The Book of True Desires Read online

  “I run the expedition,” she declared, turning back to Samuel P. “I hire the bearers and guides. I decide what trails we follow. And I set the pace. Your observer is just that—an observer—subject to the rules I establish. Are we clear on that?”

  In retrospect, Samuel P.’s smile should have given her pause. It was genuine delight. Unalloyed with suspicion or subterfuge. What was it about the deal, she should have asked herself, that would give the old boy such undiluted pleasure?

  “Clear as glass, missy.” He stuck out his knotty right hand. “I believe we’ve got ourselves a deal.”

  She met his hand with hers, giving him a firm and businesslike shake.

  With a hoot of a laugh, he turned to the crow and ordered brandy all around.

  “At this hour of the morning?” The servant shrugged, levered himself up out of the chair, and headed for the liquor cabinet. “It’s your foot.”

  The crow brought three glasses back on a tray and the old boy sent him back for another glass. He returned with the fourth glass and set about pouring and serving—until it came to that last full glass.

  “Go on,” Samuel P. ordered the servant. “Pick it up.” When the crow looked wary, he chuckled. The sound wasn’t at all reassuring. “You’ll need a few stiff drinks where you’re going.”

  “And where is that?” the crow asked, reaching for the glass, regarding with equal suspicion its contents and the news that would accompany them.

  “On an expedition. To Mexico.” The old boy fixed a look on Cordelia. “As my appointed representative.”

  She hadn’t yet taken the first sip of brandy. When she strangled, it was on her own juices. She coughed and gasped and coughed again, her eyes watering.

  “What?” she croaked.

  “Here, missy. Meet your new travelin’ companion,” Samuel P. declared, waving sharply at the stunned servant. “Hartford Ignatius Goodnight. Presser of pants. Tender of gout. Folder of socks. Without a doubt, the worst butler in the history of ‘butling.’”

  “I am not.”

  “You must be joking.” Her fingers turned white on the glass tumbler.

  “Not a bit. Goodnight here…he’s th’ one I choose to send along. The way he’s kept an eye on me, I reckon he’ll be the perfect man to keep an eye on you.” He cast a jaded smile in the butler’s direction. “Plus, it’ll do ’im good to get out and get a little fresh air.”

  “You devious old codswallop—” Goodnight began, his chest broadening as it puffed with indignation.

  “This is not a Sunday outing!” She slammed her brandy down, untasted, on a nearby table. “This will be a difficult and dangerous expedition into wild, unexplored territory. There won’t be time for”—she shot the manservant a disparaging look—“folding socks and crocheting tea cozies.”

  The full outrage of it descended on her. His butler! Then she looked between the crow and his employer, seeing with fresh eyes the tension and antipathy that lay beneath the servant’s barbs. It struck her that old Samuel P. was pawning off one of his problems on her!

  “No,” she declared furiously. “I won’t take him. Name someone else. Anyone else.” She skewered the adder-tongued butler with a glare. “I’m not taking him.”

  “You agreed to a deal, missy.” Samuel P.’s mask of humor evaporated, baring the steely sinew of the impervious character he’d spent a lifetime building. “And you don’t renege on a deal with Hardacre Blackburn without payin’ for it, kin or no kin. The deal said I could send someone with you to make sure you search proper and bring back what you find. The deal didn’t say you got to okay who I send.” He flicked a finger toward the red-faced Goodnight. “He’s goin’.” Then he turned his steely glare back to her. “Get used to it.”

  Three times she opened her mouth to break their verbal contract. And three times she closed it. Her face was on fire, her hands were shaking, and she couldn’t bring herself to look at Hedda, who had warned her repeatedly about the old man’s unscrupulous nature. He’d had decades to perfect the art of the devious deal. What had made her think she could come out on top in a match with him? She had asked for it, she realized, and he’d given it to her.

  When she looked up she caught the butler’s spiteful expression.

  “‘She who sups with the devil,’” he quoted, “‘had best use a long spoon.’”

  “Is that so?” She raked him with a look savage enough to leave furrows. “Well, I’ve got another pithy little nugget for you: ‘It makes the devil laugh to see the biter bitten.’”

  As she sailed out the door and down the hall, laughter lapped at her back. The old man’s pure unadulterated glee.

  Five

  Hartford Goodnight’s face burned as he watched the old man set the brandy aside untouched and shuffle over to the chair with the ottoman.

  “What in bloody hell do you think you’re doing?” he demanded.

  “Wheelin’ and dealin’.” The old man paused for an instant before lowering himself into the seat with a grunt of discomfort. “Like always.”

  “I am not going on a treasure hunt captained by a woman,” he said, propping his hands on his waist in a way that emphasized the breadth of his chest. “Especially that woman.”

  “What’s wrong with ‘that’ woman?” The old boy scowled, studying him. “She’s a feast for th’ eyes and she very well may be my own flesh an’ blood.”

  “Exactly.”

  Blackburn continued studying him, letting him wait for a reaction to his comment.

  “She’ll do it or she won’t,” he finally said. “Either way, I want you there.”

  “Absolutely not. I’m not the stew-in-sweat and gnaw-on-hardtack sort.”

  “Don’t underestimate yourself.” Blackburn’s chuckle had a nasty edge. “I figure you’ll be right at home in the jungle—with th’ snakes and blowflies and heathens who shoot poison darts.”

  Goodnight’s face tightened in spite of his attempt to rein in his emotions.

  “See here—I was hired to be your—”

  “You weren’t hired to be anything. You were taken. As collateral.”

  “As your butler.”

  “As anything I damned well see fit to make you!” The old man’s eyes narrowed ominously. “Check th’ contract, Goodnight. It doesn’t say what work you have to do, only that you have to work. For me.”

  As quickly as it had come, the old man’s intensity subsided and genial wickedness spread over his gnome-like face again. Before Goodnight could exit, his employer gave an unprecedented order.

  “Pull up a chair an’ sit down.”

  He stared at the old man in disbelief. This was hardly get-cozy-with-the-indentured-help time.

  “Sorry.” He turned sharply toward the bedroom. “I have socks to sort.”

  “You have a decision to make.”

  The old man’s words struck Goodnight right between the shoulder blades. Dead on center. The ground under his feet tilted and he felt himself sliding inexorably toward another boondoggle. He knew better than to stay, but he couldn’t seem to make his feet carry him out of the room. Glancing over his shoulder, he couldn’t stop himself from uttering those fateful words.

  “What decision?”

  The old man didn’t blink.

  “Whether or not to accept the deal I’m about to offer you.”

  “I wouldn’t make another deal with you if my life depended on it.”

  “The hell you wouldn’t.”

  Goodnight exasperated himself by walking back to the old man, who—true to form—had a worrisome gleam in his eye.

  “All right. What are you talking about?”

  “A little agreement on the side. Between you and me.”

  “Regarding?”

  “A chance to pay off your debt early.”

  His heart actually skipped a beat.

  Hope.

  Dammit.

  He should know better. Samuel P. Blackburn would never voluntarily reduce or forgive a legitimate debt. The old
cod had far too much fun applying the torments of servitude to a well-born, highly educated limey to end his service early. At least, not without exacting an even greater cost. Something worse than months of misery in the steaming jungles of Mexico. He shuddered. But some perverse, curiosity-ridden, pain-inured part of him had to hear it. He sank onto a stuffed chair and tossed his leg defiantly over the arm.

  “I’m listening.”

  “On this ‘treasure hunt,’ you’ll be travelin’ places folks don’t usually go, you’ll be seein’ things your usual snake oil salesman won’t ever see.”

  “Not if I can help it,” he said grimly.

  “You can’t help it. But while you’re out in the jungle, if you happened to come across some plant or root or some native hoo-doo useful for curin’ gout… bring it back to me and I’ll call your debt paid.”

  Goodnight refused to give voice to the scream clawing its way up the back of his throat. He had landed in the old man’s clutches courtesy of the unholy fine print of a business contract that—if his efforts had succeeded and his “proven” pharmaceuticals company had fulfilled its promise—might have yielded genuine help for gout and other diseases. Now the old boy was exiling him to the jungle and promising him freedom if he happened to stumble upon a cure while scrambling to survive!

  He wrestled with the urge to throw this “opportunity” back in the old boy’s face; he couldn’t rid himself of the stubborn clutch of hope on his chest.

  He would be going places where everything was fresh and unexplored. There would be untold numbers of new species… the bark, sap, flowers, and roots of trees and herbs not yet cataloged… insects, birds, amphibians, and reptiles… secretions and venoms…eggs and webs and hives and nests. It could be a treasure trove of undiscovered medicinals. And one find on the order of a salicylic acid, belladonna, or even tea tree oil was all it would take to satisfy his debt and make his fortune at the same time. His heart pounded.

  “Let me get this straight. I bring back a treatment for gout and you’ll tear up the mortgage on my soul? We’ll be finished, you and me?”

  “You want it in writin’?” the old man demanded.

  “Hell, yes. And I want it spelled out in print that I and I alone will have the right to exploit, produce, and sell all cures I bring back. Including your damned gout reliever.”

  Blackburn rubbed his stubbled chin, looking like a pensive old turtle.

  “Done.” He barked his decision. “You can have the rights to whatever you bring back. As long as I get the gout cure first and free.”

  Goodnight rose and turned a jaundiced eye on the hand the old man extended to him.

  “I’ll wait until I see it in writing. Meanwhile, I believe I have some socks to sort.”

  “If I send a telegram to Professor Valiente straightaway, I should be able to get a response within a day or so,” Cordelia said to herself as much as to Hedda while she hurried around her bedroom filling her arms with garments draped over furnishings. “Maybe he’ll agree to meet us somewhere to look at the—”

  “What in blazes do you think you’re doing?” Hedda said from the doorway.

  “I am not taking that man with me,” she said emphatically. “A butler! And you heard the way he talked to his employer. He’s arrogant. Insufferable. Probably never set foot outside a place with running water and indoor plumbing. If we pack fast, wait until dark, and go down the back stairs—”

  “We’ll be leaving without the rubbings and the money to pay for the expedition?” Hedda crossed her arms, looking patient in the extreme. “And we’ll be right back where we started—out of money and out of options.”

  She stopped in the midst of throwing garments into her open trunk. Damn. Her chest was heaving and her face was on fire. Where was her head, letting the old man get the best of her like that? Worse still, she’d been so intent on making an exit that she forgot to pick up the blasted parchment.

  “I won’t take him. It’s bad enough that I have to go at all.” It had been more than two full decades since she threw a tantrum, but right now it would have been so satisfying to scream and stomp. “I won’t!”

  “Well, if it’s any consolation,” Hedda said, recalling the butler’s shock, “he’s probably no more keen to go than you are to take him.”

  Cordelia halted in the midst of tossing a hairbrush into her train case. She looked at her aunt with a flash of inspiration.

  “Aunt Hedda, you’re a genius.”

  “I am?”

  “He’s not crazy about the idea. What would it take to make him refuse to go?” She thought of the butler’s air of superiority and fastidious appearance. “If I apply myself, I might be able to find a way to help him make that very decision.”

  Girded with stays, a silk-shot challis day dress, and an impeccable Gibson coif, Cordelia headed upstairs to the Presidential Suite two hours later. She was carrying several folded papers in her hands and a sense of mission on her shoulders. As she knocked on the door, she prayed the old man would be sunning himself on the veranda with the rest of the old lizards. It was the blasted butler she needed to see.

  The door swung open and she felt a small surge of satisfaction at the way her target’s eyes widened. Good. She had the element of surprise.

  “Mr. Blackburn isn’t in…at the moment.”

  “I didn’t come to see him. I came to pick up the parchments so Aunt Hedda can make copies of the figures. We have a great deal to do and precious little time to do it.” She planted a hand on her waist and watched his gaze follow it. “Well? Are you going to let me in?”

  “I–I suppose.” His jaw snapped tight and he backed hastily away, as if afraid breathing the same air might somehow contaminate him. Did he treat the entire female sex with such disdain or did he reserve it just for her?

  He disappeared into the bedroom and returned presently with the chamois-wrapped scrolls, holding them out to her at arm’s length.

  “Here.”

  “There,” she responded, thrusting the papers she carried into his hands as she took the drawings from him.

  “What is this?” He turned the packet over and over, regarding it warily.

  “A list of equipment you’ll need, along with the rules you must agree to before we board the ship.”

  “Ship? No one said anything about a ship.” He looked a bit unsettled.

  “How else do you expect to get to southern Mexico? Walk?” She stored away his dismay at the idea of crossing water and motioned for him to open the lists. Wary but clearly curious, he complied.

  “One pair of sturdy riding boots or Wellingtons,” he read aloud.

  “Double soled and fang-proof,” she clarified. “Snakes are everywhere.”

  “Two sets of Jaegers—good God.” He looked up with an imperious scowl. “I’ve never worn woolen underwear in my life.”

  “Then this is your chance,” she said with taunting brightness. “The wool wicks away moisture and keeps you cooler in the tropical heat.” He looked as if he might object, but gave the paper a straightening snap and went back to reading.

  “Twelve pairs of woolen socks?”

  “Imperative to keep the feet dry. Nasty foot diseases under every rock.”

  “I’ll be careful not to disturb any rocks,” he said. “Two pair of goatskin breeches?” Another incredulous look.

  “Slightly heavier than deerskin, but impervious to thorns and stickers.” She gave him her most patronizing smile. “You’ll thank me.”

  He gave her a look that said “over my dead body.”

  “Pith helmet?”

  “With insect netting,” she added, pointing over the edge of the paper.

  “Khaki shirts. A sidearm and bullets. A dozen—what the devil are bandanas?”

  “Large cloths, like handkerchiefs, only more colorful. For wiping sweat.” She dragged her gaze over his pale English form, then pointed at the list. “Make that two dozen.”

  His half-audible growl was music to her ears.

&n
bsp; “A large umbrella. A machete. What in blazes is a machete?”

  “A broad, eighteen-inch blade sharpened on one side. You never know when you may need to chop something.”

  “I can see, traveling with you, how true that would be.” He returned to the list and saw something that made his jaw drop. “Surgeon’s steels, needles, and silk? Quinine, iodine, and sulfur powder?”

  “As I said,” she responded, “you never know when you may need to chop something.” His pupils contracted to pinpoints.

  “You don’t honestly expect me to drag all of this along into some jungle?”

  “You won’t set foot along on my expedition unless you do.”

  He turned partly away and fidgeted with the papers, wrestling with something inside him. She felt an anticipatory swell of triumph… that deflated an instant later when he turned back and fixed her with a suspicious gaze. She braced internally, watching him take her measure, realizing the argument was about to get personal.

  “This, Miss Blackburn”—he waved the papers at her— “is a pack of codswallop. You cannot expect me to believe that you wear goatskin breeches.”

  All she could think, for one interminable moment, was that he towered a full head above her. As he stepped closer, his shoulders completely filled her vision. A trill of surprisingly not unpleasant shock went through her.

  “The name is O’Keefe.”

  “You claim to be his granddaughter,” he charged.

  “I go by my mother’s name—thank you very much— and I don’t give a rat’s rear what you ‘believe.’” She raised her chin to a combative level. “I always wear goatskin breeches on expedition and they’ve saved my hide a number of times. All it takes is one encounter with a prickly pear cactus, some sharp volcanic pumice, a thornberry grove, or a desert scorpion to make you a believer.”

  “And I suppose when you’re out trekking about the globe you tote a gun around on your hip and wear khaki shirts?” His gaze dropped boldly to her bosom. “I happen to know, Miss O’Keefe, that khaki is only produced for military issue. They don’t make khaki shirts for women.”