Pandora(38)

‘How is your leg?’

Hezekiah pales. ‘Much better.’

Matthew lets out a caustic laugh. ‘You’re a liar. I see you limp. It will begin to rot, just like this.’ He points first at his wrist, then at Hezekiah. ‘You have brought a disease onto us.’

‘It is a vase! A bit of Greek pottery, nothing more.’

‘Then how do you explain all this?’

‘Coincidence.’

‘There is a fine line between coincidence and fate,’ he says, and Hezekiah scoffs. Matthew watches him. ‘Why is this thing so important to you?’ he asks finally.

Hezekiah looks away.

‘It’s none of your damn business.’

‘I think we’ve just established it is.’

Hezekiah hesitates. ‘It … belonged to me. Many years ago. I am reclaiming it, that’s all.’

‘How much is it worth?’ Matthew shoots back.

Hezekiah hesitates again. ‘Enough.’

‘Then why have you not sold it?’

‘I told you,’ he says stubbornly. ‘It won’t open.’

‘There’s something inside?’

It is exhausting, all this back and forth. Hezekiah does not feel he should be questioned like this, like a criminal. But the faster he answers the faster he can leave, and as Hezekiah thinks on the question he realises there is no way to lie.

‘Yes,’ he answers, short. ‘As soon as I have retrieved what I need then I will sell. The usual routes. I don’t understand why it does not open,’ he finishes bitterly.

‘Perhaps it does not want to open.’

‘It. Is. A. Vase,’ Hezekiah bites out.

‘It. Is. Cursed,’ Matthew returns.

‘And I still say you speak nonsense! It has a lid, it opens. There must be a mechanism, a seal, something I am missing. It was opened before, so it can be opened again now. I know it can.’

There is a space of taut silence. Outside, the river laps at the wharf and the angry slop of water on the muddy banks is somehow, oddly, calming.

‘I won’t wait, Hezekiah,’ says Matthew. The lackey has never addressed him by first name before, and the sound of it on his tongue makes Hezekiah bristle. ‘I need treatment for my brothers. For me. I won’t earn enough in time from small jobs alone. Our welfare is in your hands.’

‘I …’ Hezekiah wipes a palm across his face. ‘I will send Lottie, for now. She knows some things. Healing hands, she has. And I’ll get you the money. I will.’

‘I will go to the authorities if you fall back on your word.’

‘I will get you the money.’ Hezekiah cannot keep the whine from his voice and hates himself for it. ‘I just need more time.’

‘Time,’ Matthew Coombe answers, ‘is precisely what we don’t have.’





CHAPTER SEVENTEEN





Cornelius, Edward notes – not without a little distress – is determined to think ill of Pandora Blake.

‘I simply do not trust her,’ he says, piercing a green bean on his plate with more ferocity than is entirely necessary. ‘You’re barely acquainted with the girl and yet here you are throwing yourself at her mercy. For all you know she could be a swindler as well as her uncle.’

Edward frowns. ‘I rather suspect she is throwing herself on mine. If you had seen her face when I suggested the possibility of black-market trading you’d know she is nothing of the sort. Honestly,’ adds Edward as his friend lifts the bean-laden fork to his mouth, ‘you have such little faith.’

‘Not in you,’ Cornelius replies, brandishing the implement at him the way a teacher wields a pointing rod. ‘In you I have complete faith. It’s everyone else I find deplorable.’

Edward sighs, shakes his head. ‘She is offering me the chance to look at a large collection of antiquities. To write a paper using them. And I cannot help but feel that there is something in this. What did you tell me the other day? That you would support me no matter what I chose to do.’

For a moment Cornelius looks nonplussed. He finally raises the fork to his mouth and his expression becomes thoughtful as he chews. ‘I will,’ he says once he has swallowed. ‘Of course I will. But this is such a flimsy notion of yours, to put your fate into the hands of a woman who conceded herself that you might not get anything out of it.’

‘But there is a chance.’

‘There is also a chance I might get run over by a tandem,’ Cornelius replies evenly. ‘That doesn’t mean it will happen.’

Edward opens his mouth to retort, but finds he has nothing to say. Instead he focuses his attention on the leg of lamb swimming in mint gravy on his plate. Absently he swirls a potato around in it, watches the sauce make greasy rivers in its path.

‘Is she attractive?’

Edward looks up.

‘What?’

‘Is she attractive?’ his friend says again, and Edward stares at him without blinking.

‘Is she … Why?’

Cornelius is watching him across the table. His cutlery has been set down neatly either side of his plate. There is a closed look to his face, one Edward has rarely seen, and it worries him.

‘Do you like her?’ Cornelius asks now, his tone measured, quiet.