Read Online The Brahms Deception by Louise Marley - Free Book Online

.”
    â€œCosa?”
    â€œ P dolce . It’s an obscure marking he used in his A-Major Quartet. Julliard liked that as a doctoral thesis.”
    â€œBut they didn’t like Clara Schumann.”
    â€œNo. My adviser said Clara Schumann was not a feminist. I didn’t agree, but in academia, sometimes we have to make compromises.”
    â€œThis I know very well indeed.”
    â€œI’ll bet you do.”
    â€œSo you changed to Brahms. Not far removed from Clara Schumann, I think.”
    â€œThat’s true.”
    â€œAnd then you applied to do remote research.”
    â€œI’m pretty sure everyone did.”
    She shook her head, and a strand of hair fell in front of her eyes. She lifted it out of the way, and tucked it somewhere into the chaos. “I do not think so,” she said firmly. “I think many people are afraid.”
    â€œThere’s nothing to be afraid of.”
    She cast him another sidelong glance. “Kristian. They have lost Miss Bannister. Perhaps you should be afraid.”
    He grinned at her. “Well, I’m not.” Nothing left to lose.
    She blew a raspberry. “As I said before. Young and foolish!”
    â€œYoung! I’m as old as you are, at least.”
    â€œNo, no. I am Italian. I was born old.”
    She turned into an even narrower lane, and the Fiat bumped over cracked concrete and scattered stones as they approached the crest of the hill. In the subdued moonlight, Kristian could just make out the twelve houses of Castagno jumbled together, the larger, newer buildings scattered beyond them. It looked as quaint as its photographs. Perched on a hill in western Tuscany, Castagno was a fragment of a world long gone, a world erased by tourists and time. Castagno persevered, even now, but it must have been exquisite in 1861.
    What a relief it must have been to Brahms to escape the bustle of Hamburg, to take refuge on this unspoiled hilltop, but how strange that he had come so far, to a place where he didn’t speak the language, where he knew no one, where he would be isolated for two weeks. It must have felt necessary to him. To his music. And perhaps he had been right to do it. It was here, evidently, that Brahms had conceived that enigmatic marking, p dolce . Kristian hoped he could prove it.
    As they drove over the crest of the hill, Chiara slowed and pointed to her left. “Casa Agosto is down there,” she said. “But it’s hard to see in the darkness.”
    â€œIs it empty now?”
    â€œNo. There is a family there.”
    â€œDo they know?”
    She shook her head. “There is no need to tell them.”
    There could be no mistake which of the buildings was now the temporary clinic of the Remote Research Foundation. Alone of all the houses, it was awake and alive at this strange hour. Lights blazed from its windows, and vehicles were parked in its gravel drive, a Volvo, a small Mercedes, a Vespa. The building was long and plain, two stories, with a generator bulking against an outside wall. A security guard, wearing a jacket with the name of his company on the pocket, lounged on the doorstep between two straight pillars. He straightened as the Fiat crunched over the gravel to swerve into a parking space, then relaxed when Chiara turned off the motor and opened her door so the interior light shone on her. He waved to her, and she waved back.
    â€œIt is a small staff,” she said. “Only the guards, Max, Elliott, and me.”
    Kristian unfolded his long legs from the little car and stepped out into the night breeze. He was beginning to feel shaky with fatigue. He rubbed his face with his palms and breathed the clean, cold air, trying to clear the fog from his brain. Chiara was bending into the backseat to pick up a cardboard box. When he realized it, he hurried to help her.
    â€œNo, no,” she said. “Just take your bag. This weighs nothing.”
    Together they walked across the