"It's a violin solo," he said gently, reaching for another folder lying on the table next to her.
Victoria shot him a dubious look. He couldn't possibly play the violin as well as she'd heard him play the piano. But she was wrong. When Christian drew the bow over the strings, it was as if everything else in the room just disappeared and the music took over. Victoria had never heard a violin played with so much effortless grace, and she was sure her mouth hung open.
She didn't want to look at him but couldn't help herself. Christian was staring right at her as he played, and she felt her breath stop as their gazes collided. For an unguarded second, his eyes held an impossible longing, communicated only by the fluency of the wooden bow and violin under his chin. But before she could blink, it disappeared and the music came to a resonant halt. The hall erupted in spontaneous applause.
Dumbly, Victoria clapped along with the others, certain she'd misread their shared glance. Christian didn't want anything to do with her; he'd made that very clear.
Jake, the boy with the tuba, elbowed her. "He's amazing," he said, his voice awed. She nodded, an automatic response, and stood, making her way out of the room pretending to collect discarded sheet music. She felt Christian's eyes on her again, but kept walking until she reached the office.
She took a deep breath, focusing on the energy inside of her and calmed her racing heart, beat by beat. The magic helped to soothe her frantic spirit. And she was grateful.
After that, when Victoria saw Christian at rehearsal, it was as if the interlude during his first violin solo had become a figment of her imagination. He ignored her most of the time, and seemed to take special care to not be in the same room when she was. Sometimes it was inevitable, and during those times, he treated her with a casual indifference that hurt more than anything, but after a while, she became adept at concealing her hurt behind a facade of activity.
If she concentrated hard enough, the sensation of him seemed to fade into the background like a dull buzz. She had no idea if what she was doing was a part of her magic but it helped, and that was all she cared about. The amulet became a source of comfort as she found that whenever she held it, she found clarity, and with it strength. And each day it became easier to avoid and even ignore Christian Devereux.
Along with Christian's violin solo, he was also doing a piano duet with another girl in the orchestra; one who stared at him with such lovesick eyes, it was a wonder that she could even play sitting next to him. The choice of music was a beautiful piece, a four-hand piano arrangement of Tchaikovsky's The Sleeping Beauty Suite.
Despite not having played for years, Victoria loved it so much that one day after rehearsal she sat at the piano and just let her fingers drift over the keys. Her playing was halting at first and then grew more confident. It was only a one-sided rendition of a piece meant to be played by two people but the music still soothed that place in her heart occupied by memories of her mother. When she finished, she let the tears come and was so lost in her thoughts that at first she didn't hear the soft voice beside her.
"Are you all right?" Christian asked, as she wiped her eyes hastily. He hadn't spoken more than two words to her in two weeks and suddenly he cared why she was crying? Victoria wanted to tell him to go away, but a part of her was so desperate for comfort that she found herself sitting with him and telling him about her parents and her mother's life-long love affair with music.
"I stopped playing after they died," she told him. "She loved Tchaikovsky, this piece in particular. I'd forgotten how much I loved it ... her ..."
Then she cried again, and he stayed with her talking until the custodian came to clean the building. He told her funny stories about his brother when they lived in France as children and some of the pranks they'd played on each other.
"Lucian was a trickster. I was always the one who got away, being my mother's favorite. No one could tell us apart but even when we switched identities, she always knew," he said.
"Were you close? You and Lucian?" Victoria asked.
"We were inseparable." Sadness thickened his voice. "I remember when we were ten," he said with a nostalgic smile, "we'd gone sailing and as we often did, got into a scrape about something. I don't even remember what it'd been about. But one thing led to another and we both fell in. In those days ... winter," he said, after a glance at her, "clothes were thick and heavy. I pushed him out first, but then I started sinking. He jumped right back in to save me, and in the end, we both had to be rescued. That's how it always was. We protected each other even if it meant hurting ourselves to do it."
"Sounds like you loved each other very much."
"Yes." His eyes were far away then, but his hand gripped hers tightly. She squeezed it sympathetically.