IN VINO VERITAS

CHAPTER 2

A/N: This story was not submitted to a beta yet. However, it has been throughly revised and expanded, and another new chapter added. A little warning - the changes made the story a bit darker, and probablymore controversial. So, if you like to see Georg and Maria as practically perfect in every way, maybe you should stay away from this one.

Disclaimer: I do not own The Sound of Music, etc.

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"He who fights too long against dragons becomes a dragon himself..."

Friedrich Nietzsche

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Drink to me only with thine eyes,
And I will pledge with mine;
Or leave a kiss but in the cup,
And I'll not look for wine.

Ben Jonson

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The dreams came again that night, more disturbing than ever.

She was the maiden locked in a tower, with nothing but books of fairy stories to keep her company. A dragon with midnight blues eyes kept her there, but she had not exactly been captured by him. She had been lured into his den, powerless to resist. There was a glimmer of hope when a knight came to rescue her. His face was hidden at first, but when he opened the helmet, and all she could see were his eyes – midnight blue, just like the dragon's. He spoke to her, and his voice… it was the voice of the dragon. The images of the dream blurred into a kaleidoscope, centered in those very eyes that fascinated her, the only thing that she could see clearly. Until realization came with a shock. She should have known. They did not only have the same eyes. The knight and the dragon were one and the same, and they both were...

Captain von Trapp.

She woke up just in time stifle a scream. Too agitated to sleep again, she found herself walking restlessly around the house, trying to convince herself that the dream was a result of reading too many fairy tales with the children lately, and, of course, the conversation with the Captain earlier in the day. There was probably a reason for her foster parents not allowing her to read too much – with her overactive imagination, and her head constantly in the clouds, they used to say that feeding her mind with fantastic stories of adventure and romance would only lead her to trouble later in life. Naturally, she had never believed them.

When her heartbeat finally returned to its normal heard, she heard the music: haunting accords coming from a piano. Whoever was playing was much more than just an average musical talent, she could certainly tell as much. She tiptoed outside to find out where the music came from, and she noticed that, curiously, the sounds came from above.

There was only one place upstairs where she knew a piano could be. The attic!

Well, virtuoso or not, he or she, would be in serious trouble if the Captain was hearing it too. She waited at the bottom of the stairs to the attic for several minutes, just listening to the music, and, at the same time, bracing herself for the Captain running past her to see who dared to touch the precious instrument. Nothing happened. Feeling braver, she decided to solve the mystery herself, and maybe warn the pianist about the strict rules concerning that piano.

She climbed the stairs slowly, savoring the melody, so hauntingly beautiful that she thought it might be her ghost after all. Dark and yet passionate. She had never heard it before, and later she would be told that it was a Prelude from the famous Russian composer who was taking the world by storm – Rachmaninoff. Dream and reality became one in a minute, and she headed towards the music just as the princess in the dream walked up the tower, lured by the dragon.

The door was ajar. Carefully, Maria approached it, in small steps, on her bare toes, closer and closer, too curious about that she was going to find to be afraid. If it was indeed a ghost, she had no wish to disturb it. If he was her dragon…

"Yo no creo en las brujas, pero que las hay, las hay," her friend Cristina, also a postulant at Nonnberg Abbey, whispered all the time. It translated roughly as "I do not believe in witches, but I do not doubt that they exist". Maria believed it could be applied to ghosts, dragons and other fantastic creatures just as well.

There was only the faintest light coming from inside – a white-blue moonbeam coming from the window, which gave the scene an eerie, phantasmagorical appearance. It was a full moon's night, and it was so bright that hardly any light would be needed, even to read the music.

"Not a ghost, but the dragon himself," she thought, when she saw Captain von Trapp sitting at the piano.

There were no music sheets, which told her that he was playing from memory. He sat on the bench, so focused on the music that he did not see her. Maria stood there, as still as one of the statues that graced the garden. She did not know what fascinated her most – the Captain or the music that seemed to be pouring out of him. His long fingers flew over the keyboard with maddening speed, never missing the right key. It was not only his hands, however – his whole body seemed to be involved by the music. He was almost in a trance. All she knew was that she wanted just to stay there, unnoticed, watching him as he played.

His appearance distressed her, however. The expression in his face could only be described as anguish – such angst and despair that Maria, having such a sensitive soul, felt her heart tighten. A half empty bottle of red wine lay on the table, and it looked like he had not even bothered to fetch a glass to drink it.

"So this is what it looks like," she thought, mesmerized. "Pain, grief. Is this what I would look like if I had not found the Abbey?" Nothing in her life, not even in her troubled early years, could be compared to what she could read in his posture, only by looking at him from a distance. "This is what he hides behind his aristocratic mask. His sarcasm, his dry sense of humor. This is Georg von Trapp. Not the Captain, not the Baron."

It was the first time Maria ever saw him in such a state. He was never anything but impeccably dressed and clean shaven, his thick dark brown hair neatly combed back. Even during their more relaxing times with the children, he wore a suit and tie. Seeing him like that was strangely disturbing. Unsettling.

He wore no tie at all – and Maria could have sworn he even slept with a tie. His pristine white shirt was not quite tucked, and the top two buttons were open. His hair was disheveled, and a stubborn lock fell on his forehead. There was a shadow of a beard in his cheek already. He looked – wild, untamed. As wicked as a dragon, as rakish as a pirate... A pirate who ravished the maidens in the ships he captured, not a sea captain and a naval hero.

Mortified by the direction of her thoughts, Maria stepped back. She did not wish to intrude any longer in what was obviously a very private moment. Most of all, it that it would mortify him, to be caught in such an unguarded state.

He must have seen the flickering caused by her moving shadow, because the music stopped immediately, and his hands rested in the black and white keys.

"Are you there my love?" he whispered, in a tone Maria had never heard before – soft, low and seductive. She did not have to think too hard to know who he was talking to. It was like a knife in her heart, and the feeling was so keen in was almost physical. At the same time, a wave of longing swept over her – something she had never felt before. Longing for what?

"To hear someone talking to you like that," a voice inside her said. "To be worthy like that, and to love in return..."

My love.

Maria gasped and although it was the faintest of sounds, the Captain heard it.

He banged the keyboard, making a dissonant, unpleasant noise. "Who is there?" he barked. Maria jumped, taking a few steps backwards. "Show yourself, you little coward!"

"There is no use in hiding now, it would only make things worse," Maria thought. The last thing she wanted was the Captain running after her down the stairs, waking the whole household in the process.

Bravely, she stepped inside the room. The moonlight fell squarely over her.

"It is just me," she said weakly.

"You," he growled. Then he shook his head, and chuckled. "Of all the… I should have guessed, it could only be you."

He looked up and stared sternly at her for a moment, with an expression of such blatant hostility in his eyes that made her cringe. Maria fidgeted with the knot holding her robe together, tightening it.

"I'm sorry Captain, but I heard something and I thought… I thought you might need… I thought you were…"

Oh Lord, this was entirely outside the realm of her experiences, and she did not know for sure how to act. Not only he was her employer, but he was also a handsome man – she had never been enough of a hypocrite to deny the fact – in a much disheveled state, which, to her dismay, only added to his appeal. Besides, he had clearly been drinking – a bit too much, maybe. Maria had her own very good reasons to stay away from people in that state.

"It could have been the children," she finished, finding the perfect excuse at last, and smiling inwardly, proud of herself for her reasonably quick wit. And the hopefully apparent steadiness of her nerves.

"Ah yes. Naturally the children." He kept staring at her, his eyes narrowing into slits. She had hoped that, at this point, he would already have interrupted her, snapping at her for being where she was explicitly told, several times in fact, was off limits to her. His silence was worse than his bark.

"Ahem… I am sorry I have disturbed you, Captain. I did not mean to. Honestly, I did not." and proceeded to leave hastily.

Slowly, then, a half smile formed in his lips. It was enough to make her stop where she was. She knew that smile well, an indication of his worst moods. But there was something there she had not sensed before, a feeling that hit her in the pit of her stomach. She clutched her hands there.

"Again we meet here, twice in the same day, and again you find yourself where you are not supposed to be. Are you ever where you are supposed to be?"

"Well, I…."

"Tell me the truth, Fräulein. You are an appalling liar. Why did you come all the way up here in the middle of the night?"

"I heard this beautiful music, and I wondered who was playing, since no one I knew in the house could play like that. I certainly did not know you could, although I have been told by the children that you... ehrm… So I thought…"

"You thought I was either a ghost or the mad wife in the attic, didn't you? You were too curious, you had to see." he said sarcastically.

There was a reason for that last comment. The children enjoyed her reading aloud for them. It was a habit of Maria, something she enjoyed doing at the Abbey. Reading there had been restricted to religious works, but the von Trapp library, on the other hand, provided her with a wide variety of books of every genre. Only a few days earlier, he walked in while she was reading Jane Eyre for Liesl, Louisa and Brigitta, and he stayed to listen. The next day he returned, and became a regular presence in her reading sessions, even if it was a fairy tale she was reading for the smaller children.

"I am not afraid of ghosts," she said defiantly, her chin up, with a confidence that, deep inside, she did not feel.

"No, of course not. You are not afraid of anything, are you? He sneered. "Nothing scares you, does it? Thunderstorms, children, spiders, whistles, pine cones, sea captains, the Austrian Imperial Navy, mean nuns, grand pianos, and now ghosts of dead wives. Maybe you should be afraid, Fräulein. Maybe you should," he said looking at her intently. She shivered visibly, and crossed her arms over her chest, in an unconscious defensive gesture.

"Afraid of what?" she dared to ask.

"And she even has to ask!" he shook his head, looking upward, as if talking to another invisible presence in the room.

Lowering her eyes, she took a deep breath and steadied her voice, trying desperately to change the subject. "You do play very well, Captain. I am very much impressed."

"Indeed I do," he said wryly. "Just another skill required by my pretentious education. By the way, my children never lie – at least they were taught not to. But was that a compliment from you, I heard? I'm rather surprised."

"Why is that?"

"I never thought you would have anything good to say about me," was his self deprecatory answer. "To be honest I thought you did not like me very much."

Maria was rendered speechless by his admission. "Oh, Captain, I… I…"

"Come in," he gestured. "Don't just… stand over there like an unusually covered Greek statue. I could use some intelligent company. Do you play?"

"Hah, no!" she chuckled. "I have enough trouble managing six chords in a guitar. Handling eighty-five piano keys may be well beyond my capabilities. I simply lack the discipline."

"Eighty-eight keys," he corrected. "If you can teach seven children sing madrigals, you can handle seven octaves plus a minor third easily. Let me see what you can do," he shifted his stool a little to the left, to make some space for her. Maria remained frozen where she was. "Come on, I am quite sure you will surprise me in one way or another – like you've done with everything else you do."

"Oh no, I couldn't possibly! Your children are all musically inclined, Captain, and now I know where they got it from. Teaching them was no hard task." Maria said, taking a step backwards. "Now, if you excuse me."

"Wait!" he stopped her. "Just… forget all I said. That was a foolish excuse from a man in desperate need of some human company, dead or alive – as it seems like even the dead are deserting me tonight. Please – stay!" He showed her a tall stool next to the piano. She sat down, her stance prim and straight, arranging the folds of her nightgown and robe around her.

He noticed it.

"Don't worry, your virtue is safe with me tonight," he taunted. "We von Trapps are a ridiculously honorable lot, so they say. We make the best sea captains, but we are too dull to be pirates." He raised the bottle to her, in a mock toast, and proceeded to drink. With him looking and talking like that, Maria was not sure she believed what he said. To her utter dismay, he offered the bottle to her. "Here, have some. You look like you need it as much as I do."

Her mouth dropped open. "Captain, I don't…"

"Take it," he insisted, in a softer voice now. "One sip won't make you drunk, nor will it send you straight to the purgatory. It will undoubtedly make it easier for you to tolerate my brooding."

Trying to keep her hand firm, she took the bottle from him, their fingers brushing slightly in the process – just like it had happened that very first day, when he had handled the whistle. It was disturbingly intimate, to drink from the same bottle as he had, to place her lips where his had been… Yet, she faced the task bravely, and took a healthy sip of the wine, as he watched her every reaction, her every gesture, with unprecedented attention. Afterwards, with a look of challenge in her face, she returned the bottle to him, and he placed it on top of the piano. Fervently, she hope that she had acted casually, as if drinking wine from a bottle with a handsome sea captain was an every day occurrence in her life.

"Not the best vintage, I'm afraid" he said apologetically when he noticed that she had struggled a bit to swallow the wine. "In fact I would not even allow it in my cellar, if it were not a gift from a very dear friend from my old Navy days. However, it is perfect for nights like this… for places like this."

"Oh, not to worry, Captain, it is far better than the consecrated wine we have at the conv…" she stopped, covering her mouth with her hand, but it was already too late – she had revealed one of her very few secrets to him. It was, in fact, her only secret – at least the only one meaningful enough to be remembered as such. The Captain, however, did not take it badly, he did not seem angry or scandalized by her behavior. If one of the more strict sisters had found out about it – Sister Berthe, for instance, or even the Reverend Mother, she was fairly certain that she would have been expelled from Nonnberg for good.

"So you have drunk wine before," he chuckled. "All that needless worrying about corrupting your soul and keeping you for heading straight to heaven…"

"Only once…" he raised an eyebrow, a clear sign that she should explain herself further. "It's true! I… we… we were curious about how it tasted, so one of the postulants managed to…"

"One - of the postulants?"

She rolled her eyes, "Well, I managed to borrow…"

"Uh – to borrow, Fräulein?"

"Very well, I took one of the bottles so that we could…" he frowned at her, "All right, so that I could have a taste of it."

"And?" The man was persistent, she had to admit. If he ever questioned a war prisoner like that, she had little doubt that he had been brilliantly successful.

"I was never caught, if that is what you are asking, Captain, although the headache I had the following day was punishment enough."

"A postulant with a mighty hangover... and to think that I believed I had seen and heard everything from you!" he said sarcastically.

"I was not exactly drunk, I was just… a bit dizzy. It wasn't even a full bottle, there was only one quarter of it left…" He cast a doubtful glance. "All right, half a bottle… Where was the piano before?" she asked, hastily, once more to change the subject away from her person. He laughed at her quick change of subject.

She was getting dizzy now, but it had nothing to do with the feeling she once had after drinking wine for the first time. No, it was an entirely different feeling, equally new, but a thousand times more frightening. No, one sip of his wine was not the cause of it, it was not what was getting into her head. The cause of it was him, and that was clear enough to her.

"The piano used to be in the ballroom," he answered her question casually, apparently unaware of her inner turmoil. "I had it brought up here after the children's mother died."

"I was thinking…"

"Oh… no, no, no, no, no! Yes, yes, you were thinking. I know very well what is going on this devious, scheming little mind of yours."

"It is a magnificent grand piano, Captain, even though it's been so sadly neglected. And the orchestra the Baroness hired for the ball will need one. Why rent one when you have the most…"

"Fräulein!"

"Captain?"

"Raid my cellar in the middle of the night, if you will, but leave my piano alone." He warned. "As I said before – what is in the attic, stays in the attic. I don't want these things around the house anymore. They belong to another time." He shook his head. "I should know that you would not just sit quietly and listen. Not you."

"Well, if you want me to leave all you have to do is ask…"

"No. I do not. Please stay."

He began to play again, and Maria let herself to be carried by the music.