Mischief and Magnolias Page 29
In that moment, Tristan was lost. Still intoxicated by her taste and smell, he now had to contend with desire sweeping through him with incredible speed and urgency.
“I want to hire you to help me find Queen Isabella’s treasure.”
Tristan said nothing, although his fingers drummed the tabletop. Was it possible? Had she overheard him talking with Graham? How did she know about the treasure?
Of course, everyone knew about the treasure, but how did she know he had searched for it and planned to search for it again? Was it coincidence?
Before he could voice his concern, she said, “You know my father, Daniel McCreigh of the Lady Elizabeth.” She smiled with obvious love for her father. “He told me he’d met you in Kingston. He thought you were an honorable man.”
Recognition dawned for Tristan. He did, indeed, know Daniel McCreigh, the fine, upstanding man who captained the Lady Elizabeth. They had both been in Finnegan’s Crooked Shillelagh, commiserating that neither could find Izzy’s Fortune, though each had searched for quite a few years. He remembered sharing an enjoyable evening with the man, hoisting tankards of ale and regaling each other with tall tales of life at sea. At one point, they’d even compared notes on where the treasure was not.
Tristan studied her, looked beyond her beauty, and saw the resemblance. “Many have searched for the treasure, Miss McCreigh, and yet, no one has found it. Queen Isabella’s treasure may not even be real.”
“Yes, that is true, but I believe it is.” Her voice lowered to a whisper. “I know, in my heart, the treasure is real.”
As did he, but he couldn’t tell her that. They’d just met. “What makes you think you will succeed where others have failed? Your own father couldn’t find the treasure.”
“I know, but I have these.” She reached for the soft-sided valise on the floor beside the desk, which Tristan hadn’t seen when he’d come into his cabin. She pulled an oilcloth wrapped package from the depths of the case and laid it on the table in front of him. Her fingers trembled as she tugged the string and moved the protective covering aside to reveal a journal before she pulled out the chair beside him and sat.
The leather binding was cracked and brittle. As she lifted the cover with her gloved fingers exposing pages fragile and delicate with age, Caralyn said, “My father was never serious about finding the treasure. For him, it was a lark, an adventure he and I could share, but I was raised on stories of Izzy’s Fortune and I . . .I always believed. Even when I found this journal, Papa refused to come out of retirement to find it.”
Tristan looked from the book to her face. Her eyes were animated and sparkled in the glow of candlelight. Pink stained her cheeks. Enthusiasm colored her voice. He said nothing as he watched her, but his thoughts ran riot.
“This is the journal of Alexander Pembrook,” she said. “He sailed with Henry Morgan.”
She lifted one page after another with a touch so light, so dainty, Tristan’s body responded as if she caressed him. The fine hair on his arms rose as he imagined her fingers on his skin. Excitement rippled through him, and his heart beat a little faster in his chest.
She stopped about a third of the way through the journal. “Here.” She pointed to the page and pushed the book toward him. “Start here.”
He moved the candle closer and started to read. The journal entry, dated June 1670, described separating the Santa Maria from her two flagships and overtaking her in a battle, which left the ship with gaping holes in her bow and her crew in bloody heaps. The passage further related how Morgan’s men transferred the treasure to their own ship, set the Santa Maria on fire, and watched her sink into the ocean.
“This is all very exciting,” Tristan commented as he slid the journal back to her, “but is it true?”
“I believe so.” She stared at him, and in the depths of her fathomless eyes, he knew she did. With great care, she searched further through the journal and stopped at another page. “Morgan didn’t trust very many people, and he moved the treasure several times. The last time he did, Alexander was one of the men he selected to help move the treasure and swore to secrecy.”
Tristan rose from his seat. He grabbed her brandy snifter from the desk, found another one for himself in the cabinet over his head, and poured them both a draft of fine cognac. He swallowed his without even tasting it then refilled his glass.
“According to his journal, Alexander moved the treasure once more—stealing it from beneath Morgan’s nose the year Morgan was arrested and sent to England for breaking a peace treaty between England and Spain.”
She tapped the journal with her forefinger. “The final resting place of Queen Isabella’s treasure is the Island of the Sleeping Man. He describes the island quite well, but I have never been able to locate it on any map. I can tell you where it is not because I’ve accompanied my father on several of his adventures.” She took a sip of her brandy. “After he hid the treasure, Alexander . . . reinvented himself, I suppose would be the correct term. He changed his appearance, changed his name, changed everything about himself and settled in Jamaica, but he never stopped writing in his journal.” She turned more pages and pointed to various paragraphs, but she never read from the writings themselves, so he knew she had committed certain things to memory.
“He married Mary Collins, a plantation owner’s daughter and lived happily at Sweet Briar in Saint James Parish before Henry Morgan returned to Jamaica as the lieutenant governor.” Her fingers smoothed over the written words.
“Alexander became very ill after Morgan returned. He didn’t leave the plantation, wouldn’t see visitors. I have the impression he spent a lot of time in a little chapel on the plantation, praying. I don’t know if part of his illness was due to his constant consumption of rum, but I know he believed he’d been cursed for stealing the treasure. He believed Morgan would come for him at any moment.” She paused and took a deep breath before continuing in a rush.
“His writing reflected his illness and his fear. Many of his words are gibberish, out of context, and make little sense, even though I’ve read this over and over. His last entry is August 10, 1680. I imagine he died a short time later.”
Fascinated, Tristan watched her take another sip of brandy then lick her lips once again.
“To my knowledge, Izzy’s Fortune is still hidden on the Island of the Sleeping Man.”
Anticipation surged through Tristan’s veins, and yet he couldn’t allow himself to show it. Why should he trust her? She was simply a woman he’d found on his ship, going through his maps. Perhaps she’d made it all up, wrote the journal herself, but to what purpose? Was she bored with her life? Did she long for adventure?
He studied the book, noticed again the brittle pages, the ink so faded in places he had trouble reading it, and knew with certainty, the journal wasn’t forged.
He felt her intense stare and looked at her.
“You don’t believe me,” she blurted, as if she’d read his thoughts. “I have this.” She reached for her valise again and laid a wooden box beside the book, slipped the lock, and lifted the lid. Nestled in a bed of black velvet lay a golden goblet encrusted with precious gems. Rubies and emeralds sparkled in the soft glow of the candles and created rainbows on the dark mahogany walls. “It was with Alexander’s journal. I found them both hidden in the false bottom of an old grandfather clock my father had purchased many years ago. I don’t think they were ever meant to be found. If an earthquake hadn’t toppled that clock to the floor, I never would have known.”
Stunned, Tristan swallowed hard. He’d never seen anything so beautiful in his life, aside from the woman next to him. He said nothing as he lifted the goblet from its bed of velvet and inspected the gems, the perfection of the craftsmanship, the tiny inscription at the base.
“I will finance the expedition on the condition I am allowed to join in the hunt and we split the treasure—half for you and your crew, half for me.” She held her breath and waited for his answer.
He came to a
quick decision. There were those, he knew, who would think him insane, unstable. A superstitious group, his crew would regard him as quite mad and would object to a woman on board the Adventurer, but he had to take the chance—on her. On the journal. On the golden chalice in his hand and the possibility of finding Izzy’s Fortune.
“I accept your proposition. We leave in four days.”
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