by Carrie Lofty
“Well played, Ingrid.”
“A masterstroke, actually. Come now, cheerful face.”
Mathilda smiled softly, but every piece of her rational personality—the details of which she had hammered and forged into a quiet existence—argued against giving De Voss a moment of her consideration. Why must the idea of being in the same, albeit giant, room with him steal her breath?
A musical chord burst into her brain. Then another. Another.
His symphony.
Love and Freedom.
Desire and curiosity rendered her well-reasoned intentions a cramped, lightless prison. What harm could come of seeing him? Or hearing his performance? After all, she was not about to pick up the violin again. Music had been her mother’s downfall, her temptation and weakness. And Mathilda did not intend to follow her maternal shadow to an early demise.
Rationalizations in place, she curbed her restlessness and awaited Venner’s return, searching the scene with practiced skill. Full of warmth and humanity, the cavernous ballroom snubbed winter’s chill and the uncertainties of stalled warfare, holding those worries at bay for an evening. Candles cast golden beams across the dance floor from six massive chandeliers, swathing the assembly in gauzy softness. Innumerable jewels refracted and decorated the gossamer light with color.
Ingrid gripped her hand and nodded toward the grand staircase. “There, Christoph found him.”
The party fell away in a nauseating rush.
While Venner talked to him, Arie De Voss bowed his head as if deep in thought. Blatant and unreserved, Mathilda devoured every detail. He kept his sandy-colored hair short and a little too wild. Clad in austere black formalwear, he radiated lean arrogance, even as his pensive pose whispered of a vulnerable inner world. He had matured—handsomely so.
Admiration crowded the air from Mathilda’s lungs. She may as well have been sixteen again, an innocent with no experience and no past. How could six years vanish so easily?
She willed him to look up, to look her way. To see her.
At last, the maestro lifted his eyes. Mathilda’s heart pin-wheeled in her chest, breaking and whirling and beating yet again.
CHAPTER TWO
The primped and lovely faces melted into a chattering mass, and sounds faded into a muddled blur. Arie’s mind wandered like that of a daydreaming schoolboy.
He heard words. He said words in return. But he mulled the same tedious question that returned whenever he attended some ghastly social engagement: Why am I here?
The music. Always, the music.
The purity of his latest composition, the first movement of a symphony, drowned the considerable din of the ballroom and the buzz of too many drinks. Disorientation quickened his breath. Secret music swirled through his senses, a potent opiate. The melody pulsed with longing, promise and tantalizing mysteries, unlike any he had ever composed.
But another three movements of the infuriating puzzle remained trapped within his brain. Mad from the need to put the symphony to paper, Arie worked toward the satisfaction of hearing it performed. Maybe then he could rest easy with the praise ringing hollow in his ears and tying his conscience with guilty tethers.
He needed to impress the Venners, his new patrons. He needed students and more than a few odd commissions. To complete the work that would satisfy his muse and ease his paralyzing remorse, Arie needed money.
His desire to perform and compose kept him from fleeing, both from the Venners’ ballroom and from the maddening uncertainty of his career. Without that need to play, he would have allowed his temper and shallow confidence to dominate the rest of his days. Willingly.
Despite sound intentions and failed attempts to mingle, he remained alone in a room bursting with revelers. He hid by the staircase. Another irritating performance by the gala’s double quartet throbbed in his head like a wound. A third—or fourth?—glass of sherry filled his hand. Cowardice infected him with a black mood.
No guest spoke to him. No curious admirers sought his company. Only Lord Venner approached, retrieving him from the stupor of another drink. Youthful and self-assured, the man’s hawkish nose and thin lips lent his face an aura of predatory strength.
“De Voss, I shall introduce you to my wife.”
And who was Arie to refuse?
He dutifully followed his patron through the crowd, watching the nobleman’s polished shoes glance across the crisscrossed parquet.
Venner’s wife proved to be a very young and attractive woman. Tall and slim, her creamy skin graced elegant cheekbones. Pale freckles scattered across her cheeks and the bridge of her nose.
Arie bowed, but that sudden dip and rise tilted the room. He fought drunken instability, holding on to a few more moments of composure. “I am honored, Lady Venner. Your patronage is most welcome, I assure you.”
“I’m simply pleased you could attend our festivities,” she said, her voice warm but poised.
Venner turned to the other woman. “And this is Frau Heidel.”
Arie repeated his dizzying pleasantries. And he waited. Venner offered no explanation regarding the woman’s position or status. Although her timid curtsy and lowered gaze made her seem no older than a maturing girl, she stood swathed in black silk. Like a beacon, white lace trim and silver jewelry contrasted with the mourning garb.
The exchange hung awkwardly between them. And then she looked up. Wide, unflinching hazel eyes drew Arie nearer, as would the welcoming fires of a homecoming. The woman regarded him with an unbalancing esteem—esteem at odds with his mood, merits and state of inebriation.
Like an angel taking pity on a hapless mortal, Lady Venner spoke. “My parents served as Frau Heidel’s guardians. We grew up together.”
The note of affection in the noblewoman’s voice registered even in Arie’s mottled brain. Sobriety would have prevented him from eying his new patron’s friend, but a droning swirl of alcohol eclipsed good sense. His mouth pulled into an inappropriate smile. He submitted to temptation and leered at the enticing woman in black, charting her pale flesh with his stare.
Elegant lips and sharp cheekbones, along with those adoring eyes, created a striking female face. She looked at once hearty and vulnerable, with nondescript brown hair piled in an unpretentious coiffure. Nearly as tall as Arie, her height did not detract from alluring curves—curves that bluntly reminded him of his barren studio and habitually empty bed.
She returned his stare without hesitation. Like a challenge.
Air thickened in his lungs. A hard pulse of desire thumped through his veins and coiled in his gut, in his groin.
But whom did she mourn? A parent? A husband?
In many Catholic regions such as Salzburg, priests determined mourning periods on an individual basis. While awaiting a blessing to begin new lives, loneliness and curiosity occasionally drew those women to Arie. He would forgive the evening’s tedium entirely if Frau Heidel proved such a widow.
Temptation trumped caution. Alcohol diluted good judgment. He had to know. “And is your husband in attendance?”
She blinked. Her expression went cold. “He died.”
Embarrassment laid waste to a decade spent studying the German language. “Are you to thank with the Lord Venner for extending me invitations? Maybe I owe you a gratitude.”
Frau Heidel shook her head, banishing a scowl. Shivers of movement trailed through the twin curls trailing along her cheeks. “You owe me no thanks, sir. I only learned of your attendance a few minutes ago.”
Arie cursed the unexpected lust that had possessed his idiotic tongue. He sank under a flood of familiar insecurities and guilt, as well as a sharp regret that the eye-catching widow would not be the sexual prospect he gladly imagined.
Lady Venner appeared highly amused as she asked, “Do you only accept aristocratic students, Herr De Voss?”
He laughed harshly, too abruptly. “I would never eat. Until I live on commissions, I cannot afford to be particular.”
“I only ask because Frau Heidel st
udied violin before her marriage. Perhaps…”
“This is not the time, Ingrid.”
The widow’s hard tone sparked a silent altercation between the women. Arie could not interpret their wordless expressions, nor could he imagine speaking to an aristocrat with such censure and familiarity. A thousand questions begged for answers.
Lord Venner appeared equally baffled, but he at least retained authority enough to influence their unspoken contest. “Let us hear the maestro’s recital and release him from his obligation, meine Liebe.”
Whether a pointed barb at his unsteady poise, Arie could not know. But the prospect of making his escape from that uncomfortable scene, especially to the safety of a piano bench, lifted his spirits like a pardon for a condemned prisoner.
His hostess flicked green eyes between her companions before a neutral smile smoothed across her face. Arie would have given his sanity for a fraction of her poise. “My husband is right,” Lady Venner said. “Will you perform for us?”
Nodding, hoping his half-drunk conduct had not already spoiled his patrons’ support, he was pleased to learn that they expected so little spectacle. Perhaps his skill at the pianoforte might compensate for reticence and poor manners.
“At your pleasure,” he said.
The mysterious Frau Heidel smiled without joy. “And what will you play, sir?”
Whether intentional or otherwise, her question salvaged Arie’s floundering composure. Negotiating the niceties of society still had the power to mystify him, no matter his experience, but he discussed music with the easy reflex of respiration.
“I wrote a sonata in dedication to Rudolf, the youngest brother of your new Duke Ferdinand, when he required a music instructor. I thought the piece might recommend me to the post.”
“Did it?”
“No,” Arie said on an exhale. “Now Beethoven instructs Rudolf. But the sonata is good. I never played it in public.”
Frau Heidel pensively explored his face and fingered a pendant of amber and silver. Cool reserve had entirely replaced her admiration—or had that been the mad fantasy of a lonely man? A pounding pain scrambled around his skull.
“I await your performance, sir,” she said simply.
With that, the widow slipped from their small set. Arie watched the crowd swallow her black dress. He nearly indulged an irrational urge to follow her, even as the Venners departed for the elevated musicians’ platform.
Beside her keen-eyed husband, Lady Venner raised graceful arms to gather attention toward the stage. “Ladies and gentlemen, I ask you to take a moment from your conversations and a respite from your dances to recognize one of our esteemed guests.”
Arie forced air in and out of his lungs, calming his nerves. He lived for these moments. This would be the balm for a grievous evening.
“Honoring us with his presence is a man most worthy of the praise he receives from all corners of Europe.” Only a flattering blush indicated the young noblewoman’s subtle unease before so many guests. She possessed a sweet, resonant voice filled with drama. Partygoers hung on each syllable. Arie admired her showmanship as much as Lord Venner’s stoic candor. “Please join me in welcoming the famed Dutch composer, a current resident of our dear Salzburg, Maestro Arie De Voss.”
Immediate applause filled the ballroom. Men standing nearby offered handshakes and bows. Women curtsied and tendered alluring smiles. Arie spun between emotional extremes, hastily making the transition from scornful recluse and hypocrite to humble, grateful luminary.
In that moment, finally, years of life in the public eye activated valuable reflexes. His answering smile appeared without struggle. This was his privilege, after all, as well as his obligation. Curiosity and stares at the mere mention of his name distressed him more than being honored for any genuine talent.
The Venners beckoned and the applause receded. He bowed deeply. “You do me a great honor.” His accent thickened before the many watchful faces. “I thank our hosts for a wonderful evening.”
He lied, of course. The hours since leaving his studio had been tedious and terrible.
Except for her.
At Lady Venner’s command, six footmen cautiously rolled a low wheeled trolley into the ballroom. Several more servants ushered guests aside to make way for the Broadwood.
Arie sat before the magnificent instrument, unhurried and temporarily free from a plague of inadequacies. He stroked the contrasting ivory, admiring a beauty so unlike his own battered pianoforte—the best he had been able to afford upon arriving in Salzburg.
A clutch of envy threatened to steal his joy. But since childhood, since his father’s hanging, he had learned that playing the piano erased the world. When performing, he became the person no one else knew, the person most like himself.
Thought fled. Drunkenness abated. And for the first time that evening, his breathing came naturally. He began.
Mathilda could not stop trembling. Shivers stamped goose bumps on the skin where his gaze had wandered.
She—or the willfulness that controlled her actions, if not her thoughts—forced reckless emotions to submit to good sense. She pushed a hand against her breastbone and swallowed the lump of awe stuck behind her larynx. Grasping at her bearings, she demanded a levelheaded evaluation of her stilted introduction to Arie De Voss.
His stare, his stance, the curve of his mouth…he was drunk.
Alcohol doused the excitement she had once seen roused by his obsession—his music. Without that inner fire, he seemed a shadow of the greatness she remembered. Truth had leered at her with cobalt eyes. Arie De Voss was not a god or some otherworldly creature. He wrote music. Nothing more. He was just a person, a man she had exaggerated with useless daydreams. The bubble of fascination swelling within her had simply burst.
Mathilda climbed the stairs to the gallery lining either side of the ballroom. Just as she reached that high vantage, he started to play.
And her hero returned.
Caressing his sonata into being, De Voss began the performance modestly. All sound in the ballroom died away, respecting his creation.
The first theme, just his right hand lazily bringing each tone to life, moved to a second, more insistent idea. Limping and skittering, the work swelled into an ethereal blend of passion and gloom. The deceptively plain themes intermingled in a place of longing until they resembled heartbeats, footsteps, the wind and rain—any elemental facet of life.
Mathilda wore mourning black, but she had never experienced the depths of helpless sorrow flowing from De Voss’s hands. He hypnotized her. She trembled with the unreal thrill of his serenade, seduced by a fantasy in which he performed for her alone. The fantasy urged her to forget the leer he had skimmed along her body—or, worse yet, to savor that forbidden memory.
But the whole of Europe enjoyed his music. She held no special claim. And the drunken Dutchman had unceremoniously blighted years of idyllic fancies.
Echoes of the final chord fell silent. The Venners’ guests showered De Voss with earnest applause, cheering wildly. Men and women who had taken seats during the musical interlude leapt up, tossing restraint aside in favor of robust appreciation. Mathilda applauded, but her wonder faded with the music.
She turned from the gallery railing, pressed by a restlessness she could neither explain nor deny. At her waist, as if roaming the tight confines of a violin’s fingerboard, her left hand danced. She squeezed the agitated limb into a fist. When the impulse refused to abate, she pulled the Fraiskette from her bodice and stroked its warm amber cabochon in a panicky rhythm.
Even Ingrid’s unwavering friendship could not comfort her now. She needed air. Peace. Solitude.
After retrieving her pelisse, Mathilda wound down the servants’ staircase and past the kitchen. She stepped outside, emerging from beneath the covered porticos that lined the second-floor arcade at the rear of the mansion. The unusually mild Alpine chill stirred her to wakefulness, a welcome contrast to the stifling turbulence of the ballroom.
/> Leaning forward, she pressed her waist to the frozen wrought-iron handrail. In the garden below, mounds of scant snow encased dormant rosebushes as well as herb pots, conical shrubs and fallow seedbeds. Breathing deeply, her nostrils tensing against the freezing air, she let her anxieties drain away. But her loneliness remained.
“You will catch your death, Frau Heidel.”
She turned, grabbing hold of the frigid metal rail to steady her precarious equilibrium, both mental and physical. Surprise muffled her voice and swirled hasty thoughts into chaos. Fate, it seemed, was not ready to end her evening with De Voss.
The impeccably dressed musician had vanished, replaced by a ruffian wearing neither coat nor cravat. He drank deeply from a glass of strong spirits. Wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, he matched sloppy movements to his disheveled appearance.
Since first witnessing De Voss in concert at the age of sixteen, Mathilda had craved familiarity. She wished to stand apart from the nameless admirers. His state of undress afforded that intimacy in spades, doing nothing to check her coarse compulsion to stare.
Cold radiated up her fingers, hands and arms. She focused on the unpleasant tingle, fighting a persuasive urge to flee—and an even greater, mortifying urge to fawn. Gawking would only make her appear a simpleton. She refused to forget her manners again.
That thought helped locate her tongue. Words came easily, as did an unexpectedly assured demeanor. “Herr De Voss.” She knelt in a deep curtsy, drawing from every etiquette lesson she had shared with Ingrid. “You surprised me, sir.”
A slight shrug rippled across his taut shoulders. “I saw when you leave the ballroom. I wish you found a warmer place to seek your peace.”
An angular nose and cheekbones revealed his Dutch lineage, and the gentlest cleft marked his chin below full, stern lips. Twin furrows textured the skin between his brows, while a pair of faint lines scored either side of his mouth.
Nervous butterflies awakened in her stomach when she realized the extent of their isolation. He followed me.
“You didn’t stay in the ballroom to receive your due honors? Surely you must enjoy the applause you earn.”