A Passion for Pleasure(60)

He’d always loved the melodic interactions of counterpoint. He loved the multicolored texture and structure of it, the challenge it presented to a composer.

He played the lines again, then improvised and added a new line that had a life and purpose all its own yet fit snugly against the other. Counterpoint. A melodic relationship between two independent lines. Two lines played together creating a harmony.

An image of Clara flowed over the echo of music. Warmth spread through his blood as he pictured her sprawled asleep, the sheets winding around her pale limbs, her hair spilling in ribbons across the pillows. His body stirred. Tempted though he was to return upstairs and wake her, he hunched his shoulders and glided his left hand over the keys again.

A movement at the corner of his eye caught Sebastian’s attention. His hand stilled as he turned. A cast of light framed Clara, caution etched in her quiet steps as she approached. Sebastian let his gaze wander over her, appreciation swelling as he noticed the satiation beneath her wariness, the lingering flush painting her skin, the tousle of her hair that she’d leashed back with a trailing ribbon.

Clara slid her tapered hand over the glossy surface of the piano. “Didn’t you give this to the Society of Musicians?”

“They returned it after theirs was repaired.”

Clara pressed an A on the keyboard. “The last time I heard you play, I was seventeen years old. I’d taken lessons the summer before.”

“You didn’t care for the lessons, I gather?” Sebastian asked.

She lifted her shoulders in a slight shrug. “I never had much of an ear for music.” Her mouth twisted with wry amusement. “Even before I lost part of my hearing.”

Sebastian swallowed a tide of anger, hating what had happened to her. Wanting to make things right for her. Wanting to fix them.

“Ah, well.” He straightened, letting his hands slip from the keys. “No doubt I wasn’t much of an instructor back then.”

“Do you still teach?”

“No. I’d intended to return to it this past summer. Then came the Weimar position and the difficulty with my hand…my former students and their parents have asked if I intend to teach again but I don’t see how it’s possible.”

If his students returned, he’d be a terrible instructor these days. He could hardly remember tetrachord exercises, much less how best to teach them.

“Your left hand still works,” Clara said. She smiled at him, a pink blush coloring her cheeks. “As I well know.”

He returned her smile, heat rising in his chest. Only because of her had he begun to feel emotions other than despair and anger again. Welcome emotions—pleasure and hope and satisfaction. Happiness.

Clara reached out a hand as if to touch his hair, then lowered it again to the piano surface. “You don’t sleep much, do you?”

He shook his head, rubbing his rough jaw. Despite the satiation of his body, he was loath to admit to his inability to grasp even a sliver of restful slumber.

“Doesn’t matter.”

“What do you do, then?” She pressed a C. “Compose?”

“Haven’t in some time.”

If he’d expected sympathy—and to his embarrassment, he suspected he had—he was disappointed when Clara gave him a mild glare.

“You’ve stopped composing as well?” she asked. “Why?”

“I haven’t got any ideas. Can’t hear any music. Not even a melody.”

“You were just playing something that sounded like music to me.”

“That doesn’t mean it was good.”

Her breath expelled on a hiss of exasperation. “So you’ll just give up? You didn’t achieve your success by not working at it, did you?”

“Clara, I can’t play the piano anymore,” Sebastian said, his jaw tensing.

“Why can’t someone else play while you write the music?”

Sebastian flexed his hand. He didn’t know if he could bear watching someone else do what he wanted to do. What he should do himself.

“It’s not what you’re accustomed to,” Clara said, “but that doesn’t mean you lack the courage.”

“It has nothing to do with courage.”

“Of course it has to do with courage,” Clara said. “Any idea, any change, takes courage to implement. Uncle Granville is constantly testing his ideas, trying new mechanisms and connections and all that sort of thing. He’d never know if something would work if he didn’t attempt it.”