Page 35 of Unearthing the Smuggler's Heart
She appreciated that, of course.
She appreciated having anyone alongside her just now.
It was only that she wished, somehow, that it could have been Mathias. She would have been better able to express all those sharp, pointy feelings of dread to Mathias. She would have been more comfortable leaning on him, both physically and emotionally.
It would not do to dwell on it. She knew what it meant that she longed for him, that at all times, on some level, she wished for his presence. She was just as silly as every girl in the gossip prints after all.
She sighed, drawing another concerned glance from her companion, but was relieved of having to explain the sound as they reached a second set of locked doors and waited for their guide to rattle his keys about to let them in.
Ah, thought Jade.Here is the opulence.
The threshold of the locked doors transformed the building, as though all its secrets were hidden just beyond that lock, glinting in silver and gold, a trove of treasures both conquered and created.
On either side of them in the hallway were rooms with barred walls, displaying the actual arms kept in Marseille for troops, local authorities, and the shipyards. Glistening silver that came to a wicked glint on the edges of sabers and bayonets. A stack of perfectly round, beautiful cannon balls were arranged into a pyramid, looking for all the world like fine art, rather than items that could sever a limb or end a life. Rows of polished rifles shone in treated wood and fine brass finishing.
She imagined these rooms came first as a warning to any who might enter this place when they oughtn't. The message was clear: behold our strength.
They passed quite a lot of might before reaching the less lethal treasures held here. There was a passage that led off to the right, which they did not take. Charles whispered to her as they passed it that it likely held the city treasury—bars upon bars of gold.
Their destination was the very rear of the building, the last tier of importance before the basement where the brooms and dust rags were kept. Confiscations were not crowning jewels of a city, after all, but rather the crude spoils of unpleasant business, meant to be tucked out of sight until they could be translated into a more palatable form of wealth. This place, at the end of the building, felt to Jade rather like the shipyard had felt, organized into pallets of goods, none of which seemed to be consistent in their contents from one group to the next.
The man leading them was murmuring under his breath, counting away the aisles and rows as he wove his way through these stores. He was moving fast enough that Jade suspected he was hoping they would get lost trying to follow, and so they had no choice but to match his pace, passing by the remains of entire lives, of families and their homes, boxed into neat cubbies alongside a cold, gray wall without so much as a second glance.
Each nook had a family name scrawled upon it, often smudged or scribbled so messily they were impossible to read, but these nameplates were not what the thin man cared about. He cared only for the number and assignation as he navigated this maze of lost lives to bring Jade to her own share of the questionable spoils of war.
"Ici," he said at last, stopping in front of a rather bare-looking nook.Here.
There was no set of fine furniture stacked upon itself. No fine china nor precious silver. It was simply one large chest, with a rusty padlock hanging open upon it and an empty strongbox with its door still squeaking on its hinges. It looked almost obscenely empty in the space around it.
"C'est tout?!"Charles said incredulously to the thin man, who only smirked in response, evidently very pleased that this encounter had ended with disappointment.
"What if what we need is not in that box?" Jade asked Charles in English, frowning at the smug little man opposite them. "What then?"
"Then it is too bad," the thin man replied in thickly accented English. "Ask the new owner."
Charles looked grim, his mouth drawn into a line. "We are looking for very particular belongings," he snapped. "If they are not present, we will have to reclaim them from whomever has purchased the home. Do you at least have the bill of sale from its auction?"
"Peut-être," the man replied with an insolent shrug.Perhaps.
The three of them turned once more to look at the big trunk and its tiny metal companion. Jade did her best not to sigh.
Her inheritance might be in that trunk.
Perhaps.
* * *
"There was just so very much,"Jade said, some hours later as the four of them sat in front of their empty dinner plates, back at the inn. "Entire households packed up and shoved into little nooks in the wall. One couldn't help but wonder what had happened to their owners."
"If the items were very expensive," Mathias said flatly, slicing the flat of his hand against his palm, "I can wager a guess."
Charles cleared his throat and averted his gaze as Isabelle swatted at Mathias in rebuke. This was not a wise topic to pursue, apparently.
"I wanted to wait until we were all here to open it," Jade said quickly, not wishing for an argument or any other unpleasantness to add to her nerves. "I do not want to be alone when I see what is inside."
"I think I speak for all of us when I say that wewantto be present for the unveiling, my dear," Isabelle told her. "In fact, I think we ought to see to it right away, before I burst from the anticipation."
The trunk had been moved into a little guest parlor on the second floor, near their rooms, with the assurance from Mr. Petetti that no one would disturb the room or the trunk for the duration of their stay. Indeed, they were the only guests, so it did not seem to be a matter of concern. Just now, the trunk was placed on a rich, royal blue carpet, its drabness almost glaring in contrast, and its companion strongbox was leaning limply against its side.
