Gregory went to stand behind her, looking over her shoulder. ‘Is this it?’ He could not keep the excitement from his voice, but she was too preoccupied to notice.
‘The colour is right. The one I remember had the same pattern of flowers running up the side and the red dragon twining in and out of them.’ She pointed down at the base. ‘And I have tripped more than once over the cast-iron stand.’
She ran her fingers over the rim and shook her head. ‘This is smooth,’ she said. ‘There should be cracks.’
‘We are looking for a cracked vase?’ He did his best to contain himself, but she turned and caught him stifling a laugh.
‘And I suppose you are about to suggest that we break this one.’ Her response was frustrated, but not angry, as if the humour of the situation was not lost on her.
‘I will do so if it makes you laugh again,’ he said softly. ‘But I promised you we would find the right vase and I always keep my promises. Come. There are other places we can search.’
They visited three more shops and he found it harder to smile with each failure. If he wanted to assure her of his ability to care for her, he did not want to appear to be a failure. ‘I am beginning to wonder if you are trying to destroy my perfect record,’ he said, trying to make light of it.
‘I have told you from the first that I did not believe you could not solve every problem,’ she said.
She was speaking of the diamonds again, but since last he’d seen her something had changed. It was as if she was resigned to their loss. He gave her an encouraging smile. ‘Sometimes, there are solutions you have not even imagined yet.’
‘If you are suggesting that I run away with you and avoid the issue, you needn’t bother. No matter what happens, I will not leave my family when they need me most.’
Her declaration caught him off guard. She had been as eager to start again as he was. But then, it had been as if he’d walked towards an open gate, only to have if it swing shut in his face. As usual, the Stricklands were on one side and he was on the other. Neither a night of passion nor a proper daytime courtship was likely to change that. ‘Of course not,’ he said, still numb.
The coach was stopping at the last shop on his list and it was almost a relief. If he was to fail, let it be soon. Then he would give her his other piece of news and see if it was more disappointing to her or less. ‘I do not really expect to find anything here,’ he said with a shrug. ‘We have not visited it before because I did not think there was a chance of finding anything of value. But I will not give up until I am sure all hope is gone.’ And he was closer to that than he had ever expected to be.
Despite the cold in the February air, the shop’s front door was propped open and smoke billowed out into the street. Once their eyes had adjusted to the dim light inside, they could see that the majority of it came from a tiny fireplace in the corner and the few smouldering lumps in the grate that were barely worthy of the name coal. The rest came from a long pipe the proprietor puffed, filled with the foulest tobacco in London.
‘Hello, Tibbett,’ Gregory said, holding a handkerchief to his nose, attempting to block the smell.
‘Drake!’ The man put down his pipe and the smoke wreathing his head cleared enough to reveal his jagged-toothed smile. ‘What can I help you with today?’
‘We’re looking for a vase,’ he said, smiling back. ‘A posh one. Wide like a pot and so high.’ He held out a hand.
‘Don’t have much call for that,’ Mr Tibbett said, frowning and pointing. ‘What I got is there, in the window.’
Gregory gestured to Hope to look for herself, though he had seen nothing close to the duplicate she had shown him earlier. But before she could reach the alcove that served as the display window, she stumbled over a heavy metal something that was being used as a stop to hold the front door open.
He was at her side to catch her before he’d even had time to think. That was how it had been on the first day and how it would always be. No matter what she said or did, today, tomorrow, or in the past, he loved her. He could not help but care.
She paid no attention to his touch, too focused on the thing at her feet to notice his help. She pulled free and crouched, hauling the doorstop away and letting the door swing shut with a bang behind her. She swung her arm wide, nearly knocking off his hat as she held the thing aloft.
She struggled to carry it to the counter for the ornamental cast-iron stand must have weighed at least a stone. As Gregory watched in amazement, she set it in front of Mr Tibbett with a loud clunk. ‘It is here. It must be for I have stubbed my toe on this so many times I would know it anywhere.’ Apparently, she no longer needed his help. She pushed past Gregory, pulled up her veil and spoke directly to the proprietor. ‘Sir, can you help us? There is a vase that belongs with this stand.’ She held out her arms in anOshape to indicate the size. ‘It is nearly waist-high and decorated with chrysanthemums and a dragon.’
‘A big red snake, you mean,’ he said.
‘Rather like that,’ she allowed. ‘But I think, actually...’
‘I have been meaning to throw the pieces away for ages. But the old lady what brung it promised she would return for it.’
‘That is the one, I’m sure.’
‘Pieces?’ Gregory repeated, alarmed.
‘I never would have taken a thing in that condition. But she insisted...’
‘My grandmother can be most persuasive,’ she agreed. ‘And just as she promised, we have come to collect it and to pay you whatever was promised.’
‘What condition were we speaking of, precisely?’ he interrupted.
Since what he thought was obviously unimportant to her, she ignored Gregory’s question, as did Mr Tibbett. ‘It’s in the back room,’ he said, gesturing them further into the shop. When Gregory stopped on the other side of the curtain that separated storage from shop he called, ‘No, further than that. You’d best light a candle. I do not waste the money on them, since there is nothing of value there.’
