The Maestro's Mistress (18 page)

The last statement he believed to
be true. The one before was an outright lie. He did not know how he was going
to keep himself from penetrating her wonderful firm body and losing himself in
the ecstasy of making love to her. But he knew that he would just have to
exercise the greatest self control of his life if he was to ensure the safe
delivery of his baby and the continued adoration of his new lover. He would
also have to find other ways to entertain her.

He smiled down at her, his
outward mask of control now firmly back in place after his anxiety during those
first terrible hours when he did not know if she and his baby would live or
die.

‘Oh my God!’ said Tara, looking
up at him in awe and despair. ‘Oh, my darling,’ she wailed, the pathos enough
to break a heart of iron.

He bent to kiss the pulse beating
at her neck. ‘Turn over,’ he whispered. Slowly he released her from her white
cotton T-shirt and her dark blue jeans. He unhooked her bra and watched her
squirm with pleasure as he brushed the darkening nipples with teasing fingers.

Pulling away her ridiculous
thong, he placed an arm beneath the swell of her belly and raised her hips.
Then he began to kiss her. All over – lingering, tantalizing until she was
gasping like someone drowning.

His fingers found every throbbing
crevice, every welcoming fold of flesh. His lips traced the paths his fingers
had drawn. His tongue flicked and darted.

Tara became heated and feverish.
Almost, almost, she chanted silently. Then finally let out a cry as the ecstasy
pulsed and swirled in the secret dark centre of her femininity.

Rachel arrived with a car loaded
full of Tara’s belongings.

‘Is he here?’ she asked.

‘No, he’s at the Paris
Conservatoire, talent spotting. He’s flying back later this evening.’

‘And you’re here waiting for him
like some good little wife?’ Rachel arched her eyebrows.

‘Don’t be a cow, Mum.’

‘I’m jealous,’ Rachel said,
squinting up at the magnificent house. She knew also that she was faintly
triumphant to see Tara a little tamed.

‘It’s a bit of a dog,’ Tara
grimaced, eyeing the mock Tudor beams and the latticed paned windows, sprinkled
with burglar alarms.

‘Perhaps a little opulent for
your taste,’ Rachel agreed drily, recalling Tara’s previous scorn for anything
which smacked of ostentation and conspicuous consumption. ‘Did he choose it?’

Tara shrugged. ‘I haven’t asked.
I can’t imagine so.’

Inside the house Rachel followed
her daughter around, observing thoughtfully, declining to comment if there was
nothing good she could find to say. She stared up at the extravagantly swagged
and tasseslled curtains in the bedrooms, at the draped silk canopies adorning
the beds. ‘Very elegant!’ she ventured.

‘Oh, come on – be honest. It’s
unbelievably frightful,’ Tara said.

‘Taste is a matter for each
individual,’ Rachel commented evenly. She was thinking of the woman who had
chosen all this expensive showy stuff. Was such a woman to be despised? A
person with too little occupation and too much money? What was she truly like,
this woman? The one who had been cast off. Saul Xavier’s wife.

Rachel looked at the top of
Tara’s gleaming chestnut head as she followed her down the stairs and knew that
she could not bring herself to voice these questions, nor be confronted with
her daughter’s opinions.

Tara took her into the drawing
room, an airy salon around thirty feet long, perfectly proportioned as a double
cube. Rachel stared at the stark white walls and the gleaming oak block floor.
There was no clutter here, no ornaments, no dainty antique pieces, just one
arresting fabulous painting from Picasso’s blue period which drew the eye and
held it like a magnet. Other items were of a directly practical nature: a
stereo system with controls like the cockpit of a small aircraft, and beneath
the windows a gleaming nine-foot Steinway grand piano.

Now this is definitely his
choice,’ Rachel said. ‘You can see his hand all over this room. Spare,
aesthetic.’

‘Yes, it’s perfect,’ Tara
murmured. ‘I spend nearly all my time in here.’

‘So what about your friends? Do
they come here to see you?’

‘No. Well, they seem a bit young
and crass.’ Tara said.

Rachel looked at her daughter’s
solemn face. ‘Are you worried he would object?’

‘Oh for heaven’s sake say his
name. Even if he is the low bastard who impregnated your daughter.’

Rachel sighed.

‘Sorry, sorry,’ Tara said impatiently.
‘No truly – not inviting the old gang here is nothing to do with Saul. He makes
me feel free to do whatever I like. As long as I don’t seduce the gardener.’

She had to make a joke about sex.
The reality of the situation was driving her mad.

Saul indulged her shamelessly in
games of gratification. She never knew when he was going to   reach for her.
Any room in the house could be a chosen scene for a swift divesting of her
clothes, some sensual stroking, massaging, kissing, rubbing. Sometimes these encounters
were breathlessly risky with the staff present in the house, quite likely to
disturb them at any moment.

He undressed her with his eyes
across the tables of smart restaurants. He slithered his hands over her
erotically during other conductors’ concerts. And then he would reach for her
in the car whilst driving at crazy speeds.

She thought she must be
experiencing more heady orgasms than the rest of the world’s women put
together. But he refused to play mutually masturbatory games. One morning, waking
early she had looked longingly at his beautiful stern face and then burrowed
down the bed and wrapped her lips around him, rousing him into rapid,
gratifyingly throbbing life.

‘He had pulled her head away. 
‘No.’

‘Why? Darling, let me pleasure
you. Like you do me – so very beautifully.’

‘No.’ He had slid from the
sheets, his taut body a rod of determination. She had heard the rush of the
shower. He must always be in control: he must have the power and the upper
hand. Thinking of it made her ache for him.

Then he had come back to bed and
brought her to a thundering climax in one minute flat. She had wanted to throw
herself at his feet and kiss them.

His self control was truly
awesome. He could go without food for days if he decided to fast. Cut out the
drink completely if he chose. But it was his sexual control, given his capacity
for passion, that was truly mind chilling. This ability to hold himself back
drove her to the brink of desperation and also excited her deepest admiration.

The ache was constant.

‘Come and see the kitchen,’ she said
to Rachel, taking her through and filling the kettle. ‘We’re quite safe,’ she
chuckled. ‘The army of staff are all off duty just at the moment.’

Rachel sat down at the oak
refectory table. A spear of late winter sunshine picked up some new auburn
glints in her hair.

‘You’ve had new highlights put
in,’ Tara said noticing.

Tara heard a note of faint
indignation in her voice, as though she disapproved of her mother’s wanting to
look attractive. She frowned, recalling her vicious verbal attack on her mother
at the funeral, and all her previous words of scorn and aggression. All that
seemed like another life. She used to be such a rotten little bitch sometimes.
Poor Mum.

‘Does Donald like it?’

‘I think so.’

‘He wouldn’t mind if you dyed it
green?’

‘Something like that.’

‘Has he moved in yet?’

‘Yes.’

Tara smiled. ‘Me knocked up by Saul
 Xavier and you shacked up with Donald Giovanni. Randiness must be in the
blood.’

Rachel looked down at her hands.
Her resolute light-heartedness suddenly evaporated. She didn’t quite know how
to interpret Tara’s constant jokiness, fearing it was a ploy to keep her at a
distance.

It simply didn’t feel right; Tara
being here in this huge, serious house. A solitary little figure, cut off from
her own generation. Obviously pregnant now. And not married.

It was no joke.

There were other, more public
worries. Rachel was well aware of the talk going around amongst Richard’s
former colleagues at the Tudor Philharmonic. Especially amongst the men. And
face it, orchestras were still male-dominated tribes.
The Maestro’s done all
right for himself there, got himself as juicy a bit of tender young meat as
he’ll have tasted in a long time. Nice work if you can get it eh?

Rachel heard the jests in her
head, could visualize the sly winks and pursed lips. She winced internally.

Most certainly not a joke.

‘Do you like him?’ Rachel asked.
‘Do you like Saul?’

There was a fractional pause.
‘Yes. I do.’

‘But not in the way you liked
Bruno?’

There was a wistful smile.

‘Bruno was always so
nice.
He used to drive me crazy he was so kind and patient.’

Rachel felt like weeping. For
Bruno, for Tara. For all lost young love.

Tara stared at her mother
suspiciously. ‘I’m perfectly aware that you don’t like Saul. It’s always
cringingly obvious.’

‘I don’t know him well enough to
offer an opinion,’ Rachel said carefully.

‘Balls! And it was you started
all this.’

‘Balls ditto!’

‘Inviting him back to the house
after the funeral. He left me his card, offering to help me with my playing. That’s
what kicked everything off.’

‘Leaving his calling card!’
Rachel commented with a smile of irony. ‘I thought that was something tom cats
did.’

Tara took a long breath. ‘And
then you were so encouraging for me to go with him to that ghastly geriatric violinist’s
master class.’

‘Are you playing much now?’
Rachel asked, willing herself to call a truce and keep calm.

‘I get in four hours of practice
most days. And then I sit in on most of Saul’s rehearsals and there’s a lot to
learn from those.’

Rachel tried not to allow her
smile to register too much motherly pleasure. Tara was so ambivalent about her
playing that if she suspected she was pleasing her mother by picking up the
threads of her musical endeavours she might decide to pack it in again.

‘Saul’s always inviting musicians
round,’ Tara went on. ‘We play chamber music. I’ve been playing trios and
quartets with some of the most famous names you can think of.’

‘Really.’

‘Yes. It’s fantastic.’ She looked
at Rachel. ‘You’ll be pleased about that.’

Rachel saw the flash of childish
anxiety in Tara’s big green eyes.
You’re pleased with me aren’t you, Mummy?

What a mixture Tara was. Touchy
and brittle one minute, soft and pleading the next. Rachel wondered how Saul
managed with her. But of course it would all be so different for him. For one
thing he was not her parent.

‘I know it’s not the same as
playing in my own right,’ Tara said, voicing Rachel’s thoughts exactly. ‘But
after the baby I’m going to think seriously about developing a career as a
violinist. Saul has already introduced me to his agent.’

Rachel reflected on the benefits
to be gained when one shares a bed with the famous and influential. She felt
pain to realize that Tara had long ago left her and Richard behind. Now she
belonged to Saul. Body, soul, ambition – everything.

Tara walked with Rachel to her
car. Before stepping in Rachel reached out for her daughter and pulled her
close. She longed to cradle her in the easy yet fierce embrace with which she
used to comfort the infant Tara when she had had a fall, or yelled herself into
exhaustion after an explosion of toddler rage.

She felt the slight stiffening in
Tara’s body as she hugged her. Tara offered her cheek for a kiss and then drew
away. Rachel arranged her face in a cheery smile. She started the engine. The
gates at the end of the drive swung open as Tara operated the remote control.
Rachel tooted. Tara waved.

On the opposite side of the road
a woman with long blonde hair sat motionless in a parked blue Mercedes and
gazed steadily at the house.

CHAPTER
15

Looking back on the night of the
all Brahms concert; the night of Richard Silk’s sudden death from which
everything else seemed to have sprung, Saul realized that his sensation of
emptiness as he had stood on the podium had been nothing more than a simple
longing for the love of a true mate and the gift of a child.

It had certainly taken a long
time to find that out, in truth he was amazed at his own obtuseness. For years
he had deluded himself with a number of other ideas – a wish to promote a
shining new talent, a need to dominate and control a magnificent orchestra. And
to provide himself with an heir, someone to carry his torch when he was gone.
Those things had been real, been true. But it was not until he knew Tara, not
until she told him she was carrying his child that everything fell into place.