From the Inside Flap
"Linda Francis Lee writes powerfully moving love stories." --Nora Roberts
From the Back Cover
"Linda Francis Lee writes powerfully moving love stories."
--NORA ROBERTS
About the Author
Before turning her hand to writing, Linda Francis Lee taught probability and statistics. Lee is also the author of Dove's Way. She currently lives with her husband, Michael, in New York City, where she is at work on her next historical romance.
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Vienna
The lights went down.
Voices in the opulent gilt hall quieted to a buzz of anticipation.
Standing behind the long velvet curtain, Sophie Wentworth could feel their
desire. Unrelenting, intense.
With a slow, sensual pull, like strong male hands to a woman's velvet
gown, the draperies slid back. Sophie stood onstage, but she stood in
darkness, waiting, her heart pounding in her chest, excitement and
anticipation swirling together in a heady mix. She could sense the sea of
faces in the dark, sense the hundreds of people who filled the concert
hall, waiting for her.
Then it happened, that one piercing stream of light, capturing her,
tangling in her upswept hair, reflecting off the black satin cape she wore
around her shoulders, and the crowd erupted in a roar of applause.
She smiled into the light, her head tilting back as if she were soaking up
the sun, her throat tight with exhilarating joy.
This was the moment she lived for--the wave of excitement that swept
through an audience when she appeared.
It was the end of her first tour, and over the past months she had taken
Paris by storm. Stockholm and Salzburg. Geneva. Even London, with its
strict Victorian ways, had adored her.
Only Vienna, the crowning jewel of the music world, remained. It was the
city where the greatest had composed and played. Bach and Beethoven,
Mozart and Mendelssohn.
And now she would play there, too.
She stood without moving in the Grand Hall of Vienna's Musikverein, the
deafening applause feeding her soul. It hadn't started out this way six
months ago when she first began the tour. In the beginning she had played
as she was taught, proper and decorous--played as she should. And critics
had dismissed her as yet another former child prodigy who played the cello
with a small, quaint sound.
But she had changed all that, had changed her show. And she had surprised
herself by reveling in the change. She loved the extravagant gowns and the
glittering jewels. The drama. The deep, throbbing pulse of excitement.
Boston would no doubt keel over from shock if they saw her perform now.
She started to cringe, but determinedly held it at bay. Boston was the
past. Europe was her future.
Pushing back whatever remnants of inhibition she felt, Sophie let the
satin cape drop from her shoulders. A gasp rose from the rows of
velvet-cushioned seats up through the ornate tiers of elegant boxes at the
sight of her creamy white skin revealed from her low-cut, crimson gown.
And Sophie could feel the instant that they started wanting her even more.
Confidence filled her like wine poured into a glass, and
she took her cello from its stand, then gave a discreet nod for the
pianist to join her onstage. The excited buzz ceased abruptly,
encapsulating the concert hall in silence, complete and clear--not even a
whisper was heard.
She could feel the audience, feel their anticipation like a touch as she
sat down with the grace of a perfect lady, then slowly pulled the
instrument between her legs in the manner one of her more persistent
admirers had called a provocative mix of bold abandon and startling
titillation.
No one seemed to breathe. Sophie savored the moment, closing her eyes in
that crystalline space of perfect quiet while the audience waited, her bow
poised. Then she began with a flourish, the faces and adoration forgotten,
the world set back as she brought the bow to the strings and pulled a
dazzling G major from a lively, popular tune that ensnared every man and
woman there. She drew out the music with such passion and beauty that no
one in the audience gave a thought to the fact that the piece she played
wasn't technically difficult--so different from the pieces she had played
when the world had considered her a prodigy. There was no more Beethoven.
No more of her beloved Bach.
After that she flew through a repertoire of favorite operatic pieces that
had been adapted for the cello, mixing in a few heart-stirring waltzes,
and captured the one remaining citadel of Europe with her dazzling up-bow
staccato that wowed the crowd.
The night was exhilarating. She could feel their desire--for her music, for
her. But toward the end of the show, during a piece that was different
from the rest, a more complicated composition she had thrown in because
she couldn't help it, she started to savor a note, shaping it. For one
unexpected second she tumbled back in time to Boston and long hours of
devoted study. Playing and practicing. Striving to be perfect.
But then she remembered where she was, and what her audience was there
for. Flourish and vibrato. Spectacle and show. And she leaped into a Danzi
duet with a flutist who joined her onstage.
Then it was over, the repertoire complete, two encores played. And Sophie
found herself in a dressing room backstage filled with flowers from
admirers and compliments from her entourage, who traveled with her
everywhere she went.
"You were spectacular!"
"You were beyond spectacular!"
Sophie smiled euphorically, adrenaline pulsing through her veins as Henry
Chambers kissed her extravagantly on both cheeks. He was a slight man with
dark brown eyes and sandy blond hair. And he was devoted to Sophie.
Deandra Edwards lounged on a sofa, her auburn hair artfully arranged, a
glass of champagne between her long, manicured fingers. "Yes, you were
fabulous. But you'd best freshen up, chÈrie. The crËme de la crËme are
here. Powerful politicians. Wealthy industrialists. An assortment of men."
Indeed within minutes the suite was filled with dignitaries and important
politicians sipping the finest of wines and vying to get closer to Sophie.
"Miss Wentworth," the mayor of Vienna called out in a grand and courtly
manner when she entered, quieting the room. "You were divine."
"Thank you, sir." Her voice wrapped around the guests like honeyed velvet.
"Your city is a jewel, and I am thrilled to have been given the chance to
play here."
