had drawn. His tongue flicked and darted.

  Tara became heated and feverish. Almost, almost, she chanted silently. Then finally let out a cry as the ecstasy pulsed and swirled in the secret dark centre of her femininity.

  Rachel arrived with a car loaded full of Tara’s belongings.

  ‘Is he here?’ she asked.

  ‘No, he’s at the Paris Conservatoire, talent spotting. He’s flying back later this evening.’

  ‘And you’re here waiting for him like some good little wife?’ Rachel arched her eyebrows.

  ‘Don’t be a cow, Mum.’

  ‘I’m jealous,’ Rachel said, squinting up at the magnificent house. She knew also that she was faintly triumphant to see Tara a little tamed.

  ‘It’s a bit of a dog,’ Tara grimaced, eyeing the mock Tudor beams and the latticed paned windows, sprinkled with burglar alarms.

  ‘Perhaps a little opulent for your taste,’ Rachel agreed drily, recalling Tara’s previous scorn for anything which smacked of ostentation and conspicuous consumption. ‘Did he choose it?’

  Tara shrugged. ‘I haven’t asked. I can’t imagine so.’

  Inside the house Rachel followed her daughter around, observing thoughtfully, declining to comment if there was nothing good she could find to say. She stared up at the extravagantly swagged and tasseslled cur
tains in the bedrooms, at the draped silk canopies adorning the beds. ‘Very elegant!’ she ventured.

  ‘Oh, come on – be honest. It’s unbelievably frightful,’ Tara said.

  ‘Taste is a matter for each individual,’ Rachel commented evenly. She was thinking of the woman who had chosen all this expensive showy stuff. Was such a woman to be despised? A person with too little occupation and too much money? What was she truly like, this woman? The one who had been cast off. Saul Xavier’s wife.

  Rachel looked at the top of Tara’s gleaming chestnut head as she followed her down the stairs and knew that she could not bring herself to voice these questions, nor be confronted with her daughter’s opinions.

  Tara took her into the drawing room, an airy salon around thirty feet long, perfectly proportioned as a double cube. Rachel stared at the stark white walls and the gleaming oak block floor. There was no clutter here, no ornaments, no dainty antique pieces, just one arresting fabulous painting from Picasso’s blue period which drew the eye and held it like a magnet. Other items were of a directly practical nature: a stereo system with controls like the cockpit of a small aircraft, and beneath the windows a gleaming nine-foot Steinway grand piano.

  Now this is definitely his choice,’ Rachel said. ‘You can see his hand all over this room. Spare, aesthetic.’

  ‘Yes, it’s perfect,’ Tara murmured. ‘I spend nearly all my time in here.’

  ‘So what about your friends? Do they come here to see you?’

  ‘No. Well, they seem a bit young and crass.’ Tara said.

  Rachel looked at her daughter’s solemn face. ‘Are you worried he would object?’

  ‘Oh for heaven’s sake say his name. Even if he is the low bastard who impregnated your daughter.’

  Rachel sighed.

  ‘Sorry, sorry,’ Tara said impatiently. ‘No truly – not inviting the old gang here is nothing to do with Saul. He makes me feel free to do whatever I like. As long as I don’t seduce the gardener.’

  She had to make a joke about sex. The reality of the situation was driving her mad.