by Darcy Burke
Hoping her eyes were not too reddened from weeping, she undid the lock and opened the door a crack.
“Please send the maid to assist me,” she said.
“I will.” His expression was unreadable.
He made no mention of Nicholas—not that she expected him to. Had her brother been found, they would have notified her immediately.
She nodded and shut the door in Peter’s face.
When he returned for her, she was ready, though she pulled up the velvet hood of her cloak and did not meet anyone’s gaze. Especially Darien’s. She was gowned in silver tissue embroidered with pearls and sequins, a truly extravagant creation that, again, was Henri’s fault. He had said she looked luminous as the moon, bedecked with stars, but tonight Clara was grateful for her black cloak to shroud that brilliance.
She said nothing during the carriage ride, though Darien’s regard lay heavy upon her. This was supposed to be his night of triumph, and instead she felt as if they were traveling to an execution.
La Scala was lit against the night, the building’s façade pale and lovely against the dark sky. Lines of carriages clogged the streets, and the air hummed with excitement and speculation. Darien and his party disembarked from the black coach, and for once the crowd showed restraint. A few voices cried out encouragement as Peter led them to the back entrance.
Clara drew in a deep breath, scented with dust and perfume, as they entered the theater. The audience up front sounded like the surging of a wild sea, a contained turbulence ready to break into storm at any moment. Darien paced to his dressing room, nearly as elemental in that small space as the crowd in the theater. Clara could not bear to be near him.
Instead, she took a seat on the divan at the far end of the hall. She could wait in Nicholas’s dressing room, but being surrounded by his absence would be even worse.
She slipped her hand into her beaded reticule and fingered the envelope waiting there. During the eternal hours of the day, she’d composed a letter to Darien. Each word had been a drop of her heart’s blood. And although her original plan with Nicholas—to depart for London this very night—was in tatters, she knew the hour would come.
Oh, Nicholas. Her heart was rent in two.
She could not return home and face Papa without her brother. It had been her responsibility to protect him, and she had failed miserably.
“Ten minutes!” the director called, poking his head out of his office.
Anton Varga stepped from his own dressing room. He caught sight of Clara sitting in the hallway, and smiled unpleasantly.
“Miss Becker.” He sauntered forward, his bearing full of arrogant confidence. “Are you certain you don’t want to take the wiser course and desert the maestro as your brother did? Reynard faces nothing but ignominy tonight.”
Clara clenched her hands. “It is you who will be the loser.”
“A pity, that you cling to such illusions.” He shook his head. “No matter. The entire world will soon know the truth.”
Truth. Such a sharp-edged word.
Darien’s door opened and he strode into the hallway, making straight for Clara’s side. She was relieved to have his solid presence beside her.
“Varga.” Darien nodded to his rival.
“Reynard. Good luck this evening. You will need it.” Varga laughed, a hollow sound with no shadow of mirth.
He made Clara a tight bow, then spun on his heel and stalked away. The air seemed darker in his wake, as if his presence stained it.
Darien set his hand on Clara’s shoulder. “Peter has reserved one of the boxes for the performance. Would you like to join him?”
“No.”
She needed to be close to the stage, not trapped in a theater box if her brother made a miraculous reappearance. And she would be there for Darien, in either victory or defeat.
“Two minutes!” the theater director called, this time emerging from his room.
“Come.” Darien led her to the shadowed wings where a handful of chairs were set, concealed from the audience by the heavy crimson curtain.
The expanse of the stage was illuminated with footlights, the dark bulk of the piano gleaming. The audience sounded less like the sea here. Clara could make out high laughter in counterpoint to the low rumble of male argument.
The director stepped onto the stage. Silence percolated through the theater, so filled with anticipation she could almost taste it; rich and complex as chocolate, sweet and bitter in equal parts.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” the director cried. “Welcome to the performance of the century!”
The crowd did not hold back their cheers. Even Clara felt her heart rise. When the audience quieted, he continued.
“This evening, we are privileged to watch two of the finest musicians in the world battle for supremacy. Signor Varga and Maestro Reynard will each take the stage three times. Your applause will be the measure of their success. With the conclusion of the third round, the victor will be declared, and crowned the musical maestro of all Europe!”
Shouts erupted, and it took several long moments until the director could be heard again.
“And now, to begin our competition… Signor Anton Varga!”
The director gestured toward the wings and Varga swept forward, passing Darien and Clara without so much as a glance. The applause was loud and strong, though not—yet—overwhelmingly in Varga’s favor.
He bowed to the crowd, his violin tucked under his arm, and waited.
“My dear audience,” he said, when he could be heard, “thank you for your patience. As you know, due to the unfortunate absence of Mr. Becker, there have been changes to our competition. Not the least of which is this inconvenient postponement.”
There were a few bitter calls at this, and Varga tipped his head.
“Yes,” he continued, “it was not an easy wait, but Emperor Francis is magnanimous. Where royalty leads, we aspire to follow. Too bad the wayward composer has not seen fit to make an appearance.”
More catcalls, and a few boos, rang out. Clara glanced at Darien, to see he was frowning.
“Don’t let Varga upset you,” she whispered.
Darien tightened his lips, but said nothing. They both knew his insistence on finding Nicholas, and the emperor’s subsequent delay of the concert, had cost Darien some measure of popularity. Enough to lose the duel? Clara wove her fingers tightly together.
Varga strutted to the front of the stage. “Tonight, it is my pleasure to perform for you Tartini’s Sonata in G minor.”
Clara sucked in an anxious breath. It was a piece intended for unaccompanied violin, and renowned for its difficult trills. Not only that, Tartini, being an Italian, was certain to be a fan favorite. Oh, Varga had chosen well.
He tucked his violin beneath his chin, the lights gleaming on the reddish hue of the wood, and began to play.
It was an ambitious choice—full of darkness and demanding chords on the violin.
Despite herself, Clara was drawn into the music. Varga did not have the control and musicality of Darien, but he played with a muscular quality that suited the piece. Instead of dancing with the notes, he sparred with them, wrestling the melody into submission. There was a raw appeal that she understood, though she far preferred Darien’s more nuanced approach.
Varga fired the last passage into the audience as if the notes were bullets. They met their mark, and the crowd applauded madly. Flushed and triumphant, Varga took multiple bows.
It did not bode well for Darien. Without a word he rose, fetched his instrument and gave it a quick re-tune, then waited beside the draperies for his rival to exit the stage. Clara wished she could hold Darien, knead the tension from his shoulders—but he was narrowing his focus. In a few moments only these things would exist: the smooth wood of his violin beneath his fingers, the pull and sway of the notes, the music spinning inside his soul.
Varga stepped into the wings and paused before Darien.
“Well done,” Darien said, no hint of sa
rcasm in his voice.
“Good luck, Reynard.” With a single laugh, Varga disappeared into the shadows.
As long as he stayed away from her, Clara did not care where he stood to watch Darien perform.
The director announced Darien and the crowd clapped and cheered. Darien gave Clara a single, penetrating glance, then lifted his head and strode on stage. The lights gleamed on the glossy midnight of his hair and picked out golden hues from the violin beneath his arm.
“Thank you,” he said, bowing to the audience. “Although Nicholas Becker is not here, his music speaks for itself. For my first piece, I will play his Air in E minor.”
The crowd quieted, and Darien launched into the opening lines, playing the swooping melody Clara had written that cold winter night.
How their fortunes had changed. And changed again. Oh, Nicholas. The thought of him was an arrow through her lungs. She shivered in the dim light and swallowed her sharp grief as Darien played.
Most of her compositions relied on the intermingling of piano and violin, and the Air was no exception. But Darien had been adamant about performing only pieces by Becker. They had spent much of their rehearsal trimming and reshaping the music, until it was lovely even when voiced by a solo instrument.
Yet lovely would not be sufficient. She had been blinded by the echo of the piano part, but she saw now—or rather, heard—that the spare simplicity of the melody alone was not quite enough.
He played it masterfully, of course. The air shivered with tension and sweetness, and Clara knew that some members of the audience would be as enthralled by the music as she was. Far more, however, would prefer the angular brashness of Varga’s performance.
Oh, why had they not chosen differently? Or begun with Il Diavolo, as she had suggested? Her heart, already leaden, sank until it lay at her feet, a useless lump of base metal.
When Darien finished there were enthusiastic cheers, but the audience did not respond as they had to Varga. Darien took his bow, then strode back to Clara.
“Darien—” she began, but he made a sharp movement with his hand.
“It’s all right,” he said. “Wait until the next round.”
She pressed her lips together in worry, and to keep unspoken the words he did not want to hear.
“Attention!” the director bellowed into the audience. “Winner of the first round is Signor Varga!”
The crowd cheered again, and Clara tried not to wince under the onslaught of sound. She glanced at Darien, but he faced the stage, his expression revealing nothing. His handsome face was set, his lips tight, and Clara ached with yearning, with loss, with all the secrets lying jagged against her heart.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
On stage, the director again held his hands up for quiet. Clara bit her lip. If Darien lost this round, the competition would be over. Her blood turned heavy and slow with misery.
“The loser of the last round will begin the next,” he announced. “Once more, welcome Master Reynard!”
Darien strode back out onto the vast stage of La Scala, into lights so bright Clara had to squint from the dimness beside the stage.
“Il Diavolo, by Becker,” Darien said in his loud, firm voice.
With a dramatic move, he swept his instrument to his shoulder, then froze, bow poised. Not until the crowd had become an almost silent breath, a huge animal waiting in the warm darkness beyond the footlights, did Darien begin.
She had been a fool to doubt him. Clara leaned forward on the edge of her chair, her fingers curled tightly into her palms, as he demonstrated what it meant to be the maestro.
The notes careened from his violin, sprays of brightness flung so rapidly she felt dizzy. The spiccato passages were flawless, eliciting spontaneous shouts and the crack of applause, quickly hushed so that the audience could hear again.
Darien took all the frustration, all the impossibility that every human faced when confronted with life, and spun it taut, winding and winding and winding, until Clara’s chest was tight. Then he threw the final melody up into the air, past the gilded proscenium of La Scala. Past the scrim of clouds covering the city. Past the diamond points of the stars. A pure, exultant shout straight to the heart of the divine.
Clara swallowed, tasting the salt of her own amazed tears.
The audience surged to their feet, their ringing applause a tribute to the genius they had just witnessed.
Movement on the other side of the wings caught Clara’s eye. Varga stood there, an ugly scowl on his face as he watched Darien bow before the crowd. There was no disputing that the master had won this round, although Varga had not yet played.
Smiling, Darien strode offstage, followed by stagehands bearing armfuls of bouquets. The scent of hothouse roses and orange blossoms lingered in the air as the assistants hurried to deposit the flowers in Darien’s dressing room.
“That was wonderful,” Clara said as Darien laid his violin back in its velvet-lined case.
“Thank you,” he said, “but I couldn’t have done it without your help on the arrangement.”
His eyes were full of such brightness she wanted to fling her arms around him in a joyful embrace—but Varga was still watching, his expression dark. When the director announced him, he stalked onstage and nodded stiffly at the crowd.
Vargas’s performance was as stiff and angry as his demeanor. The raw power he had demonstrated in his playing slipped into roughness. His notes were edged with grit, and he began to snap his bow hairs from the force of his overplaying. By the end of the piece, Clara counted five hairs dangling from the tip of his bow, swaying in the over-perfumed air of the theater.
The applause was loud, but nothing like the acclaim given to Darien. Varga bowed and wrenched his stray bow hairs off, letting them fall at the edge of the stage.
Eager onlookers in the first row scrambled to claim them, and a tussle broke out. The thin strands of horsehair might still prove to be trophies from the most preeminent musician in the world.
Or not.
The two were tied now, Darien Reynard and Anton Varga. One more performance each and the musical duel would be over.
What then?
Clara shook her head, trying to keep any thought of the future from taking hold. There was only now—this now, poised at the edge of the greatest stage in the world, beside the man she had given her soul to, if he but knew it.
Varga left the stage, heading for the opposite wing, and the director took his place.
“Ladies and gentlemen!” he cried. “We will take an intermission before the finale of this thrilling spectacle. Refreshments can be found in the lobby. And please, do not attempt to reach the performers backstage until the competition has ended. My men have been instructed to use force.” He nodded at the pairs of ushers who stood guarding the doors from the house to the backstage.
A commotion at the left side of the theater made the director shade his hand with his eyes. Slowly, the lights rose to reveal a knot of people crowded around one of the side exits.
“Becker!” someone cried, and the name was taken up.
Clara’s heart seized, the blood stopping in her veins before rushing again, hot and immediate. Heedless of the audience, she ran to the edge of the stage. She paused, eyeing the drop—but Darien vaulted down, then held his hands up to assist her onto the floor.
The uproar was spreading, the entire theater craning to see what was happening. Could it really be Nicholas? Alive, unharmed? Hope clutched her so tightly she thought her bones might break.
Holding firmly to her hand, Darien plowed through the crowd, making for the center of the hubbub. Clara could not see over his broad shoulders.
“Move aside,” he commanded, and the audience fell back, murmuring his name.
At last he halted, and Clara stood on tiptoe, scarcely daring to breathe. Darien pivoted, pulling her in front of him. And there Nicholas stood—her own brother, surrounded by grinning men in laborers’ clothing. Tears blurred her vision as she threw herself for
ward.
“Nicholas!”
“Clara, take care with my arm,” he said, catching her in an awkward embrace.
“What happened?” She drew back, hands on his shoulders, and studied his face.
His eyes were circled with exhausted shadows, and his hair was dusty and uncombed.
“I was set upon in the palace itself. I tried to fight, but there were five of them,” he said, and the listeners murmured in sympathy. “They knocked me unconscious and transported me out of the city to an abandoned farm. When I woke, I found my arm was broken. I was locked in an old hayloft with only a blanket, a jug of water, and a loaf of hard bread for company.”
Darien muttered a curse under his breath. “Do you know who took you?”
It seemed clear to Clara that only one villain could be responsible. Anton Varga.
“No.” Nicholas frowned. “I’m not certain I’d be able to recognize my assailants, either. They all wore ornate masks. At first I thought I’d been caught up in some kind of celebration, until they started dragging me away.”
“How did you escape?” Clara asked.
“These good gentlemen here,” Nicholas nodded to the homespun-clad men, “heard me banging on the walls. There was an old broomstick under the hay, and once my voice gave out from shouting, I started hammering away. They broke open the door, fed me, and, as soon as I discovered it was the day of the competition, rushed me into the city.”
“I’m so glad you’re safe! I feared…” Her lungs caught on the horrible imaginings she’d tried her best to keep at bay.
He was not lying dead by his own hand, or another’s, in some moldering alleyway. His body was not floating, bloated and lifeless, in the river.
Clara shut her eyes briefly, taking a firm grip on her emotions. She refused to dissolve into a weeping mess of gratitude in the middle of La Scala. Not now. Darien’s warm hands came to rest on her shoulders, and she drew in a shaky breath, glad of his strength behind her.
“Yes,” Darien said, all the force of his relief and gladness vibrating in that single word.
