Look Beyond What You See

Frustration stiffens my fingers, making the task I have set for myself infinitely more difficult as my fingers wander across the piano keys, trying to find something pleasing. My urgency, too, makes the frustration more poignant. I know Dmitri will be ending his lessons soon and then he will come to fetch me for luncheon, after which we will go back to my posing for his painting. His challenge for me to play for him has been burning in the back of my mind since he issued it, but even more so in these past few afternoons of standing in a river as he paints and not even being allowed a glimpse at the progress.

It’s scary to me, how desperately I want to achieve his challenge, indeed, to achieve above and beyond his challenge. I want to impress him. I want to earn the right to see his paintings, all of them, not just this most intriguing one he’s started so recently. But I mustn’t think of that now. I must find a way to focus, focus, get inside the music, inside the piano, inside his mind....

A flash in my consciousness, and it suddenly seems to my overtaxed senses that I am already back in the river, the silvery-blue dress clinging to my skin, the leaves of the trees swirling overhead. Music flows from somewhere--from my fingertips?--and I am caught in the moment, again looking piercingly at Dmitri, waiting for his eyes to meet mine. They never do, which has been the most frustrating part of all of these trips to the river. He looks at me often over the top of his canvas but never meets my gaze. So I stand and wait, tension building as it gets harder to keep controlling the water, harder to hold the pose, harder to go so long without eye contact from him. This time the music makes it easier, however. In my mind’s eye I break the pose, whirling on the surface of the water in an unearthly dance that matches the wild and unearthly notes that flow so naturally from the piano and from my soul. I wish he would join me.

At a tremulous pause in the music, my eyes meet Dmitri’s over the top of his canvas. Flames spark in his at the contact and then that dark burning emotion rises in them, overpowering his gaze and my feelings. I can feel the magic pulsating within me to the rhythm of my heart, which has suddenly become the rhythm of the music. In a moment he is at the edge of the stream and I join him there, and we dance in a way that would have been considered nothing less than scandalous at the ball celebrating our engagement. The song that flows from me could be matched by no less than this wild piece of much leaping and twisting and touching, each touch lasting a little bit longer as the music becomes softer, slower, more sensually seductive, matching our eyes and (my desires).

Lips on my neck, too real to be part of this magnificent vision, jolt me back to the music room to feel hot hands on my waist and the warm presence behind me of my fiancé. I struggle to end the song naturally, pretending he has not disturbed me even though everything about this situation has disturbed me. A vision? Was it really all a dream? And a dream in broad daylight? How the sunlight from the windows hurts my eyes now, coming from that shady glen!

“Magnificent,” Dmitri murmurs as the last notes still hang quivering and invisible in the air. “I had to end lessons early when I heard the song at long last float down the hall, after so much struggling. I knew it was.... I dared to hope it was....”

“For you,” I finish for him in a tone that matches his. I cannot trust myself to say more. Where did that come from?

“Remind me never to challenge you in less leisurely pursuits. I fear you will be none so impressed with my art as I am with yours.”

“I suppose we will determine that in due time. You are satisfied? You will let me see your paintings?” Breathing is still difficult. His hands still on my waist, his presence still too close. My magic trembles desirously within me and my heart flutters affectedly. I should like to lie down. I don’t know how to handle this.

“Yes. How could I not, after.... You have upheld your end of the bargain, and so I shall uphold mine. Anything less and I would be no gentleman.”

“Do you really care so much to be considered a gentleman?”

“Only where you are concerned. All my life under Juniper’s training could not produce such results, I assure you.” He chuckles then, and I finally allow myself to turn to look at him and the mirth in his eyes. I’m not sure I see the joke, nor certain that I want to. Judging by what lurks in the depths of his eyes and what still swirls within me, the joke can only be related to that which I am not yet ready to hear.

“I wonder that you should deem me worthy of the privilege of your best conduct. Surely worthier individuals abound here, in such an establishment.”

“You undervalue yourself, a fault I’ll not have in my wife.”

“Lucky for you, then, to have a few months to remedy this fault in me. Which, regarding that, I don’t believe I ever thanked you for your efforts with your parents, to postpone it that long. Thank you, ever so much....”

“It was the least I could do. It doesn’t seem fair to give you so little time, after finding out you were to be wed to a stranger, to get used to the idea and prepare. I wondered that you accepted so little time so readily.”

“I knew nothing further away could be attained, given the mental state of your parents at that time. They seem much improved, since that debacle.”

“Yes, they have taken a few days to themselves, to sort through the difficulties that have arisen in their own relationship. Aside from joining us for meals, they won’t demand overmuch of our time. But, as to that--” He pulls a gold watch from his pocket and checks the time. “We really ought to be headed down to luncheon.”

“Of course, of course.” I take the watch from his hand to admire the craftsmanship. Such things have always interested me, far more than the jewels with which my grandmother always spoiled me. It is simple but elegant, a work of Celtic style with flames worked in. “This is quite handsome.”

“A gift from Torcuil, actually. He has excellent taste in such things, despite his hot temper.” He pulls me to my feet and we begin our trek to the dining room, his watch safely back in his pocket.

“You are reconciled with him, after the ball?”

“Yes,” he mutters, cheeks flushing slightly at the reminder of his less than desirable conduct. “I had hoped you had forgotten. You were quite indisposed shortly afterward. I don’t expect all the toasts we drank that night were any help to either of us.”

“Decidedly not. Perhaps we should ban strong drink at the next such event.”

“No Berkeley or Saltikov would ever agree to such a ridiculous idea. I’m sure you have heard how the Russians like their vodka, and as for my father’s family, you had only to see them at that ball to know--”

“Are your relatives still lodged in the mansion? Should we be speaking of such things, moving through these hallways?”

“They went home days ago, no more than one day after the ball ended. I thought you knew. Most saw fit to flee during the storm my parents’ argument created, and your dousing of it. I expect my father’s family in particular did not welcome the presence of a powerful water manipulator in the area.”

“But I thought my water could not hurt you--”

“For me specifically, this is true....” His voice trails off as he struggles to find a way to explain this tactfully. I have already caught his drift, and indeed the book on the history of supernaturals that I’ve been borrowing has been most helpful in explaining this.

“Because of the nature of our relationship,” I say smoothly. “For others to whom I am not in any way attached it is a different thing.”

“If you knew, then why did you ask?”

“To see what you would say and how you would react.”

“Well then, I hope you’re pleased with yourself.”

“As much as can be warranted under the circumstances. When shall I see your studio?”

“Directly after luncheon, if you so desire.”

“You would not insist on going back to the stream for painting first?”

“I could not ask another favour of you, after being so obliged by what you have played for me, without returning the favour first. And I finished the painting you have been posing for last night. I could not sleep--” He cuts himself off, unwilling to say more. But I have more than an inkling of his thoughts. Perhaps visions such as mine have been coming to him in the night. I feel as though I have seen smatterings of that scene in my dreams, myself. “So after luncheon, you will see what none but my tutor and friend Signore Santorini and myself have seen, starting with my most recent project.”

“You honour me too much.”

“I fear that I honour you but too little, given the quality of my work. But perhaps you will judge differently.”

“Of that I have no doubt.”

***~O~***