Kieran became very aware of the way he watched her, his eyes lingering on her lips, eyes, and neck. His casual posture belied the look in his eyes. He was observant, and Kieran found herself the object of his study.
Time to get to the point, she thought, before he thinks her purpose to be something more than business.
“I have money,” she said bluntly. “I have sold various pieces of needlework, and I have a tidy sum tucked away.”
“This is good news for you.”
“I am offering it to you, signore, in exchange for your tutelage. Do you recall your offer…” Her voice faltered and she cleared her throat. “To help me?”
“I offered you revenge, eh?” Matteo’s eyes swept over her in a way that made Kieran want to run out the door. “Vendetta.”
“Yes,” she breathed. “Will you? I will give you all of my money.”
“This is what you want? You want to pay back the one who hurt you?”
“I think I do.” She faltered, but only for a moment. “I do not know. It seems wrong, the idea of revenge. ’Tis an ugly thing to contemplate, and yet, I am…conflicted.”
“Come, sit.” Matteo pulled out a chair and held it. “This is obviously something that requires deep discussion.”
She hesitated. His hands were on the back of the chair, long, tapered fingers stained with ink. He saw where she looked and laughed softly.
“Ah, cuore solitario, still afraid of me? What can I say, but that I did not drag you from the water this time, nor did I send a letter asking you to come. You came to me of your own volition.” Matteo lifted a hand and gestured to the door. “It is unlocked. And I shall stay well away from you.”
To illustrate, he moved away from the chair he’d pulled out for her. Kieran took the seat and undid the fastenings of her cloak. The stove, well-stocked with coal, pumped enough warmth to heat three rooms, and she shrugged out of the confines of the garment.
Matteo poured them each wine in short, stout glasses. He set one in front of Kieran without asking if she wanted it. She looked at the beautiful handwriting on the parchment before her, but could not read the Italian words.
“What are you writing?” Kieran asked.
“Another satire. Venetian. Pointless in my exile, no?” The corners of his lips turned down, and he looked away.
He looked so disappointed that Kieran felt compelled to offer him hope. “Perhaps you could write something else. A novel, for instance.”
“I have written many novels and the like. Plays, music. Some of it gets published or performed, most does not.” He waved his hand as if to say it was all nothing.
Kieran nodded as if she understood, but in reality she did not. He watched her over the rim of his wine glass, and as before, he saw right through her.
“Let me explain,” Matteo said patiently. “The art does not support me. It is I who supports my art.”
“With your music?” Kieran asked, and she glanced again at the cello.
Matteo laughed long and loud. “Ah, if that were possible. No, bella, certainly not with music.”
Matteo could not drag his gaze from her. The heat had flushed her skin until it turned pink and dewy and her lips were moist with wine. She kept bringing her eyes up to his, if only for a moment, before glancing away in nervousness. She kept looking at his books, his work, his cello.
“Have you never met an artist?” he asked.
“Not that I am aware of.”
“Would you like to hear me play?”
“If you desire.”
Yet, there was a spark of interest in her expression, and again, she looked to the corner where his instrument rested.
“It would be my privilege.”
Matteo rose and retrieved his cello and bow. He returned to the table and pulled the chair further out into the cramped cabin. Taking his seat, he tightened the bow and rested the cello between his spread legs, the scroll up by his left ear, the neck cradled in his left hand.
Pausing, he glanced at Kieran again, assessing her. She was fascinating: those eyes, so primitive and fragile with pain, the exact color of the canal at dusk.
She kept her demeanor unaffected and cold. Perhaps that was sufficient in keeping men at bay in a world where female coyness and flirtatious fluttering was the norm. But Matteo didn’t believe that cool exterior for a moment. He remembered well the woman he’d dragged from the canal, a spitting wildcat lunging toward a gun with eyes that begged for release. And then there was that confused woman on the deck that morning, torn by her own emotions. Oh, but she was a puzzle.
“This is a violoncello, or as you say, a cello. I will play a piece I wrote about a year ago, written for a character I had just created. The melody haunted me until I wrote it, but the character haunts me still.” Matteo poised the bow over the strings, and then played for her. His eyes never left her face as his fingers and bow moved like the music itself.
And Matteo relished the moment, because she’d come back for him, exactly as he’d hoped when he dangled the idea of revenge like a worm before a bird.
Seduction was its own distinct pleasure, and Matteo reveled in it as he played for her.
Kieran felt the music more than she heard it, a deep, resonating melody that vibrated to her bones. It filled the small cabin, louder than her thoughts, and she wanted to close her eyes and let it take her.
His fingers on the strings oscillated up and down slightly over each note so that it wavered like a tenor’s voice, controlled and expressive, like song. His bow was like a fencer’s sword, slim and elegant, sometimes slow, often quick. There was poetry in the music, the man, and the instrument, moving her with the force of its beauty.
Sliding down the narrow neck, his fingers tight against the strings, the melody grew higher, more urgent. Kieran felt the music swell in her chest, and she was swept away on the crest of it, taken to a place she’d never been.
Small motes of rosin dust rose from beneath the bow, and in the light of the cabin the cello gleamed, its polished wood warm shades of mahogany and deep amber. Behind it, Matteo watched her as he played, his angular face shadowed with lantern light, his dark eyes hooded and heavy-lidded, as if he, too, were in thrall.
And then, he stopped playing.
Silence hung in the room.
“Why did you stop?” Kieran finally whispered, not wishing to break the spell, wanting more.
“It is the only piece I never finished. That is all there is.”
Suddenly aware of herself, Kieran realized she was leaning forward. She pulled back to perfect posture and wiped her face of interest. “Well, you are the composer.”
Matteo stood and carried his cello back to the corner. He then opened a trunk and removed a sheaf of papers that were bound with a leather cover and tied shut with thick, black ribbon. He held it up for her inspection. “Here is what you need, cuore solitario. This is what you came for.”
Lonely heart, her mind translated. Stop calling me that, she wanted to shout. But she could not, for it was true, and he alone seemed to understand it in a way that she could never convincingly deny.
“What is it?” Kieran asked, her hands folded.
“It is a story of a woman just like you: cold on the outside, simmering with rage in her heart. She seeks her revenge.”
“Does she get it?” And damn herself, she could not keep the need out of her own voice.
“She