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“Oh. Well, it sounds nice, anyway. I like the sound of a violin.”
He thanked me for the compliment. “But you’ll probably think differently in a few days’ time. Even Beethoven loses some of his appeal after the first hundred playings. I’m getting rather bored with him myself, but then I’m only using him for exercise. I know that piece like the back of my hand.”
“You ought to choose something else, then. You’re learning something by a new composer, aren’t you?”
“I’d never subject the hotel guests to that.” The midnight blue eyes crinkled a second time. “It’s not the nicest piece to listen to, in my opinion—the composer doesn’t much like harmony. No, I only listen to the tape of that one, to learn it better, and even then I have to watch my step. The first time I put that tape in Thierry’s monster hi-fi I nearly cleared the hotel,” he admitted with a grin. “Sounded like the whole bloody orchestra was playing in my room, it was that loud. I kept it turned low, after that.”
My mouth curved. “I’m beginning to think you played the Salut d’Amour on purpose on Saturday, so the ghost would break poor Thierry’s hi-fi.”
He looked at me with interest. “I did play it on purpose, actually. But not to upset the ghost.”
I didn’t respond to that, but he didn’t look away. “You’ve just surprised me, Emily Braden. Some people might recognize Bach, or Mozart, but to spot old Elgar takes a certain depth of knowledge.”
“Yes, well,” I glanced down, flushing, “my mother quite likes classical music. She was always dragging me to concerts. I didn’t pay as much attention as I should have, but I do remember what I liked.”
“You’ve put that in the past tense, I notice. Don’t you go to concerts anymore?”
I shook my head. “Terrible, I know, but I never seem to have the time, these days. My mother goes often enough for both of us. Her boyfriend,” I explained, with a dry smile, “is a conductor.”
“Oh, really? What’s his name?”
I told him. “Do you know him?”
“I know of him, yes. We’ve never met.” His eyes were mildly curious. “So then your father—”
“—lives in Uruguay.”
“I see.” He looked away again, but I had the distinct feeling that he did see; that he saw rather more than I wanted him to. I tried to steer the conversation back to neutral ground, by asking him which orchestra he played with in Austria—which didn’t help much, as I didn’t recognize the name.
“That’s what everyone says,” he assured me. “We’re not exactly the Vienna Philharmonic, but we’ve eighty-six members and we hold our own. And speaking of conductors, ours is just this side of brilliant.”
“You like living in Austria, then?”
“Very much.”
“No desire to move back to England?”
He raised his shoulders in an almost Gallic shrug. “If you had the choice of living in Austria or Birmingham, which would you choose?”
“If I were a violinist?” I smiled. “I’m not sure. Birmingham has a cracking good orchestra.”
“And if you weren’t a violinist?” He asked the question quietly, and slid his serious eyes to mine, and all of a sudden I felt I’d been tossed into deep water, over my head. I found I couldn’t answer him, even in jest, and after a long moment he calmly looked away again, toward the river. “Damned noisy this morning, those ducks,” was his only comment.
The silence stretched. I was just beginning to think I couldn’t bear it any longer, that I’d have to invent an excuse and leave before I did something foolish, when the cat, apparently deciding that I’d suffered long enough, woke from its nap and stirred. Arching its back in a reluctant stretch it dropped gracefully from my lap to the gravel path and stalked off without so much as a backward look, melting like a shadow into the grassy riverbank.
I watched it go. “Time for breakfast, I suppose,” I said. Standing up, I brushed my hands against my legs to clear off the clinging strands of cat hair, suddenly aware of the rattling hum of traffic from the boulevard behind us. It seemed a harsh intrusion, in the scented stillness of the Promenade.
“I’ll walk back with you.” Neil rose and stretched as the cat had done, and fell into step beside me.
The red gravel path led us into the modern world, where cars and lorries lumbered noisily up and down the boulevard. All along the far side of the street the shopkeepers were running through their daily ritual of opening up, polishing windows and scrubbing down awnings and sweeping the pavement in front of their stores.
We kept to the river walk. There were plane trees here, too—not as ancient or peaceful as those of the Promenade, but nearly as tall, and the breeze blowing through them was idle and cool. It had blown the mist from the murmuring river that danced past in sharp sparkling ribbons of light, and the pavement was dappled with shadow and sunlight, both shifting in time with the whispering leaves.
Despite the bustle of the boulevard, no one seemed to hurry on the river walk. Several people had stopped to lean against the low stone wall and watch the yellow kayak I’d seen earlier come smoothly stroking by on its return trip. Further on a young man struggled up a flight of steps in the sloping river wall, fishing rod in one hand and creel in the other, looking well satisfied. And further on still, not far from the steps where Paul usually sat, a little girl skipped down the cobbled boat launch toward the chattering ducks. They let her come quite near, indeed—so near that the older man lounging some distance behind her stirred in mild alarm. Raising his voice, he called her back a few steps from the swift-flowing water.
Beside me, Neil smiled. “Just like her mother. She has no proper sense of danger.”
My head jerked round before I remembered that he would know Lucie Valcourt. Lucie could hardly have remembered him from his visits to the house—she wouldn’t have been more than four years old herself when her mother died, and three more years had passed since then. But she obviously knew Neil now, and knew him well. When she came dancing back happily up the ramp to say hello, she greeted me in singing French but spoke to Neil in clear, if halting, English, “Good morning, Monsieur Neil,” she said. “I feed the dukes.”
