Gift of Gold

with all his willpower. He staggered and lost his balance, going down on one knee.
    He had to get rid of the blade. He had to drop the metal plaque on which the rapier was mounted.
    It was so simple. All he had to do was drop the damn thing.
    Jonas struggled to relax his grip. But the pull of the rapier was far more violent and compelling than he had expected. Under assault, he sensed with grim shock that it had never been worse than this except that day in the lab when he’d almost killed a man.
    Few things he had ever touched had hit him this hard. Tonight he was going to lose himself in the dark corridor. He was going to be overwhelmed by the past. It would either kill him or drive him out of his mind.
    He had been a fool to touch the plaque. He should have guessed how powerful the rapier on it was. But it had been so long since he had experimented with an object from his prime time period that he had almost forgotten how strong the past could be. Perhaps he had grown overconfident because of his experience with the dueling pistols the other night.
    Or perhaps that subtle confidence had started growing in him the day he had found Verity.
    Jonas shook his head, groping for the reason why he had gotten away with handling the pistols.
    He remembered picking up one of the guns and simultaneously reaching for Verity in his mind. She had been there, running ahead of him down the corridor. He had chased her. He hadn’t been able to touch her but had gotten close enough to learn that she exerted as much pull on him as the gun itself. What’s more, the twisting ribbons of emotion were drawn to her. She could chain them.
    Verity.
    If he could touch her now, Jonas knew, be stood a chance of escaping the compulsion of the rapier. He had to get to Verity.
    Jonas struggled to his feet. The effort sent him reeling against the bed, where the metal plaque was jarred from his grasp and hit the floor with a sharp thud. The rapier bounced free, clattering.
    Before Jonas could get out of the way, the weapon rolled twice and came to a halt against his bare foot.
    Fury rippled through him. Raw, murderous, overwhelming fury.
He would kill the man who had tried to rape his lady.
He would see the bastard’s blood soaking into the tiles of the palazzo before the light of the new day dawned.
    Jonas reached down and scooped up the rapier. He had to get to Verity. His red-haired lady was in mortal jeopardy. He had to get to her and kill the man who threatened her.

 
    Chapter Nine
     
    Verity was hovering on the edge of a dream when the door to her bedroom opened with a crash. She struggled up out of sleep, wondering vaguely if the storm had smashed one of the insect-eye windows. Sitting up against the pillows, she blinked sleep out of her eyes.
    Although the room was in darkness, she noticed a patch of lighter gray where the door should have been. It was then she realized that the door was open and she was looking out into the shadowed hall. Before she had time to wonder how the door had been flung back on its hinges, she saw the figure of a man looming in the opening. She could barely make out the object he held in his right hand. Then it came to her.
    A rapier.
    She tried to scream but in that instant the man moved into the room, gliding forward in a fencer’s crouch. Lightning crackled outside the window, briefly illuminating his lean, powerful figure and the menacing shape of the naked blade he held. She knew then who it was. Stunned shock ricocheted through her.
    “
Jonas.
”
    The figure jerked at the sound of his name as if one of the bolts of lightning had struck him. She saw him shake his head as if to clear it and then he came toward her soundlessly to stop at the foot of the bed. While she saw the blade gripped firmly in his hand, it was not pointed at her. Verity scrambled backward until she was crouched against the wall.
    “Jonas, for God’s sake, what’s wrong?” The words were hoarse with fear and tension.
    “Touch me.” Jonas’s voice was so raw it was almost unrecognizable.
“
Touch me.
”
    He was in the grip of some terrible nightmare, Verity thought. As long as he held the rapier, she didn’t dare get near him. Caught up in his fevered dream, he might easily mistake her for some imagined foe. He held the rapier as if he knew how to use it, even in a nightmare. Warily she edged over to the side of the bed.
    It was then she realized that there was something wrong with the room. It seemed to be curving around