by Carrie Lofty
The bright moon waned just past full, lessening the absolute darkness of night and illuminating the liquid surface of Wallersee. Three cabins, each spaced by several hundred yards of tall grasses, ringed the lake’s southern shore.
“This is Herr De Voss’s cabin,” Oliver said.
“And mine?”
He pointed to another single-room structure, dark and deserted. “There.”
Mathilda considered her options. Society said she had but a single path—the path leading to that distant cabin. She should simply continue walking and sleep by herself. When morning came, she would have opportunity enough to talk to Arie. But what her hosts never learned about which cabin she chose would not hurt them. Or her reputation.
“Can you keep a secret, Oliver?”
He did not move from that impassive pose, his arms loosely clasped behind his back like an officer at ease. “I’ve not said a word about the morning you came home at dawn.”
The blunt reminder of that night hitched her breath. “I forgot. My apologies, Oliver. I am in your debt already.”
“No matter,” he said casually. “But you wish to stay with Herr De Voss tonight? I assumed you would.”
“Please, don’t say anything.”
“On my honor,” he said.
“Danke, Oli—”
“But I ask that you do me the same courtesy. Please keep the secret I revealed by the carriage.”
Mathilda shook her head. Fatigue and worry dizzied her senses, leaving her unable to comprehend his request. “You revealed nothing material. I’m left with just enough to make poor conjectures. You seemed to imply that you and Venner are…”
“Brothers?”
He stared at Wallersee, moonlight and shadows accentuating the hawkish quality of his features. In that moment, he appeared older. More reserved. A tight grin, the kind Venner sidled to Ingrid when he thought nobody saw, picked up the corners of his mouth. “Half right, at least,” he said. “But I will appreciate your discretion. The truth is his to reveal, if he so chooses.” Oliver stepped back and bowed formally. “Gute Nacht, Frau Heidel.”
“Gute Nacht, Oliver.”
Bewildered, she watched Venner’s brother retrace his steps to the Schindlers’ house, his lantern held high. The flame progressed down a gentle slope, around a bend and into a copse. Behind those trees hid the sleeping hamlet of Henndorf. And standing by the lake, Mathilda could make no sense of their exchange.
If she didn’t have resources enough to understand Oliver, a man to whom she had no strong emotional connection, what chance did she have of understanding Arie? Or of standing up to him? She had envisioned sharp wits and a ready response to every possible argument, but weariness, shaky nerves and the wonder of his unexpected rescue blunted her indignation. Her anger, her accusations—all gone. She felt clumsy and tired. More than sleep, she simply craved the peace that her love for Arie had yet to afford.
She knocked quietly, and the thin plank board door rattled on its hinges. When Arie did not answer, Mathilda entered the cabin. The too-large boots she had borrowed from Frau Schindler clattered on the wood floor, echoing like beats on a timpani.
Her single candle cast wobbly shadows across every surface. For two weeks, he had lived like a musical hermit. A pianoforte haunted a dark corner. A washing stand and porcelain bowl huddled against a wall. And sprawled on his stomach across the room’s largest piece of furniture, the double bed, Arie De Voss lay fast asleep.
He wore a nightshirt, and a bare leg poked from beneath a quilt he had kicked into disarray. Even in the candlelight, his skin was a stark shade of white. The bones of his wrists, ankles and face stood in shadowed relief. His hair was a nightmare of sandy-brown tangles—the only detail of her maestro’s familiar physical presence to remain unchanged. He appeared a pale ghost of the intimidating man who had performed at the Venners’ ball.
She leaned nearer and brushed a wayward lock of damp hair from his forehead. His smooth skin was cool to the touch and smelled freshly washed.
Kneeling next to the bed, she eased unsteady fingers along the ridge of his brow, down his cheek, to his lips. The faintest smile played across his slack mouth.
“Arie?”
“Bent je daar, Tilda?”
She said his name again. “Can you hear me?”
A sound like a low, sleepy purr rattled from him. “Kom hier en slaap met mij.”
“Arie?”
“I said, come here and sleep with me.” He opened his eyes, cobalt blue, entirely lucid. “You need to learn Dutch, liefde. We can have a secret code.”
Without time for a breath, Arie dragged her across his chest and claimed her mouth with a hungry, restless kiss. Mathilda laced her fingers at the base of his head to imprison her errant lover, to assure herself that he was real, there, kissing her. She nuzzled the skin of his neck, inhaling his scent. Her buzzing brain swam in inebriated spirals, listing.
Anger sucked at her pleasure, but he worked to steal her wits. The stroke of his tongue, the grip of his hands on her thighs—she was losing her mind.
No, lost. A long time ago.
She returned to his mouth for another melting, intoxicating kiss and kneaded Arie’s biceps. As addled as she was, struggling to remember the reasons why she should be furious at the man she kissed with such abandon, his weight loss was alarming.
Mathilda pushed from his body, distancing herself from the maddening source of her every ill and happiness. She had traveled from Salzburg for the first time in twenty-two years of life, and for her troubles, she wanted more than oblivion. She wanted answers.
Drawing on the wrath coiling inside her, she sat upright and scowled. “How hard can I hit you without breaking you in half?”
“You want to hit me?” Breathing evenly through his nose, his apparent indifference infuriated Mathilda. Temptation urged her to reach between his legs and prove that he was not nearly as calm as he tried to appear.
“Of course I do, after what you made me endure.” Her fists clenched reflexively as frustration surged through her muscles and bones. “Take off your shirt.”
He arched his left eyebrow but said nothing. Sitting up, he shrugged out of his nightshirt. In the slanting light of Mathilda’s single candle, the stabbing planes and valleys of his body stood in relief despite his relaxed pose.
“I half believe you starved yourself so I might take pity on you.”
“Do you pity me?”
“No. I want to pummel you, but you refuse me even that satisfaction.”
Arie freed an impish smile. “Perhaps I can provide a different satisfaction?”
“Absolutely not.” She resisted the impulse to scramble away from his grin. That grin was dangerous. His smirking humor was dangerous. She would find no answers if she succumbed to his mirth. “I want words, De Voss. Explanations and apologies. Both.”
He watched her with the very confidence that slipped from Mathilda’s grasp. “And then the satisfaction?”
“Not unless your creative talents include poetry, Maestro.”
“No luck,” he said. “Even in Dutch, I have no talent for words. My mouth, however…”
“And even in German, you make jokes at my expense.”
“No, no, Tilda. For your benefit. I remember how you enjoy my mouth.”
He leaned forward and caught her hands, drawing her closer to the headboard. Searching through the layers of her borrowed gown, he found her bare legs. Mathilda straddled him, atop him. A rush of sexual power caught her unawares. Desire flared between her thighs. She shivered.
But her shoulders slumped in defeat. “Do you know what your leaving did to me?”
Arie stared, tracing the skin of her cheek. “I have an idea.”
Mathilda shuddered at his pointed reminder of the weeks he had spent waiting for her.
“Let me recall,” he said. “Doubt?”
“Yes.”
“Anxiety?”
“Yes.”
“Perhaps, a sense of rejection?”
“All of that, yes. Add the fact I had no knowledge of your whereabouts.” A feeling of panic returned, recalling her heart-stopping climb to his studio—hoping to find it abandoned, fearing that he had taken his own life.
Arie stroked the pad of his thumb along a tear she unwittingly shed. “I had no thought of that, schatje. Truly, I did not.”
“Then why?” A sob broke loose from her tense lungs. “To remind me how abandonment feels? I need no reminders.”
“Tilda, that night…I hurt. I cannot—” He choked on his confession, every affectation melting away. “I did not think my leaving would matter after how I had treated you.”
“You were ready to let us go, just like that?”
“At first, no,” he said. “I intended to return to Salzburg and atone for my behavior. But I needed to prove myself, to show you my worth. I needed to do this on my own.”
“Do what?”
“Finish my symphony.”
She stilled. Her eyelids opened wide. Even now, even as angry and heart-sore as she was, Mathilda could not bank her passion for his music. Six years ago, he had hypnotized her from afar. At that moment, touching her legs with idle strokes, he still held her captured.
“You finished?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“And what of ‘Mathilda’s Movement’?” Bitterness soured her voice.
“That is private,” he said tenderly. “Yours and mine, and maybe for Jürgen too.”
“But you left it behind.” She described her investigation of his studio with Kapellmeister Haydn. “Why?”
“I—” He swallowed, his Adam’s apple jumping in his throat. “I wanted to make sure I did not…borrow anything.”
“You would’ve done that? To me?”
The skin along his cheekbones and the bridge of his nose scorched in a hard blush. “I refused to, even after you offered it to me. That is why I left it behind, to avoid an easy means. Now, I know the symphony is…it is mine. That much I can say for certain, good or bad.”
“That’s all it needs to be.”
A curt nod. A quizzical expression. And then resignation. “You are right.”
“Did it help, coming here?” She fought the urge to fidget and twist under the sweet, rhythmic pressure of his hands on her legs.
“The symphony, yes. But wanting you…” He freed a ragged exhale.
Arie wrapped his arms around her, surprising her with the strength of his ardent embrace. Despite the neglect that rendered him thin and exhausted, he was still a man—a man capable of claiming by force all that he desired. Instead, his simple, exhausted sigh pleaded for her mercy. Mathilda stroked his jumbled curls and held him close, his head bowed to her bosom. Her hair fell around his body like a silken curtain. She kissed the top of his head, kissed him again.
“Tilda, I missed you. Forgive me, liefde.”
“Only if you give me your word,” she whispered. “No more of this, Arie. No more leaving.”
“No more leaving.” He nuzzled her throat with kisses of his own. His long, tapered fingers tangled in her hair. When he sighed her name, his breath tickled her neck. “You give me no peace.”
Mathilda caught his face in her hands, refusing to let him look away. “Peace? Is that like satisfaction?”
“Only if you stay.”
“I will if you do.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Mathilda grinned, a look of wonder and happiness to fill Arie with a warmth he still could not believe he deserved. For weeks and months, desiring and pursuing her had been uncomplicated. She fled from his arms, keeping his love safely one-sided. Now flight was the last thought in her expression. She had come to him, emerging from his delirious dreams as a woman wholly unwilling to relent or flee. And neither did he want her to. He craved her warmth and unfathomable acceptance.
“All I fear in the world is to hurt you.”
“Then love me,” she said. “You remember that? Loving me?”
Each erotic memory competed for his attention. Blood blazed in his groin, and he pressed his hips closer to the cradle of her pelvis. “Of course,” he rasped. “But I remember what I did to you, as well.”
“Leave that to the past, along with all of the rest. You accused me of using Jürgen’s death to hide from you. I will no longer allow you to hide from me.”
She kissed him and Arie succumbed. Her tongue pushed past his lips, thrilling him with dizzying possibilities. Weary of fighting himself, he needed Mathilda. Nothing more. As her warm mouth promised paradise, he relented willingly.
No longer at odds, their tongues collaborated to craft an exquisite kiss of intensity and sweet, beautiful anguish. Arie drowned in sensation. Every touch left him in a frenzy to keep pace with all she offered.
He sank deeper into the mattress, pulling Mathilda across his nakedness like a sensuous blanket. His head grew heavy and sluggish as he basked in her softness, sighs and private curls. She nipped his upper lip and sat up to straddle his torso. At the sight of that erotic goddess—all hidden places and silken tresses—Arie forgot to breathe. She tortured him without mercy.
Lightly, she scored her nails down the length of his chest. “You bony thing. Really, Arie, you must eat more.”
“Do not distract me with petty concerns. I am busy lying in awe of you.” She blushed and lowered thick lashes. “You look quite comfortable up there, liefde. Ever on top?”
“Never.” She leaned across his chest and licked the sensitive hollow behind his ear. “Teach me.”
“Ah, my eager pupil.” He grasped the nape of her neck and brought her mouth to meet his for another eager kiss. Her scent, her warmth, her taste…Mathilda permeated his every sense.
She squirmed and pressed her corseted bosom to his chest. He wanted to see her naked, astride him, but an edgy need denied him the patience to unlace ribbons. Only a tangle of skirts separated his rigid flesh from the welcoming, damp softness of hers. And he had wanted her too much, too long.
With impatient hands, Arie searched beneath her gown to find her bare backside. Ripe flesh tempted him, a wealth of secrets and undiscovered pleasures. Breathless for his lover, he grasped her buttocks and savored her resilient curves. He positioned her pelvis, nestling his aching phallus along her intimate folds. But he did not enter.
Mathilda groaned against his neck. She bucked her hips in an instinctive pattern, wantonly rocking along the length of his erection. Arie watched, transfixed, as she strove for her pleasure, eyes closed, panting. She grasped his shoulders, her head bowed. The maddening cadence of her intimate, demanding caress clawed at his ridiculous attempt to maintain control.
She arched and cried out. With her head thrown back in ecstasy, her unbound hair tickled the tops of Arie’s thighs. He gripped her hips, hard, and urged her to rise on her knees just enough to slide inside. In a harmony of homecoming, his inarticulate sound of building pleasure—the relief of finding himself buried within her once again—matched her long sigh of satisfaction. Hot and slick, she consumed the last of his rational thought. He reared against her tender flesh, senseless and intense, until the shivering burst of his climax jerked his body.
When the haze of pleasure lifted, he found Mathilda collapsed atop him. Her arms were wrapped around his neck. Her hands smelled of her feminine scent, and he turned his head to take two fingertips in his mouth. She gasped and giggled as he teased those sensitive pads with his tongue, tasting her intimate salts. Pulling free, she replaced her fingers with her mouth, lazily exploring him. Her curiosity and gentleness revived his very soul.
“In ordnung?”
“Very fine.” Her voice was gauzy with contentment.
“You are a wonder, liefde. And a quick study.”
Smiling almost shyly, Mathilda shifted to release him from her body and curled against him, in his arms. Minutes, maybe hours passed as their heartbeats returned to normal. Arie breathed. The dread tension of the past months lessened with each cleansing exhale. They dozed, limbs interwove
n and enveloped by peace.
Arie eased from sleep. He tightened his arms, reassured by her warmth. She was still there with him.
The candle she brought from the Schindlers’ house had long since extinguished. Only moonlight invaded their sheltered darkness, illuminating the cabin with traces of silver.
He eased her off his chest. Fumbling among the moonbeams, he found a candle and lit it with banked embers in the fireplace. From atop the piano, he retrieved the basket of cheese and bread his hosts had provided for breakfast.
“Tilda?”
She pulled from a groggy sleep, her face slightly lined from the fabric of the pillows.
Arie snuggled behind her and began the patient task of unlacing her stays, freeing her from the prison of the gown. The fabric gaped and sagged in unexpected places. “This is not yours.”
“Rain soaked everything. Frau Schindler gave this to me.” Shrugging her shoulders, Mathilda sighed as he massaged each new revelation of bared skin. “She told me she has no need for it anymore.”
“She enjoys her own cooking too well?”
“I would, too, if I could cook as she does.”
She stood away from the bed. Arie watched, dry-mouthed and entranced, as she wiggled her hips. The dress fell into a heap at her naked feet. Her grin turned unquestionably shy and she dove beneath the covers. Arie joined her within the cocoon of the blanket, and together they made short work of the food.
She worried a piece of bread with her fingers, heedless of the crumbs sprinkling across the quilt. With a look both sharp and vulnerable, she studied his face. “Arie, why did you do it?”
He flinched, startled as if by a gunshot. Lovemaking had loosened the knot of anxiety in his gut, forestalling the inevitable, but he had known her need. “The symphony?”
She exhaled slowly through her nose, nodding. After setting the bread aside, she pulled a corner of the quilt around her nakedness. “The symphony. Everything. You. This is your chance. You know I want to think the best of you.”
His fear multiplied, building a palpable wall between them. “And if you cannot? If I tell you all I thought and felt and you cannot—”