Tormented by guilt. Haunted by scandal. Freed by love.
Austria, 1804
Eight years ago, composer Arie De Voss claimed his late mentor's final symphony as his own and became an icon. But fame has a price: fear of discovery now poisons his attempts to compose a redemptive masterpiece. Until a new muse appears, intoxicating and inspiring him...
Mathilda Heidel renounced her own musical gift to marry, seeking a quiet life to escape the shame surrounding her birth. Sudden widowhood finds her tempted by song once more. An unexpected introduction to her idol, Arie De Voss, renews Mathilda's passion for the violin—and ignites a passion for the man himself.
But when lust and lies reach a crescendo, Arie will be forced to choose: love or truth?
Song of Seduction
Set-up: Mathilda has just come to the realization that she loves Arie, the composer and musician she's idolized for years. But upon performing his most renowned symphony while alone in her room, she comes to a startling realization...
She loved Arie--not a musical genius, not a figment, not an idol. She loved the man.
And she wanted to express her emotions in the way that had come to dominate her life. Through music. Words and thoughts failed to fly, falling short of the miraculous language she had discovered. Passive listening, no matter how engaged she became in hearing a composition, only made her yearn for that spark of creation. Arie had taken her heart and put in its place an unending need to perform.
With the door closed behind her, Mathilda glanced across her room. She had left Jürgen's medical bag at the foot of her bed, and its familiar black leather shape reached her like a touch. But the touch was gentle, tolerant of her frailties. She smiled, surprised but gratified by her placid reaction to his memory.
Leaving the bag where it sat, she found the violin case and opened the latches. The cloth she used to muffle the strings draped across the instrument. She tossed it to the floor. Nothing would silence her this evening, not doubt or gossip or manners. She wanted her violin to announce what her heart sang and sang, an endless chorus.Tuning the instrument, finding her stance, Mathilda inhaled.
Beginning with the sonata Arie had played at the Venners' ball, she gave voice to all she imagined, sought, desired. Another piece followed without pause, then another. Arie's improvisation at the piano competition. The cantata for Duke Ferdinand. The movement she had helped compose. And finally, Love and Freedom.
A frivolous grin spread her mouth wide as she revisited that landmark symphony for the first time since their inaugural lesson. Even alone, there in her room, she could not hide the flush of embarrassment as she recalled the girlish fantasies she had fostered about her maestro, about what he had composed. Never had a woman known less about a very complicated man.
But joy banished her embarrassment. She performed Love and Freedom with happy gusto, glorying in the wonder. She followed the notes, chasing a musical bird across the aching blue of a bright summer sky, swooping and twirling with the force of a steady wind on her face. Restive fingers quieted the noise in her head and in her heart...until she heard something altogether different.
She played it again. And again. She studied and parsed and dissected. And somewhere in the third movement, she heard the truth.
Arie did not write this.
Thanks for stopping by, Carrie. It sounds like a fabulous book.
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