Chapter 21: The Tempest

TWO MONTHS LATER

HERTFORDSHIRE, ENGLAND

Before him, the snow stretched in every direction, draping the surrounding gardens, lawns and trees in a pristine white blanket, its intact surface like a promise of fresh starts and new beginnings. When he turned to face the house, its comfortable bulk and curving wings, crafted in honey-colored stone, seemed to extend a warm welcome, with the windows sparkling their own greeting.

But as far as Georg was concerned, after six weeks in England, the idyllic landscape was nothing more than a bitter joke.

In the distance, from the bottom of the sloping lawn, he could hear his children's joyful whoops and yells, could see the splashes of color their hats and mittens made against the snow: red, royal blue, green and, in Marta's case, pink. He'd spent a jolly hour helping build a snow cave before reluctantly abandoning them to climb back up the hill toward the massive entrance to Whitehead Manor. Georg cast one last, longing look back toward where his children gamboled like puppies in the snow. But he could not miss the unanticipated opportunity that he'd only just learned about, courtesy of Brigitta's offhand remark.

"Where are the others?" he had asked.

"Well, Liesl," the girl told him, "she got invited to a neighbor's for tea. And Gretl had to go down for a nap. She was im-pos-si-ble," Brigitta added self-importantly. "It's not very clever of Gretl, to behave that way with only two days left before Christmas."

From the distance, he counted them again, just to confirm. With five of his children occupied in the snow, and with Liesl away from home and Gretl asleep, Maria must be somewhere in the house, alone: a rare occurrence, since these days, she was careful to always keep at least one of the children nearby, a defense against any sort of meaningful conversation. It might be days before he got another chance to confront her, and Georg simply could tolerate no further delay in resolving the problem called Maria. Indeed, after last night, the knot of shame in his belly made it imperative.

Still, he lingered on the portico, his breath hanging in the air, letting his mind wander back over the months since Maria had first come hurtling into their lives, trying to puzzle out where everything had, in the end, gone so very wrong.

God knows, he had done her enough harm from the very start. The summer, when his conduct toward her alternated between harsh criticism and irresponsible flirtation. His rude behavior after their dance in the garden. Plucking her back out of the Abbey and forcing her into a marriage of convenience. Taunting her under the waterfall, terrorizing her in the cave. Taking her innocence, thereby slamming the door on her vocation and sealing their marriage. Ravishing her nightly on their long and arduous trek through Italy and into France.

Georg had plenty to atone for, starting from the moment he'd flung open those ballroom doors to discover her bowing to an imaginary partner. And yet he'd known in his heart that she had forgiven him all these things. At least until last night.

As for his heart, it had been lost to Maria long before he'd been willing to admit it. For so long, he had struggled, failing to understand – and unwilling to accept – that loving another woman was not an act of disloyalty to Agathe, would not mean he loved her any less, would not sentence him to a lifetime of comparing one woman to another. But by the time they arrived safely in France two months ago, for a few euphoric days, at least, Georg had believed he had it all. He found himself fully at ease with, and comforted by, Agathe's cherished memory. If he'd had any last reservations, they'd melted away by now, banished now that he'd spent six weeks settling into her childhood home, where she lingered in every corner.

At the same time, his initial fears that he could never give Maria everything she wanted and deserved had long ago vanished, and she was firmly fixed in his personal heaven, his North Star. Unfortunately, sometime after their arrival in Paris, his star had gone into hiding. Why? For what seemed like the hundredth time, he searched his memory for answers.

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Paris: the first few days had been a blissful blur. Behind the doors of their luxurious suite, they made the circuit repeatedly: first, gorging themselves on rich meals ("no apples, no sausage, not ever again," Maria had decreed); then making love in the enormous canopied bed; then, frolicking in the enormous bathtub. First he'd bathed her, then she'd bathed him, then they'd bathed each other. "Again, please. I'm not clean enough yet," she'd giggled, lofting a slender leg high in the air. Slippery pink skin sliding against his own. Soap bubbles hung in the air, as lovely and fragile as hope, and as easily destroyed.

Maria had been happy, in the beginning, purring with contentment after their lovemaking, dancing about the suite singing at the top of her lungs. When the packages began to arrive, she'd squealed with delight at the piles of dresses, soft furs and leathers, vials of perfume and, most especially, the armfuls of silky lingerie. He'd had to restrain her from burning her high-waisted Nonnberg dress in the fireplace, coaxing her instead to bundle it off into the trash. And when the hotel barber shaved Georg and cut his hair, she refused to let the hairdresser anywhere near her tousled curls, which pleased him immensely.

When he closed his eyes, he could still summon the image of her face, transcendent, fixed on the stage of the Paris Opera. Seated next to him in the best box in the house, lovely in indigo velvet and diamonds at last, her cheeks flushed with pleasure. Gripping his hand between both of hers, she had stuttered her thanks, again and again. "It was my pleasure," he assured her, and then she fixed him with that look – burning-blue eyes looking up at him through dark lashes, the one that made him feel that her hand was inside his trousers instead, for God's sake. They had skipped dinner and rushed back to the hotel, after a taxi ride so shockingly rife with frantic caresses that he'd had to tip the driver double not to call the police.

But, having reviewed their history numerous times, and if he were perfectly honest with himself, Georg could pinpoint a few moments when he ought to have known things would go awry.

There was, for example, that odd moment, the very evening they'd first arrived at their Paris hotel, unwashed, exhausted, still wearing the filthy clothes in which they'd fled Italy. A few words of explanation was all it had taken for the manager to usher them into a comfortable waiting area while the hotel's best suite was prepared. Nearby, a pompous, silver-haired man argued with the clerk on duty while a bosomy woman, still quite young under her make-up and dyed hair, hung on his arm. When the clerk shooed the couple back into the street, Maria had turned to him with a question on her face.

"They don't take that kind of trade at this hotel," he explained. "She's – ehrm –"

"His mistress?"

"More or less, yes."

"But they're giving us a room, aren't they?"

"What the – you are my wife, Maria. Or have ten days in the forest somehow caused you to forget?"

When their eyes simultaneously landed on her ringless hand, he'd been sick with regret. The cheap trinket he'd sent someone to buy before their wedding still lay twisted and tarnished in the carved wooden box. Georg vowed to replace it quickly, but then they got so wrapped up in each other, and their time in Paris was cut short, so he hadn't gotten around to it.

And what difference would it have made? he thought bitterly. Now that they were in England, Maria was refusing to acknowledge the marriage at all.

But he ought to have expected that too, from the morning after their arrival in Paris, when he'd called her attention to the telephones that littered their suite – one by the bedside, two in the living area, one, improbably, by the bathtub.

"We were in the forest for so long I'd nearly forgotten the simple magic of a telephone call! Let's not wait any longer to call the children, shall we, Maria?"

"But they think I've gone back to Austria," she said weakly, looking away from him.

"Exactly! Why, just imagine how excited – no, thrilled - they'll be to have you as their new mother. As you say, they aren't even expecting you in England at all, let alone-"

"Am I?"

"Are you what, darling?"

"Going to England."

"Of course you are," Georg frowned. "What the devil did you think was going to happen?"

She shrugged, but he didn't miss the tremble in her hands.

"Do – do we have to tell them we're married?"

He'd have thought he'd misheard her, had it not been for her stricken expression.

"Not tell them? I mean, if you don't want to tell them we were married all along, I suppose we can tell them that it happened after they left Italy – wait a minute. Don't you miss the children, Maria?"

"Oh, yes, of course I do." Her face betrayed a strange mix of longing and panic. "But if I am to go to England with you, then it's just that – well, wouldn't it be more fun to tell them in person?"

He ought to have sorted things out just then, but he'd been aware of how much he'd put her through, and so grateful to her for not abandoning him, that he'd given in. He told himself that it might be amusing, anyway, to see his family's faces when they heard the news in person. Despite the distasteful feeling that accompanied deceiving one's own children, he'd lumbered through a few solo telephone calls with them without mentioning that he'd long since married their governess and was planning to bring her to England.

Once the connection with the children was established, though, it was hard to resist their pleas for his quick return to England. The pull was magnified by John Whitehead's concern that a further delay might endanger the government's welcome: a lie Georg had manufactured for convenience which had now come true. Within another week, Georg had cut short their time in Paris and escorted his bride across the Channel.

In the back of the car, speeding from Dover to the Whitehead estate, he broached the subject once again.

"Are you excited? Can you imagine their faces when they see you? And then when we tell them the news? How do you think we ought to-"

"Oh, I can't wait to see them!" Maria's hands fidgeted nervously in her lap. "But can't we wait another day or two before we tell them about the marriage?"

It had been a rough crossing, and she'd spent most of it retching over the side of the ferry, gripping the railing with white knuckles. Indeed, her face still wore a greenish pallor. Georg had felt a surge of sympathy for his bride, who had never been outside Austria and spoke only German, and now had found herself exiled to a country that at present despised Germany and its allies. Worse, she'd be planted in the bosom of his first wife's family. Knowing John and Mathilde Whitehead as he did, Georg was reasonably confident things would work out, but he could see how things might look to Maria.

"Maria," he said gently. "I don't blame you for feeling nervous, but John and Mathilde know, and not only about the convenience part. I asked John to give us time alone, remember?" He untangled her fingers from her skirt and lifted her palms to his lips, one after the other. Her hands were clammy with sweat. "And anyway," he said lightly, "I have no intention of sleeping apart from you, have you considered that? If we don't admit to being married, we'll have to stay in separate rooms."

Maria had been sleeping by his side, or not far away from it, since the first time they'd made love in the hotel, by the sea. He didn't like the thought of sleeping alone again, but in the face of her obvious distress, his heart swelled with tenderness and he resolved to make the temporary sacrifice for her sake.

He'd been relieved to see a smile flit across her face, the first in hours.

"You could come visit me in my room, Georg."

At that, Georg felt a brief flicker of unease. He'd never been one to fantasize about the help, with the exception of his grandmother's housemaid when he was just a lad. Let other men lust after their governesses; the very notion repelled him and if he were honest with himself, he'd always felt a bit ashamed of the origins of his relationship with Maria. But that was all the in the past now, after all. He had a dear price for it, they both had, but now she was his wife!

"Not possible," he snorted. "They'll put you in the governess' chamber, in the middle of the nursery, with Gretl and Marta right under your nose."

"Then I'll come to you," Maria had whispered, looking up through her lashes, and that, of course, was all it had taken to win his assent.

But then a day or two had turned to a week, then two weeks, and now, after six weeks in England, Maria still refused to let him tell anyone about their marriage, or even to betray anything of their relationship. Instead, at least at first, she had moved through the days playing to perfection the role of the children's governess, dispensing affection, wisdom, laughter, and discipline with cheerful efficiency. He couldn't begrudge the children their frenzied joy at their reunion. What did bother him, more than he liked to admit, was to hear her address him, without even the gloss of teasing irony she'd used all summer.

"As you wish, Captain."

"Yes, sir, Captain."

"No, thank you, Captain."

A dozen times or more a day, she spoke to him in this fashion, never with warmth or anger or humor or curiosity, only with empty neutrality, forcing him to endure a little squeeze of pain at the memory of that long, rainy day in the harvesters' hut, when he thought he'd broken her of the habit for good, rewarding her for "Georg," chastising her sweetly for "Captain."

After the first two weeks in England, scrambling for some way to break through her defenses, Georg remembered her complaint from that night in the cave. "You didn't even kiss me," she'd said, and so now, desperate for a connection, he dragged her into a convenient linen closet and kissed her soundly, until she sagged against him, glassy-eyed.

"What is the matter, Maria?" he coaxed. "Please tell me, darling. Let me make things right, won't you?"

"Nothing is wrong," she murmured, offering him her mouth again.

"Is it about Agathe? Because truly, Maria, I-"

"No," she shook her head. "There's nothing like that."

"Are you homesick for Austria?"

"No. I told you, I just need a little more time."

"Has anyone been unkind to you?" he guessed, even though he didn't think that was the problem. For the Whiteheads had welcomed Maria, treating her with far more warmth than they'd owe a mere governess, and despite the questions plainly evident on their faces. Mathilde, in fact, was rarely without her English-German phrasebook, taking great pains to ascertain if Maria was warm enough, or needed a cup of tea, or preferred strawberry jam to apricot.

Her teeth grazed his earlobe.

"Maria, darling. I didn't bring you in here to for that."

Her fingers fluttered to his belt. "Oh, yes you did, Captain," she said feverishly.

His head swimming with frustration, Georg had brushed her fingers away, turned from her proffered mouth, and escorted her from the closet, feeling her feet drag behind him at every step.

Shortly after that, she had begun to keep one of the children near her throughout the day, making further conversation on the matter impossible. Things remained at an impasse for a few weeks longer before taking a turn for the worse. For lately, Maria had withdrawn into herself. No more singing, no more laughter, Day by day, he watched her sparkle fade, and the last bits of her confidence drain away, along, unfortunately, with his desire to do anything about it.

He tried to remind himself that she had always drawn her confidence from him. Things could not go on this way indefinitely, and it was up to him to set them right. But Georg had grown tired of begging, and direct interrogation hadn't worked. He'd been out of ideas. Until last night.

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Sighing deeply, Georg turned and reached for the knocker that adorned the massive wooden door. A moment later, it swung open to reveal a bowing butler.

"Henderson, have you seen the children's governess?"

"I believe she's in the library, sir."

While the butler whisked his coat and hat away, Georg stamped the snow from his feet and sat while his boots were removed and his shoes retrieved.

"Thank you, Henderson, no," he waved his shoes away. He'd need the advantage of stealth afforded by stocking feet. He'd need every advantage in the upcoming encounter, a circumstance for which he was entirely to blame after last night, when he had pushed things beyond stalemate to a crisis point.

That his concern for Maria was being displaced by despair, resentment and even the occasional spark of anger was no excuse for his deplorable conduct last night. As for Maria – who knew what she was feeling?

Back when he'd been mired in misery over Agathe, he'd known perfectly well that Maria was falling in love with him, even felt guilty about it. But he'd been quick to dismiss too much fuss about feelings as women's work, like childbirth or nursing. His grief for Agathe had been like a dangerous animal he'd done his struggling best to contain.

Now, he strained to remember exactly what Maria had told him, that morning in the hotel, recalling with dread that she had accused him of loving her. Not the other way around, not exactly. She'd said she needed him – something about how she'd manage without him, wasn't it? But loving someone and needing him were not the same thing, and lately, he'd had the sinking feeling that, incredible as it might seem, perhaps he finally understood what it was Maria needed from him after all.

It was impossible to know what Maria thought, despite his many attempts to find out. Since they'd fled the hotel, she'd never said another word about her feelings for him. Even if she'd been in love with him, by all appearances, she'd put it behind her, moving through the days with capable serenity.

Why, it was as though he'd imagined the whole thing! But he hadn't, of course. Georg knew that, if only because of what had been happening between them at night.

Every night.

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Their first night in England.

Georg had declined a last brandy with John Whitehead and retired early, nearly flattened by a wave of exhaustion and relief at having reunited with his children in a country that, at least for now, offered them refuge. While he missed Maria by his side, the pull of sleep was irresistible, and he was just turning to put out the bedside lamp when the grandfather clock in the great hall struck midnight and his bedroom door swung open.

Maria stood in the doorway, her curls tumbling over the shoulders of a shapeless flannel nightgown.

"The children?"

"Everyone is fine," she assured him, and then the door closed behind her and she was yanking off the nightgown to reveal the shape of her breasts and the curve of her hips, the ivory skin glowing through the translucent shimmer of the finest lingerie Paris had to offer. His mouth watered, while his blood went straight to his groin.

Within minutes, he had her stripped bare and squirming, arching desperately against him as he lavished her breasts with kisses. But a moment's scramble later, a flurry of arms and legs, and he found himself on his back, with her sitting astride him.

"You promised," she had reminded him, and he had fallen onto his back, laughing, his arms stretched overhead in mock submission. He had been instructed to lie still, and strictly forbidden to use his hands or mouth as she began to torture him with the luscious slide of her body against his. His laughter had faded to a strained chuckle and eventually a few deep groans of frustration as she rubbed herself, hot and slick, against his most sensitive parts. Purely by instinct, his hands flew to her hips to position her.

"No," she commanded him, her voice low and husky, "I want to do it myself." She pushed his hands to his sides and clamped her hands around his wrists.

The truth was that, if he chose to, it would be a moment's work to flick his wrists free of her grip, to unseat her and have her underneath and sheathed around him. But it pleased Georg to fulfill her wish.

"You've got the angle wrong," he advised, feigning composure although he was nearly crazed with lust. "Lean forward."

"Do you always have to be in command?"

"Little fool," he groaned, "don't you see? I am lost to you. Conquered. Utterly and completely vanquished."

Whether it was his heartfelt words or practical advice, at that moment, something shifted. Her blue eyes went wide, and with a last, lascivious wiggle and a jubilant cry, she was sliding easily down the length of him. With a relieved gasp, he shook away her grip and lifted his hands to cup her lovely breasts, stroking and squeezing them with the firm touch he knew she adored. Maria moved on him with a rhythm just clumsy enough to hold him right at the edge, until the sight of her – head thrown back, golden curls flying everywhere, was too enticing to resist.

He lifted up against her. "Do that again," she demanded, and he obliged her, bucking and straining, reaching deep inside her, while his fingertips swiped between her legs. He felt the desire coiling dangerously within him, winding tighter and tighter, until something snapped free. A fierce groan was torn from his throat as, with pulse after pulse, she pulled from him the most exquisite climax of his life

And so it had gone, every night for six weeks. When the great clock chimed midnight, Maria would creep into his room and bewitch him into submission. With every passing day, he promised himself that tonight, he would hold her off until she offered some explanation for her perplexing and maddening daytime behavior and agreed to acknowledge their marriage. With every passing night, he failed to do so.

The problem was that he simply couldn't stop himself. His craving for Maria had become a dangerous compulsion, a monster: the more he fed it, the more it demanded of him, but at the same time, it wasn't enough.

Georg felt himself slipping away, bit by bit, the situation eroding his famous self-control, coming dangerously close to exhausting the supply of tenderness and gratitude he'd once had for the little governess. Why, he'd been the one to teach her to kiss – about her own body - to teach her everything – and now she wanted nothing but that from him, not even the love so painfully and gloriously born of their time in the forest, the love he so wished to lavish upon her.

It was as though the earth had suddenly turned upside-down, inverted on its axis. Somehow, he had become like one of the women who had developed feelings for him in the years after Agathe's death, while Maria had assumed the role of the rakish, lustful von Trapp, interested only in the temporary connection afforded by passion. Georg was fluent in six languages, and functional in another three, and he didn't even know the word for the man in such an arrangement.

It was a purely ridiculous notion, of course. But something had to be done. So last night, he'd planned a change in tactics, plotting a course that would either save their marriage or destroy it, the same kind of rash gamble that had won him the Maria Thereisen. If she wouldn't talk about it, he would take another approach. So she liked a firm hand? He would wrench the words from her lips or die trying.

Like any clear-headed strategist, he'd carefully set the scene. When the clock struck and Maria slipped through his door, the room blazed with light, every lamp lit. Rather than waiting for her in bed, he'd seated himself, fully dressed, in the big chair by the fire.

"Cap – I mean – Georg, what are you-"

He remained seated.

"Take it off."

Forehead wrinkling with confusion, she raised the heavy flannel nightgown over her shoulders, revealing tonight's confection: wicked black lace, with no hint of innocence remaining. She'd dressed the part without knowing it.

"That too."

"Wouldn't you like to do it yourself?" But already, the tremble in her voice betrayed her.

"Do as you're told, Maria. I want you naked and on the bed," he said evenly. "Count of ten."

It took her no more than five seconds to obey.

Now he rose and went to stand over her.

"Slide down a bit, Maria. Now stop."

When she was where he wanted her, Georg took her hand and guided it upward until he could curl her fingers around the headboard's spindles. "Hold on to that," he ordered, circling the bed to repeat the maneuver with her other hand. Then he went to stand at the foot of the bed, arms crossed against his chest, keeping his expression impassive.

Maria's face had gone pale under her freckles.

"Now your feet."

For the first time, he saw fear flash across her face, and he nearly lost his nerve, but then saw something else in her eyes, something of his untamed forest sprite, that spurred him onward.

"But my feet won't reach."

"Point your toes, then."

He'd called it exactly right: it was only with great effort that she could keep her toes just barely in contact with the footboard.

"That's right. Now. Maria." He let his fingertips trail over her skin, from her sensitive neck all the way down her willowy legs, before striding across the room to where the stout velvet bell-pull hung from the ceiling. "You haven't got one of these in your room, of course, only being the governess, but you know how it works, don't you?"

"Georg-"

"One pull for a housemaid. Two for the butler. Three is an emergency – a fire, an intruder, that sort of thing. Pull this thing three times and the entire staff descends, with John and Mathilde on their heels. The constables are called automatically. That, Fraulein Maria," he let the mockery leach into his voice, "is your challenge, you see. Your hands leave the headboard, your toes leave the footboard – keep them pointed, darling! – and I pull that cord three times. Imagine the shame of it! For a woman to be found with her husband in these circumstances is nothing more than an embarrassment. But the governess? Naked in her employer's bed? That's a different matter."

He began to undress.

"This is ridiculous, Georg. What kind of a threat is that? You no more want to be discovered this way than I do."

She hadn't spoken so many words in a row to him in weeks.

"As you have pointed out on more than one occasion, Maria, everyone already knows about me. With my wicked reputation, there's nothing left I can do to shock them. As long as the children are left out of it, I don't really care, not anymore. If this is all I'm good for, then I might as well embrace it fully, don't you think?"

Exercising great care, he lined his shoes up by the bed, hung his jacket in the closet, and removed his necktie.

"I don't have to stay here, you know," she fumed. "In fact, I think I've had quite enough-"

Georg had only to raise an eyebrow to still her – unless, of course, she wanted to read something into the way he'd wrapped the ends of his necktie around his fingers and tugged, hard. Let her think what she wanted about that. He put the tie on the bed, leaving it in her line of sight as a reminder, or a threat, really. Slowly, deliberately, he shed his trousers and hung them with his jacket; removed shirt and socks and underthings and left them for the valet.

Then he stalked around the room, feeling her eyes on him, knowing perfectly well the effect that the sight of his nude body had on her. He let the tension build and swell, pushing the air out of the room, until he see her quivering like a bowstring, until he could smell it on her, fear mixed with arousal, and then he pounced.

She was a vixen, all soft skin and wild hair, the taste and scent of her intoxicating. He went at her ferociously, with hands and fingers, with lips and tongue, stopping long enough only to assail her with words he'd never dared speak before, not to any woman.

He gave her no chance to rest, losing count himself after the third time he brought her to climax. And all throughout, she was curiously silent, giving up nothing but the occasional soft moan, her face rigid with concentration on the task he'd given her. Her hands gripped one end of the bed and her toes danced on the other. Only after he was inside of her, feeling her throb and pulse around him with every harsh stroke, sensing the nearly constant vibration of every muscle in her body, did he appreciate what it had taken for her to absorb the force of his passion.

After another two times, when he was sure that there was nothing left of her but a boneless whimper, he withdrew from her without taking his pleasure. Gently urging her fingers loose from the headboard, he stretched out alongside her and took her into his arms.

"Maria," he panted, "please. Please. I can't go on this way, not any longer. Tell me. Show me. Something. Anything."

She lifted her head, but when her eyes found his, they were vacant.

"You," she said hoarsely, "you have broken me."

For a moment, they were back in the cave again, the way it had been before. Before everything. But this time, she didn't flee. When she broke away from him, she let out a sound, the anguished howl of an injured animal, and raked her sharp nails down his chest to his thighs, leaving blood oozing in her wake.

And then she took him fully into her mouth.

There were a few, last, delirious thoughts, cinders escaping the incineration. If she were any more expert, he would surely die. Where had she learned that? But of course: he had been the one to teach her.

After that, his mind emptied.

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Georg stood outside the library, the memory of last night leaving the haunting flavor of shame, like ashes, in his mouth.

With my heart as with a hand, he thought bitterly. So much for that. If this went on much longer, one of them was going to kill the other.

So, then, let the reckoning begin.

Taking one last, deep breath, he pushed open the library door.

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Wow, I did not actually know what was going to happen when I started this chapter. Don't own TSOM, and if I did, they'd probably take it away from me after this!