Page 72 of An Unexpected Pleasure

Megan nodded. “Yes.”

“There were legends, as there always are in such cases, that some of the Incas who were bringing the gold decided not to turn it over to the Spanish but to hide it somewhere in the mountains. Hidden treasure, protected by the curse of the old gods. Pretty irresistible stuff, especially to several young men. Naturally, we hoped we would stumble upon it. The native bearers feared exactly the same thing. Some of them left, sneaking away in the night—with some of our supplies. Of course, with the number of natives dwindling, as well as our supplies, we had to be very careful not to get lost. There was a vast amount of territory—uncharted territory. That is why we set up a system of searching.”

He stopped and sat down on a chair, sighing. He rested his elbows on his knees and his head on his hands, thrusting his fingers back into his thick hair. “God. You don’t know how many times I have wished that we had simply turned back at that point.” He rubbed his hands over his face, then dropped them to his lap and looked at her.

“But we did not. We set up a base camp, where we stored the majority of our supplies, our tents and pack animals. One of the four of us stayed at the camp with the natives at all times. We took it in turns. The other three of us would venture out in short exploratory trips, taking only a couple of donkeys to carry our supplies. Our last trip out, Barchester stayed at the base camp, while Dennis, Julian and I set out to explore. I fell ill about a day or two into the journey. I think that I must have caught the fever that felled Eberhart. As we hiked on, I grew more and more feverish and weak. Then it began to rain. We took refuge in a cave that we found partway up a hill.”

Theo stood up and began to pace restlessly. “That is where Dennis died. Barchester was not even there.”

“How did he die?” Megan asked quietly, watching Theo.

“He fell. The caves went deep into the base of the hill. He was exploring, and he fell.”

Megan’s heart sank, and tears clogged her throat. “You are lying to me.”

She stood up and walked around to stand in front of Theo. He looked at her, and she could see the misery and pain in his eyes.

“I can see it in your face,” she said, unaware that her eyes filled with tears as she spoke. “In the way you stand. The way you turn your head. You are a dreadful liar, Theo.”

“Megan, I swear to you that I did not kill Dennis,” he told her, gazing straight into her eyes.

Megan felt, with the same certainty in her midsection that had told her the moment before that he had lied, that now he was speaking the truth. “Then look me in the eyes, right now, and tell me how my brother died.”

Theo stared at her for a moment, then broke away with an oath. “Bloody hell, woman. I swore never to reveal this to anyone.”

He stopped and stood, gazing into the distance at something only he could see. Finally, with a sigh, he turned. “All right. Nothing will satisfy you now but the complete truth. I suppose it no longer really matters, anyway.”

He came back to her and, taking her hands in his, led her to the small couch, pulling her down to sit with him. They turned toward each other, her hands still in his, and Theo looked into her eyes as he went on, “We went deep into the cave, carrying our lanterns. There were other smaller caves and tunnels branching off from it. We were curious—even I, despite my growing fever—and we searched them. One tunnel narrowed and then emerged into a large, high cave deep in the mountain. It was very much like a vaulted room, empty except for a tall, flat stone that lay in the center of the cave. The stone was carved and looked like an altar.”

“An altar?”

“Yes, I know. It sounds fanciful. But if you could have seen the place—there were soot marks on the walls at intervals, as if something had burned close to them. It wasn’t hard to imagine torches flickering around the cave and people gathered around an altar. But what was even more astounding was what we found in some of the other caves. In two, there were stores of golden objects.”

Megan drew in an involuntary gasp.

Theo nodded. “Exactly. Hidden treasure.”

“But this is fantastical.”

“I know. It was like something out of a story. There were small statues and sheets of worked gold. Replicas of all sorts of animals and trees. Bowls and trays and goblets of gold and silver. Gold and silver masks, bracelets, necklaces, earrings. Boxes and chests, some all of gold and others of wood with inlays of worked gold. You cannot imagine the sight of it, all piled up, gleaming in the light of our lanterns. We could scarcely believe our eyes. If the others had not been there, I think I would have thought it was a fever dream.”

“And is that what you fought over?” Megan asked softly. “The treasure?”

“Fought over?” Theo grimaced. “No. I told you, I did not hurt Dennis. Someone else killed Dennis.”

“Who? Are you saying Mr. Coffey—”

“No, no. I don’t know who it was.”

“But there was no one else there.”

“Yes, there was. You have to hear all my story. There was another cave, long and low. At one point we had to crawl through it. We got to the end, and we found—well, it opened on the other side of the hill. There was a beautiful enclosed valley. And in this valley was a village. It was lovely, untouched, closed off from the rest of the world. We were uncertain what to do, what our reception would be, so we crawled back into the main cave. My fever continued to grow worse. Dennis did what he could for me, but he was very worried. Finally he felt he had no recourse but to go down to the village.”

Caught up in the story, even knowing that Dennis did not survive, Megan could not help but feel the clutch of worry and fear. “What happened to him? To you?”

“Somehow he communicated with them. I’m not sure how, for they did not speak even Spanish. They spoke in a tongue none of us had ever heard or dreamed of hearing. They were, we think, descendants of the Incas. From what Dennis could gather from their attempts at communication and from some drawings on the wall of the cave, we came to believe that a group of Inca warriors and their families fled from the Spaniards, carrying as much as they could of the treasures of their temple. They found this secluded valley and settled down there. And the people there now are the descendants of the ones who fled.”

“This is unbelievable.”