Stephen put a hand on her shoulder, silencing her.
“Let me check the files,” the owner said. “I’ll see if there’s anything worth looking for.”
With that, he rose and retreated through a door behind him. It was filled with drawers, which were, presumably filled with files. When the man was out of earshot, Josephine looked back at him.
“Don’t ever do that again.”
Stephen swallowed a laugh. “Miss Hale, I fear I’ve committed so many transgressions in your eyes, that you will have to be more specific.”
She glared at him. Lowering her voice, she whispered, “Don’t ever kiss me again, especially not in public. If that behavior gets back to my mother—”
“Do you really think your mother has friends in Seven Dials?”
“My mother has friends everywhere. Very little escapes her. If you’re going to be my lover, you will have to learn to be discreet.”
Stephen clenched his jaw and tried not to yell. “I am not going to be your lover, Miss Hale. I only wanted to shut you up. That’s the extent of my interest in you.”
She leaned back in her chair and assessed him for a long moment. Their gazes met and held, and she stared so long Stephen thought she had forgotten what she’d intended to say. But finally, she said, “That’s too bad. Your kissing today was much improved. I might actually be good for you. I might even teach you a thing or two.”
Stephen stared at her in horror, wanting to correct her, but unable to find the words. She thought him a poor kisser? She thought herself above him in the art of seduction? It was too ludicrous, too ridiculous to be believed. He wanted to haul her into his arms and show her how absurd she really was. He was reaching for her, too, when he heard, “No, don’t start that again.” Stephen glanced up and the owner was heading toward his chair. “I found something you might like to see.”
The man held a smooth wooden box in his gnarled fingers. It was the size of a bread loaf with tarnished gold latches and hinges. Stephen reached for it, but Josephine Hale was before him. She took the box into her hands.
IT WAS THE MOST BEAUTIFUL box Josie had ever seen. No matter that the wood had once been intricately carved but was now smooth with wear. No matter that there were scratches marring the wood and that it smelled like a used chamber pot. She loved that box. It had been her grandfather’s, or at least something he had touched or used, and she loved everything that had to do with him. Turning it this way and that, she found the gold latch keeping it closed and lifted.
Nothing happened.
Josie frowned, tried again, and then she saw the keyhole. “It’s locked,” she said, holding the box up for Westman to see. He took it from her, tried opening it himself, but when he too failed, he didn’t hand it back. She grit her teeth. Just like a man.
“Do you have the key?” Westman asked the warehouse’s owner.
“No key, just a box. Here’s the inventory log.” He held out an ancient ledger, and Josie had to stand to peer at the words noted there.
Contents: One wooden box. Storage Fee: Paid in full Signed: J. Doubleday
“That’s all there is, then.” She glanced at Westman. “We’ll have to break it open.”
“Not here,” the proprietor said, rising. “I got better things to do than watch you two open a box. There can’t be nothing in that box but trouble. Yer grandfathers were trouble, and I can see you two are trouble. Ye got what you came for. Now be gone with ye.”
Westman nodded. “Can I pay you for your services?”
The man shook his head. “You saw the ledger. Paid in full. Ye can take the box and be gone.”
“Thank you,” Josie told him, following Westman out the door, back into the black warehouse. But this time the inky shapes and unfamiliar sounds didn’t frighten her. She had the box. Nothing could frighten her.
Chapter Seven
Josie started back the way they’d come, but Westman put a hand on her shoulder. “Where do you think you’re going?”
“To open the box, of course,” she said and reached out, taking it from him. “Thank you.”
“This isn’t the place—”
Josie fanned a hand at him. “We’ll go to the orphanage. No one will see us there.” She smiled. “And, as an added bonus, Maddie told me some of the city’s best child pickpockets live there—reformed, of course—but I imagine they will make quick work of this lock.”
“Pickpockets. Splendid,” he grumbled.
Less than five minutes later, she opened the foundling house’s door. Maddie peered into the entryway from one of the main rooms. “You’re back. Can you help me set the table?”
