The Golden Valkyrie

by Iris Johansen

  “Scam?” Honey asked, subdued.

  “I do the painting, and Alex takes care of passing it discreetly into the right hands to set up the miraculous discovery of another lost masterpiece. You know the Rembrandt they found buried in that cellar in Munich eighteen months ago?”

  She nodded.

  “That was one of mine,” he said sadly. “One of my best works. I hated to let it go.”

  “A forgery?” Honey squeaked. “You’re a forger?”

  “You needn’t put it so crudely,” Lance said, flinching. “It takes a great deal of work and a certain flair to imitate another artist’s techniques. I spent more time and effort on my Vermeer than he ever did on his.”

  “Vermeer?” Honey repeated dazedly, feeling as if she were going mad.

  “Woman at the Mirror,” Lance supplied tersely. “Discovered last summer in Antwerp.”

  “Oh, my God,” Honey breathed. All that incredible talent wasted on a shoddy confidence game. It made her physically ill. “That one too?”

  He nodded slowly, still not looking at her, but she could see that his eyes were suspiciously bright. This confession was evidently not easy for him.

  He said thoughtfully, “I suppose my greatest challenge was the Mona Lisa. The subtle shading for that one required great…” He glanced down at her shocked face and gaping lips and couldn’t go on. He burst into great whoops of laughter, bent almost double with the force of the convulsions that shook him. “Oh, Lord, it’s like taking candy from a baby,” he gasped, wiping the tears from his eyes. “You’re totally unbelievable, Honey. Tell me, have you ever bought the Brooklyn Bridge?”

  “It was all a joke?” Honey asked blankly, and when he nodded, she felt a surge of hurt and anger of stunning strength. To think that she’d actually felt sorry for him. “You must have thought me very stupid, Your Highness.”

  The laughter was quickly wiped from his face and replaced by concern. “Honey,” he started, “I never meant—”

  “I suppose I am rather gullible,” Honey interrupted, the stupid tears rushing to her eyes. “It must have been great fun for you. I should be honored to have provided you with an amusing anecdote to laugh about with Alex.” She drew a quivering breath. “Do you know that I was even dumb enough to feel sorry for you? How absurd could I be to think that you could feel deeply about anything? Butterflies don’t think or feel, they just flit on the surface of life and look pretty.” Her voice rose bitterly. “No one expects them to be taken seriously or be anything but what they are. I just made the mistake of forgetting that. I assure you it won’t happen again.”

  She jumped to her feet and was several yards away before he caught up with her. He grabbed her by the shoulders and whirled her to face him. “I’m not a butterfly, damn it!” he said forcefully, giving her a little shake. “I may be a blind, stupid fool not to realize that I was hurting you by my teasing, but I’m not the callous bastard you think me. I’ll match my sensitivity against yours any day. What the hell is wrong with not wanting to lay your emotions out in the open for everyone to see?”

  “Nothing. Not as long as you’re willing to admit that they exist,” she spat back. “But you’re not, are you? I know very well your paintings must be important to you, but you won’t admit even to Alex that it’s more than an amusing pastime. Why don’t you face up to the fact that what you could give the world is very special, and stop hiding it as if it were something to be ashamed of?”

  His face was as taut and stormy as hers. “What do you know about it?” he asked roughly, his blue eyes blazing. “Okay! So it’s important to me. Maybe it’s the single most important thing in my life. Does that satisfy you?”

  “No!” she shouted. “Why the hell don’t you have a show?”

  “Because it is important, damn it,” he said, with equal force. “Do you think I want to be known as just another celebrity artist? My work means something. I won’t have it held up as a playboy’s idle dabblings.”

  “But the critics won’t do that,” Honey protested. “They couldn’t. All they’d have to do is to take one look and know that you’re exceptional.”

  “Would they?” he drawled cynically. “I think we’ve established that you’re a bit naive. Starving artists may be taken seriously, but not princes of the blood. I don’t doubt that my work would sell, but I’d never know whether it sold because someone wanted a conversation piece by Lusty Lance to hang on the wall. Well, I’ll be damned if I’ll give it to them. I’d rather let the canvases pile up in a deserted warehouse.”

  There was such passion in his face at that moment that it took her breath away—passion and a painful bitterness that caused her to ache for him. “You’re wrong,” she whispered huskily. “So wrong. It wouldn’t be like that.”

  “No, you’re the one who’s wrong,” he said tersely. “I’ve seen it happen often enough. Believe me, I’d find the kind of success you’re wishing on me a hell of a lot more frustrating than keeping my work strictly sub rosa for the rest of my life.”

  “But it’s such a waste,” she said, and suddenly the emotions that had crowded one upon another in the past few minutes took their inevitable toll, and two tears brimmed in her eyes and rolled slowly down her cheeks. “Such a criminal waste.”

  There was a curiously startled look on his face as he slowly lifted his hand to her wet cheek and gingerly traced the path of her tears. “For me?” he asked wonderingly. “I don’t believe anyone’s ever shed tears on my behalf before. I think I like it.”

  “Why would anyone cry for you?” she asked brokenly. “Have you ever shown anyone that there might be someone who was worth a few honest emotions, beneath that clown’s mask you wear?”

  “I’ve changed my mind. I don’t like it,” he said huskily. “Stop it, Honey. I can’t stand what it’s doing to me.”

  “Too bad,” she said, the tears falling faster. “I can’t say that I like it either. I don’t want to cry for you. You don’t deserve it.”

  “I know,” he said, almost humbly, as he drew her into his arms and cuddled her comfortingly. He pressed his lips to her temple. “But you can’t take those tears back. You gave them to me and they’re mine now. I’m going to keep them in a special place somewhere near my heart, and take them out when I feel particularly wicked or sad.” He was rocking her gently. “I’ll look at them and say to myself, ‘See, you can’t be all that bad, Lance, old boy. Honey cried for you.’”

  “You fool,” Honey sobbed, her arms sliding around to clutch at him fiercely. “Damn, you’re such a crazy fool. Why am I letting you do this to me?”

  His hand was stroking her hair now. “Because every Harlequin has to have a Columbine,” he said softly. “And I think I’ve found mine at last. God, you feel right in my arms, love.”

  Her face was buried in the springy russet hair of his chest, and it felt deliciously rough against the smoothness of her cheek. He smelled of clean soap and salt and a slight muskiness that was potently virile, but oddly enough, for the first time in their relationship, she was not experiencing that almost overpowering physical magnetism. She felt only a magical sense of being protected and cosseted and an almost painfully poignant tenderness.

  Lance tilted her head up, and the expression on his face was oddly stern. “Honey?” he asked gravely.

  She shook her head bewilderedly. She wasn’t entirely sure what he was asking of her, but she had an idea that it was more than she could yield in the turbulence of the moment. “Not yet, Lance. Please, not yet.”

  He regarded her thoughtfully for a moment, before nodding slowly. “I can wait a little longer,” he whispered, “but it’s getting more difficult all the time. Remember that, will you, Honey?”

  She nodded, her expression as serious as his. “I’ll remember.”

  “Good,” he said, and bent to take her lips with infinite tenderness. “Lord, you’re sweet to love.”

  So was he, Honey thought dreamily as he reluctantly released her. Strong and beautiful and won
derfully tender.

  “Come on,” he said gruffly, slipping an arm about her waist and turning her firmly toward the cottage. “My willpower is eroding rapidly. My parents may have had the bad taste to throw in a Lancelot with my other more sedate names, but I can assure you that I’m no knight in shining armor.”

  He looked very much like one to her at the moment. Patience and restraint weren’t among the qualities for which Lance was noted, making his control all the more praiseworthy.

  “Well, do you want to go up to the Folly for dinner?” he asked, arching an eyebrow mockingly. “I promise that I’ll be the perfect escort, to make up for my bad manners, which you’ve so graciously forgiven.”

  Honey shook her head. “No,” she said quietly. “You don’t really want to go.” She shot him a sidelong glance, her lips curving in an amused smile. “I think you want to get back to your studio, don’t you?”

  He frowned. “I’m not about to do that to you again,” he said curtly, but she noticed he didn’t deny it. “I intend to devote the entire evening to you. If you don’t want to join Alex, we’ll do something else. What would you like to do?”

  He spoke as if there were all the choices in the world on this tiny island.

  “Well, I’m having a hard time choosing between Pavarotti’s concert and Baryshnikov’s Nutcracker,” she drawled wryly. “So I think I’ll settle for a good book and an early night. Alex supplied me with a surfeit of the former, and I hardly think I’ll be disturbed once you get back to your work, so I’ll certainly get the latter.”

  “I told you—” he began impatiently.

  “Yes, I know,” she said soothingly. “But you should have learned by now that we peasants aren’t accustomed to noblesse oblige.” She smiled at him gently. “I want you to work, Lance.”

  “You’re sure?” he asked, his face troubled.

  “I’m sure,” she said serenely. “I’ll see what I can throw together for a meal before you disappear for the evening.”

  He was silent for a moment. “I don’t suppose you’d want to come in and keep me company?” he suggested tentatively. “The couch is fairly comfortable, and the lighting is better than anywhere else in the cottage, if you’re planning to read.”

  Her startled gaze flew to his face. “You don’t mind people around when you’re working?”

  His shrug was oddly awkward. “I don’t know,” he said simply. “I’ve never let anyone into my studio before. I just think that I’d like to have you there with me. It may take some getting used to for both of us.” His arm tightened on her waist. “Will you come, Honey?”

  Her throat was suddenly so tight, she was having trouble swallowing, and she looked hurriedly away so that he couldn’t see the mistiness in her eyes. “Yes, I’ll come,” she said softly.

  FIVE

  WHO COULD IMAGINE that watching a man in the esthetic pursuit of painting a picture could be such a sensual experience? Honey wondered dreamily. The soft, almost inaudible whish of the brush on the canvas, the quiet sounds as Lance shifted his stance or moved to reach for another tube—even the acerbic smell of turpentine and paint was ambiguously stimulating. Honey grimaced ruefully. She must really be far gone to find the smell of turpentine an aphrodisiac. Why not be honest and admit that it was the man himself whom she found so fascinating?

  Her gaze ran lingeringly over the intentness of Lance’s face as his eyes narrowed in concentration on the canvas sitting on the easel in front of him. She couldn’t see the painting itself from where she was curled on the cream naugahyde couch across the room, but she could see Lance very well indeed.

  He was rather like a painting himself, she thought. He was wearing the same faded jeans he had this afternoon, but he had donned an old blue chambray work shirt when he had gotten back to the cottage. Its sleeves were rolled up to the elbow, baring his tanned muscular forearms, and he’d left it carelessly unbuttoned almost to the waist. Honey could see the play of the sleek muscles of his shoulders as he moved, and the light blue of the shirt turned his eyes to deep sapphire.

  Suddenly those sapphire eyes darted to where she sat with her book lying ignored on her lap, and a brilliant smile lit the bronze darkness of his face. “Okay?” he asked gently. “You’re not bored?”

  “I’m fine. This thriller Alex lent me is really absorbing,” she lied shamelessly. She hadn’t read a page in the hours that she’d been in the studio this evening. She’d been too enthralled with the infinitely more exciting mystery that was embodied in the form of Lance Rubinoff. “Would you like some more coffee?”

  “Not now,” he said absently, his attention once more on the canvas in front of him. “You’d better use that afghan. It’s getting cooler, and your legs will get cold in those shorts.”

  Honey’s lips quirked wryly as she remembered the lascivious glance she’d received from him when she’d appeared in these white shorts earlier in the evening. At the moment she could have had fence posts for legs, for all he cared. She obediently pulled the beige-and-rose crocheted afghan over her legs and gazed contentedly around her.

  The studio, though much larger than her bedroom, was even more starkly furnished. Other than the couch she was resting on, there was only a large, paint-spattered work table jammed against the wall; it was cluttered with an assortment of paint and brushes. The easel was in the center of the room. There were canvases everywhere, some leaning against the wall beneath the bank of windows overlooking the beach, and others stacked carelessly in the corners. When Lance had opened the closet door to take down the afghan from the shelf, she had even seen several other completed canvases pushed randomly against the wall in a corner. She’d been tempted to protest Lance’s deliberate offhandedness with those valuable paintings, but she wasn’t about to disturb the felicity between them.

  She’d felt a twinge of pain even as she’d prowled around the room gazing at the canvases he treated so carelessly. Each one was more brilliant than the last, and by the time she’d put the final canvas aside and made her way slowly to the couch, she was utterly drunk on the power and passion that leaped out of those paintings.

  It was a real tragedy to keep these paintings hidden away where no one could enjoy them. There must be some way to convince Lance to exhibit his work, but at the moment she was unable to see it. She wasn’t about to give up, however. For now it was enough to be here and watch the play of expressions on that strong, mobile face and let the crackling vitality that surrounded him like a visible aura flow into her. She scooted further down on the couch, resting her head on the cushion, and pulled the afghan up about her shoulders. She dropped the paperback on the floor. Lance probably wouldn’t glance her way again for hours, so she needn’t keep up the pretense of being interested in anything but the red-haired man across the room.

  She was being carried, held in warm, strong arms, and her face was pressing against that lovely rough cushion that she recognized at once. She rubbed her cheek contentedly against him. “Lance?” she murmured sleepily.

  “Shh,” he whispered softly. “Go back to sleep, baby. I’m just taking you to bed. It’s very late.”

  “Did you finish your painting?” she asked drowsily, snuggling closer to his vibrant warmth.

  “Almost. I still have a bit of background to do.”

  She was gently deposited on a cushioned softness, and then the mattress sagged beside her as Lance sat down and calmly began to unbutton her orchid sun-top. “You shouldn’t do that,” she said sleepily, not opening her eyes. It was a token murmur rather than a protest. She felt it was somehow natural and fitting for Lance to be undressing her with those wonderfully gentle hands.

  “You’ll be more comfortable,” he said, and his explanation seemed entirely logical. She heard his deep chuckle. “You needn’t worry, Honey. I’m not about to try to seduce you tonight. I’m so exhausted that I can barely move.” He had stripped off her top and was undoing the front clasp of her bra. “I just want to cuddle up to you and go to sleep. Okay?”

>   “Okay,” she murmured. She could think of nothing more desirable than those warm secure arms holding her and closing out the darkness of the night.

  The rest of her clothing was stripped from her, and he was gone for a few minutes. Then he was back on the bed, drawing the denim coverlet over both of them. He pulled her close and settled her head in the curve of his shoulder, her long white-gold hair splaying in a silky curtain over his chest. His warm naked skin felt hard and rough against her own soft curves as his arms held her close with the sexless affection of a little boy with his favorite teddy bear.

  “Lord, this is nice,” he said, already half asleep. “Isn’t it great to be together like this, sweetheart?”

  She nodded with equal contentment. Her arms tightened lovingly about him and she went peacefully to sleep.

  The gentle tugging at her nipple sent a tiny thrill of heat through her, and she moved restlessly, trying to hide once more behind the veil of sleep, which had been pierced by sensation. Then the tugging increased in tempo and a warm strong hand enclosed her breast and began a kneading motion that completely ripped the veil aside.

  She opened her eyes to the gray predawn hours of the morning and was unsurprised to see Lance’s fiery red head at her breast. His tanned hand curled around its full whiteness appeared gypsy-dark in contrast.

  “I thought you were exhausted,” she said drowsily, her hand reaching down to stroke his hair.

  He lifted his head with an impish grin. “I said I was tired, not dead, sweetheart. Even if I was, I’d probably have risen like Lazarus from the tomb at the sight that met my eyes when I opened them just now.” His head bent, and his warm tongue gently stroked the nipple he’d already roused to button hardness. “It was dark in here when I undressed you, or I wouldn’t have been able to nap even the little I did. My God, you’re magnificent, love.”

  “Thank you,” she said shyly, feeling the color mount to her cheeks.