The Brahms Deception Read Online Free PDF Page B

back the sour comment before it could escape him. He took another long swallow of beer, letting his silence speak for him, and waited for Gregson to get to his point.
    â€œThe thing is, Mr. North, things are a bit of a mess here. We have protesters outside our building. They’ve been there since the transfer. And now this situation! Dr. Braunstein and I can only think of one thing to do.”
    Kristian waited for him to finish his thought. When a beat went by and Gregson didn’t speak again, he prompted him. “Yes? That would be . . . ?”
    â€œWe want you to go after her.”

3
    Frederica considered Clara Schumann to have been the greatest fool of her century. She had been so firm in her devotion to her dead husband, so punctilious in her care for her children, so disciplined in the running of her household and of her career, that even the most eager tongues could speak no scandal. They could speculate, and they did, but Clara, noble and melancholy and cold, had never given in to the temptation of a second marriage. And she had most certainly not made an alliance with her husband’s protégé, Johannes Brahms.
    Or so we all thought! Something triumphant stirred in Frederica’s breast. Clara was not, after all, the paragon, the priestess, they all thought her. She was a woman, and no different from any other. Despite her beauty and her musicianship, her accomplishments and her fame, she had suffered the classic female failing. She had fallen in love.
    Frederica could hardly breathe for excitement. Her doctoral dissertation would be a sensation. She would expose the truth about Clara Schumann, reveal her deception, shatter the false pedestal she had stood upon for so very long. Why should she hold back? Research was all about truth. And this truth would astound the musical world.
    Frederica watched Clara tip up her head, showing her sculpted chin, the length of her white neck, as she bestowed a quiet smile on Brahms.
    Why would he allow her to manipulate him like this? She had kept him from all others, saved him for herself, yet forced him to keep their association a secret. All for her reputation, for her career, for her image as Schumann’s faithful widow! It was unutterably selfish.
    Frederica could have wept, seeing Brahms bend to kiss Clara, the lightest of kisses lingering on her high, smooth forehead. His eyes closed, and his hand cupped her neck, stroked her slender back with a touch at once gentle and possessive. No one will ever kiss me like that. The cruelty of it, the unfairness, made her heart pound.
    With Brahms’s arm around her, Clara put aside the Wiegenlied and picked up the trio again. She played a few bars near the end of the B minor Scherzo . They discussed a chord progression. Clara pointed out a rhythm. Brahms expressed his dissatisfaction with the coda. Frederica understood most of what they said, but she trembled as she listened. Her time was running out. She didn’t want to go.
    It wasn’t just that they hadn’t gotten to the p dolce she had come for, the obscure detail that was the reason for her being here. She had plenty of new information to enrich her dissertation, but she couldn’t bear to leave the scene. Soon they would reverse the transfer and she would be torn away from this idyll, this haven of light and color and music. Who knew if the Foundation would allow her to return? She had barely won this opportunity as it was. Had her father not—but she wouldn’t think about that.
    Clara turned the page to the Adagio movement, but Brahms reached past her to close the manuscript. “Enough for today, mein Engel . I’m tired.”
    â€œOh, Hannes, that’s because you take too much wine at lunch.”
    The German was getting easier and easier to follow. Their pronunciation was just slightly different, a little more precise than contemporary German, the consonants sharp and hard, the vowels closed. Frederica hovered