Page 40 of The Winter Princess
He pulls me into the frame with him and addresses the camera. “Her Royal Highness is good enough to be my assistant today,” he says, sounding like a chef on a morning show. “The painting has been removed from its stretcher, and we have to prepare it for any structural repairs. The first step is to remove the gunk—”
“Gunk.” I peer over his shoulder. “Is that a professional term?”
One of his brows notches up. “I’m a professional, and I’m using the term. Here,” he says, offering me the long brush. “We don’t want to stress or stretch the canvas, so we’ll make short, gentle sweeps in one direction and then sort of scoop it up over the barricades with the other brush.”
“Sort of scoop it?” I make a face. “You don’t sound trustworthy, and this is hundreds of years old. You’re making me very nervous.”
“Don’t be nervous,” he decrees.
“Oh, that’s fine, then. I’m completely sorted.”
A slow smile touches his mouth. “I wouldn’t let you anywhere near this canvas if I thought you’d punch a hole in it.”
My face spasms. “Don’t saypunch a hole. You’re going to make me punch a hole.”
“You’re not going to punch a hole,” he repeats, stepping behind me and wrapping his hand over mine, guiding it down to the canvas at a forty-five-degree angle. His breath stirs the hair at the nape of my neck.
My brain goes completely dark, but when the lights begin to flicker on again, all I can think about is how hot I am.The task he’s set before me is simple, and eventually I find my rhythm, sweeping the debris into one corner.
In an attempt to be brisk and businesslike, I put the brush down. “Let me get a close-up of that gunk,” I say, reaching across the table for the camera. My toes lift off the ground and I panic, imagining all the damage I might do. But he puts a hand at the small of my back, keeping me from toppling onto the canvas. I overcorrect and land, camera in hand, too close, tipping into his space. He holds my waist, steadying me.
“There you go,” he says. It’s what he would say to a child who had fallen off a slide, and it feels forced, as though my breathlessness and his hands are a byproduct of gravity. He lets me go and I lift the camera. Order has been reestablished and I should be grateful for it, not investigating the riot of feelings running wild in my head.
“This whole process is strange,” Oskar muses as I train the lens on a pile of dust and deteriorating canvas. He’s stepped back a pace, and out of the corner of my eye, I see his hand clench.
“We have to give the people what they want,” I reply.
I note the time stamp on the screen and put the camera down, giving myself space. I like space. My sisters call me Lone Wolffe for a reason. It’s a small wonder I should feel flushed and sensitive after an entire morning spent in close proximity to a man I…a man I…
“Let us say,” my subconscious allows me, her voice as regal as my mother’s, “I have spent the morning with a man I am unsettled by.”
“Could we stop here?” I ask, already folding the camera stand away. The activity occupies me. “I have an evening event and have to run up to the admin offices first.”
“Sure,” he says, turning away with the carelessness of a person who might use copper staples to secure a canvas. “Do you want me to leave this painting at this point so we can pick up where we left off?”
“Narrative throughline,” I nod. “Good idea.”
I collect my bag and coat, leaving him hunched over another piece with a pair of tweezers, and find my way out of the labyrinthine tunnels easily now that I’ve visited several times. I repeatedly open and shut my hands, trying to force blood back into my fingers. I lift the hair at the back of my neck and let the air cool me. At the stairs, I climb towards a strange sound, swinging through the “Staff Only” doors into a crowded gallery space.
“Oh, beg pardon.”
A woman jostles me, and I hastily step out of her path. Her eyes widen in recognition, and she dips an awkward curtsey in the confined area. I nod and keep moving, squeezing through the crowd before it happens again. In seconds, I’ve reached the administrative wing, bumping through the doors with relief, and find Roland at a one-way window overlooking the gallery. His smile is swallowed up in his beard.
“Is this really happening?” I ask. “Are we breaking any fire codes?”
“I’m not about to look them up,” he laughs.
“How many visitors have there been since we opened?”
“Three thousand, with more trickling in every minute. You know, I think we might be able to do it.”
For a few seconds, I sail on an ocean of optimism. These numbers will have to be sustained.
“What else has been going on today?”
“Rik installed the lottery boxes—painted them out with gold lettering and everything—in the jewelry gallery. That’s been a surprising draw,” he informs me. “Lynda’s idea was a good one. Agnes has been calling schools all morning, trying to get them to stage Christmas concerts at the museum.”
“That won’t add up to more than a few hundred guests, surely.”
