The Stanislaski Series Collection, Volume 1

by Nora Roberts

  Someday, she thought with a shrug. But for now she had her own business, her own home and her own life. No man, no matter how beautiful his hands or how clear his eyes, was going to rock her boat. Secretly she hoped her newest customer’s wife gave him nothing but grief.

  * * *

  “One more story. Please, Daddy.” Freddie, her eyes heavy, her face shiny from her bath, used her most persuasive smile. She was nestled against Spence in her big, white canopy bed.

  “You’re already asleep.”

  “No, I’m not.” She peeked up at him, fighting to keep her eyes open. It had been the very best day of her life, and she didn’t want it to end. “Did I tell you that JoBeth’s cat had kittens? Six of them.”

  “Twice.” Spence flicked a finger down her nose. He knew a hint when he heard one, and fell back on the parent’s standard. “We’ll see.”

  Sleepy, Freddie smiled. She knew from his tone that her father was already weakening. “Mrs. Patterson’s real nice. She’s going to let us have Show and Tell every Friday.”

  “So you said.” And he’d been worried, Spence thought. “I get the feeling you like school.”

  “It’s neat.” She yawned hugely. “Did you fill out all the forms?”

  “They’ll be ready for you to take in tomorrow.” All five hundred of them, he thought with a sigh. “Time to unplug the batteries, funny face.”

  “One more story. The made-up kind.” She yawned again, comforted by the soft cotton of his shirt beneath her cheek and the familiar scent of his after-shave.

  He gave in, knowing she would sleep long before he got to the happy ever after. He wove a story around a beautiful, dark-haired princess from a foreign land, and the knight who tried to rescue her from her ivory tower.

  Foolishness, Spence thought even as he added a sorcerer and a two-headed dragon. He knew his thoughts were drifting toward Natasha again. She was certainly beautiful, but he didn’t think he’d ever met a woman less in need of rescuing.

  It was just his bad luck that he had to pass her shop every day to and from campus.

  He’d ignore her. If anything, he should be grateful to her. She’d made him want, made him feel things he hadn’t thought he could anymore. Maybe now that he and Freddie were settled, he’d start socializing again. There were plenty of attractive, single women at the college. But the idea of dating didn’t fill him with delight.

  Socializing, Spence corrected. Dating was for teenagers and conjured up visions of drive-in movies, pizza and sweaty palms. He was a grown man, and it was certainly time he started enjoying female companionship again. Over the age of five, he thought, looking at Freddie’s small hand balled in his palm.

  Just what would you think, he asked silently, if I brought a woman home to dinner? It made him remember how big and hurt her eyes had been when he and Angela had swept out of the condo for evenings at the theater or the opera.

  It won’t ever be like that again, he promised as he shifted her from his chest to the pillow. He settled the grinning Raggedy Ann beside her, then tucked the covers under her chin. Resting a hand on the bedpost, he glanced around the room.

  It already had Freddie’s stamp on it. The dolls lining the shelves with books jumbled beneath them, the fuzzy, pink elephant slippers beside her oldest and most favored sneakers. The room had that little-girl scent of shampoo and crayons. A night-light in the shape of a unicorn assured that she wouldn’t wake up in the dark and be afraid.

  He stayed a moment longer, finding himself as soothed by the light as she. Quietly he stepped out, leaving her door open a few inches.

  Downstairs he found Vera carrying a tray of coffee. The Mexican housekeeper was wide from shoulders to hips, and gave the impression of a small, compact freight train when she moved from room to room. Since Freddie’s birth, she had proven not only efficient but indispensable. Spence knew it was often possible to insure an employee’s loyalty with a paycheck, but not her love. From the moment Freddie had come home in her silk-trimmed blanket, Vera had been in love.

  She cast an eye up the stairs now, and her lined face folded into a smile. “She had one big day, huh?”

  “Yes, and one she fought ending to the last gasp. Vera, you didn’t have to bother.”

  She shrugged her shoulders while she carried the coffee into his office. “You said you have to work tonight.”

  “Yes, for a little while.”

  “So I make you coffee before I go in and put my feet up to watch TV.” She arranged the tray on his desk, fussing a bit while she talked. “My baby, she’s happy with school and her new friends.” She didn’t add that she had wept into her apron when Freddie had stepped onto the bus. “With the house empty all day, I have plenty of time to get my work done. You don’t stay up too late, Dr. Kimball.”

  “No.” It was a polite lie. He knew he was too restless for sleep. “Thank you, Vera.”

  “¡De nada!” She patted her iron-gray hair. “I wanted to tell you that I like this place very much. I was afraid to leave New York, but now I’m happy.”

  “We couldn’t manage without you.”

  “Sí.” She took this as her due. For seven years she had worked for the señor, and basked in the prestige of being housekeeper for an important man—a respected musician, a doctor of music and a college professor. Since the birth of his daughter she had been so in love with her baby that she would have worked for Spence, whatever his station.

  She had grumbled about moving from the beautiful high-rise in New York, to the rambling house in the small town, but Vera was shrewd enough to know that the señor had been thinking of Freddie. Freddie had come home from school only hours before, laughing, excited, with the names of new best friends tumbling from her lips. SoVera was content.

  “You are a good father, Dr. Kimball.”

  Spence glanced over before he sat down behind his desk. He was well aware that there had been a time Vera had considered him a very poor one.

  “I’m learning.”

  “Sí.” Casually she adjusted a book on the shelf. “In this big house you won’t have to worry about disturbing Freddie’s sleep if you play your piano at night.”

  He looked over again, knowing she was encouraging him in her way to concentrate on his music. “No, it shouldn’t disturb her. Good night, Vera.”

  After a quick glance around to be certain there was nothing more for her to tidy, she left him.

  Alone, Spence poured the coffee, then studied the papers on his desk. Freddie’s school forms were stacked next to his own work. He had a great deal of preparation ahead of him, before his classes began the following week.

  He looked forward to it, even as he tried not to regret that the music that had once played so effortlessly inside his head was still silent.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Natasha scooped the barrette through the hair above her ear and hoped it would stay fixed for more than five minutes. She studied her reflection in the narrow mirror over the sink in the back of the shop before she decided to add a touch of lipstick. It didn’t matter that it had been a long and hectic day or that her feet were all but crying with fatigue. Tonight was her treat to herself, her reward for a job well done.

  Every semester she signed up for one course at the college. She chose whatever seemed most fun, most intriguing or most unusual. Renaissance Poetry one year, Automotive Maintenance another. This term, two evenings a week, she would be taking Music History. Tonight she would begin an exploration of a new topic. Everything she learned she would store for her own pleasure, as other women stored diamonds and emeralds. It didn’t have to be useful. In Natasha’s opinion a glittery necklace wasn’t particularly useful, either. It was simply exciting to own.

  She had her notebook, her pens and pencils and a flood of enthusiasm. To prepare herself, she had raided the library and pored over related books for the last two weeks. Pride wouldn’t allow her to go into class ignorant. Curiosity made her wonder if her instructor could take the dry, distant facts and add
excitement.

  There was little doubt that this particular instructor was adding dashes of excitement in other quarters. Annie had teased her just that morning about the new professor everyone was talking about. Dr. Spencer B. Kimball.

  The name sounded very distinguished to Natasha, quite unlike the description of a hunk that Annie had passed along. Annie’s information came from her cousin’s daughter, who was majoring in Elementary Education with a minor in Music. A sun-god, Annie had relayed and made Natasha laugh.

  A very gifted sun-god, Natasha mused while she turned off lights in the shop. She knew Kimball’s work well, or the work he had composed before he had suddenly and inexplicably stopped writing music. Why, she had even danced to his Prelude in D Minor when she had been with the corps de ballet in New York.

  A million years ago, she thought as she stepped onto the street. Now she would be able to meet the genius, listen to his views and perhaps find new meanings in many of the classics she already loved.

  He was probably the temperamental artiste type, she decided, pleased with the way the evening breeze lifted her hair and cooled her neck. Or a pale eccentric with one earring. It didn’t matter. She intended to work hard. Each course she took was a matter of pride to her. It still stung to remember how little she had known when she’d been eighteen. How little she had cared to know, Natasha admitted, other than dance. She had of her own choice closed herself off from so many worlds in order to focus everything on one. When that had been taken away, she had been as lost as a child set adrift on the Atlantic.

  She had found her way to shore, just as her family had once found its way across the wilds of the Ukraine to the jungles of Manhattan. She liked herself better—the independent, ambitious American woman she had become. As she was now, she could walk into the big, beautiful old building on campus with as much pride as any freshman student.

  There were footsteps echoing in the corridors, distant, dislocated. There was a hushed reverence that Natasha always associated with churches and universities. In a way there was religion here—the belief in learning.

  She felt somewhat reverent herself as she made her way to her class. As a child of five in her small farming village, she had never even imagined such a building, or the books and beauty it contained.

  Several students were already waiting. A mixed bag, she noted, ranging from college to middle age. All of them seemed to buzz with that excitement of beginning. She saw by the clock that it was two minutes shy of eight. She’d expected Kimball to be there, busily shuffling his papers, peering at them behind glasses, his hair a little wild and streaming to his shoulders.

  Absently she smiled at a young man in horn-rims, who was staring at her as if he’d just woken from a dream. Ready to begin, she sat down, then looked up when the same man clumsily maneuvered himself into the desk beside her.

  “Hello.”

  He looked as though she’d struck him with a bat rather than offered a casual greeting. He pushed his glasses nervously up his nose. “Hello. I’m—I’m…Terry Maynard,” he finished on a burst as his name apparently came to him at last.

  “Natasha.” She smiled again. He was on the sunny side of twenty-five and harmless as a puppy.

  “I haven’t, ah, seen you on campus before.”

  “No.” Though at twenty-seven it amused her to be taken for a coed, she kept her voice sober. “I’m only taking this one class. For fun.”

  “For fun?” Terry appeared to take music very seriously. “Do you know who Dr. Kimball is?” His obvious awe made him almost whisper the name.

  “I’ve heard of him. You’re a Music major?”

  “Yes. I hope to, well one day, I hope to play with the New York Symphony.” His blunt fingers reached nervously to adjust his glasses. “I’m a violinist.”

  She smiled again and made his Adam’s apple bob. “That’s wonderful. I’m sure you’re very good.”

  “What do you play?”

  “Five card draw.” Then she laughed and settled back in her chair. “I’m sorry. I don’t play an instrument. But I love to listen to music and thought I’d enjoy the class.” She glanced at the clock on the wall. “If it ever starts, that is. Apparently our esteemed professor is late.”

  At that moment the esteemed professor was rushing down the corridors, cursing himself for ever agreeing to take on this night class. By the time he had helped Freddie with her homework—how many animals can you find in this picture?—convinced her that brussels sprouts were cute instead of yucky, and changed his shirt because her affectionate hug had transferred some mysterious, sticky substance to his sleeve, he had wanted nothing more than a good book and a warm brandy.

  Instead he was going to have to face a roomful of eager faces, all waiting to learn what Beethoven had worn when he’d composed his Ninth Symphony.

  In the foulest of moods, he walked into class. “Good evening. I’m Dr. Kimball.” The murmurs and rattles quieted. “I must apologize for being late. If you’ll all take a seat, we’ll dive right in.”

  As he spoke he scanned the room. And found himself staring into Natasha’s astonished face.

  “No.” She wasn’t aware she’d spoken the word aloud, and wouldn’t have cared. It was some sort of joke, she thought, and a particularly bad one. This—this man in the casually elegant jacket was Spencer Kimball, a musician whose songs she had admired and danced to. The man who, while barely into his twenties had been performing at Carnegie Hall being hailed as a genius. This man who had tried to pick her up in a toy store was the illustrious Dr. Kimball?

  It was ludicrous, it was infuriating, it was—

  Wonderful, Spence thought as he stared at her. Absolutely wonderful. In fact, it was perfect, as long as he could control the laugh that was bubbling in his throat. So the czarina was one of his students. It was better, much better than a warm brandy and an evening of quiet.

  “I’m sure,” he said after a long pause, “we’ll all find the next few months fascinating.”

  She should have signed up for Astronomy, Natasha told herself. She could have learned all kinds of interesting things about the planets and stars. Asteroids. She’d have been much better off learning about—what was it?—gravitational pull and inertia. Whatever that was. Surely it was much more important for her to find out how many moons revolved around Jupiter than to study Burgundian composers of the fifteenth century.

  She would transfer, Natasha decided. First thing in the morning she would make the arrangements. In fact, she would get up and walk out right now if she wasn’t certain Dr. Spencer Kimball would smirk.

  Running her pencil between her fingers, she crossed her legs and determined not to listen.

  It was a pity his voice was so attractive.

  Impatient, Natasha looked at the clock. Nearly an hour to go. She would do what she did when she waited at the dentist’s office. Pretend she was someplace else. Struggling to block Spence’s voice from her mind she began to swing her foot and doodle on her pad.

  She didn’t notice when her doodles became notes, or when she began to hang on every word. He made fifteenth-century musicians seem alive and vital—and their music as real as flesh and blood. Rondeaux, vieralais, ballades. She could almost hear the three-part chansons of the dawning Renaissance, the reverent, soaring Kyries and Glorias of the masses.

  She was caught up, involved in that ancient rivalry between church and state and music’s part in the politics. She could see huge banqueting halls filled with elegantly dressed aristocrats, feasting on music as well as food.

  “Next time we’ll be discussing the Franco-Flemish school and rhythmic developments.” Spence gave his class an easy smile. “And I’ll try to be on time.”

  Was it over? Natasha glanced at the clock again and was shocked to see it was indeed after nine.

  “Incredible, isn’t he?”

  She looked at Terry. His eyes were gleaming behind his lenses. “Yes.” It cost her to admit it, but truth was truth.

  “You should h
ear him in theory class.” He noticed with envy that several students were grouped around his idol. As yet, Terry hadn’t worked up the nerve to approach him. “I’ll—see you Thursday.”

  “What? Oh. Good night, Terry.”

  “I could, ah, give you a ride home if you want.” The fact that he was nearly out of gas and his muffler was currently held on by a coat hanger didn’t enter his mind.

  She favored him with an absent smile that had his heart doing a cha-cha. “That’s nice of you, but I don’t live far.”

  She hoped to breeze out of the classroom while Spence was still occupied. She should have known better.

  He simply put a hand on her arm and stopped her. “I’d like to speak with you a moment, Natasha.”

  “I’m in a hurry.”

  “It won’t take long.” He nodded to the last of his departing students, then eased back against his desk and grinned at her. “I should have paid more attention to my roster, but then again, it’s nice to know there are still surprises in the world.”

  “That depends on your point of view, Dr. Kimball.”

  “Spence.” He continued to grin. “Class is over.”

  “So it is.” Her regal nod made him think again of Russian royalty. “Excuse me.”

  “Natasha.” He waited, almost seeing impatience shimmer around her as she turned. “I can’t imagine that someone with your heritage doesn’t believe in destiny.”

  “Destiny?”

  “Of all the classrooms in all the universities in all the world, she walks into mine.”

  She wouldn’t laugh. She’d be damned if she would. But her mouth quirked up at the corners before she controlled it. “And here I was thinking it was just bad luck.”

  “Why Music History?”

  She balanced her notebook on her hip. “It was a toss-up between that and Astronomy.”

  “That sounds like a fascinating story. Why don’t we go down the street for a cup of coffee? You can tell me about it.” Now he saw it—molten fury that turned her eyes from rich velvet to sharp jet. “Now why does that infuriate you?” he inquired, almost to himself. “Is an offer of a cup of coffee in this town similiar to an illicit proposition?”