Desire Me

by Robyn DeHart

  Neither had spoken about the night before. It wasn’t as if she’d expected Max to fall to his knees and recite poetry or whisper proclamations of love. It wouldn’t matter if he had. They couldn’t be together.

  She was Atlantean, and he was English. She could sit here and think of many reasons why she wanted to be with Max. But choosing him would be the same as walking away from her people, and she could never do that. Just as Agnes had chosen her duty over the desires of her heart, so would she. Not that she loved Max, she didn’t, but she did desire him.

  And he’d made it all too clear he was not looking for a wife. Not only that, but after watching her mother grieve for Sabine’s father and now Agnes for Phinneas, Sabine knew that love only brought heartache.

  This line of thinking would get her nowhere. They had a weapon to find, and if her aunts were right and her birthday had something to do with the timeline of the prophecy, then they only had four more days. He sat opposite her, his legs stretched in front of him, but completely avoiding contact with her. Did he regret last night?

  The carriage jerked, and when it did, her bag slipped off the seat and was dumped onto the floor.

  She knelt to pick up the contents.

  He leaned forward to help her.

  “Here, you missed this.” He held a calling card out to her, but before she could grab it, he’d snatched it back. It was the card of the chemist who’d come into her shop a couple of days before.

  He looked down at the card in his hand. “Bertrand Olney. Why does that name look so familiar?” He looked up at her. “Where did you get this?”

  She frowned. “He came by the shop that day I went in. He’d handed me the card, and I guess I stuffed it in my bag. I’d forgotten all about him.”

  “What did he want?” Max asked, suspicion sharp in his voice.

  “He’s not the one we’re looking for,” she said. “He wasn’t strong enough.”

  “I’ve seen his name.” He shook his head. “I can’t place it, though.”

  “It’s nothing. He was a chemist; offered to buy the recipe for one of my products.”

  “A chemist? That’s where I’ve heard of him. In the Times,” he said. “There was a story about how chemist Bertrand Olney had been murdered the previous night in his home. It did not appear to be a burglary.”

  “What?” Sabine asked.

  “He was murdered.”

  She didn’t know what to think about that. Should she feel remorse or compassion for him, despite the fact that he’d appeared to be a dishonest little man? She supposed she should, yet she felt nothing. So she changed the subject.

  “How can you be so certain the dagger we found was not the dove?” she asked.

  “I told you, wrong era. It was crafted far too late to have come out of Atlantis or anything near that time period. And the engraving on the blade gave another clue,” he said plainly.

  “Yes, you mentioned that last night, but I saw no such thing.”

  “The great army is commanded as the ten were done,” he said.

  “Great army. That could refer to the armies of the Great War.”

  “You’ve mentioned the Great War before. Tell me about it,” he said.

  “Atlantis invaded many countries, destroying most of them. The military abused the elixir, making them nearly undefeatable. That’s when the guardians and their families fled. They took the elixir, and eventually the army weakened. Poseidon punished them for their greed, and he commanded the ocean to swallow the island,” she said.

  “No one was punished, Sabine. It was merely an earthquake or volcano that destroyed the island,” Max said.

  “That is not what my people believe. The elixir was a gift to us, and we did not obey, therefore we received retribution.”

  “A biblical plague,” he said.

  “If you want to view it in such terms,” she said.

  “Well, soldiers from the Great War is a good theory. What I focused on was the ‘as the ten were done.’ I believe it refers to the Ten Commandments.”

  “Thou shall not commit murder,” she said. “Tell that to the Chosen One.”

  “I don’t believe it’s referring to any one of the commandments in particular, but rather to how they were presented to the people,” Max said.

  “From a mountaintop?” she asked.

  “No, on stone tablets. I think our next quest is to locate a specific tablet.”

  She thought on it a moment. “The Rosetta Stone,” she suggested, then shook her head. “What good will a tablet do us?”

  “Another clue?” he suggested.

  “At this rate we could chase after clues for the next one hundred years,” she said.

  “Consider this an adventure, Sabine.”

  “Perhaps we do not have time for an adventure. There are lives at stake,” she said. Hers included.

  “Indeed there are. Not only the remaining guardian, but the rest of our military leaders, who protect the rest of us.” He nodded. “Yes, there is much at stake.”

  “Why do you care so much?” she asked, unable to hide her curiosity.

  “My club,” he said without missing a beat. “It is not our intention or prime purpose to guard the crown, but Solomon’s has on occasion been given the opportunity to protect our monarch and our great country.”

  She didn’t believe that for a second, but Max always had an answer for everything. “So you do it for patriotism?”

  “And perhaps for other, more personal reasons.” He shrugged. “I cannot help but be intrigued by anything related to Atlantis. You included.”

  Her heartbeat faltered. She watched his clear blue eyes and the amusement, intelligence, and passion they held.

  He’d found their map. Phinneas had once had a vision about that very thing, “a great one.” Max would not be satisfied with that one artifact forever, though.

  “But if given the opportunity to find proof,” she said. “You would do it?”

  “Yes, I would,” Max answered without hesitation.

  She knew that, in and of itself, should frighten her. The guardians worked tirelessly to hide and protect the elixir to avoid its exploitation and ruin. He knew about the elixir and had seen its powers firsthand. Max, if he so chose, could ruin them all.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Sabine and Max climbed up the wide staircase, and this time they actually walked through the pillared entryway of the British Museum. They were here to visit the King’s Library.

  “Are you certain the next clue leads us to Alexander the Great?” Sabine asked.

  “No, not certain at all, but if I’m right we’ll see the truth in moments,” Max said.

  “You’re beginning to sound like a riddle yourself,” she said, with a smile. She’d been smiling a lot more lately. Strange, considering life had become more complicated and dangerous in the last two weeks. But Max made her laugh.

  “Great army—Great’s army. It was capitalized. Shortly before he died, Alexander the Great made one final decree,” Max said.

  “And put it in stone?” she asked. “Not precisely the medium they used during that time period.”

  “On the contrary, there were still official proclamations made in stone,” Max said.

  They crossed through a quiet corridor, and she kept pace to walk next to him. “I suppose I’m more familiar with the history of my own people. Was our civilization really so much more advanced than the Macedonians’ that we were using scrolls when the rest of the world was still using tablets?”

  “Perhaps we might all still be whittling in stone had it not been for the few Atlanteans who came along to civilize the rest of us,” Max said drolly.

  “You are truly hilarious,” she said.

  “Thank you.”

  They walked past the reading room and a few exhibit halls. Finally they came to the library. It was dim, with very few lamps. Windows surrounded the top of the room like a ribbon of light, but with today’s clouds, they didn’t provide much illumination.
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  Aside from that, the library was magnificent. Books and scrolls and other artifacts, including King John’s Magna Carta and the Rosetta Stone, surrounded them. And perhaps a piece of her own people’s history was here among Britain’s most valuable treasures. Pride swelled within her. If she survived this prophecy, she should come back here someday to enjoy all of the artifacts.

  She paused and glanced back at the Rosetta Stone. “Just to be certain,” she said as she walked over to it.

  “You know, this actually dates a little more recent than Alexander’s decree?” Max said.

  “You are a font of information,”

  “A member of Solomon’s found it,” he said.

  She circled the display, looking closely for any sign of the dove. “I thought a Frenchman had discovered it.”

  Max shrugged. “He claimed it. But whose museum is it in?”

  There were no symbols resembling their dove. “Nothing. Shall we?”

  They walked into a smaller room, and there, atop a podium, was a large stone tablet.

  “Some theorize,” Max spoke in a low voice, “that Alexander was attempting to put himself on the same level as God and thus chose the same medium to proclaim his own commandments.”

  As they moved closer, Sabine could see the Greek inscription carved into the granite. She read the entire decree, and it was, in fact, about war, an extended battle cry and promise to be ruler of all.

  “That mentions nothing about a dove or a specific weapon,” Sabine said.

  “No, it doesn’t. But…” Max turned around to ensure they were alone before he picked up the massive tablet and turned it over. The stone had chipped in a few places and wasn’t entirely smooth, but there were no significant marks on most of the surface. “There,” he said, pointing.

  On the right-hand corner was another inscription directly below the now-familiar carving of the bird. The letters looked familiar, but something was peculiar about them. And without proper lighting, it was far too difficult to read.

  She reached into her bag and retrieved her notebook and a pencil. With a firm yank, she pulled a couple of blank pages out of the notebook, then handed them to Max.

  He set the tablet facedown, then spread the sheet of paper over the inscription. As he moved the pencil across the stone, Sabine watched the message appear on the parchment.

  A scholarly-looking gentleman with spectacles entered the room and eyed them disapprovingly. He cleared his throat. Sabine ran a hand seductively down Max’s back, then leaned over to his ear pretending to whisper something.

  Max stopped what he was doing.

  She brazenly winked at the other man.

  The scholar’s eyes rounded, then a bright shade of red covered his entire face, and he quickly turned to go.

  “I apologize,” she said to Max when they were alone again. “It was the first thought I had to get him out of here. It worked,” she said cheerfully.

  “Next time think of an alternative solution that doesn’t involve touching me.” Then he turned to meet her eyes. “Unless you fully intend to finish what you start.”

  She started to chuckle, but then she caught sight of his expression. He was deadly serious.

  She swallowed, but said nothing in response. While Max took an impression of the entire inscription, she stood watching and smiled sweetly at any passersby who happened into the room.

  “Done,” Max whispered. He handed her the two sheets of parchment, which she tucked neatly into her bag.

  “Let us be done with this place before we attract any more attention,” she said.

  He nodded as he gently turned the tablet back to its original position. “Lovely piece,” he said to a lady and her two young sons as they entered the room. Then he and Sabine made their way out of the library.

  Their waiting carriage took them directly to Max’s home, and they made their way into his study. It was late afternoon, Agnes was probably upstairs while Lydia and Calliope were still at the shop. Momentarily she felt a pang of guilt for leaving them to do the menial work when it had been her idea to begin with. But she had been set on this course, and she felt it was her duty to stop the prophecy and protect Agnes.

  He laid the pieces of parchment on his desk then read them aloud. “‘Deception is deceiving,’” he began, then finished the inscription, though it wasn’t very cohesive.

  “Well, that doesn’t make very much sense. Are you certain you translated that correctly?” she asked. She came around the desk to look for herself.

  “It’s the first line,” he said.

  She stared from one page to the next for several moments and again was struck by the familiarity. “Wait a moment.” She picked up the first sheet and held it upside down. Then she smiled. “Do you have a mirror?”

  “Why?” he asked.

  “Trust me for a change,” she said.

  He nodded. “This way.” He led the way out of the office and up the stairs. They went down a hall and then another until they came to the end and entered a room.

  “Is this your bedchamber?” she asked, still standing in the hallway.

  “You asked for a mirror, and it was the first one I thought of.” He pointed to the full-sized framed mirror in the corner of the room.

  Even though it was a very large room, the massive bed commanded her full attention. Covered in the lushest of blue silks, it beckoned to her as she breached the threshold. She quickly turned away and walked right up to the mirror. She turned over the sheet of paper until it was upside down and the reflection shown in the mirror. “That’s it,” she said. She smiled broadly.

  Max peered into the mirror and saw what looked to him to be upside-down Greek letters. “That’s what?”

  “It’s written in Atlantean,” she said. “I don’t know how I missed that before. Hand the other one to me.”

  He held the sheets to the mirror as she scribbled the translation into her notebook.

  “So what does it say?” he asked.

  “Your task is nearly complete, and the reward is near. The dove is before you, if you have the right eyes to see.”

  “What the hell is that supposed to mean?” he asked.

  “I have no idea.”

  Spencer stood near the French doors enjoying the evening breeze while the music played and couples littered the ballroom floor. His fellow guests jested and laughed about other men in Parliament or the latest scandal. On occasion, he’d nod and chuckle to remind them he was participating, that he was one of them, even though he knew that wasn’t true.

  He was better than every one of them, far more important. It mattered not that his title was lower, and his coffers might not be as full. When it came to importance, he ranked at the top, and whether they realized that now or not had no bearing on the truth. The truth would be revealed soon, and then everyone would know.

  His signet ring weighed heavily on his hand, reminding him of his purpose tonight. He had not made any headway in locating the third and final guardian. So he’d come out among Society tonight in hopes of uncovering that person’s identity. He had very few clues, but he knew London was the correct location.

  Spencer’s birthday was rapidly approaching, only three days away, and he had to complete the prophecy by then or he would fail. Two more generals and the final guardian and then all would be set.

  “Pardon me,” he said to his companions; he could scarcely consider them friends. “I believe I’ll retrieve some refreshments.” It was an excuse to roam the room and get as close to as many people as possible. The women were not the problem. He could dance with any woman in the room. They’d respond to him, he knew that. He was a handsome devil, and women always craved his attention. That and being her majesty’s faithful advisor usually ensured that he made a rather popular dance partner. But he preferred situations in which he wouldn’t have to play the charming rogue and could instead be silent and focus on his work.

  The closer he got to the table and the crowd of women to his left, the more the r
ing glowed bright red. The guardian was here. Only elixir caused his ring to blaze. Deftly he poured himself some lemonade—dreadful stuff, but it was the only concoction available at the table. So he forced the drink down and poured more. Then he slowly walked toward a group of women standing not too far away from him.

  The redness deepened. A female guardian, that was something he hadn’t considered. He found himself searching the women’s faces looking for some other sign. No doubt, she’d be beautiful. At least, he imagined she would be, and as he looked into the eager expressions of the girls standing together—their desire for him to invite them to dance etched painfully across their faces—none of them seemed particularly beautiful to him.

  And the ring, while glowing, was not nearly as red or bright as it had been when he’d found the other two guardians. He didn’t bother smiling at the women as he moved around the perimeter of the room. Sitting in a tight clump directly opposite the band, he found another group of women. Again they were all pleasant-looking, but not so much so as to stop him in his tracks. The ring brightened, but the ruby-red color it had taken in the presence of the other guardians did not appear.

  He took a slow walk along the open balcony, but discovered only couples hiding in darkened corners. As he made his way back into the ballroom, he stopped as the color of blonde hair caught his attention. It was nearly white, it was so fair, and the woman it belonged to was nothing short of exquisite. She was in the arms of an older gentleman, one he knew from some circles. She laughed at something the man said, and the throaty sound purred up Spencer’s extremities.

  “Behave,” she said, “you wouldn’t want my lover to get jealous.”

  “Your lover, and who might that be?” the man asked.

  “The Marquess of Lindberg. Maxwell and I have been together for years,” she said.

  So she belonged to the marquess. Perhaps this was the woman whom Spencer had seen with Max at Phinneas’s cottage.

  He waited until the dance was complete, then made his way to her side, champagne in hand. The closer he got to her, the deeper the red shone in his ring. This was her. She had to be the third and final guardian.