CHAPTER 6: THE WATERFALL

The rest of the week flew by. The weather was beautiful, with warm days and cooler nights that held the promise of autumn, as did the trees, which wore a light spattering of bronze and scarlet.

As she'd promised, Maria got the children settled into a routine that included half-days of school, starting just after breakfast. It was easy to draw science lessons from the surrounding forest. Brigitta was put in charge of spelling bees, conducted with the help of her dictionary. At the Captain's suggestion, Liesl began teaching the younger girls some English, which Maria supposed was a gesture in memory of their mother, though of course, he'd never admit to it.

Everyone pitched in to prepare a big midday dinner, and in the afternoon, there were chores, hikes to the waterfall and music lessons with the help of the old guitar. After a light supper, Captain von Trapp contributed his extensive knowledge of literature in nightly recitations. Sometimes it seemed as though he had committed every poem ever written to memory.

The girls baked bread and made soup, while the boys and their father caught fish from the nearby creek. Each of these new tasks was undertaken cheerfully and with great enthusiasm, and Maria found it endlessly amusing to watch the von Trapp children make an adventure out of the very same tasks that had made up the daily drudgery of her girlhood. Although uprooted from the luxurious comforts of only home they'd ever known, they were clearly flourishing under the constant attention of their father.

The Captain had adopted some new routines as well. Every day or two, he went off on his own after breakfast to meet Leo, leaving Maria only slightly disappointed that he never again invited her to accompany him on the climb up to the road. He spent quite a lot of time chopping wood out back of the cottage, but devoted most of the remaining time to the children.

In her presence, he was always perfectly pleasant, although more business-like than warm. They seemed to have agreed, without speaking of it, to put the incident in the forest behind them, and to maintain a polite distance from each other, as though the spark that had danced between them all summer and nearly ignited that morning, had been permanently extinguished. Or never existed at all. Either way, Maria told herself, it was a relief.

Meanwhile, she continued to marvel at the slow emergence of a more patient and thoughtful Captain. Every night, he took the battered guitar in his arms and sang the edelweiss song to his family. Then he would slip out the door with a quiet, "Good night, Fraulein. Good night, children," and disappear into the forest, leaving Maria to supervise bedtime prayers and tooth-brushing, to get the younger children to bed and to pass another quiet hour with the older ones before they all retired. Although she was always sound asleep by the time he returned from wherever it was he went each evening, she knew she could count on him to greet them in the morning, and on his having already started the fire for breakfast.

Maria couldn't help but be curious where he took himself off to every night, especially since there wasn't really anywhere for him to go. Doubtless he just needed to be alone with his thoughts, and his grief – although Maria wondered if was grieving his broken engagement to Baroness Schrader, or his lost wife. Perhaps both.

One morning after breakfast, when the week had nearly passed, Captain von Trapp took her aside.

"I'm going up to the main road again," he said in a low voice. "Hoping for good news from Leo. I'll be back by noon, in time for dinner. We'll probably be leaving here soon, but just in case, is there anything I should ask for?"

"Apples, and more cheese and oh, Captain, I know he said it was impossible, but can you ask him again for vegetables? Carrots, potatoes, beans, anything like that."

After he left, everyone got busy. Louisa and Brigitta started on the breakfast dishes, while Liesl practiced English with the little girls and the boys swept and aired the cabin. Still thinking of vegetables, Maria remembered that yesterday, she'd spotted a patch of wild greens near the waterfall.

"Liesl," she called before starting down the path to the waterfall, "I'm going foraging. Can you get school started? And the rest of you, do behave, won't you?"

OoOoOoOoOo

He knew Leo to be unfailingly prompt, so when the little man hadn't arrived by ten minutes after the hour, Georg sighed in resignation and turned back toward the cottage. Hopefully, there would be good news tomorrow. Even with the diversion of his children and the novelty of their rustic life, the wait was beginning to wear on him.

And the wait wasn't the only thing wearing on him. Having reached a détente with Fraulein Maria had its advantages, allowing them to work smoothly together in a challenging situation. But with their relationship on better footing, his irritation with her had turned to temptation. The temptation itself wasn't new, having plagued him all summer, but now, without Elsa's vigilance to keep him in line, he was finding the little governess so appealing that she was nearly impossible to resist.

This vexing attraction to the little governess had been an unwelcome development, one that represented a setback after the progress he'd made in the last four years. In the immediate aftermath of Agathe's death, numbed by shock and grief, he'd faced the future with nothing but dread, with no hope for peace or contentment, let alone joy or, even more impossibly, love. But after the first year, while having come to accept that his wife had taken his shattered heart along with her to her grave, he also knew that she'd forgive him for having found a kind of meaning in life in the arms of the series of women who were grateful for his attentions and brought him some measure of mindless relief.

Georg had considered his relationship with Elsa a further step forward, one that set aside the purely carnal in favor of the promise of a new mother for his children. He and Elsa had each already been blessed with one loving marriage, and had been in full accord from the start: their marriage would be based on warm companionship and shared interests. Love, for both of them, was something that belonged to the past. While Elsa's willingness to go along with the Nazis had doomed their marriage, on the matter of love, at least, they had never disagreed.

So when temptation presented itself in the form of the new governess from Nonnberg Abbey, it was like revisiting an uncomfortable chapter in his life he'd thought safely behind him. Georg had known perfectly well that he should have stayed away from Fraulein Maria, a girl too inexperienced to know the difference between love and a flirtation, but he just couldn't seem to manage it. In the immediate aftermath of Elsa's grand and glorious party, Georg had been nearly sick with regret for that Laendler in the garden, not to mention the weeks of heady but dangerous overfamiliarity that had preceded it. Whatever had sent her running back to Nonnberg that night, his cold demeanor at the party couldn't have done much for her confidence.

It was slightly disturbing, how readily the girl seemed to have forgiven and forgotten his many trespasses: not only the night of the party, but also his boorish behavior on their so-called wedding night. And the incident in the forest when he'd come within millimeters of kissing her. Perhaps it was her association with Nonnberg Abbey that made her so forgiving? Because whatever girlish crush she might have had on him seemed safely in the past. Lately, Fraulein Maria's attitude toward him seemed to be one of watchful and distant courtesy.

Still, fool that he was, he couldn't seem to leave well enough alone. Confidence, rather than arrogance, made Georg certain that if he chose to fan the flames of last summer's flirtation, he could probably lure the girl into his bed. But of course, this was unthinkable. Absurd. Impossible. A liaison with a postulant from Nonnberg Abbey, conducted in the immediate vicinity of his children, was the last complication he needed at the present time, not to mention that he'd promised to return her to Nonnberg untouched. And he wouldn't want to do anything to reawaken her feelings for him, feelings he could never reciprocate.

Georg had only a limited number of tactics at his disposal for controlling his attraction to Fraulein Maria, and they were starting to lose their effectiveness. Treating her with sarcasm and rage, the methods he'd used all summer, seemed cruel and unfair, not in their present circumstances and after everything she'd done for his family. He did his best to avoid being alone with her, having no desire to tempt fate again after the incident in the forest. He chopped wood by the hour, trying to exhaust himself, until the woodshed was nearly bursting with at least three winters' worth of fuel.

Lately, as night fell, he'd taken to escaping to a small cave he'd discovered, tucked just beyond the waterfall. There, he could be alone with thoughts of Agathe, memories that lately seemed to bring him more peaceful comfort than pain, although his sleep was occasionally punctuated by shameful dreams populated by naked, copper-hair sprites. But at least the subject of those dreams wasn't sleeping in the next room with his daughters curled around her like kittens. No matter how poorly he slept, his body, still subjecting itself to naval discipline, would awaken him in time to stumble out of the cave at daybreak, just in time to return to the cottage and start the fire for breakfast.

If he were perfectly honest with himself, he'd known from the start that this arrangement would mean trouble, hadn't he? He reminded himself that Liesl could not have managed to get the children out of Austria on her own, and there was no one else he could have trusted to do it. But Fraulein Maria seemed unaware of the effect she had on him and everything about her had an effect – her musical laugh, the dark fan of lashes that fringed her blue eyes, her long legs, her -

It was like a riddle with no solution. She was his wife – no court anywhere in Europe would blame him for claiming what was legally his – but she was promised to God as well.

Before returning to the cottage, Georg decided, he'd better do something to distract himself.

Ten minutes later, he was at the waterfall, stripping bare in hopes that the cold spray of water would wash away his craving for the little governess. Closing his eyes, he searched his memory for an image of the last in the string of lovers he'd taken to his bed before meeting Elsa. Astrid: a Swedish countess whose enticing curves and clever tongue had kept him in Stockholm for a month before he'd been forced to come home to hire yet another governess.

Strange, that while bedding all of those women in the first years after Agathe's death had been a satisfying pastime, he'd rarely given one of them a thought once another had taken her place. He could only summon Astrid's memory because she'd been the last one, before he'd met Elsa and decided to make a clean break with his sordid past and conduct himself honorably with the future mother of his children. Before Astrid, had it been Sophia? Or Mila? He wasn't sure. They had sought him out, after all, not the other way around. He'd given them what they'd come for, and that was all there was to it!

Despite himself, his mind wandered away from Astrid and back toward the virginal postulant from Nonnberg Abbey. Well, it was only natural, wasn't it, to want what you couldn't have? The girl was an innocent, all pink cheeks and freckles, and that spelled trouble. Georg wondered if she was freckled everywhere. Or was her skin flawless, like porcelain, especially in the places where the sun couldn't reach? Between her thighs, for example-

He flinched at the first shock of icy water hitting his head and sluicing down his chest, but no matter how forcefully he pushed away his thoughts about Maria, his body would not let him forget, and responded accordingly. There was only one way to calm himself, he thought, and no point being embarrassed about it. He used one hand to brace himself against the rock wall and with the other, tightened his grip and began to stroke himself, but he wasn't yet lost to sensation when he his instincts warned him of the unheard presence of another person.

He whirled away from the wall and there, as though his very thoughts had summoned her, stood the little governess.

In a flash, Georg took in the pink cheeks and parted lips, even the faint tremble in her chin, but it was her eyes that undid him: they burned blue, not with fear, or embarrassment, but with curiosity, and something else, something more he could barely believe. Something that made him forget himself, and who he was, and who she was. Instead of wilting with embarrassment, he grew more aroused by the second. It was, without question, the most erotic moment of his life.

"Go ahead and look. Take your time," he breathed. "Take as long as you like."

She stood there, a small and defenseless forest creature he didn't want to scare away. At least not until – now the predator's blood began to warm his veins – at least not until he was done playing with her and was ready to pounce. Or would he allow her to escape?

She ought to have run away at the very first glimpse of him, Maria knew, before he became aware of her presence, but her chest grew so tight she could not draw a breath, and her legs would not cooperate. Whether in the summer's suits and Trachten jackets, or evening clothes, or even this past week in shirt and trousers, the Captain had a lean, elegant grace. Unclothed, though, he radiated a fearsome power that set her insides quaking. Although the sight made her dizzy, she could not help staring at the broad chest, the wide shoulders and muscled arms, the long, powerful legs, all of it golden but for the pale glow of his midsection, all of it striped with sunlight, glinting with sun-sparkled water droplets and covered with dark hair. When he turned toward her, there was a momentary confusion when she couldn't make sense of what she was seeing and could not stop the mortifying words that flew from her lips:

"What are you doing there, Captain?"

It was bad enough that she'd said it out loud, but why on earth had she called him Captain?

His lips quirked a smile.

"What is it you think I'm doing?"

"Nothing."

"What are you staring at, Fraulein?"

"Nothing."

Now the smile broke into a wide grin.

"Oh, is that what you call it?"

"I mean-"

Her embarrassment overcame her shock and released her from the spell, and she managed a step backward, and then another.

"I beg your pardon, Captain."

"Seen enough? Go on then." He waved her away with his free hand, although it was impossible not to notice that he hadn't moved his occupied hand, not at all. "There are some things a postulant ought not to see. Why, I imagine you'll go scuttling all the way back to Nonnberg Abbey!"

"I'm not scuttling," Maria replied, taking another step backward with as much dignity as she could muster. "It's more of a rapid walk."

She hated being laughed at. At that moment, Maria hated everyone and everything, Baroness Schrader for having humiliated her, Reverend Mother for having trapped her into this ridiculous adventure, herself, for being a blushing virgin in love with a heartless rake. Most of all, she hated him.

"And anyway," she blurted out, "I'm never going back to Nonnberg. Because I'm not going to be a nun."

Oddly, it was this revelation that seemed to have shocked Captain von Trapp, who went perfectly still.

"It was all decided some time ago, but Reverend Mother told me not to tell you. I'm not a postulant, not anymore."

"You what?" he hissed. Finally – thank God – let go of himself and let out a curse.

Maria winced, but now that the truth had popped out, there was no taking it back. Before she could say anything else, the Captain spread one hand over his midsection, although it was inadequate to the task, and used the other to make a little turning motion as he bit out an order.

"Turn around."

Gratefully, she spun away from him and started down the path back toward the cottage, but he stopped her.

"You will stay here, Fraulein, and explain yourself to me," and after a minute, he added, "come over here and sit down."

Limp with regret and relief at finally having told the truth, Maria turned to find the Captain, fully dressed now, gesturing at a fallen tree. Once she'd seated herself, he joined her, carefully leaving a safe distance between them.

"Now," he said sharply, "what's all this about? When did this happen?"

For someone who'd been so composed when caught nude, and the middle of an unspeakable act, he was suddenly awfully agitated. A delayed reaction, Maria supposed.

"It's not something that just happened, Captain," she began. "It was something I always knew inside, for many months, even though-"

Suddenly, she wanted to tell him all about it, as though he'd be able to help her understand it, which of course made no sense at all. The man didn't even attend church, and she was sure he hadn't been to confession in years.

"Although I didn't recognize it myself, not for the longest time. You know, most of the girls are postulants for six months. Maybe a year. For me, it was three years, and every time I asked, I was told that God's will has no why, which of course I accept. I wanted with all my heart," her voice wobbled dangerously, "I wanted to serve God, but still, I didn't seem to be able to follow all the rules. There were so many rules! And I was sick all the time. I had terrible headaches."

"Headaches? A sturdy girl like you?"

"M-hm. The only thing that seemed to help was to escape to the Untersberg. I kept running away, and I know Reverend Mother looked the other way, but it was starting to worry me, how I'd get along once I was one of the sisters."

Now the words poured out of her in a fierce rush.

"When your letter arrived, asking for a governess, I didn't want to leave, you know. I promised to do better, I swore I knew what was expected of me and that now I would do it, but Reverend Mother, she told me to take the summer to know if I could expect if of myself."

"And?" he said gently.

She kicked at the side of the log, quite viciously, before answering.

"Isn't it obvious? I'm here, aren't I? I failed."

Maria took one last kick at the poor log. She'd rather die than fill in the details, about how a girl who'd confessed to having fallen in love with a man, even a fine and brave one like Georg von Trapp, could no longer pretend she was cut out for the cloistered life. Reverend Mother had assured her that the love between a man and a woman was holy too, but that was no comfort when the love went only one way. She had loved the Captain, though she didn't anymore. He had loved his Baronesses. All of them were miserable now, except for the first Baroness, of course, because she was in heaven.

Georg's mind was racing. Fraulein Maria sat beside him, more tempting than ever – that wild look on her eyes when she'd caught him pleasuring himself had gone straight to his groin– and now there was neither Elsa's vigilance nor the barrier of the little governess' vocation to protect him. To protect her, that is.

"You must have been terribly disappointed," was all he said. "I thought something was different about you, when we came to see you at the Abbey, but I had no idea." Casting about for some way to reassure her, and to make himself feel better, he added, "You make it sound like you have nothing to look forward to. But you have a bright future, Fraulein. When this is behind us, you'll be free to do as you like and with my help, you'll have a nice nest egg to help you. You can travel, or go to school. And eventually, of course, you'll marry. Someone-"

Someone who could give you a baby, he'd been about to say, I suppose you'd like that, but the thought was somehow so disturbing it died on his lips.

"Marry?" she snorted. "Why would I want to do that? If I wanted someone to order me around and make all my decisions for me, I could stay at Nonnberg with Sister Berthe. No, love and marriage are definitely not for me. Just look at all the great works of literature: love either ends in murder and bloodshed, or heartbreak, doesn't it?"

Baroness Schrader had as much as told her that, hadn't she? But then Maria remembered how Captain von Trapp's marriage had ended. She stole a guilty look at him, but he was smiling.

"What's so funny?" she demanded.

"I know it's hard to remember," He laughed, running a hand through his hair, "but you are married. To me."

She rolled her eyes.

"Surely this experience has very little in common with a real marriage, Captain."

"My point exactly! You just have to find the right sort of man," he told her. "Someone who only wants the best for you, who protects you-"

Maria opened her mouth to protest the idea that she needed a husband to protect her, but the wistful smile on his face stopped her, and she was glad she had, when he finished, "-and who needs your protection as well. And anyway, it's fun being married, Fraulein."

Georg did not want to continue debating the little governess' future. The whole topic was strangely unsettling. But any topic of conversation was preferable to the one he knew he'd have to face sooner or later: his unspeakably disgraceful behavior when she'd surprised him under the waterfall. What had he been thinking? No, it would be better to seize command of the situation, to go on the offensive.

"Fraulein Maria. Why didn't you tell me this earlier? And your Reverend Mother – was it some kind of conspiracy?"

"Oh, Captain, I am sorry about that. If it had been my decision, I'd have told you, but Reverend Mother thought it better not to."

"Because she didn't trust me, is that right?"

"I didn't say that, Captain."

"You didn't have to. What kind of a man do you think I am?"

They stared at each other for a long moment, before Georg rose to his feet and, without another word, strode across the clearing and down the path back to the cottage.

Because he knew the answer to that question, even if she didn't.

oOoOoOoOoO

Another few days and nights passed, with no word from Leo, before the Captain caught sight of Maria outside the cottage and summoned her to the woodpile, where he fumbled an apology.

"I don't know what got into me. I mean, I do know, and so do you. But it doesn't excuse my conduct."

"Oh, please, Captain, let's not talk about it."

"I wouldn't want you to think-" He studied his dusty boots intently before his gaze swung back to meet hers. "You know you have nothing to fear from me, Fraulein, don't you? Because if it will make things right, we can make arrangements for you to return to Austria right now. Just say the word, and Leo will-"

Maria pinched at the bridge of her nose.

"Oh, Captain, please. I beg of you. There's no need for that. I'd rather just forget about it."

And she did wish it, wished it with all her heart, judging by the number of sleepless hours she'd spent on her knees, asking God to erase the image of a nude, aroused Captain that was permanently burned inside her eyelids.

"We'll just have to put all of that behind us," Georg said.

And he meant it, too, although repeating it to himself a dozen or more times a day was helpful reinforcement.

Any day now, Leo would have some news about the next leg of their journey, and Fraulein Maria would be on her way back to Austria. It was none of his business, what happened to her after that.

"Exactly," she said briskly, adding, "We'll just be – ehrm – good friends."

"Indeed."

With that, Captain von Trapp nodded decisively and strode rapidly up the path to the cottage.

OoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOo

Sorry for the long delay while I managed to hit my work deadline! On vacation now with lots of writing time, you'll be happy to know. Next chapters already well underway.

This chapter also got delayed a bit because I decided to recap Georg's situation, which I thought was clear in the first chapter but I started to wonder after a few twinkly reviews and PMs about how cute it is that Georg is really secretly in love with Maria. Because if I were a better writer, it would be clearer that he's not, actually. He's just a broken man with an ugly past, and at the risk of boring readers who understood that, I decided to repeat myself on that point, because the rest of the story won't work otherwise.

I realize this was at the edge of T territory, but nothing else mature for a few more chapters.

Anyway hope you enjoy. Remember, no reviews, no guilt (although always appreciated).

Don't own TSOM, it's all for love.