“Oh, would you? Thanks. We can get a coffee or something after.”
“I’d love to. Come on then, before it gets too dark out there. I hate the winter, don’t you?”
“Mmm.”
Bitter rain was falling in the street outside and the light was dull enough to justify headlights on the buses and taxis thundering past.
Lydia had exaggerated the distance from Victoria to Soho—in better weather, it would be a pleasant walk around the perimeter of Buckingham Palace, over Green Park and along Piccadilly, but today the prospect was far from appealing. She and Vanessa headed down below ground, assuming from the lack of warning chalkboards and yellow cones that the bomb scare was over.
“So what was going on today?” asked Lydia as their train jolted out of the station. “With Clayton? Why were the violinists playing at the wrong tempo? I didn’t think his conducting was that bad.”
“It wasn’t. He’s a good conductor.” Vanessa sighed. “It’s Milan. He’s got it into his head that, if he scares off enough conductors, the Trust will offer him the gig.”
“What?” Lydia stared. “Do the trustees know about this?”
“No, no. Well, not explicitly. Milan’s pretty good at not getting caught out, and he’s got at least two-thirds of the orchestra on side. The others just don’t want to get involved.”
“Surely they’ll start to suspect, if enough conductors walk out.”
“They won’t want to lose Milan. He’s a celeb now. Audiences have been stratospheric since that silly talent show. They all want to see the man in action.”
Can’t say I blame them. Shame he’s such a knob, though. Such a gorgeous, sexy…ugh.
“He is rather…you know.” Lydia bit her lip, giving Vanessa a sidelong glance.
“Oh, no, my girl, don’t go there,” said Vanessa firmly. “We’ve lost too many good players that way. He’s a heartbreaker. He’s too wrapped up in himself to offer anything useful to anyone else. Steer clear.”
“I had a feeling you’d say that.” Lydia sighed.
“He never wanted to be an orchestral player, not that he’s ever said so,” continued Vanessa. “But he can’t be part of a team. He has to be the leader, the one that stands out, the one in control. I think he wanted a virtuoso career, but it didn’t work out and now everyone’s paying for it.”
“He could have been a virtuoso, though. He’s a fantastic violinist. And with the charisma of Paganini too.”
“Hush, don’t let him hear you say that! He’s unbearable enough as it is.”
“It’s such a shame.”
“Don’t,” barked Vanessa, “go there.”
“I get the message! I won’t go there! But isn’t he seeing that Tilda from the telly?”
“I think they split,” said Vanessa vaguely. “We get off here, don’t we?”
“Oh, yeah. Dangerous game, though, isn’t it? Trying to get the conductors to quit. What if the orchestra’s reputation goes down the pan?”
“It won’t. He’s clever enough to be all sweetness and light every time we do a recital with a guest conductor. We’ve had stellar endorsements from the likes of Simon Rattle and Valery Gergiev. He just gaslights the salaried ones until they throw in the towel. Or the baton.”
“Wow, quite sneaky.”
“Yes. Not a nice man, Lydia.”
“No. Right.”
A sleety dusk was falling in Wardour Street, and they were Chappell’s last customers before closing time, hastily slapping down the twenty pounds, taking their change and heading back out into the gathering gloom.
“He said he’d be in the Delius Arms. God, I don’t know if I can face rush hour on the Tube again. Shall we walk back?”
“Oh, go on. I’ve got my umbrella.”
Vanessa sheltered them both as they made their way through the city, weaving in and out of all the people on their way home from work. Lydia often thought that her special superpower should be feet that could walk endless distances—she loved to tramp the streets of London and found it frustrating that she could only manage a few miles at a time. Even in the cold and dark, she found enchantment in its vastness and its endless possibilities.
Lifting her face to the icy drops, shivering but not miserable, she reminded herself again that she was a violinist with the Westminster Symphony Orchestra. No matter what life threw at her by way of imperious men and shambolic relationships with conductors, nobody was going to take that away from her.
The Delius Arms was warm and cheery, but Lydia felt the need to dive into the ladies’ toilets to check herself in the mirror before completing her errand. Her hair was stuffed inside the hood of her parka and her face was red with cold and streaked with rain, her spectacles steaming up rapidly in the more temperate air. Nothing for a man like Milan to pay attention to. Nothing at all. She exhaled deeply and trudged back out, not daring to tell Vanessa what she had been doing instead of relieving her bladder.
A large and rather rowdy group of string players had colonised the far corner of the bar, bonding over their pint glasses. Milan sat at the end of a cushioned bench, engrossed in conversation with the pretty-boy cellist.
“I’ll wait here,” said Vanessa, maintaining a position by the door that would aid a quick escape. “Just hand it over. No eye contact. And get out of there.”
“Yes, Captain,” said Lydia with a salute and a giggle. “Cover me. I’m going in.”
Milan did not notice her at first until, one by one, the other members of the group broke off their conversations to stare at her. She removed the packet from her handbag and held it out.
“Your string,” she said, her tone noticeably mutinous.
“Ah.” Milan turned round and sent a beaming smile in her direction, a deadly weapon in the armoury of seduction. “Good girl.”
Lydia almost growled.
He took the packet and stowed it in a jacket pocket before turning back to her.
“My change?”
Lydia’s fist closed around the few coins.
“Don’t I get commission?” she found herself saying. “It’s cold out there. And wet.”
Milan raised his eyebrows, tilting his head to one side in curious scrutiny. Lydia wished she looked a little less like a drowned rat crossed with a fishwife, but she held her ground.
“Commission, huh? Okay.”
He made his friends shift up the bench until a small space became available beside him, then he patted the cushion.
“Sit down. I buy you a drink.”
“No, I didn’t mean…”
The roguish glint in his eye stripped the steel plating from her resolve. Milan Kaspar offered to buy me a drink. I could have a drink with Milan Kaspar.
“Come on. What do you like? Wine? Vodka? I’ll buy it for you. As a thank you.”
The steel plating was gone and now the core was melting. The curve of his lips, the way the smile accentuated his cheekbones, the lock of hair falling in one eye…
“Lydia!”
It was Vanessa, a long way behind, hissing to her, waving her gloved hand furiously.
“No. Thank you,” she said, dropping the coins on the table.
Milan raised a hand to cup his ear, as if straining to catch her words.
“What’s that I heard? It wasn’t a no, was it?”
“Yes.”
“Yes? Then come and sit down.”
“I mean yes, it was a no.” Lydia’s voice grew shrill and flustered. “No!”
“You’re frozen,” crooned Milan, reaching out and taking one of her icy hands. “Che gelida manina! Come and get warm, miláčku.”
Lydia’s vigorous shake of the head transferred to the whole of her body. Her pelvis twisted in panic as she wrenched her hand out of his.
“I said no. I have to go,” she blurted, turning and half running while the going was good, hating herself for looking an idiot in front of her new colleagues, who were guffawing behind her.
“Oh, my God!” exclaimed Vanessa, hustli
ng her outside into the frozen wastes of Westminster. “You said no to Milan. Is that the sound of a mould breaking I can hear? Come on, let’s get to Starbucks. I’d kill for a mochaccino right now.”
“He called me something.” Lydia shivered. “Sounded like ‘milch cow’.”
“Heaven help you.” Vanessa held open the door of the coffee shop. “You’re next.”
Come and get warm, miláčku.
Lydia woke up with the words echoing in her ears in Milan’s velvet-clad accent. He might be off limits in her professional life, but her fantasy life was a different matter. Lydia slid her fingers down, found the warm split between her thighs, her clit swollen and bursting to be touched after a night of broken dreams featuring Milan’s bowing elbow and devilish smile.
Alternative reality changed the previous evening’s disastrous encounter so that her ‘no’ became a ‘yes’. She sat down beside him and he slipped an arm around her, drawing her close, closer, as close as could be until he held her against him, her ear rubbing his shoulder so that she drew his warmth into her body. Then his fingertips, sensitive but strong, on her cheek, then his lips on hers, then the pub whirling away from them while they kissed.
His hands inside her shirt—the parka having long since dissolved—exploring her, caressing her skin, finding her breasts, laying her down…
Then they were out of the pub, in his bed, which would smell of him and his Eastern European manliness, and he had tumbled her in his rumpled sheets and they were naked.
He was playful, pouncing on her, nipping and snapping at her neck, slapping her thighs, pinning her wrists, his hair flicking over her face. She moaned as he impaled her on his cock…oh.
Retracting her fingers, Lydia sat up, hot, bothered and cross. He was a sleazy serial seducer. Why would she fantasise about that?
She lay back down and pulled one of her standard fantasies from the mental masturbation bookshelf instead. The one about the Saxon warrior spanking her with his sword would have to do. No Milan. Just pure Saxon man, overpowering her with the power of his arm-ringed biceps and throwing her over his knee. Better. Much better.
It was no use though. As her pleasure built and her release approached, Mr Saxon’s arm rings disappeared, his sword turned to a violin bow, and by the time she dissolved into that final moment of bliss, Milan was back. Frustrations released, she headed for the shower.
But why did she use her most luxurious shampoo and shower gel, and why did she spritz on so much of her white jasmine and mint cologne afterwards?
She frowned at herself in the mirror as she tried to trick her long, straight brown hair into looking voluminous. Nothing worked, so she resorted to her usual ponytail. Maybe contacts… No. She put her glasses on so adamantly that she almost bent the right wire.
She was not going to attract Milan’s attention. She was not going to attract Milan’s attention. Rinse and repeat till fade.
“Lydia.”
So much for not attracting his attention, she thought, jumping a little when he beckoned her over the minute she entered the rehearsal room. He must have been waiting for her. The idea made her shudder with unwelcome excitement.
“I have a name now, then,” she said, all bravado. “Not ‘new girl’ any more?”
Milan smirked and looked down at his violin for a moment.
“Yesterday was an interesting day,” he said. “In the way of the Chinese proverb. I had a lot on my mind. I was rude. I apologise. Can you forgive me?”
Oh, fuck, don’t be nice. How am I supposed to resist you if you’re nice?
“It’s okay,” she found herself saying. “Let’s forget about it.”
“Yes, let’s,” he said eagerly, leaning down to her eye level. “So you let me buy you a drink, yes? After the rehearsal?”
“Oh, um…” She looked around for Vanessa, who was nowhere to be seen. To say no would be churlish, and besides…a drink with Milan Kaspar… “Yes, that would be nice. Thanks.”
His smile was genuine and as bright as the strip lights overhead.
“Great! That’s great. I look forward to it.”
Lydia put down her violin case and skipped to the back of the hall to hang up her coat and scarf. Vanessa was there, pulling off her beret.
“Oh God, oh God, oh God,” squeaked Lydia. “Milan just asked me out.”
Vanessa turned to her with a pained expression.
“And you said…?”
“Yes! What? He asked nicely. He wasn’t being an arrogant git, honestly.”
Vanessa sighed.
“It’s so easy for him. Fish in a barrel.”
“Oh, Vanessa, don’t be like that. It’s only a drink. We have to work together—we might as well be friendly.”
“Just watch him. He’s a predator. It won’t stop at a drink, believe me.”
“Yeah, but you’ve warned me. Forewarned is forearmed and all that.”
“You don’t know exactly what you’re up against. Your puny cardboard shield versus his nuclear arsenal of seduction—let’s say I don’t fancy your chances, love.”
“Wow. Nuclear arsenal of seduction.”
The phrase and its implication—that Lydia was directly in the firing line—shouldn’t have pleased her, but it did. She was intensely flattered at the idea that anyone could consider her worthy of pursuit by such a famous super-stud as Milan Kaspar. She was about to reassure Vanessa once more that she would keep her head clear and her knickers on when the tapping of a music stand called them to order and they scuttled to their chairs.
Milan was a good conductor, if a little imperious and impatient, and the rehearsal glided by like a harmonious dream for Lydia. He worked them hard enough that she didn’t have time to daydream about what might come next, and by the time five o’clock rolled around, her bowing arm was tired and her mind full of music.
She waited, growing pinker and pinker at all the behind-the-hand whispering, while the rest of the orchestra left the hall and Milan indulged in some post-rehearsal chat with the other string players. Vanessa hung around for a while, seemingly wondering whether to stay or go, but eventually she took her beret and flounced off.
“Okay, ready?”
Milan turned to her and offered a gallant forearm, which she took.
His bowing arm. I am touching it. Her fingers rested lightly on the cool white cotton of his shirtsleeve as he walked her over to the cloakroom. He helped her on with her coat then wound her scarf gently around her neck, disarming her for a moment when he ducked his face into the soft wool.
“It smells like you,” he said, coming up for air.
“Ah.” Lydia caught her breath while Milan shrugged on a long wool coat, tailored to fit his tall, elegant figure and show it to its fullest advantage. Scarf and leather gloves on, he looked down at Lydia’s hands.
“No gloves,” he scolded. “You need to protect your hands. The cold will chap them.”
“Oh, I usually just put them in my pockets.”
“No good. Here.”
He took Lydia’s hands in his, clasping them in the smooth leather, leading her out of the door like that and into the windy early evening.
Every car and bus that passed made Lydia’s stomach flip with the thought that everyone could see her walking along the street, hand in hand with Milan Kaspar.
“Is that his new girlfriend?” they might ask each other. “Did he dump that TV presenter for her?”
They wouldn’t understand it, of course—a glorious, golden glamour-puss replaced by a mousy little music geek. But their love was beyond understanding…
Hold on, Lydia. Get a grip. Love? You idiot.
The Delius Arms was blessedly warm and cosy, but Lydia was almost disappointed that the brief walk in the knife-edged cold was over when Milan dropped her hands and indicated a table in the corner.
“What do you like? Red wine?”
“Actually, a hot chocolate might be nice. I’m frozen.”
“Hot chocolate? No. I buy you red wine
.”
Lydia shrugged and went to sit down, stowing her violin case under the table and staring at her hands. They had just been held by Milan Kaspar. They looked no different—a little red and raw from the cold, but essentially the same Lydia Foster hands that had been playing the violin for the eighteen years since she started school. She tried to keep them away from anything that might rub the Milan-ness off them, putting them up to her nostrils to try to trace the faint scent of leather, but it had been too cold outside and they smelt of nothing much.
He brought over the drinks—red wine for her and something brown in a balloon glass for him.
“What’s that?”
“Brandy. I need to get warm. Your winters are cold, but not as cold as the winters back home. We always had a bottle of brandy in the house.”
“Back home in the Czech Republic, you mean?”
“That’s right. It wasn’t called that when I lived there. It was Czechoslovakia, and before that Bohemia.”
“How lovely. A true Bohemian. Do you fit the description?”
Milan smiled over his brandy glass.
“I suppose I do. I’m an artist and my hair is a bit longer than most men’s. Bohemian by nationality and by disposition. How about you?”
“Oh, well, I’m not from anywhere exciting, like you. Boring old Guildford. I live in London now, though. London’s exciting.”
“Yes, it is. I like it.”
“Do you ever miss your homeland?”
“All the time. Every day.”
“Would you ever go back?”
“Why are we talking about me? That is not why I invited you here.”
Lydia was beguiled by Milan’s intense look, head cocked to one side.
“Oh… Why…did you? Invite me here, I mean.”
Unnervingly, Milan did not reply, but simply let his eyes rest on her face as if seeking some higher truth in it.
“Take off your glasses,” he said at last.
Lydia obeyed, laying them on the table.
“Are you going to ask me to let down my hair?” she asked with a nervous laugh.
“Why not? Go on.”
With shaking fingers she loosened her ponytail, letting her straight, mid-brown hair fall freely over her shoulders.
Highly Strung Page 2
