Free The Secret Chord: The Virtuosic Spy - Book 2 by Kathryn Guare Page A

intimidated awe.
    "What would you like me to play?" He frowned down the length of the fingerboard, giving the tuning pegs a few final tweaks.
    "Oh. I don't know. Your violin seems too grand for a hoedown tune."
    "Not at all. She's perfectly happy with whatever I play—reels, Mozart, pub songs—but I've no idea what a 'hoedown tune' is." Conor's face cleared in a smile. "Local expression?"
    "I guess so." Kate laughed. "Something like a reel, or a jig?"
    "Is it a jig you'd like? Or a reel?"
    She didn't want to admit she couldn't tell the difference between the two. "Play whatever you want. You said you had something in mind."
    "I do. Let's sit on the grass. We need to wait a couple more minutes."  
    They settled on the ground and Conor finished tuning with a flourish of scales as the sun descended. When its bottom edge brushed the mountaintop in the distance he tucked the instrument back under his chin, lifted the bow, and stopped. The corners of his eyes creased as he stared at the mountains. "My father taught me this. He called it the tune to put the sun to sleep. Now, close your eyes 'til I'll tell you to open them."
    Kate lifted her face to the warmth of the sun and let its glow pulse against her eyelids as the violin begin to speak—slow notes in a minor key, like a soft, keening moan. They circled back and the phrases repeated, filling the air with mournful lament, and after a moment Conor's voice whispered close to her ear.
    "Open your eyes, Kate."
    She opened them with drowsy reluctance as the music changed pitch with a set of clear piercing notes, desolate and urgent. Tethered to the rising sound, Kate felt her heart straining to float up to it. Before her an expanse of cloud in technicolor blue and pink spread like a bruise toward the horizon, hovering in a sky of radiant gold while the sun slipped lower, in sleepy obedience to the tune. Gradually, it melted into the mountains until only a sliver lingered above the peak, and then winked out.
    The music had ended, and Kate turned to see the violin already tucked back in its case, as if the entire episode had been an acoustical fantasy. With his knees hugged to his chest Conor sat watching the color intensify in the afterglow.
    "Not too bad, then? The sound was okay?"
    "Seriously?" Kate stared at him. "My God."
    "You liked it?"
    "Of course. The sound was amazing."
    "Thank you."
    Kate considered the strange paradox of the man as they enjoyed a stillness neither seemed anxious to break. In some ways he was easy to know and in others, impossible. He’d revealed only a piece of his past—and that only out of necessity—but although Conor had drawn a veil around any further details of his troubled history he seemed a reluctant enigma, and with his music he'd shared something deeply personal that seemed to invite a closer glimpse.
    "When did your father die?" she asked gently.
    He stirred and shifted to face her. "Almost twenty years ago. He died of pulmonary disease when I was twelve."
    "And he taught you that tune? You've been able to play like that since you were twelve years old?"
    He smiled at her astonishment. "Not exactly, but I've played some arrangement of that air since I was six. He gave me a fiddle when I turned five and once he realized I had the knack he got fairly serious with the lessons. Before he got too weak he dragged me to every fiddling contest in the west of Ireland, but sure we only went for the craic —a bit of fun. He'd usually be getting me out of school, serving up some desperate rubbish for the teacher."
    "Did you win them?"  
    "A fair number. I stopped going when he died. I couldn't play at all for a long time. I had the fiddle with me everywhere, by then. I couldn't leave it alone and I couldn't bear to play. Sound familiar?" He smiled at her. "My mother figured out what to do. Classical music—same instrument, different art altogether. I had to start at the beginning and learn everything all over again. She found a Czech master who