Heartsong

by Melinda Cross

  'You've offered me a job,' she finally said quietly, commanding his eyes, 'and I've accepted. Are you retracting the offer?'

  He searched her face carefully, as if he was looking for a sign of weakness. 'No,' he said finally. 'I'm not that gallant. The offer stands.'

  'Good.' She nodded firmly, and for some reason her certainty seemed to frustrate him.

  'This won't be a lark, Miss Chambers,' he warned her, green eyes narrowing slightly. 'My music is the only thing that matters to me. I don't have the time or the inclination to tiptoe over people's feelings. As a matter of fact, I don't have much patience for dealing with people at all. Working with me is a very lonely proposition.'

  Madeline looked at him quietly, trying not to smile. 'All right, Mr Shepherd. You win. I'll pay you for the job. How much do you want?'

  Without warning he laughed out loud, and the sound was so discordant, so unpractised, that Madeline wondered if he'd ever laughed before at all. 'All right, Miss Chambers,' he said, a smile still playing at the corners of his mouth. 'Organise your affairs; arrange to leave the city for a while…'

  'For how long?'

  'It depends on a lot of things. It could be for a month…' he hesitated for a moment, searching her face with the strangest expression '…or it could be for much longer.'

  She looked at him without saying anything and his brow twitched at something he saw in her face. Green eyes met grey ones and held them for a prolonged moment.

  'I think we'll work well together, Miss Chambers.' He leaned forward and reached across the narrow distance between the couch and chair, taking one of her hands in his, turning it over in his palm, staring at it with wonder as if it were an object of great value. His touch was completely impersonal—he was simply examining the tool that would implement his music—and, perhaps because of that, Madeline didn't flinch as she normally did when someone made physical contact. 'Give me your other hand,' he commanded without looking up, scooting even farther forward on the couch until their knees almost brushed.

  She put her mug on a nearby table and obediently offered her other hand. He held them both in his palms, spreading his fingers beneath to make her spread hers. It was a little like being examined by a doctor, and she watched absently, strangely removed from that part of her body he touched.

  'What's your span?' he asked briskly.

  'Ten keys.' She spread her fingers as wide as possible across his palm to demonstrate, and suddenly, without any warning at all, something happened.

  Her fingertips felt as though they were on fire, drawing lines of heat across his sensitive palms, and apparently he felt it too, because his eyes jerked up in surprise at the same time hers did, and he drew in a quick, audible breath.

  Madeline froze, transfixed by both the astounding signals racing from her hands to her brain, and the hypnotic quality of his gaze. Even as she watched, his pupils expanded until a circle of hot black nearly obliterated the green, and for some reason that frightened her.

  She jerked her hands from his in a panic, her own eyes wide and startled.

  For a long time their eyes remained locked in a gaze neither seemed able to break, and then at last he closed his eyes, turned his head away, and lifted his shoulders in a shrug that said nothing had happened here, and if it had, it was hardly worth noting.

  'Be ready at ten tomorrow morning,' he said gruffly, rising to his feet, crossing to the door almost before she was aware he had moved at all. 'I'll show you Rosewood, and we'll work out the details.'

  At the last moment, just as he was about to step out into the hallway, he turned around and looked straight at her, still sitting in the chair where he'd left her. His expression was dark and forbidding, and seemed to accuse her of some terrible affront.

  'I don't think I ever really heard my music until I heard you play it today,' he said, but somehow his tone sounded more like a threat than an accolade. 'I'm not about to let anything interfere with that.'

  For a long time after he had left, Madeline sat motionless in her chair, staring at her hands.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Madeline awoke the next morning to an almost painful heightening of her senses. She winced at the piercing sounds of traffic in the street below; she squinted at the strangely bright morning light coming through the window; even her lightweight blanket seemed unbearably heavy on her body. She started to fling it off, then stopped, frowning as she lay in bed, trying to remember when she'd felt like this before; trying to catch the elusive memory flitting through her brain, running from one hiding place to another.

  It had been a long time ago—she knew that— but she couldn't remember when. It was the kind of extraordinary expectation a child might feel on Christmas morning, but it hadn't been a Christmas. Whenever it was, it had been bigger than that; even more promising.

  She frowned hard, trying to remember, then finally surrendered to forgetfulness. Past anticipations weren't important now anyway. She was going to work with Elias Shepherd: play his music, live in his house, actually witness the miracle of his musical creation; anticipating that was about all she could handle.

  Dressing in black hadn't been intentional, but she nodded with approval when she examined her reflection after dressing. This was a pivotal day in her life, after all, and that her appearance reflected the solemnity of the occasion seemed fitting.

  She wore black boots, slim black jeans, and a high-necked black sweater in deference to the chill of early spring. She'd never been to a country home, but she imagined that this was what one should wear to tramp the inevitably muddy roads and brambly fields she'd seen in pictures and read about. Only her hair spoiled the sedate image. Refusing to stay neatly pinned in a dignified bun, it rioted over her shoulders in a flurry of bright, wispy static, looking ridiculously frivolous. Still, it was only a minor irritation. As she always did, Madeline forgot all about her appearance the moment she turned away from the mirror.

  At precisely ten o'clock she opened the door to Shepherd's firm knock, and smiled uncertainly. He looked totally different from the way he had the night before; softer, she thought, for want of a better word.

  He wore a light raincoat over a sweater of deep rose—angora, maybe, or lambswool, or one of the other precious knits that made you want to run your hands over them—and the colour warmed his face and made her think that perhaps he wasn't quite as grim as he had seemed last night. Even his black hair seemed boyish, tossed by a playful spring wind into a soft wave over his forehead, curling over his ears in a mockery of last night's swept-back, slick sophistication.

  'You look different,' she said matter-of-factly.

  'So do you. I like you in black.' It was a personal remark, and she hadn't been prepared for it. Nor was she prepared for the intensity of his gaze or its effect on her. It was too much like that strange moment last night, that moment she'd convinced herself had never really happened, when the connection between them had plummeted from the security of the spiritual to the dangerous, unfamiliar territory of the physical. Perhaps that was why she reacted so strongly when he extended his hand palm-up and said, 'Shall we go?'

  It was such an innocent question, such a harmless one, and yet instantly she felt a stab of that old childhood feeling—a feeling she had hoped she would never feel again, because it was only a precursor to disappointment.

  She stared miserably at his outstretched hand, remembering all the other outstretched hands that belonged to the Andersons, or the Stuarts, or the Kruegers, or the Millers, or any of the other temporary parents who had led her away to temporary homes. 'Shall we go, Madeline?' they had all asked, taking her little hand and filling her young heart with hope that theirs would be the home that would last, the love that would last, but it never was, because nothing lasted forever.

  'Madeline?' He was watching her face carefully, his brow furrowed, and why not? She was acting like an idiot. 'Is there something wrong? Have you changed your mind?'

  She took a deep breath, forced a small smile, and slipped
her fingers into the cup of his large palm. 'No,' she said quietly. 'I haven't changed my mind.'

  He tipped his head and studied her for a moment. 'Are you sure you're ready?'

  'I'm ready,' she said firmly, wondering if that was really the most important question she'd ever been asked in her life, or if it only seemed that way.

  He drove them in silence to an address in the East Seventies, a fashionable neighbourhood of restored brownstones and brick pavements that seemed further removed from the frantic bustle of downtown Manhattan than the actual distance that separated it.

  'First stop,' he said as he helped her from the car. 'There's someone I want you to meet before we head up to Rosewood.'

  A gust of wind played with his hair, giving him the illusion of carefree youth as they mounted the concrete steps, but it was only an illusion. There was nothing carefree about the set of his features as he rapped the brass knocker on the brownstone's door; nothing youthful in the green eyes that appraised her silently as they waited on the step.

  It was only a man who opened the door—a man like a thousand other men, Madeline thought—and yet she had the feeling that the door had opened on a panoramic view of sunrise, a light almost too bright to look at.

  The man's eyes fastened on hers with a forthright stare that made her blush, although she couldn't have said why. 'Hello, Elias,' he murmured, without once taking his eyes from Madeline.

  Elias mumbled something in reply, but Madeline's gaze was fixed on the man in the doorway. Everything about him was disarming—the careless tumble of rich brown curls over dark, merry eyes; an effortless smile that seemed to say smiling was what lips were for. In spite of her discomfort, Madeline found herself returning his smile, helpless to do otherwise, liking him before he spoke another word.

  He startled her by grasping both her hands and squeezing them lightly. 'So you're magic Madeline. My God, Elias. Angel hair and fairy dust. She's spectacular!'

  She didn't know whether to smile or frown at the outlandish comment.

  'Don't be ridiculous, David,' Elias said brusquely, pushing his way past him into the foyer. 'She's a pianist, not a pin-up, and the magic I told you about is in her hands. Take a look at them. She's got an amazing span.'

  Her hands still firmly locked in his, Madeline smiled hesitantly as he pulled her gently inside, kicking the door closed behind her.

  'Honest to God, Elias,' David blustered in exasperation, shaking Madeline's hands in his for emphasis, 'sometimes I'm absolutely convinced that you've been dead for years and just forgot to lie down. A woman like this, and you want me to look at her hands?'

  Madeline blinked up at him, astounded by the things he was saying. She was as numbly pliable as a rag-doll when he tucked her hand possessively in the crook of his elbow and led her into an elegantly furnished living-room where two love-seats faced each other in front of a crackling fire. The low table between them held a coffee service and a silver tray of Danish pastries. David pulled her down next to him on one of the love-seats, and, although close physical contact normally made her nervous, she felt surprisingly comfortable next to this particular man.

  'Madeline Chambers, this is David Whitney, my manager,' Elias made the perfunctory introduction as he sat opposite them.

  'And the warm, friendly half of this partnership,' David added. 'Sort of the balance for the black-hearted genius, if you know what I mean.'

  Elias scowled at him. 'Tell her about the project, David. That's why I brought her here.' He poured himself a cup of coffee and stood abruptly. 'I have some calls to make before we leave for Rosewood.'

  David watched him leave the room, his seemingly perpetual smile a little tentative, then he busied himself with the coffee. He passed Madeline a cup, turning sideways to appraise her with a curious smile. 'My God,' he said with a little shake of his head. 'And you can play the piano, too?'

  Madeline frowned at him over her cup, baffled, and for some reason that made David laugh.

  'Oh, brother. You're one in a million, aren't you? I feel like I'm watching a lamb walk off with a rabid wolf. Working with Elias isn't going to be easy, you know.'

  'So he tells me.'

  'And he's telling you the truth. He's been a virtual recluse for the past couple of years, and if he ever did know how to relate to people he's forgotten by now. There's only one thing in life he cares about, and that's his music.'

  'I know that.'

  David frowned, shifting his position uncomfortably. 'The thing is, it seems a little strange, your agreeing to go off to work with him so readily… You're not in love with him, or anything stupid like that, are you?'

  Her eyes flew wide and she nearly choked on her coffee. 'Good lord, no. We just met. I just… I just…love his music, that's all.'

  David looked at her steadily. 'Elias is his music.'

  She pressed her lips together nervously, not knowing what to say to that.

  He forced a smile, then changed the subject abruptly. 'His career depends on this project, you know, and, in a way, on you.'

  'On me?' Madeline whispered. 'What do you mean?'

  David tossed back the rest of his coffee as if it were a shot of whiskey, then carefully replaced the cup in its saucer. Madeline had the feeling he was weighing each word carefully before he spoke. 'There was a time when he couldn't write enough music to satisfy the demand, you know. Every band wanted to record an Elias Shepherd song, every producer wanted an Elias Shepherd soundtrack…' he sighed and his shoulders slumped '…and then two years ago it all changed. Trouble is, he doesn't understand why. He can't hear the difference between what he used to write—the music the world loved— and what he's writing now. He thought a classical pianist might be what the work needed. That's why he sponsored the contest.'

  Madeline studied him thoughtfully, thinking how strange it was that she started to love his music when the world started to hate it. 'What happened two years ago?' she asked.

  David looked at her for a moment. 'His marriage ended,' he said flatly.

  The words gave Madeline pause, and she realised that she'd never thought of the creator of the music she loved as a mere mortal, with all the personal baggage that implied.

  'I didn't know he'd been married,' she said quietly.

  'He was…for a time. When the marriage ended, a lot of other things ended for Elias, too. His music changed; his life changed…' He shrugged away the rest of the thought and forced a smile that was just a little bit too bright. 'But that's all in the past, and we're supposed to be talking about the future.' He refilled their cups and turned on the love-seat to face her. 'You'll be working on a soundtrack for a movie. The producer is an old friend of Elias's, and the truth is, he's taking a hell of a risk giving Elias a contract at all, considering the public response to the music he's been writing lately. Everyone seems to hate it.'

  Something in David's tone made her smile at him. 'But you don't, do you?'

  David shrugged and looked away awkwardly. 'Sometimes…not often, but sometimes… I listen to the stuff he's writing now and I think he has the potential to be one of the really great ones, you know?' He looked back at her expectantly.

  'I think he already is,' she said quietly.

  His brows lifted slightly, giving him a solemn aspect, but it was short-lived. 'Well, from an agent's point of view, you've got to be marketable to be great.'

  'That sounds pretty mercenary. What happened to "art for art's sake"?'

  He shrugged off her disapproval. 'When art appeals to everyone, when it touches everyone, that's greatness, isn't it? And that's what Elias has lost in his music—that elusive something that touches people. No one denies that his work is technically masterful, but a lot of people think it has no heart, no feeling at all.'

  Madeline smiled sadly. 'Then they aren't listening.'

  David cocked his head, studying her, and for a moment Madeline had the feeling that he felt deeply sorry for her, although she couldn't imagine why.

  The very air in the room
seemed to part when Elias returned. He looked at David first, then Madeline. 'I called the studio and told them they'd have a sample tape in a month, which means we don't have a minute to waste, Madeline. Grab a Danish and we'll eat in the car on the way to Rosewood. We'll talk terms after you've seen the place. Coming, David?'

  'Not this time.' David shook his head, looking at Madeline with a small, unreadable smile. When Elias turned his back and headed for the door, he pressed a business card into Madeline's hand. 'Call me when you need a friend,' he said simply.

  CHAPTER THREE

  While Elias was preoccupied with driving through the mild chaos of Sunday morning traffic, Madeline eyed him surreptitiously from the passenger seat of the luxury sedan. This is Elias Shepherd, she kept telling herself, possibly one of the greatest composers of this century, critics notwithstanding. You are sitting next to man destined to be a legend.

  But for some reason she was having trouble thinking of him as a legend. He didn't look like a legend, sitting there behind the wheel, concentrating on the road ahead just like any other ordinary driver—he looked like a man, and Madeline found that very disconcerting.

  'We may not be back until very late,' he warned her before they had gone two blocks.

  'That's all right. I don't schedule students for the weekend.'

  'No plans for the evening?'

  She suppressed a smile. 'I've never had much time for a social life.' After a brief hesitation, she added, 'And I'm afraid I've never had much talent for it, either.'

  Oddly enough, he smiled a little at that, and there was a comfortable silence between them as the car headed north and west on one of the broad freeways that connected all the dots on a New York state map. Eventually the last grimy outposts of the city were lost behind them, and the land began a gentle undulation towards the rounded tops of ancient mountains, still too distant to see.