Song of Seduction

by Carrie Lofty

  Ingrid knocked and entered.

  Wanting privacy to conquer her nerves on her own, Mathilda knew her friend would permit her no such peace. She would insist on remaining supportive, sweet and oblivious. Her stomach roiled again.

  Ingrid’s cool hand touched her cheek, then her forehead. “If you are with child, your career in music will be an interesting venture.”

  “I am not pregnant. You are.” Mathilda walked away and slumped onto the bed.

  Breathe. Swallow. Again.

  Concern crisscrossed Ingrid’s face, followed quickly by an irrepressible curiosity. “But you and Herr De Voss have been…”

  “Intimate?” Mathilda could not suppress the smile overtaking her dour expression. Nor did she try. She sighed at blissful memories, but her skin did not turn a telltale pink. She was well beyond the capacity for embarrassment, or else she would have collapsed in a mortified heap at some point during each of the nights she had taken Arie into her welcoming body.

  No, if she were fated to die of shame, she would have been swept into the abyss during daylight hours. But those sun-drenched moments of trust and raw intimacy had not destroyed Mathilda. Instead, every impulse to hide from Arie and their mutual devotion had burned away.

  Returning to Ingrid’s expectant expression, she smiled. “Yes.”

  “Tilda, I have never seen you as smug.”

  “I said nothing.” She struggled to maintain her look of innocence.

  “Not with words, but I have half a mind to blush on your behalf!”

  For an incandescent handful of moments, Mathilda forgot about her nausea, the concert, her worries. Once again, she and Ingrid became the adolescent girls they had once been, sharing secrets and private laughter.

  With a touch of melancholy, she recognized that, in most regards, Arie had replaced her dear friend. Already she spent more time at his studio than under the Venners’ generous roof, returning before dawn each morning to sit patiently beneath Klara’s ministrations. Soon they would marry, and life would take Mathilda from the best friend she had ever known.

  Ingrid sobered too, and persistently returned to her inquiry. “But you could be.”

  “I’m not pregnant. Would you like me to be explicit?” Her menses had arrived without delay or doubt, just as it had every month since she turned thirteen. Its undaunted regularity raised old questions. “Besides, after having been married for so long, I wonder if I’m even able to have a child.”

  Rarely discomfited, Ingrid’s embarrassment surprised them both. “Part of me assumed that…that with Jürgen, you took steps.”

  “No, nothing so elaborate.” Sadness colored her voice. She inhaled and pressed the topic from her mind. “I am ill, dearest, because I’m six hours away from the performance.”

  “And this is simply nerves?”

  “Simply? This is unbearable!”

  “Not so shrill, dearest.” Ingrid’s appropriately wounded expression chastised as much as her words. “How was I to know? You’ve said nothing about rehearsals this week. What are they like?”

  “Difficult.” She wrung the damp cloth between her hands, the bite of cloth twisting into her skin. “I never realized the competition that thrives off stage. These musicians are like gladiators, how they fight. I wish I’d had more experience so that I might better interpret their little jealousies.”

  She censored her description for her friend’s sake, not to mention for the sake of her own sanity. To dwell on the innuendoes and snubs aimed at her relationship with Arie would be to court madness.

  “I try to stay out of the fray,” she said. “I just keep my head down and work.”

  “Work? For you? Tilda, you are a natural—literally.”

  “But playing on my own is a whole different consideration. I’m still untrained, for all intents. My solo performances lack regular meter. I have difficulty with the timing.”

  “And the maestro?”

  “He shouts in Dutch. Often.”

  “At you too?”

  She nodded, grinning. “Yesterday, I deciphered the Dutch equivalent of prima donna.”

  Unlike the other musicians, she had noticed as Arie’s temper shortened. His manner assumed a harder edge with each passing day. She hoped the mounting pressure of the debut was to blame for his altered demeanor. To dwell on another, more worrisome possibility—that he simply could not endure the increasing demands of his obligation—only worsened her persistent nausea. The burden of lifting him from his debilitating ill humor each night proved exhausting.

  Ingrid’s eyes filled with a confused sort of sympathy. “How do you tolerate it? Why?”

  “For all the difficulties, I cannot return to how I lived. This new life, filled with trials and censure…it’s mine.” She shook her head, unbound clumps of ordinary brown hair spilling over her shoulders. “But the critiques are difficult to endure. You know I wasn’t born with a stomach for public criticism.”

  “I would like to meet the person who was.”

  “You’re no help.”

  A calming touch eased past Mathilda’s unnerving fears. “Will he hold together?”

  “He has no choice. This is his responsibility.”

  “Well, we will be there,” Ingrid said. “I hope that will be some comfort to you, at least.”

  “Yes.” The tears began to build again. In just under six hours, she was going to perform in a symphony conducted by Arie De Voss—in front of the duke, no less. “Unbelievable, is it not?”

  Ingrid rose to answer Klara’s knock. “I’ve known you since my first day on this earth. ‘Unbelievable’ was the idea of you settling to a quiet life with dear Jürgen. All of this…this is providence.”

  Arie paced the conductor’s antechamber and concentrated on the regular sound of his shoes hitting the polished floor. Outside the tiny room, forty-one musicians and a three-hundred-person audience awaited his appearance. The concert would begin whenever he decided, yet he made no move to emerge from his sequestered privacy. He fought to eliminate everything from his mind other than the rhythmic cadence of his steps, as if by doing so, he might conquer his doubts.

  He knew what he had to do, but confronting that chore knotted his nerves and made thin, frayed tatters of his courage. A pit in his gut opened a gulping mouth and offered to swallow him whole, a temptation he welcomed.

  The door to the stifling antechamber opened. Arie turned to see who dared invade his place of retreat.

  A vision. An angel. His solace.

  Mathilda regarded him with the same adoring hazel eyes that had bewitched him from the first. An airy silk gown of lavender trimmed with silver swathed her body—the body he was still learning. She appeared calm, but her bodice lifted and lowered in an erratic rhythm.

  He took three quick strides and wrapped her in his arms, clinging to her. Head bowed, he choked on his confession. “I cannot do this, Tilda.”

  She squeaked a sound of alarm and surprise. “The symphony?”

  “I am terrified,” he said. To admit such a thing to anyone, even to Mathilda, would have been unthinkable a few weeks before. But the woman holding him, sharing her strength, had changed his life irrevocably. He needed to share his fears, lest he falter under their crushing weight.

  Mathilda pulled back and took his face in her unnaturally warm hands. “But you’ve conducted before. Why this distress?”

  “I cannot lie. No more. Not even Venner—” By her expression, he knew he made no sense. He shook his head and broke their embrace. “I simply…cannot.”

  Realization swept over her features. Her mouth opened a little. “And you’ve been torturing yourself this whole time?”

  “Torturing more than myself,” he said grimly. “Forgive me.”

  “Forgive you?” She stepped before him and ducked below his bowed head, forcing him to straighten and meet her gaze. “Have you insulted my honor of late? Or abandoned me? For what are you apologizing, exactly?”

  “Venner was right. Marriage will be
a precarious prospect when I have no career.”

  “Being near you has been precarious of late, what with this dilemma consuming your thoughts.”

  “I am in earnest, Tilda.”

  “As am I. We will find a way.”

  Arie rebelled against her attempt to ease his distress. He leaned on the far wall and slumped to the marble. Defeat struggled with fitful glints of hope that teased and beckoned, but he could not trust in something he wanted so badly.

  Mathilda followed and sat beside him. The skirts of her gown draped around their legs. Her eyes shone with happy, sincere tears. As if performing a sacred rite, she took his hands. “Arie, we have yet to say the words before God and a priest, but I am yours. For better or worse. No matter what you must do, I will stand by you. Trust in that. You deserve my high regard and my love, even more so if you tell the truth.”

  His lungs burned. “Tilda.”

  “Of all the possible consequences this evening, losing me is not one of them.”

  She pulled him into an embrace of such aching sweetness that Arie could not speak. He simply breathed the truth of her avowal as it strengthened him, made him whole and safe. He kissed her neck and her bare collarbone, not out of passion but with thanks and trust. If he endured the coming performance, he would do so because he needed to prove himself worthy.

  She whispered against his hair, “I miss you.”

  “I have been right here.”

  “In a way.”

  Arie stroked her arms, fascinated as goose bumps covered her bare skin. She shivered despite the warmth of the room and their embrace. “You are shaking.”

  “Perpetually.” Her nervous laugh revealed an edge of terror. “For five days now, my nerves have been unbearable. I fear being able to steady my bow.”

  “Mijn schatje, I have been a terrible partner to you.”

  She traced a bold finger along the inseam of his trousers, causing his ticklish leg to jerk. “I wouldn’t say that. I simply want this done.”

  “You and me both.”

  She kissed his cheek with an unbearable tenderness. “What will you do?”

  “I have not decided.”

  “Ik ben hier,” she said. “Ik houd van je.”

  Arie blinked. “When did you learn Dutch?”

  “Not all of it, of course. Just the most important phrases. I thought ‘I love you’ was a good place to start.”

  He pressed the back of her hand to his lips. His eyes burned. “Tilda, ik houd van je.”

  But then he could delay no longer. He stood on trembling legs and pulled Mathilda to her feet. They regarded each other for one last moment, sharing that breathless expectation.

  He touched her cheek, recalling with a twinge of guilt that the night marked her formal debut with an orchestra. To buffer her apprehension, he offered the only advice he knew to give. “Stay in the moment if you can. It can be glorious.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  Mathilda opened the antechamber door and made her way to the front of Carabinierisaal. The crowd numbered fewer individuals than those countless faces at the Stadttrinkstube, but their affluence lent them power like earthly gods. She marveled, briefly, at how far she had come from the shrinking, intimidated woman she used to be. Before hundreds of the principality’s wealthiest and most influential citizens, even keen-eyed Duke Ferdinand and his entourage, she walked without hesitation.

  Nerves, yes. And fear…but not for herself.

  Arie had been hurting, suffering an ailment she had not been able to identify. Now she understood his dilemma, and his behavior over the previous weeks aligned, making sense. To him, the truth had become more important than any consideration of fame or his career. Her heart fluttered with equal parts pride and trepidation. For the sake of his confession, he stood to lose everything.

  Everything except her.

  She took her place between the Konzertmeister’s chair and the conductor’s platform, nodding to Stüderl. Arie was fine. She hoped.

  Stüderl stood and bowed deeply to their awaiting prince. Graciously, he received the applause due his high rank within the court’s musical establishment.

  “Thank you for attending tonight’s symphony by Arie De Voss, our resident maestro from Delft. This is De Voss’s Symphony No. 2 in A minor, Metamorphosis.”

  Stüderl turned to indicate the orchestra as a whole, for which the audience demonstrated polite approval. When the applause dimmed, the Konzertmeister cleared his throat. “And making her debut tonight is a new talent among Salzburg’s finest musicians, Frau Mathilda Heidel.”

  She curtsied deeply, amazed at her ability to stay standing, let alone greet the monarch of her birthplace. Surprising even herself, she presented the assemblage with a bright smile of gratification. Her anxieties ebbed. She belonged there, on stage, as surely as she belonged in Arie’s arms. The experience humbled her as happiness filled her heart.

  She tossed her eyes skyward, her thoughts suddenly with Jürgen.

  Thank you.

  The antechamber door opened. Every head turned to watch the figure emerging from the shadows. Arie De Voss, the man who had won Mathilda’s heart long before they shared a single conversation, the man who had conquered her doubts and overcome each reason for hiding, walked with sure steps. He assumed that special place between the orchestra and the audience, apart from each yet holding the attention of every individual.

  Mathilda met his eye and smiled. He would not—or could not—return her optimism, but he nodded. His face was pinched into a tight grimace. She searched his body for a sign of his intention. Vast bunches of worry changed the shape of his shoulders, and he had bothered his hair into its customary mess. Fitting. She would smooth it to rights when she held him again.

  Arie turned from her and faced his public. He cast his voice to reach the very last row of gilded chairs. “You assemble here tonight under false pretenses. This is not my second symphony.” He paused. Exhaled. “It is my first.”

  A wave of disbelieving whispers slipped through the crowd. Eagerness for the new symphony transformed into questions and suspicion. The sound of Mathilda’s heartbeat challenged her awareness of sound, even as her visual perception intensified. Her eyes accommodated ever more detail: the stiff muscles of Arie’s upper back, the relatively unaffected expression on Venner’s face and Ingrid’s calm patience beside him, the immense frescoes in which Alexander the Great conquered his every opponent.

  Then she focused on a single man. Duke Ferdinand.

  “Herr De Voss, what is this about?” With the rich timbre of a cello, the duke spoke as one born to authority, not necessarily through his royal birthright, but because of a natural penchant for leadership.

  Much as he had with Venner, Arie returned the sovereign’s probing gaze with a mixture of dignity and deference. He exuded certainty, but without any offending arrogance. “Your Grace, I did not write the symphony entitled Love and Freedom.”

  “Who did?”

  “My mentor. He was a composer from Budapest named Sándor Bolyai. After he died, I claimed his unpublished work as my own.”

  Duke Ferdinand appeared taken aback by Arie’s blunt words. The audience swirled in doubt. Even their monarch found no response to such an incriminating admission. Should he be allowed to proceed? Should they stand and leave him there, his symphony unheard? Should he be punished for…for something?

  Mathilda watched the thoughts bounce from head to head, spinning Arie’s fate—the fate she would share—like a wheel of chance at Carnival. No one, not even the duke, offered the words that would break the insufferable tension.

  Into the friction of that silence came an impatient shout. “God’s teeth, Holländer! Did you write this one?”

  The man responsible stood. With a screech of metal against marble, he skidded his chair backward. A rumpled outdated coat fit him poorly. Grimy black hair covered his broad skull in an unkempt snarl. Above a broad nose and pockmarks visible even from Mathilda’s vantage, heavy brows ho
oded dark eyes. Short and slightly stooped, he stabbed at Arie with a fierce glare.

  Mathilda did not recognize the heckler, but Arie seemed to. He bowed slightly. “I did, sir.”

  “Then get on with it, man! None of us are here for confession.”

  Whereas the impatient stranger surprised many with his scruffy insolence, Haydn epitomized refinement and grace. Next to Duke Ferdinand in the front row, he spoke in a theatric whisper to his sovereign. “Your Excellency, I agree with Herr Beethoven.”

  At the mention of Ludwig van Beethoven’s name, the whispers and chatter amplified. Beethoven resumed his seat, fading into a crowd sparked to life by his outburst. Mathilda could have hugged him, churlish disposition and all. The composer’s eccentric presence and goading demands nearly eclipsed Arie’s disclosure.

  When Duke Ferdinand spoke, the decision had already been made on his behalf. “Proceed, De Voss. Your audience awaits.”

  Arie bowed to the duke and nodded meaningfully toward Beethoven. Turning with stiff movements on the conductor’s stand, he would not look at Mathilda. His restraint was for the best, really, because she would have shattered into a thousand pieces. She would have flown into his arms, kissing and smiling and finally breathing again.

  He tapped his baton. She raised her bow. The orchestra, that collection of individuals made whole through his direction, inhaled.

  Arie held his composure by long habit. He feared losing it altogether should he look at Mathilda. She fairly vibrated with giddy energy at his side. If he met her gaze, he would burst from the pressure of disbelief and happiness inflating his heart, demanding release. He would collapse into a slack pile, boneless and insensible.

  And the symphony would go unperformed.

  Respecting the chance he had been given, honoring the long days the musicians had dedicated to his creation, Arie could not allow that to happen.