The Maestro's Mistress by Angela Dracup Page A

he would probably choose to ignore
it.
    She had never come across anyone
like him. His detachment was such she could imagine herself feeling free to
reveal anything to him, however vile or shocking. Moreover, as her gaze moved
from his icy grey eyes to his long slender hands the issue of his sexuality
suddenly crossed her mind, making her wonder how he ever managed to let go
enough to perform the undignified contortions involved in the sex act.
    The telephone rang again. This
time it was Bruno, anxious to know how she had gone on at the master class. As
she began to respond in guarded tones, Xavier got up quietly, raised his hand
in a small gesture of farewell, and left the room. She heard the click of the
front door and then the high whine of the Porsche.
    ‘Darling, are you all right?’
Bruno enquired kindly after she had completed her story and they had progressed
to more general subjects.
    ‘Perfectly,’ she snapped.
    ‘When can I see you?’
    ‘Oh, soon. I don’t think I should
go out too much. It’s not good for Mum to be on her own just at present.’ She
was not sure of her motivation in telling this lie.
    ‘Yes, of course. What about the
weekend?’
    ‘Fine. We’ll fix something definite
next time we talk.’
    ‘Are you sure there isn’t
anything wrong? It isn’t me is it? Have I made you cross?’
    Tara grimaced in exasperation.
‘No. No – it isn’t you.’
    When Bruno put the phone down he
found that he was taking deep heavy breaths. He sensed that something momentous
had happened, that some fundamental change had taken place which might alter
his life.
    The terrifying possibility of
losing Tara spun in his head, and his steps were dizzy and uncoordinated as he
walked down the corridor back to his little room and the book-laden desk.

 
     
    CHAPTER
8
     
    Georgiana was agitated. The air
around her seemed to crackle with feeling as she walked though the door of Dr
Denton’s consulting room. Denton watched her closely as she slipped off her
shoes and swung her long slim legs onto the leather plateau of the therapy
couch.
    ‘Can you cure me?’ she asked him
abruptly, her blue eyes wide open and glittering with a mingle of emotions.
    He attempted to identify them.
Anxiety? Indignation? Or perhaps something stronger. Terror. Outrage. ‘Do you
consider yourself to be ill?’ he said mildly.
    ‘If not then why do I come to
you?’
    ‘To learn more about yourself.’
    ‘I come because I am frigid,’ she
told him, spitting out the last word with contemptuous emphasis.
    This was interesting. Georgiana
had never used that word before. She had told Dr Denton with wistful regret
that she and her husband had not slept together for a time, that he was a very
busy man and did not find it easy to relax, that his tension in turn strung her
up so she found it hard to respond as a loving wife should. She had been
tenderly regretful as she told him this emphasising how much she loved her
husband, how she longed to make him happy, to be the perfect wife.
    ‘You feel guilty about that?’ he
asked her.
    ‘I have nothing to feel guilty
about. I have done my very best to make our marriage perfect. My parents used
to tell me that it was the trying that counted, not the outcome. They
understood me,’ she finished bitterly.
    Georgiana felt as if the inside
of her head was on fire. Xavier had never understood her. He had been generous
and considerate, but he had never idolized her, placed her on a golden
pedestal. And now he had rejected her very best efforts on his behalf.
    She heard again his calm, cool
words; so polite, so controlled and reasonable. Those words rang on in her
head, punishing and humiliating her.
    Xavier’s quiet directive had come
out of the blue, just a few days after that last wonderful gift she had offered
him, just as she was congratulating herself on her continuing ingenuity in
breathing life into her marriage.
    ‘No more charming “gifts” darling
– mmn?’ he had told her.