Page 48 of Unearthing the Smuggler's Heart
"Nonsense," she cut in before he could continue that thought, her impatient gaze slicing from Mathias to Dumand himself. "It isnevertoo late for an apology, sincerely given. I do not expect you to grant me quarter in exchange for it, only to hear it and know I understand my wrongdoing."
"I..." The man looked from Jade to Mathias and back again. "I meant only in Dempierre's case. From you, my dear woman, I will accept your regrets and I will allow you to leave now, if you wish, but only once you have shown me what is in that box and I have determined it is something I am willing to part with."
"Dumand—" Mathias began, but was cut off by Jade standing next to him and extending the box, held in both of her hands. "Jade?"
"It is locked," she said to him, allowing him to step forward and remove it from her grasp. "If I knew what was inside, I would tell you. It is my belief that it is of a sentimental nature, rather than any items of particular value. You see the initials carved on the lid? I believe this belonged to my mother."
Mathias let out an exasperated sigh, dropping his head into his hands.
"Are you opposed to breaking the lock?" Dumand asked curiously, turning it over in his grip and giving it a light shake near his ear.
"I would prefer to keep it intact," she confessed, "but it is a small matter in the current circumstances. If you must see what is within to release us, then do what you must."
"To releaseyou," Dumand corrected, flicking his eyes up to meet hers. "Dempierre and I have outstanding debts to settle."
"For Christ's sake, Louis," Mathias snapped. "Do you not remember how to pick a damned lock? Just let her go. She poses you no threat."
"She does not," Dumand agreed, handing the box back to Jade, "but she does seem to matter a great deal to you, Mathias. This isn't the same woman you had enlisted into your nefarious dealings the last time I saw you, either, is it? Do you keep a rotation? A host of innocent young women whose lives you don't mind ruining for your own gain?"
A knock at the door prevented Mathias the indignity of having to answer such a question, though he looked plenty offended by its implication all the same. As Dumand strode over to the door to answer the knock, Mathias met Jade's eye and muttered, "It was Isabelle," by way of explanation.
The hushed voices at the door had an air of urgency, and when the door clicked shut again, Dumand was frowning, tapping the pistol against his thigh in a way that made Jade hope very sincerely that the weapon was not currently housing live ammunition.
"I must see to my guests," Dumand snapped, eyes on Mathias. "What do you need to get that box open?"
"Nothing that isn't already in this room," Mathias replied evenly, "though if I do so, I expect a guarantee of some sort regarding the outcome of tonight's doings."
"The girl can go," he said immediately. "The box will depend upon its contents. There are guards at the door, so do not try to run."
"And I?" Mathias pressed.
"You," Dumand said with a dismissive wave of his hand, "are finally going to jail."
* * *
"I'mnotgoing to jail,"Mathias mumbled again, the hair pins held in his teeth keeping his voice from reaching anything approaching reassuring. He had the box on his knee, tilted up so that the keyhole was flush with his eye line, and had been prodding and scraping around inside of it with pins drawn from Jade's hair for the past several minutes.
Jade crossed her arms over her chest and pressed her lips together rather than respond to this ridiculous assertion. She had thrown the frilly white fabric that the pins had been holding to her crown onto the floor and was currently resisting a very powerful urge to walk over to it and stomp it into the carpet until it turned to dust.
If he got the stupid box open, she was not even certain she'd want to peer inside. Not here. Not under these circumstances.
If she'd done as initially suggested and attempted this infiltration on her own, would they have avoided capture? She couldn't imagine having navigated even the first entry into the house alone, and yet, a gnawing guilt was eating at her, filling her with nervous energy.
She found herself pacing on the plush drawing room carpet, unable to resist peering over her shoulder every few ticks of the clock to see if Mathias had yet completed his task. When the mechanism within the silver box finally gave way, it grated against itself with a jarring metal-on-metal scream that left no doubt of his success.
He sighed loudly, leaning away from the box like it was painful to touch, the hairpins falling from his mouth into a pile in his lap. "There," he said decisively as the lid popped up, just a hair, from the seam. "There we are."
She stared, her restless limbs suddenly stuck in place. "Well?" she said, turning her eyes up from the box to Mathias. "What's in there?"
"You want me to look?!" he replied, clearly aghast. "After everything? Get over here."
She felt her face heating, likely blushing red as she attempted to instruct her feet to move. It was not embarrassment or shame that was sending her color up. No, it was something altogether more exotic and terrifying. Was there even a name for the emotion one felt at the end of such a wayward and disastrous journey?
"I cannot," she managed, her voice a croak.
He gave her a little shake of the head and sighed again, this time on her behalf. He pushed himself to standing and set the silver box on the couch cushion where he'd sat, turning his back on it to cross the room to where she had become rooted to the carpet.
Although he was the one facing a much more dire immediate future, Jade found herself reaching out to him, eager for the reassurance of his embrace. If he could offer her comfort now, she would accept it, even if it was a greedy, self-serving thing to do.
