Page 47 of Unearthing the Smuggler's Heart
He was a tall man, handsome. He stood before them with a pistol hanging casually at his side, his fingers stroking the trigger, and said without emotion, "Dempierre."
"Dumand," Mathias answered, his tone equally unreadable. "Fancy meeting you here."
CHAPTER20
Jade felt frozen, truly frozen. Her body had gone cold, her hands had stiffened around the box, and her eyes were locked on the man standing before them, so casually holding an instrument of certain death.
"I knew you'd show up here eventually," Dumand said in English, his tone deceptively calm.
"Isthatwhy you bought this place?" Mathias responded incredulously. "Really, Louis, that is taking things a bit far."
"No," the other man responded with a cool smile, "but it certainly added to the appeal. I was told hours ago that you were in the house, somewhere. My servants were made familiar with an illustration of your face. I daresay they'd recognize you anywhere.
“After a thorough search of every room but this one, I knew I would catch you here, once it was safe to crawl out of your nest."
"Yes, yes," Mathias said tiredly. "And now you're here to murder us."
If she'd had any feeling in her bones, Jade would have whipped around with a look of rebuke at that audacious response. Was hetryingto get them killed?"
"Who is this?" Dumand said, his eyes lowering to Jade on the floor with a frown. "I was not told you had an accomplice."
"She is no one," Mathias said, "just a girl."
"My name is Jade Ferris," Jade heard herself saying, a sharp tingling of reawakening beginning to blossom in her fingers and toes. She looked down at her lap and then up again at the man across from them. "This is my box. I hired Captain Dempierre here to help me retrieve it."
"Jade," Mathias said sharply, as though he dearly wished he could put the words back into her mouth and make her swallow them.
"Mademoiselle Ferris," Dumand said, giving her an appraising once-over. "Everything in this house belongs to me, I'm afraid. It was purchased in a legal auction."
"But you did not know this box even existed," she said, her voice going thin. "It is nothing to you and everything to me."
The man's eyebrows rose, his fingers relaxing on the gun. She had piqued his curiosity now, for better or worse. "Won't you have a seat," he said, gesturing toward the couch with the pistol. "I'm afraid I still have guests in the house, and I mustn't neglect them."
"We can just take our leave then," Mathias said, as though this were a friendly house call. He offered his hand to Jade and tugged her to her feet with a little more briskness than she thought was strictly necessary. "We'd hate to impede your social affairs."
At that, Dumand smiled with teeth, but Jade thought it was not because he found the joke amusing. "I have a particular guest who will find your presence most intriguing. Perhaps your capture will advance my career. It certainly would make the last several years and your persistent antagonism slightly less abrasive to my memory. I do not know what he will make of you, however, Mlle. Ferris."
"Oh, come now," Mathias replied, his flippancy somewhat punctured, his voice a little more serious. "We were friends once, Louis."
Dumand made a face of mild distaste, as though he wished he could disagree with that statement, but was too committed to his virtues to do so. "Sit."
They did, on a silk-lined settee, its rich fabric still warm from the bodies of its previous occupants. Jade found herself shunted into the far corner of the couch, clutching the box in her skirts while Mathias positioned himself between her and this new element of danger.
Her eyes fell on an abandoned glass of port, its red liquid calm as glass in its crystal tumbler, and she found herself fighting the wild urge to snatch it up and quaff it.
"Jail is the least of what you deserve," Dumand was saying to Mathias. "I would be well within my rights to shoot you dead for trespassing in my home."
Mathias scoffed, seemingly more insulted by that statement than threatened. "That would be a damned overreaction, Louis, even from you."
Jade wondered if he perhapswantedto be shot. From the responding fire that leapt into Dumand's eyes when Mathias had said that, she thought he was rather close to getting that particular wish granted. She shot her hand out to touch Mathias's shoulder, her fingers clutching firmly into the tweedy gray fabric of his uniform. "Perhaps," she said through gritted teeth, "we might extend an apology to Monsieur Dumand, both for invading his home and for whatever ill doings linger in your past."
Mathias whipped around with enough shock in those amber eyes that Jade might as well have taken the pistol and shot him herself. "I beg your pardon?" he said, aghast.
She narrowed her eyes at him. "You surely don't think yourself entirely innocent in this matter? I do not, insofar as today's actions, and to Monsieur Dumand, I am happy to confess that I am ashamed to have been caught behaving as I was this evening."
There was a tick of silence, the two men sharing identical expressions of disbelief.
Dumand cleared his throat, looking somewhat puzzled by this turn of events. "While I appreciate the sentiment, Mlle. Ferris, I believe we are well past the time for apologies."
