The Maestro's Mistress
Read The Maestro's Mistress Online
Authors: Angela Dracup
| The Maestro's Mistress |
| Maestro [2] |
| Angela Dracup |
| The Electronic Book Company (2012) |
‘The Mistress apologised very sincerely to Georgiana for stealing her husband and becoming pregnant with his child.’
The Maestro: Saul Xavier is revered and envied by millions. He is talented, wealthy and magnetically attractive. But the two greatest desires of his life are unfulfilled until he meets Tara.
The Mistress: Tara is young, musically gifted and filled with enthusiasm for life. Xavier can’t resist her.
The Wife: Georgiana is an ice-cold beauty who revels in the status of being married to Xavier. What she doesn’t revel in is love-making. And when Tara steals Xavier away, she is determined to have revenge.
In this novel of intense love, passion and jealousy, three people play out a gripping drama which boils up to a momentous and unexpected climax.
“Angela Dracup tells a gripping story of burning passions set in the cut-throat world of classical music.”
The Maestro Series
The Maestro’s Mistress is the second book in The Maestro Series. Although musically themed, they are all stand-alone books written in different genres. Mozart in Love is already published and Death in a Heartbeat will become available on Amazon Kindle over the coming months.
About the Author
A prolific author, Angela has written 29 books in a number of genres. She's had four bestsellers with her books in the acclaimed, Scarlet Series (under the pen name Angela Drake) and was short-listed for the prestigious Carnegie Medal with her young adult novel, The Placing.
Author’s website: www.angeladracup.com
Published by The Electronic Book Company
www.theelectronicebookcompany.com
THE
MAESTRO’S MISTRESS
ANGELA
DRACUP
Digital edition
first
published
in
2012
Published
by The Electronic Book Company
www.theelectronicebookcompany.com
Author’s website:
www.angeladracup.com
This
ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be
re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this ebook
with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If
you’re reading this ebook and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for
your use only, then please purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the
hard work of this author. This ebook contains detailed research material,
combined with the author's own subjective opinions, which are open to debate.
Any offence caused to persons either living or dead is purely unintentional.
Factual references may include or present the author's own interpretation,
based on research and study.
Copyright 2012 by Angela
Dracup
CONTENTS:
PART ONE - 1991
PART TWO – A YEAR LATER
PART THREE - THIRTEEN YEARS LATER
Part One – early 1990s
On his fortieth birthday
international orchestra conductor Saul Xavier has a sudden fear about the
future. He is wealthy and successful but his marriage is faltering, he has no
children and he craves a new challenge.
Then he meets Tara Silk, a young
budding violinist.
They are instantly attracted and
after Tara becomes pregnant Xavier takes her to live with him in his country
house in Oxfordshire where he showers her with adoration and the promise of a
bright future in the world of music.
Georgiana Xavier, however, has no
plans to agree to a divorce. She sets about stalking Tara. But when Tara calls
her bluff an uneasy friendship develops between the two women.
Tara eventually gives birth to
twins, but one of them dies at birth.
Part Two – a year later
Tara gives a public performance
of Elgar’s Violin Concerto. She accepts an invitation from the Vienna
Philharmonic to stand in at a concert when the soloist falls sick. But her
elation vanishes when she arrives home to find that baby Alessandra has been
abducted.
Xavier guesses the abductor is
his wife. They set out to find her. But a car crash leaves Tara injured so that
she will never again play the violin.
Part Three - thirteen years later
Xavier continues to thrive in his
career, and Tara is renowned for her training videos for aspiring musicians.
But Xavier is dismayed that Alessandra likes horses better than music. Tara
tries to act as peacemaker but family tensions develop. Things boil up to a
crisis when Xavier walks out of a concert rehearsal, leaving Tara to take his
place.
Tara hopes a family holiday in
Salzburg will help matters, but whilst there Xavier becomes ever more remote
and wrapped up in his music. Alessandra feels rejected and angry and Tara
struggles to see the way forward.
And then a figure from the past
arrives and suddenly their world is in pieces. Tara finds herself staring into
the abyss when Xavier goes missing. Is he dead? And if he is still alive will
he ever return so they can heal the wounds which have torn them apart?
PART ONE - 1991
Saul Xavier had not conducted in
London for three years. The mere rumour of his coming to one of the city’s
premier concert halls to do an all Brahms concert set the box office into a
flurry of activity. Advertised prices went to an all time high and ticket touts
patrolling the street outside the hall on the night were asking five times the
advertised price and getting it.
Xavier lost no time in making his
presence felt. Within minutes of arriving for the afternoon rehearsal the worst
fears of the apprehensive manager of the hall and his staff were realized when
Xavier abruptly stopped the orchestra almost as soon as they had started
playing. Spinning round on his stool he peered frowning into the gloom of the
almost empty hall. The manager ran forward quickly to the elevated stage. Two
of his staff hurried after him. Xavier stared down at them from his eagle’s
perch.
‘There is a noise,’ he said
softly, sending prickles of anxiety down the manager’s neck.
Everyone fell silent, listening
intently.
Xavier held up his hand. ‘There!
Do you hear it?’
They all nodded. Yes, there was
something in the background. It was very faint, but it was there. The manager
groaned internally. What could it be? What could be done?
‘We’ll look into it, Maestro,’ he
said reassuringly.
Xavier nodded, his aristocratic,
remote features registering only a flicker of movement. ‘I would not complain
if it were in pitch with the music,’ he commented politely. ‘But it isn’t.’
The hall staff laughed nervously.
Xavier spun back to the
orchestra, dispatching the hall staff with a swift gesture of one hand.
‘So!’ he told them, raising his
baton. ‘We have a problem with extraneous noise, ladies and gentlemen. But the
show will go on.’
A low collective chuckle
reverberated across the rows of players. A sensation of anticipation and
elation was already building in each member of the orchestra. Even those who
had not worked with Xavier previously recognized instantly that they were in
the hands of a master of his craft. No matter that he was a stern
disciplinarian, that he would not hesitate to be brutal if he thought it
necessary; they sensed that he was about to put an emotional depth charge
beneath them. When they played for him tonight it would be the music of angels.
Xavier looked along the rows of
instrumentalists, making eye contact with each individual as he conducted,
giving the slightest of nods in recognition of players he had worked with
before. He gave the impression of being able to see, and more importantly hear,
each player personally, of being inside each player’s mind. In front of an
orchestra Xavier was the living embodiment of the law, the ruler of the world.
In front of an orchestra Xavier
was also at his happiest. His early life had been moulded round music since
early childhood. At the age of six he had played a Mozart rondo in concert.
Today, on the eve of his fortieth
birthday, he exuded physical fitness and well being. He was striking in looks
and perhaps at the very height of his sexual potency and attractiveness. Whilst
his upbringing and native language were English, an international pedigree gave
him a mingling of Greek and Spanish blood. It was the Grecian influence that
could most easily be traced in his carved, classical features and his smooth
olive skin. His hair was a thick sable mane, greying pleasingly at the temples
in a manner which nature does better than art. His eyes were clear grey, an
innocent enough colour, belying his ability to hypnotize or terrify with one
glance from beneath his deeply hooded eyelids.
Standing erect he was just over
six foot, with a body tightly muscled and compact from a lifetime of skiing,
fencing and tennis. His iron will with regard to the intake of food and alcohol
was legendary, having been respectfully described in a number of fawning
magazine articles over the years. In fact Xavier appreciated fine food and
wines just like any other human being. But he was never greedy. And he never
drank on the days before he planned to be at the controls of his TBM 700
turboprop aircraft.