The Book of True Desires

by Betina Krahn

  “Of course they don’t,” she snapped, resisting an overpowering urge to cross her arms over her breasts. “I wear men’s shirts.”

  Men’s shirts. The words echoed in Hart Goodnight’s head and—alarmingly—in his blood. She wore men’s shirts. He was rocked to the very roots of his British-bred propriety.

  Disturbing visions of her wrapped in his shirt—perfectly pressed, medium starch—flooded his mental machinery and all but shorted it out. He sucked in a breath, caught between dueling images of her properly corseted and gowned and her wearing a half-buttoned shirt that bared naked skin in abundance. What the hell was happening to him?

  “You think I’m a fraud,” she charged, seizing his gaze in hers and hauling it upward. Her eyes were the color of wildflower honey.

  “A woman like you could never survive out in the wilderness.” He swallowed hard, struggling to reassert control over his reeling thoughts.

  “A woman like me? And just what sort of woman is that, Mr. Goodwin?” she said, deliberately misconstruing his name.

  Soft, beautiful, elegant, breathtaking, clever, devious, terrifying… answers that clogged his throat, every one unspeakable. Some mad and reckless impulse made him reach out to grab her hand and wrestle it, palm up, to a standstill between them. After a moment, he thought of a plausible explanation for doing so.

  “See that?” he demanded, staring at her skin. “Soft as a baby’s bottom.”

  “Gloves, Mr. Goodall.” She jerked her hand away and used it to bat the edge of the papers in his other hand. “Goatskin. Also on the list. They prevent blisters and calluses from forming when one repeatedly wields canoe paddles, hammers, axes, or machetes. And yes, I have wielded all of those at one time or other on my journeys.” Before he could react, she grabbed his free hand and turned it palm up to give it the same inspection. With the same result.

  “No calluses. Sorting socks isn’t particularly strenuous. I’m not at all sure a man like you could survive out in the wilderness, Mr. Goodenough.”

  Her smile made him think of a cat with cream on its whiskers.

  “You’re a woman, Miss O’Keefe,” was the only retort he could manage.

  “I know,” she said with sardonic wistfulness. “But I’ve made peace with it. The question you must ask yourself, Mr. Goodacre, is whether you can.”

  She edged closer. He could feel her skirts pressed against his lower legs. He could also feel her hot amber eyes searing a path into his ill-equipped pride.

  “Can you bear to place yourself in my hands? I assure you they’re not as soft as they may seem.” She presented both of her hands to him, palms up, and he felt his knees weaken as he looked at them. The skin of his belly went taut and began to ache in a very disturbing way. “Can you take orders from me and stay out of the way and try not to get yourself killed? In short, can I trust you, Mr. Goodbody?”

  An inch or two was all that separated them. Desperate as he was to get away, his body was busy obeying a physics-defying gravity exerted by hers… edging closer… and closer still…

  The suite door swung open with a thump and he lurched back with a swallowed gasp. Hardacre Blackburn charged through the doorway, his face a mask of pain. At the sight of them, the old man’s eyes focused on their proximity, hasty movements, and flushed faces. A wicked smile crept over him.

  “I just came to pick up the rubbings. To make copies,” she explained, snatching up the chamois skin roll from the floor by her feet, where it had fallen. She looked toward Goodnight without looking at him. “Get started, Goodbody. You’ve got only two or three days to collect your ‘kit.’”

  With a nod at the old man she strode out the open door with her chin up and her bustle swaying. Both men stood watching until she was out of sight. It took a minute for Goodnight to come to his senses and close the door. When he turned back, he found the old man’s eyes crinkled at the edges.

  “Goodbody. Heh, heh. Watch yerself, boy. She has better men than you for breakfast.”

  The old man hobbled into the bedroom, and Hart strode over to the writing desk and picked up a handful of magazines.

  “Goodnight,” he muttered, transferring his glare from the dog-eared publications to the door. “The name is Good-night.”

  Six

  Clearly, her attempt to suggest to the butler that he was ill-suited to adventure and life in the rough hadn’t worked, Cordelia thought as she watched him stride across the lobby of the grand hotel wearing knee-high boots into which he’d tucked his satin-striped trousers. In the day since their confrontation in Blackburn’s suite, he’d managed to obtain a formidable pair of footwear, have it double-soled, and begin to wear it in defiant combination with his broadcloth vest and tailcoat. Some men didn’t respond well to hints of their inadequacy.

  But there was more than one way to de-fur the proverbial feline. If the negative approach didn’t work, she would try the positive, play to his strengths—persuade him that the trip would be a waste of his valuable time, that he should direct his energy instead toward pursuing his true desires. The main drawback seemed to be that such a plan presumed that Hartford Goodnight actually had desires— she stared at the trousers tucked into those boots—besides a bizarre inclination to give the world a guffaw or two at his expense.

  Tall, bloodless, and British. What would such a man want?

  A messenger was referred from the main reception desk to the lounge where she sat. “Miss O’Keefe,” he called. “Telegram for Miss Cordelia O’Keefe.”

  She waved to identify herself and beckoned him over.

  Tearing into the yellow envelope, she learned that Professor Arturo Valiente was not at his home university in Mexico City, but at the University of Havana consulting on some translations. She asked the messenger to wait while she penned a cable to Dr. Valiente in Havana, had the fellow charge the cost of sending the telegram to Samuel P., and gave him a tip. Afterward, as she sat studying the news with some dejection, wondering how much of a delay this development would cost them, a shadow fell across the yellow telegram.

  “Tsk, tsk,” came a frosty voice. “Your professor isn’t home?”

  She turned and looked up to find Goodnight silhouetted against the brightness of a nearby window, reading over her shoulder.

  “Excellent news, actually,” she said, rising to escape the feeling of him all around her. “It means we won’t have to go to Mexico City to get his opinion and translation of our documents. Havana is on our way to southern Mexico.”

  “Havana.” He crossed his arms over his chest and scowled. “You do know there’s a revolution going on down there?”

  “In the countryside.”

  “With the occasional spillover of murder and mayhem into Havana.”

  “Oh?” She busied herself folding the telegram and tucking it into the Spanish phrase book she’d been studying. “Where did you hear such a thing?”

  “A clever new invention called a ‘newspaper.’”

  “Don’t tell me you—” She halted, realizing she’d just waded hip deep into an opportunity. “Well, if Havana is embroiled in the conflict, too, we may have difficulty entering or leaving the city.” She paused for effect, giving the impression she was troubled by the thought. “Two women traveling together might pass more easily. You know, your employer didn’t say you had to accompany us every step of the way. You could meet us in Veracruz or Campeche once we learn where to begin our search.”

  “Generous of you.”

  “I can’t blame you for not wanting to go.” She ignored his sarcasm and tightening expression. “I’m not exactly looking forward to the trip myself… not with rioting in the city.” She stepped back, hoping to make a quick exit. “Astute of you, Goodrich, to pick up on that.”

  “Goodnight,” he said with clipped diction. “The name is Goodnight.”

  “Right. Good-night.” She couldn’t resist a glance at his footgear. “Nice boots, by the way.”

  As she turned away, he grabbed her elbow and held her
for a moment.

  “I’m going with you.”

  Her hope he might prove reasonable or at least persuadable shriveled under the heat of his glare.

  “Look.” She lowered her voice and reversed her resistance to the grip on her elbow, leaning toward him. “You don’t want to go any more than I want you to go. Surely we can come to some sort of accommodation here.”

  “Are you suggesting I abandon my duty, Miss O’Keefe?”

  “Are you open to such a suggestion?”

  “Certainly not.”

  “Damn.”

  How that word escaped her mouth she would never know, but it was a cat that clearly wasn’t going back into the bag. She straightened, fighting the heat blooming in her face.

  “Why? Why aren’t you open to a reasonable, misery-relieving solution for us both?”

  “You’re even more like him than I thought.” He raised his chin to look down that long, superior British nose of his. “It never occurs to you that one might actually conduct one’s self according to a code, that one might answer to a power higher than self-interest.”

  “You’re a butler, for heaven’s sake. And you’re about to charge off into steaming jungles to face God-knows-what in search of God-knows-what for an employer for whom the description ‘miserable and manipulative’ would be downright charitable.” The strong light from the window behind him made it difficult to see his expression. “What is it you want, Goodwin? Why would you insist on going where you’re not comfortable, not needed, and not wanted?”

  His nostrils flared. He looked as if he were holding something highly unpleasant between his clenched jaws.

  She stepped to one side to see his expression better, and it struck her.

  “Because you have no choice.”

  Abruptly, he turned on his heel and strode off toward the servants’ stairs at the far end of the hotel’s main corridor. She watched his big boots pounding the polished floor and narrowed her eyes.

  “Well, well, well. A butler with secrets.”

  “We now know our first port of call,” she said to Hedda the next morning, brandishing the telegram containing the professor’s reply. Hedda looked up from checking the details of her sketches against the original rubbings laid out on the table in their suite.

  “Havana?” Hedda’s eyes lit. “I’ve always wanted to see Havana. They say the air is filled with sweat and sugar by day and rum and music by night.”

  Cordelia leveled a patient look on her aunt.

  “They also said lava never came that far down the volcano’s sides.”

  Hedda thought about that, then surrendered her fond imaginings with a sigh. “True.”

  Cordelia suffered a twinge of discomfort as she watched her aunt dutifully setting aside her dreams to pour over every line and bit of shading in the sketches she was making. For all her practicality and sensible approach to life, Hedda was a devout romantic at heart. She, on the other hand—unconventional female and seeker of the exotic experience—was an unflinching realist. She bit the inside of her lip, feeling that the mismatch was probably harder on her aunt than on her.

  “But then ‘they’ were right about spitting camels and the sunrise over Mauna Loa,” she said, a bit too brightly, causing Hedda to look up with surprise. “So, ‘rum and music’ it is. Now, where is that steamship schedule?”

  A quarter of an hour later, she knocked on the door to the old man’s suite and was greeted by the butler, who had added a pith helmet complete with bug net to his ensemble. With a doggedly superior sniff, he stepped back from the door and barked to his employer: “It’s for you.” Then he disappeared into the bedroom with the stack of khaki shirts he was holding.

  Samuel P. sat in an overstuffed chair with his bandaged foot propped up and his lap full of ledgers and papers. He waved her over.

  “What?” he demanded.

  “The professor has agreed to meet with us and to try to decipher the rubbings,” she announced, struggling to rid herself of the image of that pith helmet. “We leave for Havana tomorrow.”

  The old man thought that over and nodded. “And?”

  “Before I can arrange passage, we need to finalize the financing.”

  At the mention of money, Samuel P.’s expression grew more intent.

  “That’s all taken care of.”

  “It is?” Cordelia was understandably puzzled. “So you’ve—what? Decided to draft a letter of credit?”

  “Gave the money to Goodnight. Three thousand cash an’ a letter of credit good at any bank near a telegraph pole.”

  “You gave the money to the butler?” She glanced at the bedroom door, then back at Hardacre with a gripping urge for mayhem. The miserable old—was there never any relief from his manipulations? “This is my expedition.”

  “And my money. He’s my representative, so he holds the cash.”

  “We agreed I would run the expedition as I see fit: destination, schedule, pace, hiring, and purchasing.”

  “Nothin’ was said about who held the money, missy.” His mouth was a fierce flat line for a moment. “It’s Goodnight or nobody.”

  “You don’t think I’m capable of handling money?”

  “Ain’t about that,” he said, leaning forward with the help of the chair arm. “If he’s got th’ cash”—his eyes narrowed—“ye can’t just stash him somewheres an’ go on without ’im.”

  Heat exploded through her upper quarter, sizzling the underside of her skin. Did the old man somehow read minds? Or had the butler blabbed about her attempts to dissuade him from going? Whatever caused his suspicions, she refused to be convicted for an impulse she had yet to act upon.

  “I would never stoop to such a thing,” she said fiercely.

  “You wouldn’t? I sure as hell would. If it never crossed your mind, missy, you either ain’t as smart as I thought, or you ain’t thought this business through.” The old man chortled as he watched her struggle with the conundrum he’d just posed. When she whirled and headed for the door, he called out: “It’s business, woman. Just business!”

  The door slammed hard enough to vibrate the wall. Goodnight came stalking out of the bedroom to look at the still humming door.

  “Off in another pique, are we? What was it this time?”

  “You know females,” Samuel P. declared with a snort. Then he looked over Goodnight’s bizarre mix of apparel. “Or mebee you don’t.” He scowled. “See here, boy, you keep a tight fist on that purse o’ mine. She’ll figure fifteen ways from Sunday to part you from it and leave you chokin’ in ’er dust. If a man ain’t got the purse strings, old son, he’s got nothin’.”

  An expedition leader who didn’t hold the purse strings, Cordelia muttered to herself on the way to the steamship office at the Port of Tampa, didn’t have control of the expedition. Now, not only was she stuck dragging the butler along as she fought her way through equatorial jungles, she was stuck applying to him for funds to cover the expense of doing so! By forcing her to take the butler and to have to squeeze every penny out of him, Samuel P. was maintaining control by proxy. And he would do so as long as he had access to them.

  They couldn’t leave for Havana quickly enough.

  This greedy and unrelenting control was what her father had battled from the moment he announced to the old man that he intended to marry Maureen O’Keefe. Hardacre had sneered, bullied, berated, and threatened them until they finally married without his consent. Then in a fit of anger, he disowned his only child and to her knowledge, never set eyes on him again. The old man had not even bothered to respond to her mother’s letter informing him of his son’s death.

  An intense stab of loss caught her by surprise, taking her breath. Her beloved father, who died when she was seven, had been a bright, rational, and caring soul—the very antithesis of his pitiless and grasping father. Her parents had deserved better than being disdained, demeaned, and disowned, and she had come to require a reckoning of the old man…an admission of wrong, an acknowledgment of regret
…a reinstatement of their memory in the old man’s strongbox of a heart. Her eyes burned at the corners. She was going to have all of that and more before she was finished with him.

  See if she didn’t.

  Seven

  The Plant Line’s SS Olivette, a long, single-stack freighter, was scheduled to depart Tampa for Key West and Havana the next night at 9:30. Built with a dozen comfortably furnished cabins topside and a passenger salon and dining room, the Plant Line’s flagship was the most comfortable vessel plying the passenger trade in the entire gulf…or so the ticket agent had insisted while booking their passage. After charming, wheedling, and finagling passage on the busy steamer, Cordelia then had to insist that her “bursar” would pay for the tickets when they boarded.

  Well past sunset, Cordelia and Hedda arrived at the pier where the Olivette was berthed and found Goodnight standing by the lantern-lit gangway, still wearing his butler’s tails and boots and holding a leather-bound journal tucked between his chest and crossed arms. He scowled as they stepped out of the carriage and began directing the longshoremen to unload the mountain of baggage from their carriage and wagon.

  “Traveling light, I see,” he said as they headed for the gangway.

  “It would be a good bit lighter if we weren’t forced to carry so much dead weight along with us,” she said pointedly.

  His jaw muscle flexed and he reached for his fountain pen to make a notation in his journal.

  “What are you doing?” She detoured to see what he was writing, but he slammed the volume shut before she could get a glimpse.

  “Recording. As required. Every dot and tittle.”

  “See here, Goodnap.” She leaned close enough to scorch his eyebrows. “This is my expedition and if anyone publishes an account of it, it will be me.”

  “You needn’t worry I’ll attempt to steal your literary thunder,” he said with a hint of disdain. “This is a strictly private accounting, required by my employer. And while we’re on the subject of accounting—”