VII. Duet
When Kenneth Irons had finished The Bride's Chamber from Les Noces, and the applause from his audience of two abated, he stood and announced that it would soon be well past young Nottingham's bedtime.
With a rustle of skirt, Christiansen shifted in her seat. "Do you know Killotensunter's L'Etolie de Glace en Hiver?" she asked him, delaying the evening's denouement.
Ian remained seated, though on any other occasion at the mere mention of his dismissal he would have been nothing more than a memory in the room. His continuing presence on the salon's Louis XVII settee did not escape his master's notice.
"The duet?" Irons asked, his feathers ruffled as well by Christiansen's inability--or unwillingness--to behave in the fashion that he saw fit and recognize that the evening had come to an end. "Yes," he responded, as he had to say something civilized. "That is, I know part."
"Which," she asked, moving to the bench. "The low? I shall take the high. You must listen, Ian," she charged the boy, her voice taking on a new urgency. "Notice the smooth syncopation of your benefactor's part, and the musicality with which he infuses the score." For a moment she was all instructor. "Close attention now."
Her size proved fortunate in the logistics of occupying the single bench. Had she been much taller--or wider--she would not have fit. As it was, they suited one another perfectly, the amount of space which they occupied distracting from their playing not a bit.
He had not shared a piano bench with another living person since Elizabeth.
Yards of frost-colored tulle from the voluminous skirt of Christiansen's gown, having nowhere else to go, spilled over onto his knees, concealing the lap of his tuxedo trousers from him--and his unexpected invigoration at this impromptu pas de deux from her.
They had not discussed who would take charge of the pedals before they commenced, and out of habit he had assumed the lead, settling his black Italian hand-mades in place, only to find, moments later, the insistent, sensual weight of her bare feet settled atop their laces with a pressure calling them to play as one, infused with an urgency he could not help but accept without question.
...to be continued...
2002 (c) Neftzer
See Chapter One for disclaimers.