"Ah, well she asked me to the c.o.c.ktail party she's having before Anna Maria's ball."

"Tiff Henley is having a c.o.c.ktail party?" Cindy said.

"She a.s.sured me you were coming," Ragnor replied.

"I hadn't had a chance to tell you," Jordan told them quickly.

"You knew she was having a c.o.c.ktail party?" Jared queried.

"I just learned about it this morning."

The wine steward, who had been standing nearby, cleared his throat. Jared quickly apologized in Italian, and a discussion regarding choices for dinner wine went around the table.

"I think you just found out about this c.o.c.ktail party tonight."

Jordan started, Ragnor's whisper so close against her cheek, so softly spoken.

She smiled sweetly at him. "I think that big egos can come in very large packages as well."

His head remained lowered near hers, his eyes dark, intense, and strangely serious. "Do you dislike me, Miss Riley?" "Yes," she whispered.

"Why?"

"Maybe because you insult me each time we meet."

"I wouldn't dream of insulting you."

"I think that you implied I looked like a real hooker in red vinyl."

Avery slight smile curved his lips. "I could apologize, but that isn't really the answer, is it? So, why do you dislike me?"

"Maybe because you're a liar," she heard herself say.

"What lies have I told?" Ragnor inquired.

"You were at the contessa's ball. And you deny it."

He sat back. "We're not at all friends, I do a.s.sure you. That is no lie."

She would have believed him. Except at that moment, Raphael suddenly had a question for Ragnor.

"Ragnor. I saw you with the contessa in the Square today. At least, I'm quite certain that it was the contessa. She was wearing a mask, but... there's something in the way she moves, yes? Have you two decided that you are not such great enemies?" Raphael was full of his sense of fun. He lifted his winegla.s.s. "You seemed quite close."

"Like the sun and the moon, my friend," Ragnor said evenly.

Everyone at the table was staring at him.

"Night and day," Anna Maria murmured.

Jordan excused herself suddenly, rising with a murmur about going to the ladies room and asking Lynn to order for her. She hurried off to the restroom and doused her face in cold water. She stared at her reflection.

"Go home, get out of this insanity!" she told herself. But the more it seemed she should do so, the more she longed to run, the more she felt impelled to stay.

Ragnor was a liar. He was with Tiff today, and with the contessa in the Square. It didn't change the fact that she was torn between hostility . . . and almost overwhelming desire.

"He's handsomely built," she told her reflection. "Good, rugged features, great hands.

You've been alone; you lost a fiance a year ago. You are human, and that is all."

She suddenly realized that another woman had come in and was staring at her. She had spoken aloud. "Scusi, scusi," the woman said.

"No, no, per favore, mi scusi," Jordan murmured quickly, slipping by the woman.

Great. As if the world didn't think that Americans were crazy enough.

She ran right into Ragnor. He had apparently followed her, and waited for her to emerge.

"I had to make you understand that I am not in any way the contessa's friend," he told her.

She shook her head. "Your friendships are completely your own business, Mister . ..

Mister ..." She threw up her hands. "I don't even know your last name."

"It's important that you believe me."

"Why?"

"It may be important that you trust me."

"I'm sorry, I try not to trust comparative strangers at the very best of times." She started by him. He caught her hand.

"I shouldn't be such a stranger."

"Trust me, "she said, extricating her hand from his. "You are very strange, sir." She started by him again.

Somehow, and she wasn't at all sure how he managed it, he was in front of her again.

"Honestly, Jordan, I'm sorry I insulted your vinyl. I meant no offense. You were simply far too enticing."

"Thank you. Excuse me," she murmured, and this time, he didn't stop her.

"Jordan! I hope that I ordered well for you," Lynn said as she reached the table.

"I'm sure that you did," Jordan a.s.sured her, taking her seat.

She pointedly gave her attention to Lynn as Ragnor took his chair. "What am I having?"

"A great antipasto, there on the table now. Then rigatoni funghetti, delicious pasta with mushrooms in oil and garlic, and then seppia."

"And what is that?" Jordan asked.

"In English, cuttlefish. Like an octopus or squid. You've seen it here, surely. It's the special dish of Venice," Lynn told her.

Jordan's stomach instantly churned. Cuttlefish. Yep. She should have known. She'd seen it on menus, read about it in guidebooks. She was a seafood lover-of anything that didn't look too much like seafood. No whole fish with the eyes staring at her.

Or anything that was related to an octopus in any way, shape, or form. Octopus was very popular here, she knew. She'd never managed to enjoy a plate of anything with little octopi on it; seeing the tiny suckers on the little legs didn't do anything for her.

She hoped her smile didn't slip.

"Wonderful," she managed.

She turned her attention back to the general conversation at the table in time to hear Ragnor responding to something Cindy had said.

"Legends are always intriguing. Most interestingly, they correspond." He offered Cindy a rueful smile.

"Even the angels who were cast from heaven in Judaism and Christianity have much in common with say, the old Roman G.o.ds, a.s.syrian deities, and the Norse rulers of Valhalla."

"Angels align with the old G.o.ds and G.o.ddesses?" Cindy said skeptically. She paused to smile at the waiter as her pasta was served.

"Lucifer, the beautiful, the fallen. Satan was an angel."

"You're saying that G.o.d is a legend?" Anna Maria queried with a frown.

Ragnor shook his head. "Oh, no, I believe that there is a G.o.d. I'm saying that what we see as the pagan ways of the past are not so different. Knowledge is different, history is different, but there has always been a concept of good and evil and death has always been a great mystery. Different societies have tried to explain it in different ways, but worldwide and throughout history, there has been a belief in a h.e.l.l, or an underworld. The Greeks crossed the River Styx. h.e.l.l has always been down, and heaven is always up."

"Just as people are really very much the same," Lynn commented. "Human nature does not change."

"We all love the glitter of gold!" Raphael put in. "And we all fear monsters, and see the same creatures!" Anna Maria agreed. "The great hairy man, the missing link, is universal. Big Foot in the United States is Sasquatch in Canada and the Yeti in Asia."

"And darkness and shadows hide all evil!" Raphael announced. They all stared at him.

He shrugged. "E vero! All over the world, children are afraid of the dark."

"The dark is what we can't see or understand. That's always frightening," Ragnor said.

Darkness and shadows, and things that seem to move within them, Jordan thought.

She bit into her pasta. It was delicious. She would finish it, then move the cuttlefish around on her plate, and pretend that it was delicious, too.

"So, Ragnor-is there a Loch Ness monster?" Lynn asked.

"If so, I've never seen it," Ragnor said, bringing the soft sound of laughter around the table. "But who knows? There have been a lot of sightings--just no beached creatures for scientific proof."

"There is no such thing as a Loch Ness monster," Jared insisted.

The waiter arrived to take their pasta plates. Jared seemed to be scowling, irritated by the conversation that seemed to be fun for the others.

"But many legends have later been explained by science," Cindy said. "Sea monsters- we know that giant squid and other such things do exist And blue whales! Larger than any dinosaurs! We accept them easily."

"We've seen blue whales-they've been seen since men first put to sea," Jared told her.

"There's your proof."

"But I've never actually seen a blue whale," Cindy said. "Other people have seen blue whales, but other people have also said that they've seen the Loch Ness monster."

Jared groaned. "Cindy, it's not quite the same. You've seen pictures of great blue whales."

"I watch Discovery," Cindy said. "I've seen a few pictures of the Loch Ness monster."

"I think that the great blue whale has more doc.u.mentation going for it," Lynn said, attempting a compromise.

The dinner plates had arrived. Jordan looked down at her plate, already forcing a smile for Lynn.

There was no cuttlefish in front of her. She was staring at a plate of chicken marsala.

She glanced up and caught Ragnor's eye. He smiled.

The cuttlefish was before him.

"Lynn ordered it for me. You don't have to-" she whispered.

"It's all right. I've dined on far stranger creatures."

Lynn didn't notice the change. She was still talking about legends, faraway places, sea creatures. By the time she turned to Jordan, the plates had been subtly switched once again.

"How was it?"

"An adventure in taste."

"You didn't like it."

"I'm not certain I'd have it again, but-"

"You can say that you tried it," Lynn told her. "I'm sorry, I should have asked-" "Oh, no. Thank you. My meal was delicious!" she said, and thankfully, she wasn't lying.

The evening went pleasantly. lingering over espresso and dessert, they talked about the ball the coming night. Yes, Anna Maria a.s.sured them, they were all exhausted with the preparations, but pleased.

"So, do you think that the contessa will come?" Cindy asked Anna Maria.

"Oh, no. She does not have a ticket. She would not have one."

"But what if she is curious-she does put on costumes and walk around the streets, though she would never admit to it!" Raphael said.

"Raphael, we always know to whom we sell our tickets. And even those we give out through special friends with interests in Venice, like Jared are to people known to us because we are so careful to seat people where they will enjoy themselves. I have a list of everyone who is coming."

"But if she showed up at the door, would we let her in?" Lynn asked.

Anna Maria tossed back her beautiful, sleek hair. "The world is full of 'ifs.' I said that right in English, didn't I? I refuse to live by 'ifs.' And the contessa would not come to a party that I gave. It's late. We have a very long day tomorrow. We must get the check and get going. Signore, il con to, per favore," she called to the waiter.