Gift of Gold

home.”
    “Don’t sound so hopeful.” Verity opened her door and got out. The wind off the sea whipped her hair into an instant tangle. The jeans and plaid shirt she had put on that morning in Sequence Springs were not proof against the crisp, snapping breeze, so she reached into the backseat for the bright yellow windbreaker she had brought along.
    As she fastened her jacket, the door slammed on the other side of the car. Jonas stood, one arm resting casually on the roof of the car while he eyed the forbidding structure in front of him.
    “One half-expects someone named Igor to open the door,” he said dryly.
    Before Verity could respond, Tavi Monahan opened the wide, gray door. She stood at the top of the concrete steps leading up to the house and looked at them with an unreadable expression.
    “Caitlin will be pleased to know you’re here,” Tavi said very quietly. Tavi herself looked a little less than pleased. Verity thought there was a sense of anxiety beneath that serene, elegant facade.
    “I’m glad somebody is pleased,” Jonas muttered as he pulled his duffel bag and Verity’s small suitcase from the backseat.
    Once again, Verity decided to pretend she hadn’t overheard the crack. Sometimes the only thing a woman could do with someone like Jonas was ignore him.
    They followed Tavi down a hallway paved in gray and black stone. Everything in the house seemed to have been finished in gray and black. Verity silently decided that Jonas was right. Some designer had gotten a little carried away with the theme of concrete and steel. The unusual windows at the front of the house that had looked so much like insect eyes from a distance allowed light in on three levels.
    Caitlin’s home was large and as untraditional inside as it was out. The floor plan of the three-story home did not seem to follow any familiar pattern. A steel-banistered staircase connected the various levels, but the rooms Verity saw as she followed Tavi to the top floor seemed strangely shaped. Walls curved and assumed odd angles.
    There was a second, narrower staircase that connected the levels from some point at the rear of the house.
    Tavi opened a door in the center of a long, battleship-gray corridor and revealed a granite-colored room that had a wall of angled glass on the ocean side. A huge four-poster bed dominated the room, but it was unlike any four-poster Verity had ever seen before. Instead of being fashioned from heavy oak or mahogany, it was metal. The four posts were stark, monolithic pillars pushing toward the ceiling. A gray and black quilt covered the bed.
    “What an interesting room,” Verity said with forced enthusiasm.
    A quick, sardonically amused glance from Jonas reminded her for some reason that
interesting
was the way she had described his lovemaking. She knew from the expression in his eyes that he was remembering the word and the previous context in which she had used it. Verity was annoyed to feel herself turning pink.
    Tavi spoke up. “You have the room at the end of the hall, Mr. Quarrel. I will show you to it. Caitlin will be waiting for both of you downstairs.”
    “Just a minute,” Jonas said as he caught sight of an old rapier hanging on the wall near the bed. He walked a few steps closer to the blade and stood studying it silently. He made no move to touch it.
    Verity followed his glance and saw the long, delicately tapered sword mounted on a metal plaque. The thin, sharply pointed weapon had an elaborately gilded hilt with what appeared to be small, finger-sized rings built onto it.
    “Is that an antique sword?” she asked curiously, aware of his sudden fascination with the weapon.
    “A rapier. Mid-eighteen hundreds, I’d say. Or a hell of a good reproduction.” Jonas swung around to confront Tavi. “Does your boss collect or is this just for decoration?”
    Tavi glanced at the blade without much interest. “The rapier was here when Caitlin bought the house a few years ago. There is another one in your bedroom. The former owner was apparently a collector. When he died, the place was sold as is by the heirs. They had little interest in the house or anything in it. As far as I know, the rapiers are genuine, not reproductions, but I can’t be certain. There’s one in every bedroom. Caitlin has never had them appraised.”
    Jonas nodded and looked at Verity. “I’ll drop my bag in my room and meet you back here in a few minutes.” He spoke with authority.
    “Yes, Jonas,” she said