A/N:  Thank you all so much for all the kind reviews.  I'm writing a couple of chapters ahead, and it's getting difficult and imo, icky, but when I find out someone's reading and liking it it gives me incentive :o)  As always, if you're bored or confused or think I reek, tell me, and I'll be glad to hear it.  Maria's Georg, thanks for the head's up: I was trying to say that Elsa, much like other ladies in her class, was decadent, not that she was more decadent in her class than other ladies.  Do I need to change that line?  (I like the word decadent too—and the word sensual :o)

As for cliff-hangers—I'm glad some of you are eager to read this next part!  I didn't mean it to be a cliff-hanger.  When I sit down to write I just write, and never think about where chapters should be.  I really meant 4 & 5 to be one chapter, but I had to split it up after I wrote it.  Btw, imnotinacommittee, that's my defense: in this chapter, I use a 'line' from one of your reviews, but I'd already written this before you said it!  (great minds and all that :o)  I do admit that I stole two phrases in this chapter from Bronte, because I'm too lame to think of things myself.  But gah, it's not like I ever said I was original.  Disclaimers and all that.

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end of Chapter 4:

Georg watched as the children, still reluctant—with last longing looks at Maria, as if they would never be seeing her again—trouped out.

"Do you think he's going to fire her now?" one of them asked, and another one hushed the voice.

*                

Chapter 5

"Fire you?" Georg inquired, once all his children had left.

"I don't know where they got the idea," Maria replied affably, shrugging.

The Captain's look was of disbelief.  "You don't."

"Well, to tell you the truth, I suspect Brigitta," Maria said, with a reluctant smile.  "She really does have an uncanny sense about things."

"Does she indeed," Georg mused, his statement rhetorical, not a question.  "Fräulein Maria," he began, his hands behind his back, forcefully facing the little governess.  "My children, when I entered, were speaking of—did I hear it right?—turns?"

"Yes, Captain," she replied agreeably, meeting his stare directly.

"And these—turns, you call them—?"

"Everyday one of the children decides what we will do for the afternoon," she explained, as if it was the most natural thing in the world.  "If it is in my power for us to do what they ask, we do it.  It was Kurt's turn yesterday; now it is Brigitta's.  Tomorrow it will be—"

"Yes, I see," he interrupted, cutting her off by turning away.  His feet resorted to a strident kind of pacing.  "And you do remember, don't you, that I informed you on your arrival that every afternoon, the children would march about the grounds—for fresh air and exercise?"

"But we often spend the afternoons in outdoor activities.  Why yesterday we—"

"Did I, or did I not tell you, Fräulein?"

Her expression hardened as she met his eyes.  He remembered a conversation very similar to this one, the night of the thunderstorm before he had left for Vienna.  She looked down, swallowing a sigh.  "You did, sir."

Georg, hands still hooked behind his back, strode over to one of the windows of the school room.  He stood looking out the gaps between the curtains, his posture—straight and forbidding—silhouetted in the frame.  Slowly, with an inaudible sigh, his hand stretched out to pull one of the curtains back.  It was still beautiful out—the grass as green as anything, the sky so blue it seemed to sing with a voice of its own.  He couldn't think of anything he'd less rather do on a day like this than march about the grounds.  He pursed his lips and half-sat, half-leaned against the sill of the window, his eyes still locked on the view.  "Fräulein," he began again.

"Yes?"

"Yesterday, we had an—exchange of words, shall we say?  In a raised voice—you will recall—you informed me of your—opinions—about my own children; and, what is more, you proceeded to tell me how to deal with them.  You do remember that, don't you Fräulein?"

"I do," came the small, hard reply—but there was edge in it.

"You were, I think, not in your best temper?  A little hot-headed, perhaps?  Mayhap you spoke quickly, without proper thought?"

"Sir, I do not—"

"What I am driving at, Fräulein," he said, carelessly interrupting her as he finally turned from the window to look at her again, "is that perhaps you did not finish what you were saying, yesterday."

"Sir?"

Her voice was startled and perplexed.  He looked back at her, with half a smile.  Yes—there was that flushed, surprised look again.  "Fräulein," he told her simply, standing up to face her fully again.  "I may be a brute, but I am not a hypocrite.  I told you yesterday that you might speak freely, and you may.  In fact, it is my wish that you do so.  It's true that I am not used to being disobeyed—" he held up his hand to stall her talking—"but if you find fault with my instructions, I expect you to come to me—and, in my absence, to trust to your better judgment—as you have done.  And quite well, I might add.—Why do you look that way?" he inquired.

She looked positively shocked.  "You're—trusting to my better judgment, sir?"

"Yes," he said, tilting his head.  "Is something the matter with that?"

"Oh yes, Captain!" she exploded—obviously still shocked.

"And that would be—?"

"I have none.  I have no better judgment, that is," she affirmed simply, her voice flustered.

Georg found himself laughing.  "And who told you that?"

Maria's lips pursed as she looked down at the floor.  "Sister Berthe, the Mistress of Postulants."

"Sister Berthe," Georg mulled, still chuckling.  "Do you know, I think at times, I've rather felt akin to Sister Berthe?"

"Oh yes, I believe it," she interjected, her voice rushed and earnest.  "When you first started talking I thought I had better kiss the floor and get it over with right away."

"Er—kiss the floor?" Georg inquired.  She sounded relieved, which amused Georg.  She might not show any fear in facing him down—but she was certainly glad to hear she wouldn't have to. 

"I told the Reverend Mother," Maria was saying.  "Sister Berthe always made me kiss the floor whenever we'd had a disagreement.  Before I left I'd taken to kissing the floor whenever I saw her—to skip all the bother, you know.—Is that funny?" she asked, startled at his laughter.

"No—it was the look on your face."  She was, in fact, a refreshing conversationalist—because she was not a conversationalist at all.  Elsa had first attracted him because at times she had the knack for saying the unexpected—a kind of courage-of-the-drawing-room, he liked to think, a way of saying exactly the thing that everyone was skirting around and subtly alluding to, but that no one dared mention.  He liked the element of unpredictability—but with Elsa, the characteristic was a tool, a way to steer conversation, to manipulate it, to draw attention where she wanted it.  Fräulein Maria simply said whatever popped into her head because it was in her head.  She was naïve; in a way she was simple—but he found he rather liked it.  "Never mind.  Don't kiss the floor, please—at least, not just before any meals."

"Alright, Captain," she replied, looking at him a bit warily.  Georg regarded her for a moment, amused.  Regarding him in that way, the governess actually looked rather like Brigitta, as if she couldn't quite trust that he wouldn't make her kiss the floor in the end, anyway. 

"To get back to the matter at hand, Fräulein," he said, looking away to hide his laughter, "I have been away from my children for over a month.  In some ways, I have been away longer than that—as you so intrepidly pointed out."  There, the blush again.  "At any rate, I was wondering if you had any further insights, apart from those you so graciously bestowed on me yesterday afternoon?"  Her color was half in embarrassment, half indignation.  "Forgive me if I'm flippant, Fräulein Maria," he said, his voice softer, gentler.  His behavior, yesterday, had been far worse than hers; he didn't want her thinking he resented hers. "I really do want to know."

She looked back at him, surprised, and now a touch rueful.  "I suppose I am rather a hot-head," she said, chagrined.  "I can't even remember what I said then."

"Well," he said, his voice returning to normal, amused at the deploring regret in her voice.  He cocked his head, as if in consideration.  "I do believe you called me a devilish boor who had neglected his children to a shocking extent.  That I—what was it?  Brush them aside, ignore them, and—don't love them?" he finished inquiringly, mouth quirking. 

"Oh," Maria responded, deflated.  "Well, then, I told you everything you needed to know."

A sharp bark of laughter escaped the Captain before he could control it.  "Touché, Fräulein, touché," enjoying her response more than a little—the governess was actually making fun of him.

"I'm quite serious, Captain," she told him earnestly, brows raised at his laughter.  "The children have already improved tenfold, just due to your return—not in behavior, perhaps," she conceded, but only momentarily—"but certainly in spirit."

"They're just relieved that they don't have to march about the grounds breathing deeply any more."

"Well, there is that," Maria conceded, laughing.

Georg paused, startled.  He wasn't sure he'd ever heard her laugh before—except, perhaps, directly after the pine cone incident.  Strange, since the Fräulein has such a way about her of happiness and contentment—the children smiled whenever they were with her.  Her laughter, oddly, reminded him of the children—that fresh, bright sound—the sort of sounds he longed for in the dull, gaudy nights of Vienna. "And you have nothing more to tell me of them?" he demanded, more hurriedly than he meant to.  His voice gentled.  "How about Louisa?—I didn't see her in the lesson room earlier this morning."

"Oh."  Maria paused, looking half-reluctant.  "Well—Louisa has a penchant for. . . shall we say . . . erm—wildlife, Captain."

"Wildlife, Fräulein?"

"Insects in particular, Captain.  I caught her trying to coax some beetles under the Baroness' door this morning."

"The Baroness?" he repeated, his brows shooting toward his hairline.  Suddenly, he found himself laughing.  He could imagine Elsa, waking up from her luxurious drowsing to find herself surrounded by beetles.  It would not have been a pretty sight.  "And what, pray, do the children have against the Baroness?" he queried, managing to keep his voice even.

"Oh, they left a toad in my pocket, you know.  I think it's their little way of saying hello."

"The 'precious gift.'  Oh, I see," he murmured, a hand against his chin as he turned again to walk toward the window.

"Though Brigitta did say," Maria continued blithely, "that the only reason they play so many tricks is because they don't know how else to get your attention."

"Oh she did, did she?" he demanded, without turning around, his voice sharp.  His attention had been gotten, thank you very much.  As amusing as the idea of beetles in Elsa's room was, he didn't like the thought of his children getting into trouble without his knowledge—worse damage than that could be done.  He was angry at himself, more than Maria, but his tone did not betray him.  It was very possible that more grievous damage had been done, on quite another front, now that he thought of it.  "Yesterday afternoon," the Captain began suddenly, abruptly changing subjects, "I exited my house to find a young—shall we say . . . acolyte?—of the glorious Third Reich—throwing pebbles at my eldest daughter's window.  You wouldn't know anything about that, would you, Fräulein?"

Maria's brows shot up.  "Acolyte of the—?"

"A young soldier, Fräulein," Georg supplied impatiently, with disdain—but, Maria realized with a start, not for her, not even for the boy—but for the Third Reich itself.  "He delivers our post—?" Georg went on, questioning whether Maria knew of whom he was speaking.  The governess, however, remained silent.  Georg snapped around to face her.  "I said, Fräulein, do you have any idea of this boy's dealings with my daughter?"

"That would be Liesl's business, wouldn't it?" Maria replied neutrally.

Georg's voice was removed, cold.  "But I am asking you, Fräulein."

Maria met his eyes openly.  "I don't know the boy, Captain."

"Yes, but you know of him," Georg snapped.  "Well?" he queried, impatient.  "Don't you?"

Maria's face remained clear, not at all perturbed by his tone.  "Nothing beyond what you say, Captain."

"Fräulein—are you being difficult—" he faltered for a moment, knowing he should be indignant, and yet not the least surprised—"on purpose?"

"Well . . ." Maria began, for the first time uncertain.  "I suppose I am, Captain," she answered, her voice reluctant and apologetic—but not giving an inch.

"And you were this way often at the Abbey, Fräulein?" he asked wryly, raising an amused eyebrow.  His ire had been for form's sake—for getting information out of her he truly wanted—not because he truly felt any—at her, anyway.  But now even that anger slipped away, as he regarded the Fräulein before him with amusement and incredulity—and not a little admiration.  She was so very—

"Oh, all the time, Captain," she assured him, her voice half expressing frustration.  She earnestly met his penetrating gaze, and for a moment she was startled by the intensity in his eyes.  Her own eyes widened minutely, and she suddenly looked down—not, he suspected, out of deference.

He studied her bent head for a moment, recalling once again the uniqueness of her reactions: if looked at her coldly, her eyes met his straight on—snapping fire, even.  If he merely looked . . . intrigued, she was unsettled.  He could see heat flaring once again in her skin.  "You are," he began, searching for a word for what she was, and finding none that suited, " . . . a rare breed, Fräulein Maria," he finished, his voice low. 

Then he waved his hand dismissively and immediately turned on his heel.  "We were speaking of Liesl," he said decisively, pacing away from her to stand beside one of the children's desks—Brigitta's multitude of books piled on the top of it.  It wasn't even Brigitta's desk.  "Can you tell me why it is, Fräulein, that you feel the need to protect my daughter from her own father?"

"It's not protection sir," Maria interjected hastily, finding her voice again.  "It's—erm . . . I wouldn't want to betray her confidences, Captain, and as for that—she's given me little enough.  Some things she will come to you on her own about—and some she just has to figure out for herself."  Maria paused, the Captain looking at her expectantly, brow raised.  Maria shrugged and plunged in.  "If there's something between herself and this boy, Liesl herself has to be able to define it herself before she brings it to you.  When a young woman discovers—such things—she needs time . . . and patience."

"Really, Fräulein," Georg replied, with that exquisite dryness for which he was known—in Vienna, his biting sarcasm and apparent irreverence made him as famous as his name.  But though his expression remained sardonic, he smiled a little, and his voice was gentle—though with edge.  "And what would a governess, a postulant half-raised in a convent, know about—'such things'?"

Fräulein Maria's lips fell open, and she immediately looked down.  "Nothing Captain, I admit," she apologized, her voice suddenly small. 

He immediately regretted mocking her naiveté.  Just because she was innocent didn't mean she was inexperienced, and just because she was raised in a convent didn't mean she couldn't be wise.  In fact, he had had plenty of women tell him the same thing.  'Women are slow, as men always say, Georg,' Elsa had once told him, her soft voice amused and indulgent.  'A man, I'm sure, knows what he wants as soon as he looks at a woman—and loses interest just as quickly.  We women take forever to figure out what we feel and what we want—but we're also far more tenacious, darling, so be careful.'  Elsa might be more worldly, but Maria obviously knew at least part of that was true. 

He wondered what experience the Fräulein did have with 'such things'.  He didn't like the idea of hurting her, of causing her to recall something she'd rather not, of accusing her of an ignorance that was forced on her and that she regretted.  He stepped toward her, his arm unconsciously stretching to lift her chin with a knuckle, so that she would again be looking at him directly with her bright, clear eyes.  "Head up, Fräulein, where it should be," he murmured, and his hand fell away.  "You'll forgive the lapse," he told her, stepping away, his tone again normal.  "You are right—it's not as if I can suddenly step into my children's lives and change them, can I?"

Maria slowly shook her head, eyes still on his, though his own had fallen away.  "No, Captain—but you can help them.

He was heading toward the door, wanting to be gone from the room quickly.  Now he paused, looking back at her thoughtfully.  "Thank you, Fräulein," he said, the sincerity evident in his voice, and turned the knob on the door out.

"Erm . . . Captain?"  At his pause and half turn, she rushed onward.  "You said that I could—that is—speak freely?"

He raised a brow, his pursed lips hiding a smile.  "Yes, Fräulein?"

"Er—yes.  Well, when it was Brigitta's turn two weeks ago, she wanted to put on a play.  I told her there must be a place around here where we could rent a stage, and costumes and so on."  Her eyes were bright, and she was gesticulating—seemingly carried away by the idea.  "Only," she went on, talking fast, "I told her she'd have to ask you when you arrived. . . Er—naturally, she doesn't want to bother you, sir, but she has such a vivid imagination, and she reads so much—I'm sure it would benefit all the children, and—"

"Fräulein—are you asking me to rent you a . . ." he paused, looking rather doubtful, "a stage?"

"Yes sir," she replied, nodding simply.  "For the children to play-act on."

Georg closed his eyes for a moment and reopened them to find her clear, curious blues regarding his.  "And how will this—this—"

"Play-acting."

"Yes, play-acting—mould their characters into better, more upright young adults?" Georg inquired, his tone still doubtful.  Her ideas were—imaginative.  Playing, climbing, singing, acting—next they would be puppetteering.  He almost laughed aloud at the thought.  Instead, he murmured, quite calmly, with an air of condescension: "Are you preparing them for a life in theatrics, Fräulein?  Are my children going into stage-acting?  Or perhaps, Fräulein, your eye is cast toward the motion pictures?"

"Well, no, sir—"

"Uh-huh," he snapped, "—that will do, Fräulein.  We'll simply have to see."

"See?"

"Didn't you hear what I said?"

Her incredulous face was breaking into a smile.  "You mean you're going to consider—"

"Don't get you hopes up, Fräulein," he cut her off, coldly, and strode out of the lesson room.  He carefully closed the door behind him—and, for the first time in a long time, positively grinned.

*