“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 assured 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 gods, Assyrian deities, and the Norse rulers of Valhalla.”

“Angels align with the old gods and goddesses?” 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 God is a legend?” Anna Maria queried with a frown.

Ragnor shook his head. “Oh, no, I believe that there is a God. 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 hell, or an underworld. The Greeks crossed the River Styx. Hell 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 documentation 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 assured 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.

The check had already been paid. “I crashed the dinner party. It seemed the thing to do, under the circumstances,” Ragnor explained.

The others all thanked him and told him it wasn’t necessary. Jordan looked at him curiously. “When did you manage to pay the check?” she asked him.

“When I ‘followed’ you to the ladies room,” he told her.

“So you weren’t really following me. You just happened to be there?”

“Not exactly. I was following you, too.”

He pulled out her chair. Outside the restaurant, they went through a round of cheek kissing again. Anna Maria and her group were ready to take a vaporetto.

“Which way are you going?” Jared asked Ragnor.

“Actually, I’ve just taken a room at the Danieli,” he said.

Jordan started.

“Great! We can walk back together,” Cindy said. She slipped her arm through her husband’s, leading them on ahead.

Jordan stared at Ragnor. “You’re really at the Danieli?”

“Yes.”

“Where have you been staying?”

“With friends.”

“So why move into the Danieli?”

He shrugged. “I haven’t stayed there in a while.”

She started forward. He fell in step at her side, not touching her.

“Thank you for dinner.”

“A pleasure.”

She stopped walking. “Just what do you do for a living?”

He looked down at the street as he walked, a small smile on his lips. “You know, in many places in Europe, that might be considered a rude question.”

“I’m an American. According to many Europeans, we tend to be rude.”

“But you’re not usually, are you?” he queried, looking at her.

She sighed with exasperation. “Why can’t you just answer a straight question?” He shrugged. “I dabble in antiques,” he told her.

“Dabbling in antiques must be a prosperous vocation.” She brushed his sleeve, indicating his dress.

“Armani, Versace ... rooms at the Danieli, constant travel, so it seems. And apparently, you speak a number of languages?well. That tends to imply quite an education.”

“The world itself can be quite an education.”

“Oh, I’m sure. But I think you’ve had a lot more.”

“You are getting intensely personal, you know.”