Song of Seduction

by Carrie Lofty

  While her deep-seated distrust of the Salzach threatened to mar her enchantment, Mathilda had to agree with Oliver. The city was beautiful, nearly flawless. Without the binding shelter of endless stories-high buildings and the steep walls of Mönchsberg, she experienced a heady rush of openness and freedom.

  Within minutes they neared Sebastiankirche, the sight of which fueled Mathilda’s determination. For all her girlish discontent, she was a stronger woman because of Jürgen’s steady presence and the affection and toil they had shared. Her late husband had lived a quiet life of good deeds, and she felt bound to honor his contribution to her character. She owed her husband that much.

  Oliver directed the horses beyond all of Mathilda’s familiar markers. Short of the Linzer Tor, the ancient boundary marking the northernmost extent of the city, they stopped in front of the Blue Pike. Oliver stepped from the driver’s bench and entered the tavern without a word. He returned a few minutes later, accompanied by a stocky man of an indeterminate middle age.

  “This is Herr Mullen,” Oliver said. “He’s agreed to guide us.”

  Mathilda nodded a greeting. “How long will it take to reach Henndorf?” she asked.

  Deep creases marked Mullen’s face around the mouth and eyes, and round ruddy cheeks indicated a fondness for strong drink. He dragged a hand through his sparse graying hair, a gesture that reminded her of Arie despite the physical differences characterizing each man.

  He replied with a curiously nasal voice. “Just shy of twelve miles. Make the trip on horseback, mostly. By carriage we’ll arrive this evening, late.”

  “Thank you.”

  Mullen said nothing, but he smiled and rattled the little bag of florins Oliver must have used to secure his guidance.

  Mathilda accepted Oliver’s assistance as she transferred to the open carriage’s rear seat, while Mullen climbed up to share the driver’s bench.

  Despite a parasol angled to shade her face, Mathilda suffered under the bright sun. Beneath clinging silk, sweat dampened her underarms and back. Hair that Klara had carefully arranged only that morning frizzed into a brown mess. She dozed. She was certain to have freckled. And she practically ruined the hem of her gown’s decorative ribbon, worrying the frail fabric with her equally ragged fingernails.

  Every time she considered what she would say to Arie, her heart rattled. She was going to find him. But what if he didn’t want to be found? Mathilda gripped the wooden handle of her parasol and watched mile after familiar mile slip past.

  The trio stopped in Eugendorf to change horses and eat. As with her failed attempt at breakfast, Mathilda merely picked at her savory omelet. Although famished, she could not eat—not while bearing the twin burdens of travel and worry.

  Darkness overtook them and a light rain began to fall. Oliver stopped the carriage to raise its cover, protecting Mathilda from the strengthening rains. Far below, in a secluded valley, the faint lights of Henndorf shone as their beacon. Two mountains and a lake called Wallersee delimited the village’s modest collection of houses and workshops.

  The rain intensified. Oliver’s careful maneuvers could not prevent the wheels from skidding on water-washed patches of stone. As the vehicle descended the hillside, the horses fought for footing. Inside the closed carriage, Mathilda suffered a disconcerting fear. She stared uselessly into the dark and suffered every jolting, blinded bump. Although she clung to handholds, she could not adequately brace her body against the uneven descent.

  Pitched without mercy, she experienced a brief flash of relief when the carriage finally stopped—stranded with a broken axle.

  With the passing of every frigid, rain-soaked minute, Mathilda cursed Arie De Voss and the ridiculous music he had used to hypnotize her. The thrill of journeying beyond the limits of the Altstadt had melted with the rain—rain that matured into a downpour.

  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.

  Arie’s eyes drifted shut.

  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 co
nfusion 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.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  “Mathilda!”

  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.”

  Arie was nowhere to be found once Frau Schindler had helped Mathilda bathe and change clothes.

  “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 p
ast 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.