Page 46 of Unearthing the Smuggler's Heart
He nodded, craning his own neck from side to side. "They've been gone for long enough, I think."
Still, the idea of touching the doorknob to the closet filled Jade with dread. It seemed like an unconscionable risk. She dared not do it herself, and hoped Mathias would be the brave one, just this once.
Mercifully, he took the initiative, pushing himself to a crouching position on his feet, and carefully turning the knob. The door eased open in low-lit fractions, until finally he breathed a sigh of relief and let it swing all the way open.
They were alone.
Returning to a standing position was not a pleasant experience, especially not in the stiff maid's uniform. The two of them both spent a few moments remembering exactly how to use their limbs, and attempting to coax their spines back into reasonable order.
Then there was the clock.
"Let's check inside the normal way first," Mathias said to her with a wink. "I'd hate to damage such a handsome piece, even if it belongs to my enemy."
She frowned at his back. She wasn't certain she'd call a heartbroken former friend anenemy, even if he was rather contentious in their interactions.
That poor man, she thought.That poor, lovestruck man. He was the same as she was, wasn't he? Only she was lucky enough to have won the captain's affections in return.
For now, said a whispering voice in her mind, which deepened her frown and forced her to shake her head, sending those thoughts scattering in favor of the task at hand. This was the end of a treasure hunt, she told herself. This was worthy of her full attention.
She watched him carefully open the glass-paned door that led to the clock's pendulum. She watched him run his hands along the panels inside, her heart clenched tight in her chest at the sudden uncertainty she had felt, the sudden preamble to loss that had wormed its way into her mind.
Would he still want her when all of this was over?
"Not here," he said with a frown. "Let's move it away from the wall and check the openings in the back, hm?"
She nodded, watching him do just that, gently and quietly moving the clock out of its place, a deeply dug imprint of its base in the plush carpet, so that he might access its rear. There were two access points, two little brass latches that allowed a clockmaker to open and examine the grandfather clock, should it ever need special care. The first led to a tangle of cogs and wheels, far too dense to allow a hiding place for anything larger than a coin.
The second was more cavernous, but still rather modest, and apparently completely empty.
She took a step forward, her breath caught in a thick bubble at the base of her throat. That second cavity was superfluous, wasn't it? The perfect hiding spot, surely.
Again Mathias ran his hands along the sides and prodded at the rear of the space, but when he turned to her, his hands were empty, and he gave her a helpless shrug. "We may have to crack the base," he said.
"Let me," she said, gesturing toward the clock. "I'd hate to damage it."
He nodded, with no apparent offense at the suggestion that she might succeed where he had failed. He held her hand to assist her in kneeling in the cumbersome uniform, and stood back to allow her what light they had as she attempted the same ritual of touching the panels in the little nook.
It was indeed empty, she realized, the pads of her fingers sliding along the walls, but she had a suspicion that it might be like many of the items in her erstwhile home, many of which had been modified by her mother in her younger years.
She searched for a latch, a loose beam, a button, something out of the ordinary, to no avail. Then she tried to slide the panels away from their corners, but the sides and rear held firm. The bottom, however, very slightly gave way.
"Ah!" she breathed, giving an excited glance over her shoulder. "It needs oil, so give me a moment. It is stuck."
She heard his breath catch, the excitement crackling between them as she worked her fingernails into the tiny opening and wiggled the plank, urging it open bit by bit without cracking the thin plank of wood. Once it was large enough to get her hand through, she stopped, and leaned her upper half into the recess to grope around in the secret opening at the base of the clock.
Her hand found a filigree of cool metal, a piece that took time to coax toward her with the tips of her fingers. It was a box, she realized, modestly sized but heavy. She let go and worked the plank further out and tried again, this time successfully.
Her hand closed around the side of the box and, at long last, she pulled it out of the clock and into the light. With a shaking hand, she laid it in her lap, refusing to even look at it just yet. She reached back into the recess, feeling for all four corners of the hidden compartment in case anything else at all was inside, and only when she was certain that there was nothing else did she lean back and wedge the plank back into place.
The box was everything. Her inheritance. She allowed her eyes to fall upon it, her hands coming to touch it on either side, and for a moment she could scarcely register what she was seeing, what she wastouching.
This was her inheritance.
It was a box. It was silver. And it was locked.
A small keyhole on the front of the box taunted her. She thought she could hear the universe tittering about it, amused that even now, she could not definitively identify her mysterious inheritance. She looked down at the box in her lap, engraved on the top with her mother's maiden initials, DB for Diane Benton.
So transfixed was she in this that she did not notice the sound of the drawing room door opening. She did not realize they had been joined by company until he spoke, his voice raspy and dark.
