“Do you think we saw all of the vases in the shop?” she asked.
“It certainly felt that way.”
“Mr. Marchand... what if I don’t find the vase? Doesn’t it feel as though we’ve reached a dead end?”
He was mordantly amused that they were a “we” now.
“Well, I don’t lie, cheat, or steal, Miss Woodville, but that doesn’t mean any of those options are off-limits toyou. I suppose the question is, what are you willing to do to get what you want? I think a person only truly knows themselves when they know the answer to that question.”
If he knew Miss Woodville, she was thinking about the offer he’d made in his office. One night, four thousand pounds, at least some of her problems solved.
But that offer was beginning to feel like a sword dangling from a single thread over his head.
Some part of him was sorry now he’d made it, for reasons he preferred not to examine too closely.
“But I think there’s still a chance you’ll find the vase,” he concluded quietly, into the long silence. He didn’t think there was a chance in hell, truthfully. He just wanted to soften some of the tension in her expression. He had come to realize that her eyes were especially beautiful when lit with hope.
“What makes you think that?”
“Anything is possible and things can always get better before they get worse again. Life is a tide that rolls in and out.” He stood. “Are you ready to go? Make sure you watch where you step this time.”
She glanced down at her feet.
And gasped.
“Mr. Marchand!” she said triumphantly. She snatched up the little stone he’d placed there—because that’s exactly what he’d found—and held it aloft. “My third one in London! And I do think this is my best one ever.Lookat the red stripe. Do you believe me now? It can only be a sign, don’t you think?”
She displayed it on her palm and he dutifully looked at it. “That’s a rock, all right,” he confirmed.
“Probably the closest I’ll ever come to holding your stony heart in my hand,” she said with mournful mischievousness.
“No doubt.” He stepped forward to scan the street for a hack. Serendipitously, one was approaching. He raised his hand to hail it.
When he reflexively dropped his eyes to the ground, he realized he’d been looking for heart-shaped stones for days now.
Chapter Twelve
Delilah hummed contentedly as she installed Tristan’s just-mended shirts into their clothes press, then she turned to trip lightly back down the stairs.
The boardinghouse seemed unusually quiet today. She knew its ambient sounds so well—the murmurs of people coming and going, the precise pitches at which certain stairs creaked beneath the weight of guests, the distant clank and clunk of Helga and her staff doing magical things with pots and pans and rolling pins in the kitchen. And then there was the occasional crash of a tea tray, because Dot’s inner thoughts and outer actions did not align as frequently as Delilah and Angelique would prefer. It was, in fact, becoming increasingly clear that the inside of Dot’s head was a bit like an itinerant carnival, brimming with distracting wonders and perils that led to dropping tea trays.
But Dot hadn’t dropped a tea tray in weeks. Just as Mr. Delacorte hadn’t uttered an epithet in the sitting room in weeks.
Both milestones made Delilah feel proud and wistful. Perhaps the Grand Palace on the Thameswasrefining both ofthem, as Mr. Delacorte continually maintained. Perhaps her own gentle and genteel influence had made some little bit of difference. She’d once been a countess, after all.
Though shewishedDot would remember to change the flowers in the reception room. They were now quite, quite dead.
On the third floor, she stopped abruptly. The candle in the third sconce had mysteriously winked outagain.
It wasalwaysthat candle. Yet they’d never been able to detect a draft near it.
Perhaps Dot’s fervent belief in ghosts had finally attracted one.
When Delilah was alone it was easy to imagine they might have a ghost or two. After all, centuries worth of drama, skullduggery, hardship, and no doubt romance had played out between the walls of this building long before she’d inherited from her perfidious late husband. Its past lived on in the form of the word “rogue” still faintly visible on the sign hanging outside. She had come to love this building so much she could easily imagine wanting to spend eternity here.
Suddenly she noticed the wallpaper curling a bit away from the baseboard near the sconce. Perhaps errant moisture was dousing the candle flame? Perhaps there was indeed a rogue draft not even the clever Mr. Pike had been able to vanquish?
She bent over to inspect the wallpaper.