The Book of True Desires

by Betina Krahn

  “Open up,” came a voice that sent a shiver through Cordelia’s shoulders. Hardacre Blackburn had returned— she glanced at the clock over the mantle, eight o’clock— even earlier than expected. Shooting to her feet, she quickly began tying together the front of her dressing gown. Hedda, who never left her room with a ribbon undone, headed straight for the door.

  “About bloody time.” Samuel P. barged past Hedda into the room, his hoary head swiveling as he searched for Cordelia. He was wearing rumpled evening clothes from last night, and his chin was hazed with stubble. He halted for a moment to take in her long hair and the feminine flounces on her dressing gown. “Humph.” Then he headed for the stela, which Cordelia and Hedda had moved to the top of the nearby sideboard.

  Strong morning light bathed the surface, illuminating the engravings and setting small flecks of mineral in the granite shining. Cordelia met him there, hoping his early morning return was a sign he was on the brink of a decision.

  “Am I to assume you’ve reconsidered my proposal, Mr. Blackburn?”

  He shifted, leaning more heavily on his cane to relieve his bandaged foot.

  “The only thing you should assume, missy, is that I’m no fool. You made me an offer. I’ve got a counteroffer.” Inside his scowl she could see a glint of excitement that brought her instantly to the edge of her guard.

  “This is not a negotiation.” She drew herself up straighter.

  “Everything’s a negotiation. The sooner you learn that, the better off you’ll be.” His one narrowed eye made him look like a pirate, reminding her that despite his aged and sagging frame, he was in fact a cutthroat at heart.

  “Now, as I see it,” he continued, “you want me to give you a hunk of money to go chargin’ off on a treasure hunt. My guess—your odds of success are fifty-fifty. You find it or you don’t. Assumin’ it’s there…it might or might not be…that takes the odds to four-to-one against. Don’t much like them odds.”

  “I’ve provided affidavits on the opinions of eminent scholars—”

  “Yeah, yeah. So much palaver.” He waved her protest away. “I never put stock in ‘experts,’ missy. If they’re so damned smart, why ain’t they rich?” He shuffled closer, eyeing her. “Then there’s you. How do I know you got the grit for treasure hunting? Hell, how do I know you won’t melt like a sugar cube the minute the temperature reaches ninety?”

  “I’ve led expeditions before.” Her teeth began to ache from clenching her jaw. “I provided you copies of magazines with published accounts.”

  “Accounts you wrote. For all I know, you made it all up.”

  “I was there.” Hedda stepped in, furious, and pointed at herself. “I lived through it with her. If you have questions, Blackburn, you ask me.”

  Blackburn blinked at Hedda’s defense of her.

  “I may just do that,” he said. “But not before I’ve laid down a counteroffer.” He turned again to Cordelia. “Seeing’s as how you may be my seed—an’ worth somethin’ after all—I’ve decided to give you a chance to prove yourself. I have somethin’ that needs findin’ a bit closer to home. Here’s the deal: You do a little somethin’ for me first. And if you find what I want an’ bring back the goods, I’ll set you up with everything you need to hunt for old Solomon’s mines.”

  It was Cordelia’s turn to recoil in surprise. When anticipating the old man’s possible responses to her proposal, she’d never imagined such a thing.

  “You want me to find something for you?” she said.

  “Solve another little puzzle, so to speak. I’ve got a piece of it and am hankerin’ to have the rest. Shouldn’t take too long.” He looked her up and down. “For a ‘professional’ like you.” He apparently couldn’t resist a smirk. “It ain’t like old Solomon’s mines might get up and move while you’re gone.”

  “You want me to find something for you in order to prove myself worthy of your investment?” she demanded, not knowing whether to smack him before she threw him out or just throw him out. “I gave you a dozen references—”

  “Don’t want references.” His lip curled. “I want the Gift of the Jaguar.”

  Anger and frustration fought for expression inside her. She had done the research and planning… spread her qualifications and experience out before him… and he was requiring she prove herself to him on his terms. It was exactly what she’d spent her whole life avoiding: being dictated to by a man with an inflated sense of his own importance.

  “I’m not a step-and-fetch-it. Nor am I for hire. I plan my own expeditions. I decide where to go and what risks are worth taking.”

  “You do everything but fund your expeditions, missy.” He gave her a crafty look. “Well, I’ve got the funds, and I’m offerin’ you a chance to prove yourself and make a tidy profit to boot. I’d be willing to split fifty-fifty with you. Then maybe you could fund your own damned expeditions from now on.”

  “Fifty-fifty. On an unknown expedition to an unknown place to search for some unknown—”

  “‘The Gift of the Jaguar,’” he reiterated. “It’s Maya Indian. South Mexico and the Caribbean. There’s stones and a legend that says the spirit of the jaguar gave a gift to mankind…a great and terrible gift. The old Mayans gave offerings to the jaguar to thank him. Treasure. Centuries of it. All piled up.” He shrugged. “Of course, it may just be poppycock.” He pinned her with a glance. “But it’s your kind of poppycock. What do you say? Interested?”

  “Stones?” She twitched involuntarily. Was he parodying her offer?

  “Not th’ actual stones. That’d be what you’re lookin’ for… them and the treasure sacrificed to ’em.”

  “Then what evidence do you have that this ‘Gift of the Jaguar’ exists?”

  “I got a ‘rubbing.’”

  The words were like a slap in the face. He was making fun of her proposal. The deranged old coot.

  “You expect me to believe you have a rubbing of ancient Mayan stones, when last night you’d never even heard of one?”

  “I never said I didn’t know what it was. You were so all-fired bent on explainin’ it to me that I let you.”

  “You let me?” She stiffened and pointed toward the door. “I’ll thank you to take your sad little parody, and—”

  “Don’t believe me?” He grabbed her by the wrist and dragged her toward the door. “Come up to my rooms and I’ll show you.”

  Startled by his grasp and strength, she floundered until her feet began to move. She tossed a mute glance of alarm at Hedda as she was pulled along, and Hedda hurried after them.

  Four

  The old boy dragged her through a set of ornate double doors into a grandly furnished salon, where a man in a black cutaway sat with his feet propped up on an ottoman, reading a well-worn copy of what appeared to be Harper’s Bazaar. He looked startled by their entrance and sat straighter, his eyes widening on Cordelia. Lowering the magazine, he removed his feet from the stool and stood up, unfolding like a large crow about to take flight.

  “Where the hell’s my steamer trunk?” Samuel P. demanded of the crow while heading for the bedroom, taking Cordelia along. “The one with my papers.”

  “This is an outrage.” Cordelia kept looking back to make certain Hedda was with her. “If you don’t release me, sir, I shall have to resort to force.”

  “Aim for the bandaged foot,” the crow advised with a frosty British air as he strode behind them into the bedroom. “It’s especially sensitive.”

  Cordelia gaped at the man as she was pulled along, registering dark hair, intense gray eyes, and the cut and quality of a servant’s uniform. Annoyed by the momentary snag in her attention, she turned back to Samuel P.

  “There it is.” He pointed at a trunk standing on end in the corner, half hidden by a massive mahogany wardrobe. “Keys.”

  The crow stepped around her and held out a ring of keys to the old man. “Don’t just stand there, dammit! Drag it out here and unlock it.”

  In moments, they were looking in
to a trunk overflowing with papers, books, ledgers, rolled-up canvases and broadsides, and the odd faded tassel, jade carving, and silver hip flask. Memorabilia, no doubt.

  The old man sorted through several of the rolls, selecting one wrapped in chamois skin, then hobbled over to the bed, pulling Cordelia along with him.

  She watched as he unrolled with trembling hands what appeared to be a parchment that was frayed at the edges, thin enough to be almost translucent, and covered with a haze of black and gray. The scroll contained three long pieces nested together, each bearing words and figures. As more of the parchment was revealed, it became clear that the figures were in fact rubbings of large, grainy, block-like images.

  Her frown melted. If this was a hoax, it was a darned good one. Where would someone, even someone with Samuel P.’s resources, be able to come up with such an elaborate fake in less than twelve hours? She crossed her arms, determined not to let her curiosity draw her into the old man’s sway.

  “You expect me to believe you just happen to have the secret to a Mayan treasure with you in your luggage?”

  “Oh, I’ve taken in a passel of stuff as collateral, over th’ years. Some of it pretty odd. Racehorses, stone quarries, pushcarts, magicians’ tricks, canal boats, pipe organs, hansom cabs—”

  “The odd arm and spare leg,” the crow tossed in as he closed and locked the trunk. Samuel P. shot him a glare that didn’t ruffle a single feather.

  “Some got redeemed, some didn’t.” The old man tapped his temple with a look that would have made a rattlesnake forget to rattle. “Got th’ inventory right here. Never know when you’ll get a chance to turn bad collateral into profit.”

  “A pity he never took in a spare foot,” the crow said, leaning on the trunk.

  She looked over her shoulder at that sizeable bit of baggage, thinking of the documents, books, and odd personal objects she had mistaken for memories. Collateral. From desperate people. When she looked up, her gaze caught on the crow’s sardonic expression. He patted the trunk’s worn brass bindings.

  “Makes one wonder what he feeds the flock of ‘firstborn’ he has in here.”

  “Don’t you have some socks to sort?” Samuel P. snapped at him.

  The crow merely smiled, straightened, and strolled over to lean a shoulder against the bedpost. He was easily the rudest manservant on the planet.

  Her gaze lingered a moment. He was also very, very—

  Reddening slightly at her distraction, she turned back to the bed and the rubbings that held the key to a deal with the old man. She studied them for a minute, then picked one up and examined the texture and weight of the parchment. When she carried it to the window, Samuel P. and Hedda followed and peered over her shoulder.

  In the strong morning light it was easy to see they were genuine rubbings; the prominent grain of the figures could only have been achieved on actual stone. They also seemed to have been nested together for some time; the figures were worn from being repeatedly rolled and stored, and charcoal dust from the two bottom rubbings had transferred to the backs of the documents on top.

  “I need a magnifying glass,” she said to Samuel P., who passed her demand on to the servant. Moments later, with the reading glass in hand, she scrutinized selected spots on the parchment and made “tsk”-ing sounds.

  “Well?” Hedda stared anxiously between Cordelia and the figures.

  “Very fine parchment.” Cordelia fingered the frayed edge. “Delicate, but meant to last. I can’t imagine anyone using such a thing to make rubbings these days.” She looked at Samuel P. “How old is this? Did the owner tell you?”

  He allowed a hint of pleasure to creep into his canny face.

  “Said it come from a monastery in Madrid. Made by priests who came over to the new world with th’ ‘conquee-sta-dors.’”

  “As many as three hundred years, then.” With something akin to reverence, she rolled out each of the long rectangular pieces and asked Hedda and Samuel P. to hold the ends. Looking at them side by side, she saw that they were rows of blocks roughly ten inches on a side. One block in the middle of one row was slightly larger and one side of each row was straighter and cleaner than the other side. She paced the side of the bed, studying the figures, making a mental note of motifs that matched and elements that were repeated.

  Suddenly she felt as if someone had turned on an electrical light in her. “Come on—into the other room—where there’s more space.”

  She laid out the parchment strips on the rug at right angles, smooth sides inward, forming a U shape, and stood back to study them. They didn’t seem right, so she knelt and turned them the opposite way, smacking old Samuel P.’s pant leg to make him move his foot.

  “I’d have bet a fiver he wouldn’t have her on her knees in twenty-four hours,” the crow intoned, heading for a distant chair with a hand full of magazines.

  The pieces seemed to fit together better in one configuration. The larger stone in the middle of one row began to look as if it might have functioned as a keystone. She repositioned the rows and examined the results. Her eyes were drawn again and again to that larger block: a stylized head of some sort of cat. A jaguar?

  A shiver went up her spine.

  There was no guarantee it was a complete rendering of a complete object, but on first analysis, the pieces seemed to form an arch or a doorway. A portal to history’s secrets. A passage into the unknown. An adventure beckoning.

  “Any idea of what it might be?” Hedda asked from a nearby chair.

  She groaned silently at finding herself on her knees in the middle of the old man’s floor, in her dressing gown. Her breath was coming fast, her heart was hammering, and she was on the verge of losing track of everything but the mystery spread out around her.

  Excitement, dammit. Not too smart.

  She looked up to find the old boy’s eyes aglow. He knew that he’d just set a hook in her. Well, she might be on the line, but she wasn’t giving up without a fight. Sitting back on her heels, she affected an air of detachment.

  “It could be anything. A roster of tax obligations. A signpost to the local fish market.” Her eyes narrowed in defiance of her own enthusiasm. “The decoration on a ladies’ privy.”

  There was a choking cough from the crow’s direction.

  “Or”—Samuel P. stumped closer—“th’ stones that mark the place where riches were sacrificed to the Jaguar Spirit.”

  “Hard to say.” She pushed to her feet and dusted charcoal from her hands. “It would be foolhardy to undertake such a mission with no hint of where the originals are and no clue where to start looking.”

  The old man evaluated both her and her statement, no doubt reading between the lines, looking for loopholes. And she had left him plenty. She hadn’t actually declined the opportunity. She hadn’t said it was impossible. She hadn’t said she wouldn’t do it. She had just said it would be foolhardy to proceed without more information.

  His eyes narrowed and features sharpened as he stepped closer.

  Her jaw clamped as she met his intense gaze and refused to give an inch.

  It was down to final bargaining.

  “And?” he demanded.

  “I won’t do this without Arturo Valiente. He is a renowned professor of antiquities in Mexico City, conversant with the native cultures and history in the region. He has made some headway in translating the Mayan alphabet and calendar. He would have to authenticate the rubbings and identify the region where stories of the ‘Jaguar Spirit’ are most prevalent before I take the first step on a search for your ‘stones.’” She tucked her arms across her front and gave him a withering look. “But what are the odds you would actually send for him and pay him a consulting fee? He’s an expert.”

  The old man studied her for a minute, assessing the strength of the resolve in her eyes, the set of her jaw, and the angles of her shoulders.

  “Behold the proverbial peas.” The crow’s very British disdain lapped around them. “One would think it would get a
bit cramped in that pod.”

  That comment caused her to glance toward where the crow had retreated. He was sitting with one leg thrown insolently over the chair arm, perusing a magazine. The heat of her stare caused him to look up, with a half smile that made her palm itch for contact.

  When she looked back at Samuel P., the old man’s gaze went from her to his insufferable servant and back again. His eyes narrowed.

  “All right,” he said, shocking her with his abrupt acceptance. He couldn’t be agreeing this easily to her demand. “A professor to ‘read’ the stones. I’ll give you that. But I don’t give nothin’ without gettin’ somethin’ in return.” Brace yourself, she thought. But then he surprised her again. “I get to send along my own representative—to ‘authenticate’ your finds. Otherwise, how do I know you won’t just haul back a bag of rocks and say that was all there was?”

  “Because that’s what you would do?” she charged. “How do you know a bag of rocks isn’t all there is to find? There are no guarantees. If my ‘payment’ is contingent on my bringing back a hoard of gold and jewels, say so now. And the deal is off.”

  She folded her arms, realizing with mild discomfort that her stance indeed mirrored the old man’s and that her determination matched his stubbornness to a T. They very well might be two peas in the cursed butler’s pod, but she wouldn’t let that influence her decision. It surely wouldn’t sway the old man’s.

  “Agreed.” He signaled the end of the stalemate by straightening and rubbing his chin. “You find the stones and learn what the Gift of the Jaguar is. And you bring back whatever valuables you find along the way. My observer will tell me if you’ve done all you could to find it and have brought back the truth. You take my observer or the deal is off.”

  That was it. The make-or-break terms were out on the table.

  She took a step back to study the rubbings. Weeks in the tropical heat. Terrible food. Mosquitos by the millions. Cutting and hacking her way through jungle no man—or woman—had set foot in before. She really must be a little off—her very veins were itching at the prospect.