Heartsong

by Melinda Cross

  He chattered constantly while he cooked, covering a stream of subjects that ran together in confusion, asking questions, then answering them himself, apparently oblivious to the silence of his companions.

  It was only when they were all seated around the table, David at the head, Madeline and Elias on opposite sides, that his tone and manner became suddenly businesslike.

  'Well, children,' he said sombrely, piercing his omelette with his fork, then examining the bite he selected before tucking it into his mouth. 'Are you both ready to be stars?'

  Madeline and Elias glanced briefly at each other, then turned identically expressionless faces to stare at David. 'What are you talking about?' Elias asked.

  David grinned and waggled his brows. 'A great promotional gimmick that's going to make us all a fortune, that's what.' He rolled his eyes at Elias's expression of distaste. 'Oh, I know you don't give a damn about the money, Elias, but not everyone at this table has your bank account. Besides, the better the promotion for this movie and its soundtrack, the more albums we'll sell, and the more albums we sell, the more people hear your music, and that's what it's all about for you, isn't it?'

  Elias conceded the point with a reluctant shrug. 'So what's all the nonsense about Madeline's and my being stars? We're going to record the music for this movie, not appear in it.'

  'Maybe not,' David smiled triumphantly, 'but you sure are going to represent it. I told the producer about angel here,' he winked broadly at Madeline, 'and he wants you both to pose for the album cover. Can't you see it? The Press will have a field day. Art imitates life, all that sort of stuff. By the time this is all over, you two are going to be the hottest romantic couple since…' He caught a glimpse of Madeline's blank expression and stopped. 'What's the matter, angel?'

  She sat perfectly still, her eyes fixed on David's face. 'What do you mean, "art imitating life"?' she asked in a small voice.

  He shrugged, then smiled sheepishly. 'I didn't mean it was, of course; just that everyone would think it was.' He kept smiling at her for a moment, then faltered at the utter lack of comprehension in her expression. 'The movie, Madeline. The plot. Temperamental composer in a tempestuous love affair with his pianist…' The look on her face stopped him in mid-sentence. 'You didn't know what the movie was about?'

  Madeline shook her head, numbed by the perverse, twisted coincidence. This wasn't art imitating life; it was art mocking her deepest, most secret fantasies. 'I couldn't do that,' she whispered rapidly. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Elias jerk his head to look out of the window, jaw muscles clenched.

  'Don't be silly. It's just a photo, just showbiz, and let's not forget, it's going to make you a pile of money. With an advertising gimmick like this, the royalties on the album should be outstanding.'

  She took a deep breath and tried to smile, but failed miserably. There was no way she could make David understand, not without saying it outright. How could he know that the only thing she wanted out of life was to have Elias love her? That watching Elias pretend to love her for the camera, knowing it was only a pretence, would be more than she could bear? She looked down at where her hands were twisting nervously in her lap and tried to gather her strength. She had to give them another reason; something that would make sense.

  When she finally looked up again, her face was composed, her smile cool. 'If it's really just showbiz, David, there's no reason for me to be on the cover. You could hire someone else; someone more…appropriate. A model, maybe.'

  'Nope.' David shook his head firmly. 'The real-life composer and his real-life pianist— that's what's going to sell this thing. Besides, we've already got the photo session scheduled, and I promised the producer you'd both be willing participants. Hell, I'm the one who sold him on the idea, angel.'

  Madeline felt as if her insides were shrivelling away from her skin; that in just a few moments there would be no substance left; just an empty shell. 'Well, you shouldn't have done that,' she snapped.

  Elias jerked his head to glare at her and she paled under his cold green stare. When she looked for comfort in David's face, she saw only impatience, and perhaps a hint of irritation.

  'It's just a picture, Madeline,' he said sharply. 'It doesn't mean a thing. You two don't even have to like each other…' He hesitated, his eyes shifting from one to the other.

  'She's right,' Elias broke in suddenly, his voice sounding like a metal hammerhead striking cold steel. 'We can use a model. The public won't know the difference.'

  Madeline nodded, pathetically eager. 'I'm not very photogenic anyway, and you could find someone who really looked the part…' Suddenly her gaze sharpened and she looked directly at Elias. 'Like Becky.'

  Elias stared at her, saying nothing, and finally David prompted, 'Becky? You're kidding.'

  'You know Becky?' Madeline asked.

  'Well of course I know of her… Elias talks about her all the time…' Madeline winced a little at that '…but we've never actually met, and I sure as hell would never have thought of using her for this—'

  'Why not?' Madeline interrupted, pushing back the pain. 'She'd be perfect. She's one of the most beautiful women I've even seen. The producer will love having her photo on the album cover, and I bet Becky would love to do it.' She felt the chill of Elias's gaze, but when she looked at him, he just shrugged.

  'She probably would love it,' he told David. 'And what's the difference who poses for the cover, as long as the public buys the concept?'

  David's frown was troubled, but after he'd assessed the tension between Elias and Madeline, he sighed with resignation. 'Well, if you both agree it's worth considering, we'll consider it.' He shrugged once, as if the decision were inconsequential.

  'Come on,' Elias said, getting up abruptly. 'I'll follow you as far as the village. We'll stop at Becky's and you can meet her yourself.'

  David rose, dark eyes sparkling with mischief. 'Beautiful, eh?' he said, rubbing his hands together in a pretence of lasciviousness, but Elias's response made him take a quick step backwards, startled.

  'Don't even think about her that way, David,' he said, his eyes glinting with fierce protective-ness. 'Becky is off-limits to that sort of thing.'

  David raised one brow, genuinely offended. 'I know that, Elias,' he said softly. 'I've always known that.'

  Madeline closed her eyes and looked away. It shouldn't have hurt so much just to hear Elias finally say aloud what she had known all along, but somehow it did.

  'Hey, angel.' David was standing next to her chair, smiling down at her with an expression she couldn't quite read. He reached out and cupped her chin gently in his palm. 'Call me. Any time.' His eyes shifted to look at Elias, hardening slightly. 'You don't mind Madeline calling me, do you, Elias?'

  He touched her briefly with his eyes, and his gaze chilled her. 'She can do whatever she wants. Now let's get the hell out of here.'

  Madeline remained at the table, motionless, long after she had heard the two cars start and pull out of the drive.

  If I had a friend, she thought sadly, I'd call them now, and we'd talk and laugh and maybe cry a little, and then I'd feel better.

  After a time she rose from the kitchen chair like an old woman, and walked woodenly through the house to the parlour. There she sat in front of the only friend she'd ever had, placed her hands on the keyboard, and began to talk.

  Outside the rain continued to fall.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Madeline spent the next week trying to slip back into the private world that had been her sanctuary before Elias came into her life. It was a safe, comfortable place that admitted no one, and the truth was that over the years she had learned to function very well there, secure behind the impenetrable walls of indifference. But finding that sanctuary again was harder than she had ever thought possible.

  I'm just his employee, a hired pianist who happens to live in, she kept telling herself; but simply being in the same room with him was almost exquisitely painful. Knowing he could never feel the same
way about her had not dulled the iridescent green of his eyes or lessened the impact of his presence, and she still couldn't stop her heart from lurching whenever he walked into a room, his dark brows lowered in a scowl, jaw clenched in a silent, inexplicable rage that had been constant since she'd balked at posing for the album cover.

  Shutting out the rest of the world was a lot easier than shutting out Elias. During the past week, Becky had faded into a shadowy, silent ghost who was always there when she woke up, always gone by evening. Like Elias, she too had become more hostile, but if Madeline noticed at all it was in the way of noticing the angry buzzing a fly you simply brushed aside. You didn't stop to analyse why the fly was agitated; you just shrugged it away.

  Even the advancement of spring, with all its raucous, happy-drunk noise and colour, barely penetrated Madeline's senses, and the joy she had once found in the rose garden was gone. She still gardened every morning while Elias worked in the studio, but she no longer felt that old rush of elation to find a plant stirring to life beneath her hands. It had been replaced with an almost obsessive sense of purpose, as if bringing the garden to life were a joyless, tedious task, but one that had to be accomplished for a reason she couldn't quite remember.

  The one thing that still touched her, that constantly threatened the chilly barriers she was erecting, was the new music Elias was writing. It was unmistakably his music—still clean and bright and shockingly intense—but, in a way she couldn't pinpoint, it was vastly different than anything he had written before. For the first time she didn't feel that the music spoke directly to her, that she alone could feel the touch of his troubled spirit and translate it for the world. Her heart still soared and plummeted as she played, but now the music seemed to speak to a greater audience, an audience so vast she felt lost in its numbers.

  By Wednesday she'd realised what Elias had yet to see—that this new music was not theirs alone, that its voice belonged to everyone. In it you could hear the cries of joy of anyone who had ever loved, the heart-rending pain of anyone who had ever loved and lost. It was the kind of music that could play to an audience of thousands and strike an identical chord in each heart, because it was the song of human experience common to all men.

  On Friday morning she stood in front of the dressing-table mirror in the little bedroom she'd come to think of as hers, staring thoughtfully at her reflection. In a way, she had been transformed in the short time she had been here. Her body seemed to glow with new strength, nurtured by fresh air and tightened by exercise, and there was a definite aura of health and fitness where once there had only been pallor and malaise. The sun had given new colour to her face while it had taken colour from her hair, in a clean demonstration of nature's continuous trade-offs. Only her eyes remained unchanged—still the arctic grey they had always been, once again empty of dreams.

  She brushed her hair carefully until it swept over her shoulders in a smooth wave, and, on impulse, put on a rose-coloured cotton sundress with funny spaghetti straps that left her neck and shoulders bare. It was the kind of dress she imagined a farmer's daughter would wear; the kind of campy thing New York women liked to wear for Sunday afternoon picnics in Central Park, because it completed their false, temporal image of country living. It was a totally impractical outfit for working in the rose garden, but she wouldn't be doing that today anyway.

  After a few deep breaths she placed her hairbrush very carefully back on the dressing-table, then went downstairs.

  In the kitchen, Becky glanced up from what she was stirring on the stove with an expression of obvious dislike. 'Doesn't look much like a gardening outfit.' She nodded at the pink sundress.

  Madeline's smile was thin as she looked at Becky, really seeing her for perhaps the first time this week. It was no wonder Elias loved her. The faded jeans and denim work-shirt did nothing to detract from the strength and beauty of the body beneath, and even without make-up her dark eyes crackled with a lovely, fierce intensity. Her hair was pulled away from her face, a few damp tendrils escaping to dangle at her ears. 'You and Elias are going to look perfect together on that album cover,' she murmured.

  Becky's eyes flashed angrily at her. 'Yes, you managed to arrange that very nicely, didn't you?' she said snidely. 'It wouldn't have cost you a damn thing to pose for that stupid cover, but you couldn't be bothered to even do that much.'

  Madeline's jaw dropped open and she blinked stupidly, wondering why on earth Becky was so angry. By all rights she should have been thrilled by the chance to pose with the man she loved for a photo that would be seen all over the world. 'I thought you'd be happy to do it, Becky,' she said, mystified.

  'I am happy to do it!' she snapped. 'I'd do anything for Elias.'

  'Well, then.' Madeline frowned uncertainly. 'It really won't make a bit of difference who poses with him. As long as the public thinks you're his pianist, it won't affect the cover's impact, or the number of sales…'

  Becky's smile was almost frightening, it was so cold. 'No,' she said quietly. 'I suppose it won't make a bit of difference.' She snatched her spoon up from the stove top and began stirring furiously at whatever was in the pot. 'Don't forget you're going along to the photo session tomorrow. David says the producer wants to hear the theme song, and you'll have to play it.'

  Madeline felt her heart slip from her chest to her stomach in a nauseating slide. 'No one told me I was supposed to go along,' she whispered numbly.

  Becky glanced up, some of the anger leaving her face when she saw Madeline's dismayed expression. 'Don't tell me you're nervous about playing for the producer?'

  Madeline's mouth twitched in an empty smile. 'No, of course not.' She looked around the room vacantly, telling herself she would deal with tomorrow when it arrived. It wouldn't be so bad, playing Elias's music for a room full of people…laying open her soul to anyone who cared to listen… After a long moment her eyes closed and she lifted her hand to press two fingers into the space between her brows, as if to push back inside thoughts that should never be spoken aloud. Her voice was calm by the time she looked at Becky again. 'I thought I'd drive into the village today. Do you think Elias would let me use the car?'

  Becky shrugged. 'I can pick up whatever you need and bring it back on Monday. What do you want?'

  Madeline looked down at the floor, her lower lip caught between her teeth. 'Actually… I was thinking of getting some house paint…'

  The spoon Becky was holding clattered against the side of the pot, and she turned slowly to look at Madeline. 'You want to paint the house?'

  Madeline hesitated, then nodded. 'Just the shutters, maybe the window trim…'

  Becky's eyes narrowed. 'Why on earth would you want to do that?'

  Madeline looked away. Why, indeed? How could she explain such a thing to a woman like Becky, a woman who had always had a home, a place where she belonged?

  Just once, Madeline wanted to leave her mark on a place she loved before she was forced to leave; to change the place as places had always changed her; to leave a piece of herself behind that would say Madeline Chambers had been here; Madeline Chambers had made a difference. 'It needs doing,' she said simply, knowing Becky would never understand the real reason. 'Most of the wood is bare. It'll rot if it doesn't get some protection for the weather soon.'

  'Why should you care what happens to this house?'

  Madeline's faint brow twitched. 'It's a wonderful house,' she replied, somehow sensing that if she didn't come to the house's defence, no one would.

  'Well, you'd better ask Elias before you do anything,' Becky snapped irritably, turning back to the stove.

  'I'll do that,' Madeline said, crossing the kitchen towards the back door without so much as getting a cup of coffee.

  The rose garden seemed to reproach her for her neglect as she walked quickly through the now neatly tended mounds on her way to the studio. The earthy smell of newly turned soil assailed her nostrils, following her through the white pines and on to the path across the grassland. I'll miss that,
she thought with a regretful smile. When the inevitable happens, when I finally have to leave this place, I'll miss a lot of things, but perhaps most of all I'll miss the smell of the earth itself.

  She hesitated at the heavy door of the studio, took a deep breath, then pulled it open on its silent hinges.

  Elias hadn't heard her come in. He was too engrossed in whatever melody he was picking out on the keyboard with one hand. His other cradled his chin, elbow propped on the music ledge.

  Madeline had never caught him unaware before; had never once seen him when he didn't know she was looking, and a surge of unexpected tenderness washed over her at the sight.

  He wore a short white terry robe, his legs and feet were bare, and his hair was a boyish tangle of dark wetness that curled at his forehead and the nape of his neck. Most startling of all was the way he was smiling wistfully as he plunked at a melody her brain finally registered as 'Chopsticks'.

  Madeline thought that perhaps this was the moment she would carry with her for the rest of her life; the single memory of Elias Shepherd she would never be able to erase.

  'I think that particular piece has been done before,' she said quietly.

  His head jerked around at the sound of her voice, and she saw the intense veneer of the Elias Shepherd she had known for weeks slam down quickly over the one she had just seen for the first time. His eyes seemed to falter a bit at the silly pink sundress, and Madeline thought she probably looked as out of character as he did.

  'I've never seen you wear that,' he said.

  'I've never seen you wear that,' she smiled at his terry robe, and astoundingly he smiled back, and the smile made him look boyish again.

  'I just got out of the shower.' He looked down at the keyboard and shook his head with mild exasperation. 'For some reason I haven't been able to get this stupid song out of my head this morning. Must be the first piano ditty every kid ever learns. Remember it?' He punched delicately at the first few bars of the most familiar piano exercise in the world.