The Book of True Desires

by Betina Krahn

  The night was two-thirds gone before they had calmed enough to go to bed. Even then, Cordelia lay staring up into a moonlit haze of mosquito netting, going over and over the events of the day. The despair she had felt seeing Hedda’s ashen face across the restaurant came circling back again and again. She couldn’t help feeling she had let her beloved aunt down. It gave her an uneasy feeling as she considered what might lie ahead in the jungles of Mexico.

  But as bad as such thoughts made her feel, they were preferable to remembering the rest of the evening, especially her response to the butler in that darkened doorway. Never in all her experience with fawning, infatuated, and just plain amorous men had she experienced anything as pleasurable as that kiss. Two kisses, actually. In quick succession. That was how she knew he was lying when he behaved as if he had found it distasteful. No man subjected himself to a second kiss if the first one was truly disgusting. He had found it just as pleasurable as she had, which left her somewhat bewildered. How could she be stirred to such passion by someone she found so irritating?

  Socks, she told herself, squeezing her eyes shut. Whenever she was tempted to think of that kiss, she would just think of him sorting socks. She scowled, turned her pillow to try to find a cooler spot, and ran smack into the memory of him saying “Oxford” and “chemistry.”

  Who—or what—was Hartford Goodnight, anyway?

  The morning was almost spent before she dragged herself from bed and sent an invitation to the professor to join them at the hotel. She expected that they would spend the rest of the day pouring over the original scrolls, trying to find in them some hint of the stones’ location. Thus, when she answered the knock on her door she was startled to find another man standing just outside her room.

  This man was moderately tall, slender to the point of gauntness, with dark hair and Moorish eyes that matched the exotic cut of his white linen suit.

  “Senorita O’Keefe?” he said, in an expressionless way that made it seem his lips hadn’t moved. “The other Senorita O’Keefe.”

  His dark elegance made her recall Hedda’s description of the wealthy Spanish gentleman who had befriended her last evening.

  “I am Don Alejandro Castille.” He made a curt bow. “I had the great fortune to meet your aunt and Professor Valiente last night.”

  “She isn’t here just now,” Cordelia said, thinking that he must look less sallow and dyspeptic by candlelight. Hedda had described him as dark and dashing. “She had some shopping to do.” She turned toward the writing desk to fetch paper and pen. “Perhaps you would like to leave a note.”

  “No need, senorita. I was actually hoping to meet you.” He took advantage of her movement away from the door to step inside. “I understand from the professor that you are actually the leader of this expedition.”

  “That is true,” she responded, turning back, unsettled by the way he strolled into and around the parlor of the suite, looking over the furnishings as if pronouncing Final Judgment—this one stays, that one burns.

  “I visited the university this morning,” he said, pausing to examine the papers and documents, including passports, spread on the desk. She was on the verge of expressing outrage at his presumption when he broke it off and turned to her. “But I missed our friend Valiente. I thought perhaps he might be here.”

  “I expect him, at any moment,” she said, having to work to keep her instinctive dislike of the man from pushing her to a rash response. “Why do you wish to see me, senor?”

  He looked her up and down, letting his gaze linger too long on her curves but clearly taking her measure in other ways as well.

  “I have come as something of an envoy for my country.” He pulled out a chair from the table beneath the window and sat down without an invitation, gesturing for her to be seated as well. Bristling at his presumption, she remained emphatically on her feet. He tilted his head, studying her and her refusal, then smiled broadly enough to show startlingly large, tobacco-yellowed eyeteeth.

  “Spain—as you are no doubt aware—has a long history of cultural involvement with Mexico,” he said, toying with the brim of his Panama hat. “Since the days of the original explorers, many precious relics and artifacts have been taken back to Spain for safekeeping in our monasteries and libraries.”

  The way he emphasized the word “safekeeping” sent a quiver of anxiety through her. She ran mentally ahead with his revelations, anticipating where he might be headed, tensing at what her intuition told her.

  “Last night, when your aunt spoke of ‘the Gift of the Jaguar,’ my heart leaped in my breast.” He spread a long-fingered hand over his chest. “I have not only heard this story, I have heard of these very stones that speak of the jaguar’s gift. You see, rubbings made on just such stones were stolen from the library of a famous monastery in Madrid.”

  Eleven

  “Stolen?” Cordelia steadied herself on the back of a nearby chair. “How dreadful.”

  “My uncle, a bishop of the church, contacted me to ask for help in finding and returning them to the monastery. Being a good nephew and a loyal Catholic, I agreed to contact my acquaintances in the world of antiquities to locate them.”

  “Theft of antiquities is a serious charge, senor,” she said tautly.

  “I am not here to accuse, senorita. Last night, your aunt said you have come to Havana to consult with Valiente on stone rubbings that speak of ‘the Gift of the Jaguar.’ There can hardly be two sets of stone rubbings dealing with so obscure a legend.”

  “I assure you, the rubbings I brought the professor are not stolen.” She set her jaw. How like Hardacre to stick her with less than lawful antiquities just to see if she could squirm out of the situation!

  “I understand your reluctance to admit that your work may involve illegal materials.” His eyes narrowed. “May I ask how you acquired these scrolls?”

  “They were entrusted to us by an American collector who has held them for quite some time. Samuel Blackburn of Blackburn-Allegheny Steel.”

  Castille searched her visually, seeming to digest that news.

  “I have never heard of this ‘Blackburn Steel’ person.” He drummed his fingers on the table, clearly calculating his next move. “It may be that he did not know they were stolen. It does not matter, senorita. The whole unfortunate situation can be easily resolved if you produce the scrolls for me to examine.”

  A chill ran up her spine. Whatever he saw in the scrolls, she sensed he would declare them to be the ones he sought and try to confiscate them.

  “I am certain our scrolls are not the ones you seek.”

  “And I am equally certain”—he sat sharply forward, his face almost predatory—“that they are. These precious scrolls belong to the library of the Monastery of St. Montelado. And they must be returned.”

  Her mouth dried and her hands grew icy.

  “How do I know that you truly represent a bishop or a monastery? How do I know that you are who you claim to be?” She stepped back sharply as he rose from the chair and regretted it when she saw a glint of pleasure in his eyes.

  “In the interest of justice, I will ignore the insult to myself and my friend the governor of Cuba.” His face heated, his lean features growing sharper and more predatory. “I shall say instead that my uncle, Ramon de Castille, Bishop of Sienna, is well known throughout Spain, Cuba, and even Mexico. I must warn you: if you do not cooperate, I will have no choice but to take stronger measures.” That yellow-fanged smile appeared again. “If I take this unfortunate matter to my friend the governor, he will have no choice but to declare you and your aunt thieves and enemies of the Spanish people. He will confiscate the stolen scrolls, and you will lose both your work and the compensation you might have had from me. Perhaps you will even lose your freedom.”

  “I must ask you leave, senor.”

  She strode to the door and threw it open, finding two beefy men with coarse faces and hardened eyes filling the threshold. She fell back a step. Clearly, Castille had come prepared
to take the scrolls by whatever means necessary.

  “Allow me to introduce Senor Blanc and Senor Yago. They, too, are loyal Spaniards,” Castille said with an edge of amusement. “And loyal churchmen.”

  “This is an outrage.” She glanced at the door to the adjoining room, thinking of her gun in the nightstand by her bed. “I will go to the governor myself and ask him to investigate the matter.”

  “The scrolls, senorita.” He dropped his increasingly strained pretense of civility. “Give them to me now, and there will be no harm to yourself or your possessions.”

  When she didn’t move or speak, he flicked his wrist and brought the thugs into the room to begin searching.

  “Stop—leave that alone!” She tried to intervene when they began overturning furniture, but they were huge and determined. She turned on her heel and headed instead for the nightstand by her bed. Before she reached it, beefy hands seized her and all but lifted her off her feet. Her tension exploded into an anger-fueled cry.

  “Let me go—how dare you? Put me down!” She bucked and twisted against their grip, trying to break free, then tried going limp and dropping to the floor to loosen their hold. Unfortunately, the pair were no strangers to that maneuver and quickly hauled her back up between them to face Castille.

  “You won’t get away with this,” she said furiously.

  “You are very much mistaken, senorita.” Castille headed for the open steamer trunks along the far wall of the room and began pulling out drawers, looking in and behind them, dumping both contents and drawers on the floor. “You could have saved yourself this distress by doing as I asked.”

  He ripped out a handful of hanging clothes and threw them on the floor with a smirk that transformed into a snarl as he continued from trunk to bureau to trunk, finding nothing. Barking orders for one of the thugs to hold her while the other helped him search, he began to take apart everything in the room. Soon mattresses were overturned and gutted, pillows were slit, and the remaining luggage all opened and emptied. Still there was no sign of the prize he sought.

  Simmering, Castille stalked over to shove his face into hers.

  “Where are my scrolls?”

  “I’ll never give them up.” She met his fury without quailing.

  “Shall we test that statement, senorita?” He raked a hand down the side of her face, then clamped it hard around her throat. “No doubt Blanc and Yago could think of ways to make you regret you ever thought it.”

  Her scream was an instinctive reaction to his tightening grasp, but once it began, she threw heart into it and began to fight with everything in her. Castille muttered a curse when her foot connected with his shin. He released her throat only to draw back his hand and smack her so hard across the face that she saw stars. Her knees buckled.

  From somewhere outside that disorienting blaze of light and pain came a familiar voice.

  “Just like you to have a party and not invite me.”

  For a moment everything but the spinning of her head stopped.

  Goodnight.

  Something slammed down on the thug holding her, knocking him over and sending her glancing off the bedstead to the floor, where she lay for a minute gasping for breath. The sound of cracking—wood or bone, she couldn’t be sure—split the air and she looked up to see a dark blur and what seemed to be a parlor chair connecting with everything still upright in the room.

  She felt hands on her, groping, searching for purchase, and she kicked and jabbed with her elbows to keep them from getting a grip on her. When a hand slid over her mouth, she bit down with all the force she could muster. The resulting howl, at such close range, nearly burst her eardrum.

  But for the moment she was free and grabbed the empty bed frame to pull herself along toward the nightstand. Sounds of scuffling, groans and curses, and the thudding impact of fist against flesh and bone seemed to come from everywhere. In the distance she could hear orders being snarled in Spanish and then the sound of feet, running. She reached the nightstand and found the drawer overturned on the floor. Through the goose feathers and tangle of bedclothes she felt a shaft of steel and seized it—just as one of the thugs grabbed her ankles and started to pull her back across the floor.

  She coughed, choking on the down and feathers, but managed to seat the handle of the pistol in her palm and swing it up in time to meet Yago’s eyes. Still on her back, she held the pistol with both hands and growled, “Get back!”

  He glanced toward the door and eased back onto his knees, lifting his hands at his sides as he struggled to his feet. She sat up and rolled onto her knees as the first step in getting back to her feet.

  Yago shouted at his partner, then spun around and ran off through the adjoining room. Blanc caught sight of his partner escaping and the next instant was struggling to free himself and do the same.

  A moment later, the room was still except for the feathers floating slowly back to the floor and the fading sound of footsteps. She blinked, steadying herself against the footboard, and realized it was Goodnight’s widened eyes she was seeing at the other end of her pistol.

  Goodnight. She’d never been so happy to see someone in her life.

  “What in hell was that about?” Goodnight stalked over to her, panting and running his hands back through his disheveled hair. “Who was that?” He pushed the barrel of her gun to one side, glowering. “What did they want?”

  She looked around the wrecked bedroom with disbelief, struggling to recover her voice.

  “R–Rubbings.” The throbbing in her face caused her disjointed self-possession to snap back into place. “Castille… the man Hedda and the professor met last night…he demanded I turn the rubbings over to him… said they were stolen from some monastery in Madrid. When I told him to leave, he threatened me and—and—”

  “Carried out his threat.” He looked around the bedroom, then took her by the shoulders and steered her into the comparative order of the other room. There he righted a chair by the window, pushed her down onto it, and peeled her fingers from the gun. Setting it on the table, he turned her head to get a better look at her face. With a wince, he plucked a number of feathers from her hair and dress, then gave a long-suffering sigh and headed for the door.

  “Stay. I’ll be right back.”

  As minutes ticked by, she reached for the gun again and cradled it on her lap. When he returned carrying a black leather satchel, she raised the pistol. With an impatient hiss, he again pried the gun from her fingers.

  “What is this obsession you have with firearms?”

  “They even the odds.” Her t’s were sounding more liked’s; her lips were swelling. “If I’d had it on me, they coun’t ’ave made dis mess.”

  “Something of a relief, actually, to know you don’t wear it around the clock,” he said with a sniff as he opened his bag. “I had visions of being shot for an intruder while going for a constitutional in the middle of the night.”

  She gave him a dark look and peered over the top of the satchel. It was filled with a jumble of instruments, boxes, paper packets, and variegated glass bottles—looked like an apothecary’s attic.

  “Hold still,” he ordered. Using a gauze square saturated with a gold liquid that smelled like turpentine gone bad, he cleaned the blood from the corner of her split lip. It stung like the dickens.

  “Owwww!” She drew back and scowled. “What is that stuff?”

  “Listerine. Antibacterial agent. Relatively new.”

  “‘Anti’ what?”

  “Bacteria.” He gave a quiet huff. “Germs—I assume you’ve heard of those. This liquid kills the germs that cause sepsis. Keeps wounds from becoming infected.”

  She stared at him, at a loss for how to respond.

  “What? I suppose you’d rather have Hunt’s Lightning Oil or that cursed Radam’s Mibrobe Killer.” He glowered. “May as well pour whiskey on it—that’s all the old quack-salvers put in their damnable snake oil.”

  “Back-terria?” she muttered. “He’s on a
first name basis with germs?”

  “I don’t think you’ll need stitches.” He ignored her comment. “Since we don’t have any ice, you’ll have to make do with a bit of witch hazel. I’ll give you some acetylsalicylic acid for the pain and inflamation.”

  She blinked. For a second time in the last hour, reality was taking a very disorienting bend. When he reached into his bag again, she grabbed his wrist.

  “Who are you?” she demanded.

  He looked pointedly at her hand, waiting for her to remove it. She didn’t.

  “Hartford Goodnight, remember?” He exhaled a long, tortured breath. “Presser of pants and sock folder extraordinaire.”

  “Who went to Oxford,” she declared, studying him. “And studied chemistry. Is that how you know about germs?” He tried to take his arm back but she wouldn’t let him. After a brief tug of war, he relented.

  “My acquaintance with germs came from a stint in medical school. It’s a theory of illness quite in vogue: bacteria and other microscopic organisms—known to laymen as germs—cause most sickness.”

  “Medical sch—” She pounced on the admission, the pain in her head taking second place in her awareness. “You’re a doctor?”

  “No. Not officially. In my last year of medical training, I switched to chemistry.” He twisted his hand again, and she released it.

  “How did you get from Oxford to being Samuel P.’s butler?” For some reason, the sight of Goodnight leaning on top of that trunk in Samuel P.’s bedroom and talking about the “firstborns” the old man had taken as collateral popped into her mind. And suddenly she knew.

  “You owe him.” Her eyes widened. “You’re working off a debt!”

  He reddened and busied himself pouring witch hazel into some gauze.

  “That’s it, isn’t it? You lost a bet and you’re working it off.”

  He put the cloth against her injured lip and brought her hand up to hold it in place. Then he pulled out a tin of white powder and a sheet of paper, folding the latter to make a dose packet for her.