Page 42 of Unearthing the Smuggler's Heart
Jade stared at him for a moment, the cogs in her brain clicking into place. "The one who tried to kill you?" she asked flatly.
"Mhm." Mathias gave a sheepish shrug. "The very same."
CHAPTER18
It took three days to develop a realistic plan.
That meant three more nights at the inn, holding Jade Ferris in his arms and in his bed.
Astoundingly, the nightmares had not returned. Perhaps she was a slayer of demons after all. Or perhaps he was just too damn content by the time he fell asleep every night to dream of anything at all except waking up and making love to her again.
He felt truly insatiable, and as far as he could tell, the fervor was mutual.
If Isabelle and Charles had observed anything relating to their nightly trysts, Mathias had heard no sign of it. Either they did not know or they did not care, and knowing Isabelle, she would certainly care. He wondered what she would say. After all, it would be rather hypocritical to scold him for trysting on a mission, wouldn't it?
Still, he was afraid of her finding out, afraid she would not approve. How was he supposed to feel if his dearest friend did not approve?
The thought of it was unpleasant, and so he had decided he would not indulge in it until they were back at sea. Everything would be easier to manage once they were back at sea.
The complication of Dumand having purchased the Olivier house was the first problem they addressed. Mathias, of course, could not be seen by the man, and it was possible he remembered Isabelle's face from their last flight from Marseilles, especially given that she'd shattered a jar of fruit preserves on his head.
That left Jade, whose French was not fluent, and Charles, a decorated soldier whose identity would be remembered for certain. The only way to manage the problem was to trick Dumand into allowing them access to the home, and it was Charles himself who suggested they leverage his rank in the military to do so.
"He would not turn me away, should I request an audience," Charles told them, sounding utterly certain on the matter. "I could mention that I have heard good things about his running of the port and wished to make his acquaintance. He would be foolish to turn down such an opportunity."
And so a card was dispatched to the townhouse in Marseille, awaiting answer while the minutes ticked past. They had only to wait, and so instead focus shifted to the strange repeated letters that Pauline had written to Diane over the last two decades.
Isabelle and Jade had taken over most of the dining tables on the ground floor, spreading out documents by category and anchoring them with salt shakers and brandy tumblers, all of which was happily permitted by the curious landlord, whose presence became more and more common by the day. The gentleman's curiosity was so thoroughly piqued that Mathias had caught him poring over the documents in their absence more than once.
He had decided that any assistance was welcome so long as it was trustworthy, and Monsieur Petetti had been a trusted friend of Gerard Olivier for many years besides.
They methodically tested the fans they had found, passing the holes in their designs over the letters until they found the one that matched up, a yellowed, haggard thing with wilting lace on the edges. It had certainly seen its share of hard living.
"We had this fan too," Jade realized, turning the monstrosity over in her hands. "They must have made them together for the sole purpose of communique."
"As long as it wasn't to carry them around in public," Mathias said with distaste.
"Well, fashions were different then," Isabelle replied with amusement. "Everything was larger and less forgiving. I, for one, am grateful we evolved past it. I would hate wearing a wig."
"It was not so bad," Monsieur Petetti put in from nearby, scratching at his sparse gray hair.
The duplicate letters were all very subtly different, and after many hours of fan swishing and jotting letters and numbers onto the backs of Jade's schedule sheets, the reasons for this oddity slowly became clearer.
"She moved the item every couple of years," Jade told them, tapping the nib of her quill on the table absently. "That was likely wise. I wonder why she kept all these old versions, though."
"Maybe she rotated the hiding place?" Isabelle suggested. "Where does the most recent one say we should look?"
"A grandfather clock," Jade revealed. "That's what the most recent letter says. Our item should be hidden inside a cavity in the clock."
"Assuming that is the most recent letter," Isabelle put in with a sigh. "Why on earth wouldn't they just have taken this item with them when they fled?"
"Well, they had to leave in a hurry," Mathias reminded her. "They didn't even bring their clothes."
"They had enough time to empty the strongbox," she retorted, but there was no real conviction in her tone.
Indeed, when they had come across the house in the aftermath of the Oliviers' flight from France, it had been an eerie scene: a house abandoned in the height of daily bustle, with half-sipped teacups still on their saucers and rapidly drying herbs set out to be chopped for dinner when they were still fresh. He had not spoken to Pauline or Gerard since that day, but he knew that they would not have left so many precious things behind if they'd had any other choice.
The couple had been compromised while delivering sensitive cargo to theHarpywhile Mathias was further inland, on the business of finding Isabelle. When they had been caught, Dumand had attempted to leverage their precarious position to lay a trap for Mathias.
