Why not? he asked himself harshly. Just because a man is a ruthless bastard when it comes to collecting bronzes doesn't mean that he's a ruthless bastard when it comes to women.
The answer came even as the question silently formed. The man called Rousseau had not been noted for his compassion and he had made no distinction between men and women when it came to getting the job done.
People change, he argued silently with himself.
Sure they do, he retorted. They die.
There was no answer to that. There never had been.
Lindsay took a deep breath, letting the warmth of Catlin's caress radiate through her. She smiled at him with real gratitude, knowing that he was trying to make it easier for her to go on with the act. His understanding gave her the courage to keep on talking.
"I I'm sure I'll be able to find someone, somewhere, somehow," Lindsay said, meeting Catlin's eyes. "There are so many dealers, so many rumors. One of them is bound to lead to a bronze for you. I won't overlook any lead, darling. No matter how unusual."
At the corner of his vision, Catlin saw the speculative look the Stoltzes exchanged. He brushed his lips across Lindsay's palm again, then folded her fingers over as though to hold the warmth of his caress in place.
"We'll both keep our ears open," said Catlin. "One of us will hear something." He glanced up at the Stoltzes. "If you happen to hear anything, I'd appreciate knowing in time to make a bid. I'm a very generous man. Ask Lindsay."
Mr. Stoltz smiled. "Generous enough to sell a Han hill-censer?"
"If your information led to my acquiring a Qin charioteer, yes."
Mr. Stoltz looked both surprised and excited. "I'll keep it in mind."
"Do that," Catlin said. "More wine, darling?" he asked, shifting his attention to Lindsay.
She shook her head.
"Then perhaps the Stoltzes will excuse us." He moved his head enough to divide a smile equally between husband and wife. "Lindsay has promised to introduce me to the rest of her friends."
Lindsay felt the heat of Catlin's big hand through the thin silk of her blouse as he guided her between tables and open spaces toward a group of people across the room. Half humorously, half seriously she decided that in the future she would wear clothes that were thick enough to remove any sense of intimacy from Catlin's casual touches. Medieval armor, perhaps, or its modern equivalent.
"What are you smiling about?" Catlin asked, bending down until his lips brushed the shining thickness of her hair.
"Bulletproof vests," she said softly.
One thick, very black eyebrow arched upward. "What about them?"
"Do they conduct heat well?"
"No."
Lindsay realized that Catlin was serious. "Are they heavy?"
"The new ones aren't. Quite comfortable, all things considered. Why? Thinking of getting one?"
"It occurred to me," she said dryly.
Ignoring the people circulating around them, Catlin stopped and turned Lindsay toward him. He put his hands on either side of her face, holding her gently, irrevocably in place.
"I'll protect you, Lindsay. I swear it," he whispered against her mouth. The words were too soft for anyone to overhear and they were sealed with a slow kiss. When he lifted his head it was to look into eyes as pure and blue as high-mountain twilight. "But if you want body armor," he added, nuzzling her lips, "I'll get it for you. Do you?"
Lindsay shut her eyes, feeling off balance again. Catlin had touched her often enough in the last few hours that she should be getting used to it. She was not. She was becoming mote sensitized to his caresses, not less.
"Will it protect me from your touch?" she asked helplessly.
Catlin heard the desire and the truth in Lindsay's question. The honesty of her response to him was more potent than any aphrodisiac. Hunger quickened in him, the hunger he had first felt when he saw the soft outline of her breasts while she bent over a table of bronzes. A hot wave of desire swept through him before it focused low in his body, letting him count every heartbeat in the growing heaviness of his sex. The speed and force of his response caught him unaware. He had few defenses against honesty, because he had known so little of it from women or men.
"You are too goddamned honest," Catlin said softly, distinctly, wanting to kiss Lindsay again and not trusting himself to stop with just one kiss. "I don't think they make Kevlar chastity belts. Too bad. One of us sure as hell is going to need it before this is over.''
"Kevlar?" asked Lindsay, grasping the only safe part of the conversation that he had offered to her.
"That's what body armor is made out of."
"Oh." She laughed a little shakily and then took a deep breath. "I think maybe I'd better have some more wine. Maybe a lot more."
"I think that's a really lousy idea."
He turned her around, put his hand in the small of her back and pushed her toward a group where a redhead in a black sheath and scarlet bugle beads was describing Chinese bronzes with graceful sweeps of her long-nailed hands.
"That's the famous Ms. Merriman, isn't it?" Catlin asked softly.
Lindsay looked away from Catlin's face, saw the blaze of red hair and nails, and agreed. "That's Jackie."
"Anyone with her we should meet?"
"The man on her left, I guess. Mitch Malloy. I wonder who had the bad taste to invite him tonight?"
"What's wrong with him?"
"Nothing, if you like slime mold," Lindsay said in a voice that went no farther than Catlin. "Malloy sells spurious bronzes," she explained. "He sells them very carefully, mind you, and mainly to nouveau riche out-of-towners. But he sells bad bronzes just the same. It's rumored that he sells others that are genuine enough, but not very honestly come by. That's only rumor, though."
"Our kind of guy."
Lindsay's mouth flattened. "If you say so."
"I do. Anyone else?"
"I don't recognize the woman. One of Mitch's, I suppose. The man to Jackie's right is Sam Wang, her latest lover. He's from either San Francisco or Vancouver, depending on which gossip you believe. Some have him born of a French colonel and an ethnic Chinese woman living in Vietnam. Others say he's Taiwanese. Others say his family has been American since the first railroad was built." She shrugged. "You get the idea. Everybody knows something about Sam, but nobody agrees on just what. Except one thing. He gets his hands on some truly stunning bronzes from time to time."
"Dubious provenance?"
Lindsay hesitated. "I don't think so. Sam's family still has ties overseas, and he's well connected to refugee communities all over the West Coast. Family treasures that are being sold to finance resettlement in a new land could easily come to him first. In that he's like Hsiang Wu, an old friend of my family.
Wu was a respected man in Shaanxi before the revolution. Newcomers seek him out and old-time residents ask his advice. Naturally, the results show up in Wu's antique shop."
Catlin waited, but Lindsay didn't go on to point out that a man like Sam Wang or Hsiang Wu was in a perfect position to fence stolen bronzes under a cover of eminent respectability, "Is Wu honest?" asked Catlin, keeping his voice low.
"Of course," said Lindsay instantly. She looked at Catlin with wide, shocked eyes. " Wu was my mentor. He taught me a great deal about how to tell genuine from fraudulent. He would allow no dubious merchandise in his shop. I know, Catlin. I was in and out of his shop every day until I moved to Washington. I still see him whenever I visit my aunt."
"And Sam Wang? What's his reputation?"
Lindsay shrugged. "If you collected bronze seriously at one time, you know what the art business is like. Everybody is slandered, most of the time without much cause. Sam comes in for his share of it, but nobody has caught him in anything dishonest or even truly dubious."
"That's hopeful."
"It is? Why? Aren't we looking for thieves?" asked Lindsay, her voice very low.
"I doubt that the Chinese thieves, whoever they are, would trust their treasures to an idiot with a bad reputation," murmured Catlin, brushing his lips over Lindsay's hair as though he were whispering endearments to her.
"But an honest person wouldn't handle stolen goods," objected Lindsay.
"Who said they were stolen?" he whispered.
Lindsay looked at Catlin for a long moment. "Are you saying they aren't?" she whispered.
"Let's get me introduced around," he said, his voice normal again.
Lindsay started to press Catlin, to ask again if the Qin mortuary bronzes were indeed stolen goods. Then she remembered Catlin's warning about questions and lies. Apparently this was one of the times when he simply wasn't going to answer.
Without a word Lindsay allowed Catlin to guide her toward the group he had selected. As she had half expected, Jackie wasn't overjoyed to see her. Jackie was one of those women who preferred to be the undivided center of whatever male attention was available. Then she glanced over Lindsay's shoulder to the tall man standing behind her. If there was one thing Jackie appreciated more than an outstanding bronze, it was an outstanding man.
"Lindsay," said Jackie, smiling widely, "how marvelous to see you here tonight. I heard Steve was sick. Nothing serious, I hope?"
Lindsay murmured something appropriate and smiled professionally as the introductions went around. Catlin's smile matched hers in sincerity and social polish. She was relieved to see that he made no overt response to the frankly sexual signals Jackie was sending out. Pretending to be Catlin's lover was difficult enough for Lindsay. Pretending to be one of a slumber party would be beyond her acting abilities. It also would be so far out of her known character as to be unbelievable, no matter how intense her supposed infatuation.
"And this is Sam Wang," Jackie concluded, resting her fingertips on the back of Catlin's forearm as she urged him closer to her side. She looked up at him out of large gray eyes. "You're new to the art scene, aren't you?" she murmured.
"Not really," said Catlin. He switched his attention to Sam Wang. The Eurasian's calm expression was at odds with the bleak calculation of his eyes. Catlin had met a lot of people like that. He smiled, feeling better about the prospect of the night not being a total loss in terms of coming closer to Qin's charioteer. "I've been looking forward to meeting you, Mr. Wang. Lindsay told me that you come up with some astonishing bronzes from time to time."
Wang gave Lindsay an enigmatic look. "Did she?"
"Do you?" Catlin asked, smiling.
Wang made a dismissive gesture with his hand. "What is astonishing?"
"One of Emperor Qin's bronze charioteers," Catlin said succinctly.
There was a hissing sound in the instant before Wang controlled his surprise. "Astonishing indeed," he said quietly. "As well as very, very valuable. You have such a bronze?"
"I want such a bronze."
Wang's eyes crinkled slightly. His laugh was soft, surprisingly low. "So do I, Mr. Catlin. So do I!"
"For yourself or for sale?"
There was a moment of silence, then Wang sighed. "For sale, I'm afraid. That's too much capital for me to tie up in a single piece of art."
"Not for me," Catlin said distinctly. He looked from Wang to Malloy to Jackie. "I'll pay a generous finder's fee."
"What about Lindsay?" asked Jackie, looking at the other woman with barely restrained curiosity.
"Lindsay will authenticate the bronze," Catlin said flatly, "no matter who I buy it from." He turned and drew Lindsay to his side, running his fingertips from her cheekbone to the pulse beating just beneath the soft skin of her throat. "Won't you, honey?"
"Yes," answered Lindsay. She hated the husky sound of her voice but could do nothing to control it. She reacted to Catlin's presence, his touch, his heat even though she knew it was all an act. The pragmatic side of her mind consoled her with the fact that the throaty, sandbagged-by-passion voice added immeasurably to what otherwise might be an unconvincing performance on her own part.
Catlin smiled and caressed Lindsay's bottom lip with his thumb, bringing a stain of color to her clear cheeks. "That's my honey cat. With you, I'll never be cheated or surprised, will I?"
Mutely, Lindsay shook her head because she didn't trust herself to open her mouth. She didn't know whether she would answer Catlin's rhetorical question or bite his caressing thumb; and if she did bite, she didn't know if it would be in retaliation or in sensual provocation.
If she had thought Catlin were simply teasing her for the sake of watching her response, she would have walked away and left him standing there. But he wasn't enjoying teasing her.
There was neither laughter nor cruelty in his eyes, simply the cold calculation of a man who had learned to survive in hell.
A good teacher. The best. She had no complaints coming.
Lindsay's head came up with new determination. She gave Jackie the kind of look usually reserved for dubious art. "I've promised Catlin his charioteer," Lindsay said simply. "I'll remember anyone who helps me."
Catlin shot Lindsay a sideways glance, hearing the ring of certainty in her voice. His expression changed subtly, shifting from approving lover to just plain approval. Do unto others. Period.
"That's what attracted me to Lindsay," said Catlin, slanting her a very male smile. "She gives as good as she gets."
Both Malloy and Wang looked at Lindsay with new interest, for there was no mistaking the fact that her lover was obviously satisfied. That kind of satisfaction raised interesting sexual speculations in other men.
"I'll remember that if I ever need anyone to vet my bronzes," Malloy said, smiling meaningfully at the small blond woman who had been standing silently, patiently, by his side throughout the entire conversation.
"Don't count on it," Catlin said, his voice cool. "The service I get from Lindsay is exclusive."
"Does that work both ways?" asked Jackie, smiling innocently up at him.
"Yes," said Lindsay, before Catlin could answer.
"Well." Jackie shrugged, looking at Lindsay. "I can see you haven't changed that much. You still have a high opinion of yourself." She lifted her hand from Catlin's sleeve as she turned back toward him. "I have some bronze harness pieces that are either Warring States or Qin. Would you be interested?"