Gift of Gold

this juncture. “I guess I was assuming too much, wasn’t I? Go ahead and take the car, Jonas. I’m sure I can find my own way home when this is all over.”
    He groaned and reached down to yank her to her feet. His face was harsh and each word was a knife slash. “Don’t be any more of a fool than you already are. You know damned good and well I’d never leave you alone here in this house.”
    She sagged against him in relief and her arms stole around his waist. “Thank you, Jonas,” she said simply. “I’ll make it up to you later, I promise.”
    “You can say that again,” he vowed.

 
    Chapter Seventeen
     
    Caitlin had spared no expense recreating the scene she had chosen for the evening’s festivities. The lilting strains of a dance that had originally been written for the lute swirled through the glittering salon. The music was being played on a classical guitar by an earnest young man adorned in shoulder-length hair, yellow tunic, and a pair of dark tights that looked suspiciously like exercise tights.
    The musician was good. Jonas found it disturbingly easy to hear the four-hundred-year-old exuberance of the Renaissance tune that floated through the modern guitar strings.
    In fact, if he narrowed his eyes a little and concentrated on the music and Verity, who was dancing in his arms, Jonas found the night’s illusion almost too complete. The costumed people around him were as vividly attired as any Renaissance gathering would have been. It was true the modem fabrics used in the assortment of rented gowns, cloaks, tunics, doublets, and breeches were not as rich or as beautifully made as the originals would have been, but in the soft glow of artificial lamplight and the very real flare of the flames in the steel fireplace, it didn’t matter. Polyester looked like silk, machined embroidery appeared handmade, and sparkling pieces of colored glass on hems and cuffs could be mistaken for gemstones.
    But the greatest illusion of all, Jonas decided, was the one he was holding in his arms. Verity could easily have stepped from a sixteenth-century Italian painting. She was wearing the peacock-blue velvet gown he had chosen for her the day they went to San Francisco.
    The deep, square neckline was embroidered with gold and silver thread and it framed the silken skin of her throat and shoulders. It was just low enough to hint at the soft rise of her breasts but not so low as to invite prolonged masculine stares. The snug, high-waisted bodice emphasized her slenderness and the full-skirted gown fell with formal grace all the way to her ankles.
    Her hair was pulled back from her forehead, parted in the middle in the old, classic style and folded into a cascade of curls at the nape of her neck. A single blue jewel hung in the middle of her forehead in a style that had been very popular in the sixteenth century. The gem was attached to a fine chain that disappeared into her hair. Tonight Verity’s hair looked as if it had been painted by Titian, Jonas thought.
    Verity looked up at him, her eyes still reflecting the concern she had been feeling all afternoon for Caitlin. “Good thing we had advance warning that this was going to be a costume affair. I have a hunch every rental shop in the San Francisco Bay Area has been cleaned out for tonight’s party.”
    Jonas took his eyes off her long enough to cast a quick glance around the room. “You may be right.”
    “It looks like everyone who is anyone in the art world accepted Caitlin’s invitation.”
    “Like she said, a bunch of curiosity-seekers.”
    Five of the half-dozen people who would be bidding on
Bloodlust
tomorrow had arrived earlier and had been shown to their rooms but Jonas hadn’t seen Damon Kincaid yet. He was beginning to wonder if the man was going to show up after all. Jonas hoped he wouldn’t. The easiest way out of this mess was to have Caitlin’s big plan for revenge go quietly down the tubes for lack of one of the participants. Once he got Verity away from this house, Jonas was certain he could talk some sense into her; get her to see that while Caitlin might have a legitimate desire for vengeance, she also had some serious mental and emotional problems. The woman needed professional help, not Verity’s sympathy.
    “You know,” Verity went on in a soft, mischievous murmur, “you’re the only male in the room who looks comfortable in a pair of tights.”
    Jonas heard the humor in her voice and turned his head to give her a wry