BooksBarbecue
Back The Spice King Save as PDF
Chapters (51)
  1. Cover
  2. Books by Elizabeth Camden
  3. Title Page
  4. One
  5. Two
  6. Three
  7. Four
  8. Five
  9. Six
  10. Seven
  11. Eight
  12. Nine
  13. Ten
  14. Eleven
  15. Twelve
  16. Thirteen
  17. Fourteen
  18. Fifteen
  19. Sixteen
  20. Seventeen
  21. Eighteen
  22. Nineteen
  23. Twenty
  24. Twenty-One
  25. Twenty-Two
  26. Twenty-Three
  27. Twenty-Four
  28. Twenty-Five
  29. Twenty-Six
  30. Twenty-Seven
  31. Twenty-Eight
  32. Twenty-Nine
  33. Thirty
  34. Thirty-One
  35. Thirty-Two
  36. Thirty-Three
  37. Thirty-Four
  38. Thirty-Five
  39. Thirty-Six
  40. Thirty-Seven
  41. Thirty-Eight
  42. Thirty-Nine
  43. Forty
  44. Forty-One
  45. Forty-Two
  46. Historical Note
  47. Questions for Discussion
  48. In 2020, look forCaroline Delacroix’sstory in
  49. About the Author
  50. Back Ads
  51. Back Cover

A notch on one of the boards was barely large enough to wiggle a finger into and lift up the board. Dust swirled and Gray’s nose twitched as he lifted the other boards free. The cache was filled with books and papers. He dreaded what he was about to see, for the top documents were in Spanish.

Nausea filled his stomach. If this was related to Luke’s treasonous activities, did he have the fortitude to surrender it to the government? If it could save lives, it would be the right thing to do. It was still a vile thought. Was this how Annabelle felt when she’d been confronted with the exact same situation?

He lifted out the first book, staring at the title. He couldn’t read Spanish, but the language was enough like French that he could tell it was a book about the banking system of Spain. Banking? The pages were filled with mathematical charts and monetary tables. The other books in Spanish looked equally harmless, merely books on the history and economy of Cuba.

He quickly rifled through the other documents, and relief trickled through him. There was nothing relating to the military or troop positions, but Luke had gone to a great deal of trouble to hide these papers, and Gray desperately wanted to know why.

He kept digging into the cache, but the other books were entirely different. There was a well-thumbed copy of Saint Augustine’s Confessions and a fat book of commentary on the New Testament. Works by Thomas Aquinas and Martin Luther and copies of the Bible in Greek, Latin, and Aramaic. Tiny notes in the margin were all in Luke’s handwriting.

There was an accounting ledger going back several years, also in Luke’s hand. Far from proving his brother incompetent with money, this ledger reflected sophisticated bookkeeping. Gray carried it across the room, sitting on the bed to scan the entries carefully, and his heart sank. At long last, he knew where Luke had been spending his fortune all these years.

An orphanage in Baltimore; a tuberculosis clinic in Bethesda; a leper colony in Hawaii; and three families in Philadelphia. No wonder Luke never had any money. He was giving it all away.

Oh, Luke . . . why are you still torturing yourself?

Gray dropped the accounting ledger and buried his face in his hands to pray and give thanks. Luke wasn’t a bad man. The proof of it was all in this cache. Although Luke had stumbled and become ensnared in some kind of treasonous scheme, it looked as though he was a man desperately seeking redemption.