A Bewitching Compulsion

by Susan Napier

A hand closed possessively on her wrist. 'Excuse us, won't you?' she heard David say through her cringing haze. 'I believe Clare wants to apologise for that appalling lapse in manners in private. She's shy like that. Virginia, will you see to Tamara and Tim?'

  Clare was dragged through the gathering like a prisoner in a chain gang. This was the second time she had made a scene in public over David, and it was all his fault!

  'I'm not going to apologise,' she hissed furiously as she stumbled along an empty corridor after him. 'She was asking for it. She was practically raping you with her eyes!'

  'It's just her way,' dismissed David as he tried first one side door and then another, and muttered something in Russian when he found them locked.

  'Oh, I see,' gritted Clare. 'How nice for you. No wonder you're looking so gaunt and exhausted. You must have trouble keeping up with her. She must be young enough to be your daughter!'

  'Not quite.' He tried another door and rattled it impatiently when it too was locked.

  He wasn't denying it! Clare dug the nails of her free hand into the back of his hand.

  'Ouch!' His grip didn't budge. 'Don't damage my hands, Clare.'

  'Why? Are you afraid Anna might dump you if you can't play any more?'

  'I'm sure she would.' Her mouth fell open at his uncaring shrug. 'Look, Clare, despite the open invitation, I haven't slept with Anna and I don't intend to.'

  'But… she… you…' She faltered under the power of his dark stare, and then rallied. 'You let everyone think…'

  'It was the only thing that seemed to get a rise out of you.' His mouth curved, his dark eyes gleaming. 'You hated her the moment you laid eyes on her, didn't you? If looks could kill, Anna would have been dead on the platform.'

  'I…no…' Clare could feel herself weakening, melting as she always seemed to do when he looked at her, touched her, whether in passion or in anger.

  'Ah, Clare, that's the first spark of life I've seen in you for months…'

  'You haven't seen me for months.'

  'Not through my choice. That was your idea, that we could live perfectly well without each other. I have bookings that run five years into the future, commitments that I am morally obliged to fulfil. I had to leave. But I don't have to like it. You're to blame for the way I look, Clare. It's not too much sex that's draining me, it's too little love.'

  Clare thought she would faint. She stared at him dizzily, her head buzzing. He jerked on her hand and she stumbled against him, and for a moment she dreamed he was going to kiss her, but then there was a noise at the other end of the hallway and he turned to the nearest door. It resisted his temper. 'Dammit, is there nowhere private in this whole bloody building?' he howled in majestic frustration.

  'You looking for the piano, Mr Deverenko?'

  An elderly man, wearing an impressively hand-knitted cardigan, was shuffling down the hall towards them.

  David raised a wordless eyebrow while Clare tried to hide her still manacled wrist in the side-folds of her slinky silk dress.

  'That's the piano-room,' said the old man, tipping them both a grin. 'Where we store the Steinway. But we haven't brought it down yet. It's still on the platform.'

  'You mean the room is empty?'

  'Yep.'

  'But it's locked.'

  'Rules. I gotta key here.' He produced it and they all looked at it in silence. The old man's rheumy eyes twinkled when they met David's covetous look. 'Won't be bringing down the piano till after your last concert tomorrow, but I guess there isn't any sense in locking an empty room.'

  'I guess there isn't,' said David, and watched him unlock it and re-pocket the key.

  'Thanks. We'll be sure to leave everything the way we find it,' David told him, and the old man chuckled.

  'Ain't anything there to muss up. Have a nice evening, sir, miss…'

  Clare's cheeks were hot as David slid back the wide door and pulled her into the darkness of a windowless room. He felt along the wall and switched on the light. The room was bare, save for a heap of dustsheets untidily folded on the bare polished floor.

  'You know what he thought…'

  'He thought that we were sneaking away to make mad, passionate love on the sly.' David let her go at last and she rubbed her lightly throbbing wrist. 'Was he so far wrong?'

  'I…yes!' Clare put an uneasy few steps between them, eyeing him warily. She didn't know him in this reckless mood.

  'You mean, if I slid that tiny strap off your shoulder and put my mouth against that luscious cream-and-freckle breast of yours, you won't sigh and press against me and shiver with sinful delight?'

  'D-David!' As if the words were the deed, Clare shielded herself from his hot gaze, feeling her nipples bud betrayingly against her palms. The dress was a simple slip of silk, flaring from the low waist, requiring a bare minimum of underwear.

  'Are you denying it?' His voice thickened and hardened. 'You want me, Clare. I only have to touch you and I feel the heat under your skin, the passion, the need. You were jealous out there. You couldn't bear the idea of my touching another woman the way I touched you. Doesn't that tell you something? Haven't you learned anything this last six months? You know, you never told me that you loved me, you never had the courage. But you didn't have to say the words then and you don't have to say them now. I know… I can taste it, feel it, scent it…' Her hands clutched to her breasts, Clare was rooted to the spot as he prowled closer, his silky truths binding her to him, his dark eyes penetrating to her soul, baring its secrets. 'Six months ago, you made a choice. Are you regretting it? Are you, Clare?' Plea, threat, promise—the question held them all.

  'No.' The fire in his eyes died, to be instantly revived. 'It was right for me… then. I'm a naturally cautious person and nothing can change that, David. I like to be sure about things. I needed this time to come to terms with what loving you meant.' He touched her, very lightly, and she trembled with the knowledge of love.

  'I… I've loved working at the school… the girls are darlings,' wryly, 'even Tamara. But, after the responsibilities of running Moonlight more or less on my own, it's really not stretching me as I thought it would. I mean, it's not something I want to make a career out of. What was right for me six months ago isn't right for me now.'

  'And what is right for you now?'

  'You.'

  'You're sure?' He was taking it step by step. This time there were to be no mistakes.

  Clare nodded, her grey eyes clear. 'Very sure. I love you. I… I want to marry you.' She blushed, and he laughed and swept her into his arms at last.

  'Is this a proposal?'

  'Very definitely a proposal!'

  'I accept!' And he did so, with enthusiasm.

  When she could breathe again, Clare said, 'I missed you. You were so polite. So horribly nice.'

  'It was either that or beat you, and you had proved rather immune to the macho approach.' His grin faded as he stilled her against him. 'But underneath my anger, I think I knew that you were right not to let me sweep you off your feet, as if we were teenagers responsible only for ourselves. I'm too used to getting my own way; I took it for granted that I would continue to do so. I had no right to do that. As penance I made myself stand back, and let you say your farewells to the past. That's what the waiting was all about wasn't it? Farewell, and hail the new beginning?' With a shock of insight she realised he was right. 'You got that job at the school so easily, Clare, because I recommended you for it,' he said quietly. 'Oh, not just because you wanted it, or because I wanted to keep tabs on you and Tim,' he added quickly when she flinched, 'but because I knew that you would do the job well, regardless of any personal motives you might have. I'd seen you with Tamara. Although she wasn't your child, and she behaved abominably towards you much of the time, you still treated her with respect, and were thoughtful of her needs. You're a gentle person, Clare, but you stand by the things you believe in and that makes you strong. I couldn't imagine anyone better to look after my child when she is away from me. From re
ports, I gather there are other parents who feel the same. I'll be resented for taking away one of the best House Mothers we've had.'

  'You're not taking,' said Clare huskily. 'I'm giving.'

  'Oh, but I am. I want more than just a lover and wife, you see. I was hoping that the last six months might have made you more comfortable in the musical milieu, less of an outsider…'

  'Well, yes, I suppose I am… a bit.' She was puzzled by his diffidence, the hint of excitement.

  'Because you put your finger on it back there, when you were wiping the floor with my beautiful accompanist. Efrem is a wunderkind at wheeling and dealing, and a great friend, but he spends most of his time in New York. He has a business to run and other temperamental musicians to look after. I need someone on the spot— to see off the inevitable sharks, to help humanise my itineraries, to make my appointments and help write my speeches, to protect me from overwork and defend me against the Press, to host parties for me—in short, to make my life liveable again. Does that sound challenging enough, do you think?'

  'Oh, David, you don't have to bribe me to marry you,' Clare cried, trying to hide her secret delight.

  'It's no sinecure, Clare,' he warned wryly. 'I'm not creating the job simply to give you something to do. If you don't want to take it on, that's fine, but sooner or later I'll have to employ a personal assistant. I'm an artist, for pity's sake, I shouldn't have to lower myself to such sweated labour!'

  It was such a perfect imitation of Anna's contempt that Clare laughed. 'I suppose I could do it on a trial basis…'

  'The job, yes. The marriage, no. I have another week of engagements in New Zealand and then a fortnight of recording in Chicago. Will you come with me? Or would you rather wait?'

  This was said with such loaded patience that Clare couldn't resist. 'Well…'

  He sighed. 'I suppose we've waited this long… a little longer won't kill me.' His eyes slitted as he murmured provocatively, 'At least the critics will approve; while I burn for you, so does my music. New fire, they call it…'

  Anna's quoted words.

  'You're not leaving this country without a ring on your finger.' Clare slid her arms around his neck and moved enticingly within his hard embrace, feeling the heat of him through his formal attire. 'On the other hand,' she teased, 'perhaps we ought to make this a platonic mar… for the sake of your art.'

  'The hell we will,' he growled against her satiny throat, one hand plunging into the pale gold of her hair while the other discovered the thinness of her dress. He stroked the shape of her, his fingers sliding against the silk, the silk sliding against her skin, exciting them both. 'When I looked over tonight and saw you glaring daggers at me, it was like a cage door being thrown open. After being so careful all this time not to put pressure on you… I nearly exploded with joy. Love me, Clare de lune, love me the way you did at Moonlight…'

  'I do, David, I do.'

  He groaned, bunching the thin stuff of her dress in his fist, pulling it so that every dip and hollow of her body was outlined to his longing gaze. His smile was crooked. 'That wasn't quite what I meant, although it's nice to know. But you're right, we can't celebrate our love on bare boards and dust sheets. Now, if the Steinway was here…' He took wicked pleasure in her blush, but she was equal to the challenge.

  'I'm sure you'll make love in grand style, even without it.'

  'Only with you, darling, only with you.' He cupped her face gently. 'Never doubt me. You may doubt that you're special to me, but I never have. I love you for just being you, shy and serious, fierce and bold. We'll make lovely music together, Clare.' He kissed away the last of her silly fears, tenderly, as if he knew each and every one of them. 'And perhaps one day we can create something even more precious out of our love. A child that is uniquely us.'

  Clare stiffened. She had already faced the death of that dream, sweetly regretted but put to rest where dreams belonged. Then she realised—he had said child, not baby.

  'You mean… adopt?'

  The flicker of shock was smothered by compassion in the dark, velvety gaze. 'You can't have any more children? Oh, Clare, you little idiot, why didn't you tell me? It doesn't make any difference! Is that what you thought? Is that why you took so long to—'

  'Not me, you. Tamara told me at Moonlight about your…your vasectomy.'

  'My what?' David dropped her like a hot coal.

  'Your vasectomy,' Clare faltered. 'She told me that you'd agreed to be sterilised because her mother had been warned not to get pregnant again.'

  'Yes, she was told not to risk another baby, but it was her decision to be sterilised, not mine! She wouldn't even consider allowing me to do it. She said no one should be asked to make a sacrifice like that for someone else, even for love. Wait until I get my hands on that wretched girl! And you.. .you thought I would do this, marry you, without bothering to tell you something so vitally affecting your life?' His outrage swung on to Clare, but she was just realising the ramifications of the lie.

  'You mean… I could have got pregnant?' She looked at him accusingly. 'I… I thought it was safe!'

  'So did I,' he confessed ruefully, and at her frown, 'I did ask you if it was all right…'

  'Yes, but I thought you meant, was I enjoying it?' said Clare faintly, as she recalled the circumstances in which his question was asked.

  'I think that was fairly obvious,' he teased, and laughed when she buried her hot face in his quaking chest. 'It was mutual, darling. It would have served Tamara right if you had got pregnant and Miles had rounded me up with a shotgun. I shall have a few words with my lying daughter—'

  'No, don't. She said it in the heat of the moment, and probably forgot all about it. We're friends now. Let's let sleeping dogs lie.'

  'Sleeping dogs? Tamara is very much awake,' said David as he reluctantly ushered Clare out of the temptation of the empty room, 'and busy working the angles. She knows that I want you in my life and she's figured out that I view touring 'en famille' far more liberally that I do a teenage girl on her own. It's also a lot more flexible and enjoyable than dragging around some strange tutor or chaperon you might or might not like. Tamara, when she puts her mind to it, can be every bit as practical as your Tim.'

  'Tim?'

  'Henderson showed me his latest mathematics brainstorm. It appears your son has decided that we can't be relied on to organise ourselves into marriage so he's done it for us. He drew up a very complicated timetable incorporating my published schedule with yours, his and Tamara's, and put it all through the school's computer as a maths project. Just to make it more difficult, he included future projections to allow for family increase, Juilliard study for him, Tamara's 'jazzercising' her way into her own studio, and—I sense a slight criticism here— the possibility of me requiring more free time for composition. The spread sheets are flawless…our whole lives mapped out, complicated as hell but clear as crystal. Somehow I don't think that anyone on the staff is going to be the least surprised by any announcement we make.'

  'Oh, David!' Clare didn't know whether to be proud or embarrassed. No wonder she had been getting sideways grins lately!

  'Mmm, and that wasn't the best of it.'

  'No?' She loved that soft, musical amusement.

  'No.' Her Russian bear bristled with mischief. 'The marks were prophetic, too: A for achievement, A for effort and, of course…' his voice was a husky, gloating growl of triumph, 'A for accuracy!'