Pandora by Susan Stokes-Chapman

Author:Susan Stokes-Chapman [Stokes-Chapman, Susan]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781473592650
Publisher: Random House
Published: 2022-01-26T18:30:00+00:00

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.

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