A/N: Another day, another chapter... there will be 11 in all. Thank you for all reviewing!
Disclaimer: See chapter 1.
Edelweiss
Chapter IV
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Let a woman in your life and your serenity is through,
she'll redecorate your home, from the cellar to the dome,
and then go on to the enthralling fun of overhauling you...
Let a woman in your life, and you're up against a wall,
make a plan and you will find,
that she has something else in mind,
and so rather than do either you do something else
that neither likes at all.
(…)
Let a woman in your life,
and patience hasn't got a chance,
she will beg you for advice, your reply will be concise,
and she will listen very nicely, and then go out
and do exactly what she wants!!!
You are a man of grace and polish,
who never spoke above a hush,
all at once you're using language that would make
a sailor blush.
Let a woman in your life,
and you're plunging in a knife,
Let the others of my sex, tie the knot around their necks,
I prefer a new edition of the Spanish Inquisition
than to ever let a woman in my life.
(…)
Lerner & Loewe, I´m an ordinary man (excerpts - from My Fair Lady)
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"Please, don't tell me you fell in the lake again!"
The governess, who was staring at him in the most disturbing of manners, started to laugh.
"No Captain, it was the rain," she answered between giggles. "You commanded me to go out, remember? You may find it hard to believe, but I was just following your orders."
"Mmmmm…"
Of course he remembered! How presumptuous of her! Did the cheeky little governess think that old age was already affecting his memory?
He had wanted her away from the house, because the disturbing truth was that he found it terribly difficult to stay away from her while she was in the house.
Of course he rather be caught death before telling that to her, but there was something about her that drew him like a magnet.
Her unconventional ways and vaguely anarchistic ideas. Her daunting honesty and her complete inability to tell the simplest of lies. Her nearly pathological need to rebel against his authority. Her unusual manners. Her eccentric way of dealing with the children…
Her body, the way she looks in her governess clothes, wet or dry. Her eyes, always twinkling with mischief, constantly defying him. Her unmistakable sexual innocence, obvious to everyone but herself. Her voice, even as she sung romantic ballads in flawed Italian...
All of the above? None of the above?
No, he did not know what it was yet, but he certainly intended to find out. Before that, he needed a few hours without her presence, to calm his brain and return to his normal, predictable state of mind. At least until the phrase "she is just a governess" started to ring true again. Had he succeeded in accomplishing that, he would not have to find himself where he was right now, standing just outside her bedroom, listening to her unrestrained, bubbling laughter while she wore that hideous convent attire again, which sight always had the power to affront him because it was so unflattering not to any woman, but to her most of all.
"What the hell am I doing here?"
Max had been absolutely right. He would gloat if he ever knew how right he was, but Georg vowed that was a something the old sponge would never know. Yes, he was playing with fire, and what was worse was that he actually was enjoying being burned. What else could explain that reckless behavior?
Never before he had personally gone to a governess's bedroom, or to any other servant's bedroom. Yet, since Fräulein Maria's arrival, he had gone to her room not once, but twice.
There had been nothing improper or out of the ordinary the first time he was there, since his children were with her and it was the children he was looking after, not their governess! More exactly, he wanted to know what was about the bedlam going on upstairs when it was well past their bedtime – which, according to his orders, had to be strictly observed. It had been nothing out of the ordinary, he was just making sure that discipline, order and decorum reigned in the house, because without those three things the pain of loosing the woman he love would become simply too much for him to bear.
What he did not have to do, what he should not have done, was to go to her room himself today. It was simply not done. To make matters worse, this time the children were not even in the house and would not be able to provide him with the perfect excuse, if not the only acceptable excuse. Their governess was not on duty, although she was constantly rebelling against the idea. He had no reason, whatsoever, to find himself outside her door. Luckily, no one had seen him there… No, hopefully no one had seen him there. Now that his mind had been made up to propose to Elsa as soon as he felt the children were ready to handle the news, the last thing he needed was any kind of gossip about him and the governess.
Reckless.
Completely, absolutely, inexcusably reckless.
The Fräulein´s reaction when she opened the door only made it all worse.
He had no idea of precisely what she was doing when he knocked, but he was certain of two things – she was breaking a rule, and it had to do with him. Not only had she taken a little too long to open the door, but her unusually expressive face told him all… Everything that he would never otherwise suspect, if she had managed to keep a straight, unexpressive governess's face as she was supposed to.
But no, she did not look like a governess, and she never, ever acted like one either. Before her, he had eleven good examples of how a governess should look and act, and before her arrival he thought that, as far as women usually employed to take charge of a child's upbringing and education, he had seen it all.
He ached to question her about what she was doing moments before his arrival. Considering the look in her face when she opened the door, he could not help but feeling curious about it. Oh, he was sure that it would take him less than five minutes to wring a full confession out of her – she was absolutely dismal at lying. He had absolutely no right to do that, of course. Yes, he was the Captain, she was employed by him, but he had no right whatsoever to pry into whatever she did in her private moments in the sanctuary of her bedroom.
He examined her quizzically, as intently as she was examining him – and was utterly distracted about whatever he intended to talk to her about.
Although her clothes were dry, her hair was damp, and the sight immediately reminded him of the lake; and that triggered a wave of disturbing memories that he had been spending considerable time and energy trying to repress. What had she been doing? He had seen her going out, looking downright miserable, right after they had met outside the ballroom. Yes, the lake – she had probably taken another dive, to do something nonsensical such as rescue a puppy from drowning, only to burst into song after she succeeded.
The damp hair, however, and the hands demurely kept behind her back were hardly the problem.
She stared him with the most innocent passion he had ever seen in a woman's eyes. She seemed to be completely lost in him, as she studied every detail of his face. At that moment, he had the most serious difficulty remembering his own name and title, let alone remembering the fact that she was just a governess. She kept looking at him, wonderingly. It was such a completely genuine, honest, unspoiled look, untainted by any kind of female artifice. Her eyes met his unashamedly, unafraid of how much she was revealing, simply because of the fact that she was oblivious to the fact that she was revealing him anything at all. In her fascinating mind, she probably thought she was merely looking at him, analyzing every detail of his appearance, just as he had caught her doing countless times before. This time, however, it was different. There was a new awareness in her eyes - not of the fact that she was pouring out her soul to him through that look, but an awareness of him.
He remembered that the first time Agathe looked at him in that particular manner. He wasted no time and gave her the first thorough kiss of her entire life. Now he ached to do the same with his children's governess. Yes, it was incongruous, it was absurd – she the children's governess, and he most certainly was not in love with her. It was only physical desire that explained why he wanted to take her in his arms and carry her to her virginal bed until neither the bed or her were virginal anymore. Like he wanted breath in his lungs, he wanted to rip that awful gray thing she called a dress into shreds and reveal to his eyes and hands what the lake water had just hinted not long ago.
"She is just a governess… Isn't she?"
There was no denying the fact that he had been with his share women before, but he was no Don Juan. Among all the lovers he had in the past, he could count on the fingers of one hand how many times before he had physically wanted a woman like that, with an intensity that was almost too painful to bear. Worse, he had never felt the need to deny such an attraction, to himself or anyone else. He never felt there was any need to repress it. With the exception of the one woman who later became his wife, all his lovers had been experienced, worldly women who knew exactly what they wanted and what he would be able to give them. None of them was a virgin by far, none of them was almost two decades younger than he was, and most certainly none of them was an aspiring nun! What made it even more dangerous was that – and not for the first time – her face clearly showed that she desired him just as much.
If he did not recover his senses immediately, he would have to dismiss the little Fräulein--not because of any of her many transgressions to his rules, but because he might – just might – become too tempted to resist her innocent allure. If he succumbed to that particular temptation, it would be the worst act he had ever committed in his life.
God, it was despicable.
He was despicable.
In fact, he should not even dare to think about it. If he was any wise, he would put a stop to it right now.
"Fräulein, would you come downstairs with me, please." His tone was biting, icy cold, and she reacted to it instantly.
"Is there anything wrong? The children…" she began, alarm showing in her face.
"The children are just fine and most probably having the time of their lives, being pampered beyond belief by their loving grandparents. No, it is not the children. It is me, I…"
"What is wrong with you, Captain?"
"Nothing is wrong with me, Fräulein," he answered irritably, although he hated the fact that it was such a dishonest answer.
"O-ho, if you only knew what is wrong with me," he would tell himself later, reviving the scene. "You would run back to your Abbey faster than your feet could possibly carry you. You would curse me for the rest of your life. I would be the very devil to you. You would lock yourself in the safety of your convent walls, never to wish to leave again… if you only knew what was wrong with me…"
"I need your help for something. In the ballroom," he informed, clearing his throat and ignoring her look of surprise. "You were only too eager to find something for you to do, and now I have found something for you to do. So stop staring at me and…"
"Yes?" There was a sudden twinkle in her eyes, a sudden, yet perceptible, flicker of… of what? Hope? He shook his head. It was unbelievable that he was facing the one person in the world who hated inactivity as much as he did. The most unlikely person he could ever have imagined. She was so different from him in every aspect, and still had something in common with him, something that was part of the essence of his personality.
"Would you please follow me?"
She hesitated and tensed visibly. "Ehrm… Captain… would you mind if I met you downstairs in a few minutes? I have a little problem I need to… to solve before I can help you with anything. "
His eyes narrowed.
He had been right, she was hiding something from him. And if he hadn't been so blind to it, if he hadn't been – momentarily, he hoped - so carried away by his own raging male hormones, he would have noticed that, at all times, she had kept her left hand behind her back. It was not until she made her request that he noticed it.
"I certainly would mind very much, Fräulein!", he bellowed, the surprise evident on her countenance. Whether it was his tone, or the fact that he refused her request, he didn't know. "Unless, of course, you are kind enough to tell me what the devil you are hiding behind your back!" He barked the last words, the old Captain back with full force again. He leaned towards her slightly, taking advantage of his imposing height. But he still remained on the threshold, and never stepped inside her room. If he did so, he would be doomed, for too many reasons.
It was the first time he ever saw her like that, completely taken aback. Curiously enough, it was not a sight he welcomed. Yes, he did enjoy taunting her, but mostly because she knew only too well how to defend herself, and because he found their verbal battles usually… stimulating. He dared to believe she thought just the same way about him. Most probably her cleverness was completely wasted in the Abbey, and the nuns most likely reacted with a sign of the cross or by giving her some kind of ridiculous penance whenever she tried to start an intelligent argument. No, to see her like that, at a loss for words, was not to his liking, but it told him what he wanted to know as soon as she opened the door to him – she was doing something she was not supposed to do, and it had to do with him.
"Ahem… ehrm… ooohhhhh…. Nothing!" She could do little else than stutter the most obvious of all answers. Her right hand protectively joined her left one behind her back, and she took a few steps back, towards the inner safety of the room.
"Smart move, Fräulein," he thought. She had to know he would not follow her inside.
"It is… it is…" She took a few more steps back, until she collided with her desk. Her eyes widened when that happened, and her hands felt the surface behind her back, as if to reassure herself of what she was actually touching.
"Yes?"
"A… a… a recipe!"
He raised an incredulous eyebrow. "Hah! A recipe. For what, may I ask?"
"For… for…" he could almost see her brain cells working furiously, even as she hastily tried to hide whatever she had in her hands beneath a book that lay on top of her desk. For just a splint of a second he thought he had seen what it was.
"No, it cannot be," he thought. Well, it would certainly explain the way she had looked at him when she opened the door, but she certainly had no business looking at… No, it was impossible. Unless one of the children helped her with that. Still, why would she even want to look at such a thing? What would make her curious?
She was already speaking again.
"Paprika Schnitzel." She sighed, apparently relieved with her success in finding an appropriate answer – and in hiding her secret from his prying eyes. "The Mother Abbess is so fond of it, and the cook makes it so delicious that I simply had to ask for the recipe to bring back to the Abbey."
"Paprika Schnitzel," he echoed ironically, slowly, savoring the words because he knew that the more he allowed her to talk, the more he had a chance to catch her.
"Yes. She loves it!"
"Fräulein, I have known the Reverend Mother longer than you have. Long enough to know that she is allergic to paprika!"
"Oooh!" she moaned, discouraged. "How could you possibly know that?"
"My wife told me," he said. She nearly jumped when he mentioned Agathe, which immediately led him to believe again that what he thought he had seen just before she hid it was not so absurd at all.
However, he was mistaken if he thought that the Fräulein would give up so quickly. Her hands free now, she walked towards him, so close that she almost invaded his personal space. Then she looked up, unflinching.
"You are bluffing," she said simply.
"O-ho, am I?"
Of course he was. In spite of the fact that his wife had indeed been very close to the Reverend Mother, he had no idea whatsoever about the nun's likes and dislikes.
"Hm mm."
"Do you care to tell me how you reach such a brilliant conclusion?"
She thought for just a moment. "It is a very personal kind of information, and I have lived here long enough to know that people like you are never personal about anything."
He flinched "People like…" he spoke almost to himself, but he let her continue her reasoning.
"As close as your dear wife may have been to the Reverend Mother, she would not have known that. I have lived in that convent for years, and I still don't even know what her favorite color is."
"Ah ha!" he exclaimed, triumphantly.
"What?" she was frowning at him again.
"Your running mouth getting into trouble again, I´m afraid," he said chuckling and shaking his head.
"I don't understand."
"You have given me too much unnecessary information. Were you a spy during the war, you would be caught before you even started."
"Oooh!" She obviously resented that, even though she was the farthest thing from a Mata Hari he could possibly imagine.
"You should have stopped after saying my wife wouldn't have known such a thing. But no, you added that you did not even know what the Mother Abbess's favorite color is… and yet you claim to know that Paprika Schnitzel is her favorite dish!"
There, he had succeeded in leading her straight to another logical trap again. And again, there it was, bewilderment etched in her face. She was, once more, at a loss for words. Once more, he did not like what he saw.
With a dismissive gesture, he decided to put an end to her misery at last.
"Forget it, Fräulein. I'll deal with this later, but make sure that I will deal with it." Her sigh of relief was audible, as she nodded.
Before they left, however, he could not resist pushing her buttons once more.
"What did you do with the – uh – recipe?" he asked, gazing at her empty hands as she closed the bedroom door behind them.
"I just put it in a safe place."
"Yes…" was his pensive reply. "Some things are far too precious to be treated carelessly. Don't you agree, Fräulein?"
"Oh, I agree wholeheartedly, Captain. I really do," she replied, as they started walking down the hall.
He walked briskly, first down a couple of hallways, then down the stairs. He never looked back to see if she was indeed following him, even though she knew she was the kind to be distracted by something as ridiculous as a butterfly, and make a left turn when he had just made a right one. No, he never looked because he certainly heard her. He could always hear her around the house, wherever she was. It was always so easy to know where she was most of the time. Agathe, even Elsa – they walked with such grace and elegance that one could barely hear the sound of their shoes, even when there was no carpet to muffle it. The little Fräulein, on the other hand, stomped her feet on the ground rather noisily, and the sound of each step was not only caused by her sturdy boots. Right now, in fact, he could tell that she was having a hard time keeping up with him – not because he was walking too fast, as he usually did, but because he was not walking fast enough. Her eyes had widened impossibly when she had heard him utter the word "ballroom", and her burning curiosity was evident. There was that, and the obvious need to escape her bedroom and whatever she was hiding from him there, between the pages of that book on top of her desk…
Yes, probably she would have run downstairs if she had the chance. If he were not around, she would certainly attempt to slide down the banister, as he had witnessed her doing himself, the first time he had ever seen her at the Abbey (1).
"Do not go in there yet," he said abruptly, as they reached the closed doors to the ballroom and she ran ahead of him to open then. "There are a few things you need to know first."
"Yes, Captain?"
"Tell me, Fräulein Maria, is carpentry among your many unusual talents?"
"Carpentry?" She frowned and hesitated a bit before she answered. "Well, I used to help with anything I could in the Abbey. The nuns used to do all the carpentry work themselves. We… I mean they have their own woodshop."
"Yes, the Reverend Mother told me that."
"Are you sure you would trust me with carpentry tools next to you, Captain?" she provoked. "You know – hammers, nails, saws, chisels…"
"I am familiar with all the required tools, Fräulein."
"I am not sure you know what I mean, Captain. These things – they cut, they drill and they are… ehm… potentially dangerous."
"Why? Should I fear for my safety?" he asked lightheartedly, but her face remained dead serious. "Are you trying to tell me there is something I should know?"
"Oh no, nothing!" she replied hastily – quickly enough to convince him that she was not telling him the whole truth again. Months later she would admit that she had actually been banished from helping with carpentry work at the Abbey because somehow she had managed to nail herself to the carpentry bench. She had not realized the fact, and when she tried to get up, in her usual sudden manner, by jumping out of the bench and not merely standing up, she lost half of the skirt of her habit in the process.
"Now, here is what you need to know…"
That was how he started his lecture, pacing around her. He never looked to see if she was indeed following his explanations. He kept talking all the time, at light speed and without allowing her a single interruption, telling her everything that was happening and what he needed her to do. He intentionally did not give her time to say anything, and hopefully not to think about what he was saying… Because with all honesty, he doubted that he was being completely coherent at all, although he believed that he was able to give her a summarized version of what was going on.
He told her using the least possible amount of words that Herr Detweiler had heard about the children's show and contacted a certain Professor in the nearby town of Hallein about a stage and appropriate puppets. Sadly, the ninety year old Professor had retired, but he still had one of his masterpieces left. Max's charm had been crucial to convincing the old artisan to part from his prized work. That is, needless to say, not only Max's charm but also the von Trapp family name and assets.
The trouble was that assembling the puppet stage looked, at first, like a straightforward task.
It was not.
After one of the men he had hired to help had nearly damaged one of the key pieces, he decided to take matters in his own hands. It should not be so difficult after all, not for a man who was an expert in Naval Engineering. And he could probably have done it without her help, but he convinced himself that since it had been her idea in the first place, it was she who should be stuck with him while trying to put that puppet theatre together, instead of waltzing and singing in the streets of Salzburg.
There was a bewildered look in her face when he finished his tale about the old Professor and his marionette theatre. He did not know if it was because he had provided her with too much information in such an incredibly short time, or if she was frustrated because she did not have a chance to start a series of interminable questions. Nonetheless, not to give her time to think was a matter of necessity. He regretted going to her room to summon her, he regretted the fact that he had been completely unable to control that urge to be around her. His reasons for wanting her presence were weak, to say the least, and he did not wish to give her enough information so that she would realize that. The little governess might be an innocent, but she was clever – he had to acknowledge that.
Her sudden shyness around him was unusual as well, and highly unsettling. He was certain that her behavior had everything to do with whatever she had been hiding behind her back earlier. It wasn't until he finished his explanation that he realized that, although he had spoken in a manner not to allow her any interruptions, she had not even tried to stop him. Not a single "Captain" was heard from her. He had even expected she would poke at his shoulder to make him stop and turn around to listen to her. She did nothing of the sort. He wondered if that was because if she was worried that whatever mishap she had caused while doing carpentry work in the convent would repeat itself in his presence, but he did not believe it was the case.
Much to his relief, her silence was broken when he finally flung open the doors to the ballroom.
"My Lord, what have you done to this place?!"
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A/N: (1) "The 12th governess".