Prologue
Something was not right.
Years in the navy at sea and in dangerous missions had helped Captain Georg Ritter Von Trapp develop a type of sixth sense when it came to sensing anything out of the ordinary. He was not at all paranoid; he was a very observant and intelligent man who knew how to read people and situations very well. Though he was officially retired from active duty, Georg's senses of observation were still keen.
Georg knew that this door should not be open at all. It had not been open for over three years, by his strict orders. There was no need for that room anymore, not since Agathe had died. Just looking into that room brought back so many memories of joy that brought him nothing but pain.
So, he decided to just shut the door firmly and lock it forever. But before he could do that, Georg paused as he reached for the doorknob. Was it his imagination, or did he hear music coming from inside? The music was soft, gentle, a lullaby; the instruments he could make out were a guitar and piano, playing in perfect synchronization and harmony. There were no instruments in that room, not even a record player.
Before he could wonder any further about the instruments, Georg's well-trained ears picked up another musical sound: a voice, a beautiful voice, humming along with the instruments.
Who was inside? What the hell was going on?
Desperately needing answers, Georg pushed the door open a little more and stepped inside, the music louder now he was in the room.
What he saw took his breath away.
The gilded ballroom was flooded with moonlight and starlight, coming in through the windows and glass doors. The moonlight passing through the chandelier came out in glittering stars, and illuminated the cobwebs between the golden arms of the structure. The golden frames in the ballroom caught the moonlight and absorbed it, giving them an unearthly glow.
But Georg's attention was soon captured by the other person in the room…was she a person or nymph, even an angel without wings? She moved so gracefully, walking to the window, her long white gown rippling softly around her legs. Both facing the window, Georg could only see her profile in silhouette. He could see a slim figure with slender arms, and if his eyes weren't playing too many tricks on him, her hair was cut quite short. There was something familiar about that…This was confirmed in his mind when he saw her run a hand through her hair as she slowly walked to the window. She stopped just before the glass, still humming, and began to sway to the music, bathed in the gentle moonlight.
Georg's breath caught in his throat as he watched her, realizing her arms and shoulders were bare as she raised her hands to the ceiling as the music swelled. Her back arched, her neck bent, and her head dipped back a bit. Georg felt a longing in his body for her own.
With her eyes closed and her lips parted, Georg did not know her; but he could see a tear glittering on her cheek like a precious jewel. His heart seemed to crack along the icy core, and for the first time in over three years, it moved while it kept beating. His mind, also, was touched: Why did she cry? If she was an angel, why did she cry?
As the music hit its climax and continued in the lullaby waltz, the mysterious and unearthly woman began to dance dreamily around the ballroom. The fabric of her white gown was semi-translucent, outlining her legs and figure further. If Georg could only view her from the waist up, he would have said she was floating. She did not seem to notice him or sense his presence at all, which was just fine by Georg. He had this fear that if she became aware of him, or if he attempted to touch her, she would disappear or dissolve into the moonlight. That was the last thing he wanted.
What frustrated Georg the most was that he could not see her face. With the moonlight streaming in from the opposite side of the room, this mysterious creature was always in silhouette to him. And the longer he watched her dance, the longer he let the music of the unseen piano and guitar cast a spell on his mind, the more he felt a longing.
Everything about her entranced him: her bare feet, her toned legs, perfectly proportioned hips and tiny waist, slender arms, perfect chest and graceful neck, even her short hair. A part of him would have been content to just stand by the door in the room and watch her, not disturbing her, until he died. But another larger part was controlled by the longing flooding through him.
This longing was something that could not be defined as simply one emotion. This was more than just lust for her body, his intellectual and wistful curiosity, even the beginnings of compassion when he had seen the tear. This longing was…well, for her. All of her – body, voice, heart, the whole being. He wanted to somehow take her in his arms and join himself to her. There was something about this ethereal woman; she seemed to represent all he lacked, all he had lost, all that he longed for. He wanted her, all of her.
This revelation allowed him to reached behind him and close the door. The sound it made closing stopped the music, and the music concluded. The woman, at its conclusion, ended her dance by dropping to one knee, on the ground, her white gown spreading out on the polished floor around her in a pretty circle. Her back was still to him, and this was the first time she was aware that she was not alone, perhaps.
Knowing that he could not turn back now, or be afraid this might all disappear, Georg cautiously took a step forward. She did not disappear, she did not move. Another step – same thing. Soon he was walking slowly across the ballroom to her. Even when he stopped a foot behind her, the fabric of her gown somehow sliding out of the way of his feet, she made no indication that she felt his presence at all.
Did she really not know? Or was it he who was the spirit now?
His fears of her disappearing had become overshadowed by his desperate wish for her to acknowledge him in some way. So, feeling daring, he knelt down behind her. His senses became even more intoxicated now that he could feel her body heat and smell her scent. It was familiar to him, faintly familiar, just as the sight of her hair seemed to be.
Looking closely, his longing strengthened when he saw her immaculate skin, bare at the shoulders, arms and upper back, touched by the moonlight. He could see now how the gown was held up: thin straps tied around her neck.
His body, his longing, controlled his body now: his hands reached out and – careful not to touch her skin – he untied the two thin straps. Once the knot was undone, the straps slipped through his fingers and around her neck. To his surprise, the entire top of her gown fell and pooled in her lap and around her waist. Of course, being behind her, he could not see what his loins so wanted to, but the sight of her bare back, though mostly hidden away from the moonlight, was enough to heighten his longing to a new height.
He could no longer resist touching her. His hand reached out, but before he could make contact, her head began to turn.
His heart started to pound – at last some recognition. He went through elation that he would finally see her face, and panic because he had made her half-naked. But all he wanted now was to see her face.
Finally, her face was visible with the moonlight illuminating the left side of her face and her eyes. Big, bright, sparkling, innocent blue eyes.
He knew those eyes. With that hair. And that smell.
It all came together in his mind now.
With a violent gasp, Captain Georg Ritter Von Trapp woke up. The image of her face was burned in his sleepy vision still. Groaning in frustration, Georg rubbed his hands over his face and eyes, willing the image to go away, but it did not. Further proof was when he looked down his body and seeing that another part of him was standing erect at attention.
"Goddamnit!" he managed to harshly whisper as opposed to shouting. He got up from his bed and for a moment, still sleepy-eyed, wondered why his bedroom looked so different. Then he remembered he was not in his bedroom at the villa; he was in his guest room at Elsa's villa, where he had been sleeping for over a month now.
Relieved that his room had a small balcony, he opened the glass doors and stepped outside, trying to find some relief in a non-existent breeze this humid July night. Even without his nightshirt, which he had tossed off sometime earlier in the evening because of the heat. Clutching the stone railing tightly, he lowered his head, closed his eyes, and took some deep breaths as he waited for a particular organ in his body to soften and relax.
This was the longest he had ever spent at Elsa's villa. He had not planned to stay longer than three weeks, but the time had doubled with anything but protests. Elsa loved her salons and parties here, and Max loved the rich society he could mingle in. Georg liked the fact that, even though this world never suited him, here he could find no traces of, not only his dead wife, but also the infuriating creature that had haunted each of his nights since that day six weeks ago she'd come into his life. More like rudely and without welcome at all.
This most recent dream had been the worst so far. At first, she would just appear amongst many people and faces in his normal dreams, but always leaving an impact; those dreams had not even been romantic or lustful in nature, really. But as the nights passed, everything else in his dream world had disappeared, leaving only her and anything that reminded him of her. Like that ballroom, where he had first found her. From the start, she was where she did not belong. A horrible, infuriating nuisance!
Thinking of the dream did not help matters in his midriff, so he cursed and headed for his bathroom. Another cold shower, the seventh one he had taken in two weeks in the early hours of the morning.
Once the dreams had started becoming worse, he had moved back into this room, no longer sharing a bed with Elsa. Also, another part of him wanted to start behaving like the gentleman he was supposed to be now that his intentions towards her were becoming much more significant. When they had met two years ago, it hadn't been very long before they'd tumbled into bed. Both were lonely and newly widowed, craving the company of another. While they were also compatible on a social level, they satisfied their appetites consensually between the other. There was nothing romantic about it; just two people fulfilling bodily desires.
His frustration and anger boiled as the freezing water hit his body. He felt guilty that he did not dream lustful dreams of Elsa, the woman he intended to marry; but what he felt most guilty about was that he was even having romantic dreams as well about a woman who was not Agathe. He had known, once Agathe had passed, he would never be capable of that kind of love again…could he? He couldn't be, he just couldn't…
The haunting blue eyes burned in his mind again, and his anger reached a new boiling point. This was all her fault. That damned fraulein who invaded his life, disrupting the order and stability he had worked so hard to make, and he couldn't even remember her name because he had purposefully stamped out anything about her from his mind he could forget. He needed to do that, especially since the day had now come.
Since it was the early hours of the morning, he could say that he was going back to Salzburg today, and he had to be ready. Bringing Elsa, even Max, would definitely help, but he had to be ready. Ready to face her again and view her as nothing more than the insignificant governess she really was.
How very, very wrong he would be, and had he known what would happen on this very day only, there was no way he would be going back home before the summer's end.