Pandora(57)

‘Well, then, Mr Blake. What price would be sufficient?’

Hezekiah lets out a small chuckle, a conman’s simper.

‘I could not let it go for any less than five hundred pounds.’

Lady Latimer blinks. ‘Five hundred?’

Dora watches the exchange with deep-seated disquiet. She is not fooled. She knows Hezekiah has deliberately suggested an extortionate price. Ask, he once told her, for twice what you expect to get, and let the buyer appear to dictate a lower price that is still far above the real value. Barter, coerce, barter, coerce.

‘Two hundred,’ the woman counters.

‘Three hundred.’

‘Two and fifty.’

Hezekiah frowns. ‘Three hundred is my final offer, madam. I could not possibly let it out for any less. It has historic value, you understand.’

Dora watches Lady Latimer. The old woman’s lip quirks. Horatio shifts against the frippery cabinet.

‘You drive a hard bargain, Mr Blake. But, very well. Three hundred pounds. However, I expect it delivered on Friday. I know that means it sits with me an extra night but I promise it will not be touched beyond adding decoration to it. If you wish, your niece may accompany it, see that it is safely handled. Is that acceptable to you?’

Dora cannot read the look on her uncle’s face. There is calculation behind the eyes, yes, but there is also something else, something that altogether unnerves her.

‘I agree to your terms, madam.’

‘Excellent!’ Lady Latimer claps her hands together, releases an earthy chuckle, as if the awkwardness of before was a mere nothing. ‘Now, then, I wish to see the vase itself. I am laying out an awful lot of money for a thing that is not to be mine. It’s only right I view it now, before an agreement is written up?’

Hezekiah dips his back. ‘Of course.’

The footman steps forward, then, and Lady Latimer links his arm, presses him to her, and Hezekiah fishes the key from the chain round his neck. For one brief moment he glances at Dora, as if to remind her of the fact that – according to him, at least – only one key exists.

As Hezekiah unlocks the basement doors and, limping, escorts Lady Latimer and her companion down the narrow steps, a painful beat begins to play out on Dora’s ribs.





CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR





Hezekiah waits until the carriage has trundled out of sight before confronting his niece. He makes a deliberate show of shutting the shop door, lets the echo of the bell die down as he tries not to let his anger and fear take over.

Three hundred pounds. That is the only reason he has consented for the vase to be removed from his sight – it will pay off Coombe with ample money to spare. But losing it to the old woman for a night’s entertainment and everything that risks is a matter he will concern himself over later. It is Dora he must worry about now.

Slowly, he thinks, slowly.

He turns. Dora has pressed herself against the back wall behind the counter and he wonders at it, this show of cowardice. Is it cowardice? It is unlike her, unlike her completely, and so this action of hers makes him wary, unsure. If she knows what he does, if she has discovered the vase’s secret, she would not act like this. Perhaps, then, he is safe.

‘How did you get in?’

For his own sake as well as hers Hezekiah makes sure he keeps his tone quiet, measured.

‘I …’

Dora is hesitating. That interests him.

‘I picked the lock.’

‘With?’

‘A hairpin.’

He does not believe her. Then, how? Hezekiah touches the brass key at his chest, takes a step forward, trying not to wince at the sharp pull of his wound, the way the binding pinches at the skin underneath.

‘You went behind my back.’

‘I …’

Another step.

‘Why?’

And then something shifts in her face.

‘Why?’ She grips the countertop, and Hezekiah watches the skin of her knuckles turn white. ‘Why did you keep it from me? Why did you keep all of them from me?’

Hezekiah stops at this, stares at the implication, is confused now for it seems, perhaps, they speak of two completely different things.

‘All of them?’

Dora’s eyes flash with something he cannot name. ‘Yes, Uncle,’ she says, ‘all of them. I have seen the crates on the shelves, seen what is in them.’

Oh, that defiance. So like Helen. Beautiful, scheming Helen! Hezekiah feels his control slipping and he takes a deep breath, reigns himself in.

‘I made no secret of them.’

‘You did not tell me of them, and that is just the same,’ she shoots back. ‘You are storing genuine antiquities down there when you could have been selling them up here all along.’

Hezekiah glowers, shifts painfully on his bad leg. ‘That is none of your business.’

‘I am a Blake!’

And in the tortured turn of her voice he suddenly recognises the emotion behind her eyes. Anger – pure, unadulterated. It shocks him. Scares him.

‘It has always been my business as well as yours,’ Dora continues. ‘Father would be ashamed of what you have done to the shop.’

Hezekiah curls his hands into fists. ‘Your father was too soft, Pandora.’ He only ever uses her full name – that ridiculous name – when he wishes to exert authority, when he feels he is near to losing it. ‘I will run this place however I see fit.’