A Pursuit of Home

by Kristi Ann Hunter

  “Very well,” he said as his fingers extended toward her. “Where do we start?”

  Chapter Two

  Jess held her breath and tightened every muscle in her body in an attempt to keep the hand holding the diary from trembling. She’d reduced three taper candles to puddles of wax the night before trying to read it herself and learned nothing beyond the fact that the writer had a great affinity for art.

  Time was a luxury she didn’t have. An art expert who knew Italian was.

  Were Mr. Thornbury a starving man, the diary would have been a meal from the king’s table. Behind his black-rimmed spectacles, his eyes were wide and unblinking, while his shoulders shifted a bit faster as his breathing grew heavier. It emphasized the fact that his plain woolen coat wasn’t quite as tailored as it should have been.

  His eyes were locked on the Verbonnian crest on the cover. Did he recognize it? The country had a rich artistic heritage, so it was likely he’d encountered it at some point, but had he studied enough to recognize the difference between the country’s crest and that of the royal family?

  “May I?” He flipped his hand over, palm outstretched in patient inquiry.

  Jess let the corner of the diary fall against his palm but couldn’t bring herself to let it go. This book was the only tie she had to her past, to her childhood. She’d protected it with everything she had for years. It had been her father’s last request.

  She’d kept it a secret. Everything else she’d shared with the man who rescued her, in case it was relevant to the war, but the diary was different. She’d shown it to no one.

  Except for Mr. Thornbury.

  “I can’t read it if you don’t let go.”

  Jess was being sentimental and foolish—two things she tried never to be. They always caused more problems than solutions.

  Frustration at herself for succumbing to the weakening emotions gave her the push she needed to press the book into his hand and remove her own.

  As he lifted the cover she had to sit on her hand to prevent herself from snatching it back. “Italian,” he murmured. “Verbonne spoke French back then.”

  English and German could frequently be heard in the country as well. Despite its small size, its turbulent history had brought a variety of languages and cultures into its borders. Jess had grown up among them.

  How much of that remained? She had no idea.

  Mr. Thornbury was correct, though, that French was the main language. They’d spoken French at the country’s inception, and many of the governmental communications had remained in French, even when it came under the power of German overlords. A tiny nod of defiance that helped retain the hope of eventual renewed independence.

  Fear curled through her middle. Jess was well acquainted with the feeling, knew how to identify it and its source. It was a useful tool in subterfuge, allowing her body to alert her to the potential dangers around her. As long as fear remained a tool and wasn’t allowed to take over her mind, it was a good thing.

  Personal fear, like the kind currently urging her to shift in her seat, was harder to contain and direct. There was no imminent physical danger for her to brace for or prevent.

  All she could do was wait while a man she couldn’t stand read her only remaining secret.

  A secret so well kept even she didn’t know what it was. For all she knew it could lead to the family recipe for mille-feuille. Yes, her father had been told otherwise, but what if it wasn’t true? What if the vague legend that had been passed down with the diary was nothing but a fairy tale created to keep hope and a passion for freedom lit through the generations?

  If that legend weren’t true, Jess wasn’t sure what she would do. People were so desperate to believe the legend that they were willing to die for it. Or kill.

  “Hold this for me, mon oisillon. Carry on the heart of Verbonne for me.” She’d lost so many memories of her papa over the years, but those words and his grim face held fast. She knew now, with the experience of someone who had walked long in the darkness of political intrigue, that Papa had not expected to survive the night.

  But he’d made sure she had. She and this worn family heirloom.

  Mr. Thornbury turned the pages carefully. On the third page he paused, becoming as still as one of the statues he was forever examining. Until that moment, Jess hadn’t realized how constantly in motion he was. Lifting a hand, tilting his head, shifting a foot. For all the time he spent staring at statues and picking over paintings, she’d never have described him as constantly in motion, but now that he was still—so still she wasn’t even sure he was breathing—she realized how often he moved.

  “Who did you say wrote this?” he asked.

  Jess leaned forward a bit so she could angle her head to see his face behind the hair that had fallen forward as he leaned over the book. “My great-grandfather’s grandmother, or so I was told.”

  “Who told you that?”

  “My father.” Jess bit her lip to keep from cursing. She’d heard plenty such language during the war but had managed to refrain from falling into the habit herself. It had been the one refinement she could hold on to, the last remnant of the person she’d been before the world had collapsed around her.

  She understood the temptation, though. Times like now, when a pair of hazel eyes were peering at her with suspicion and accusation, she had to fight the desire to use an expletive as defense against the firm set of his thin frown.

  “Who was your father?”

  What was in that diary? It had taken Jess nearly all night to get as far as he’d gotten in a few minutes, but she couldn’t recall anything that would inspire this sort of reaction. Most of it was about water and color and paint.

  Jess pointed at the diary. “What does it say?”

  “Where did your father get it?”

  A growl simmered in the back of Jess’s throat. Her determination to be polite and civil to this man was wearing very thin. “From his father. Mr. Thornbury, I am not seeking an inquisition. People are depending on me, and the only way I can help them lies somewhere in that diary. If you are not going to help me, kindly return my property so I can find someone who can.”

  There were always other options, even if the only ones she could think of were even less appealing than working with Mr. Thornbury. She may not like him, but she trusted him.

  Or at least she trusted her ability to control him.

  His lips pressed into a thin line as he sat back against the sofa and carefully turned to a section in the middle of the book, his eyes jerking back and forth as he read the pages with an ease that made Jess grind her teeth.

  “If this account is accurate,” he said slowly, “and indeed written by your”—he waved a long-fingered hand—“ancestor, it is an incredible revelation for the art world.”

  For the . . . had he just said a revelation for the art world? Not for England or France or the world at large or the emerging political dynasties?

  Jess contemplated and discarded several possible responses. What would be the most beneficial here? Surprise? That would certainly be genuine. On the other hand, pretending she knew what he was talking about might gain her more information. When in doubt, let silence win out. She’d wait to see what direction he tried to take the conversation.

  Except he wasn’t talking. He’d flipped back to the beginning and was reading through some of the early entries. “‘Passaggio segreto.’”

  “The secret passage,” Jess said.

  He glanced at her over his spectacles. “I know.” Then he turned his attention back to the book. “‘Affogare in un bicchier d’acqua.’”

  Jess waited.

  Once more he cut his eyes toward her over his wire frames. “I don’t know that. I mean, I know she’s said she doesn’t want to drown in a cup of water.” He frowned. “Or maybe tea. What I don’t know is what it means.”

  “That she was trying not to lose heart over every small setback.”

  “Ah, yes, you speak the language. Know the sl
ang.”

  Jess shrugged. Her knowledge was considerably more limited than his was. While it might be practical, it was hardly as respectable as his formal education. Much to the distress of her mother, Jess’s life and education had been nothing like what it was supposed to be.

  If Mama knew what Jess had done over the past decade, she’d faint.

  Mr. Thornbury hummed as he flipped another page. Then, with the sigh of a man about to hand over his last shilling to the debt collectors, he closed the book and handed it back to her.

  Would the man ever do what she expected him to? He had once convinced Lord Chemsford, the owner of the house and Jess’s employer, to rearrange his dinner schedule so that Mr. Thornbury could have time to inspect the serving platters in the kitchens in search of some rare form of pottery. Now he was going to pass up something that might be of vital importance to the history of art?

  “You aren’t going to help me?” Jess asked.

  “Do you take me for a fool, Miss . . . er, Mrs. . . . er, I say, what is your name?”

  “Jess. Or Cook, if you prefer.”

  He brushed that ridiculous flop of hair off his forehead as he slid the spectacles from the slope of his thin, pointed nose. Then he removed a handkerchief from his pocket and started to clean the lenses. “Is that what the other servants call you? Cook?”

  Actually, they tried not to call her anything if they could help it. Jess didn’t exactly court camaraderie. “What do you wish to say to me, Mr. Thornbury?”

  He sighed. “That book”—he pointed at the diary—“is from Verbonne.”

  Jess’s heart thudded a bit harder. Only years of experience allowed her to refrain from breathing hard and fidgeting in her seat. Instead, she tilted her head and waited for him to continue, ignoring that her lungs were burning with the desire to pull in more oxygen.

  He slid the spectacles back on and continued to stare at the book as if he could read it while it was closed. “Given the timing, it would seem your ancestor was intimately linked to, if not a part of, The Six. That’s all she wrote about in the passages I glimpsed.”

  The pounding of her heart grew as anxiety gave way to excitement. She had to allow her breathing to increase or risk passing out. This was new information. She didn’t know what to do with it because she had no idea who The Six were, but it was a place to start.

  Had they been part of a dangerous expedition? Perhaps a plot to assassinate the emperor and stop his overtaking the country? “Who were The Six?”

  “A group of artists. They studied under the master Aldric Fournier. His style, his perfectionism was unique. Many sought to study beneath him, but he refused them all until suddenly he came to England and started presenting the work of six apprentices. They became so good that it is sometimes close to impossible to distinguish the master from the student. Still, no one knew their names.”

  Artists? The stories from childhood, the hopes of a nation fighting for its sovereignty, her father’s last free act, his final request had been about a group of artists?

  How was that going to help her brother or her family legacy? Yes, Verbonne had always prided itself on being a center of culture and education, but that wasn’t enough to rebuild a nation, particularly not when other, more powerful parties were panting at the chance to carve the country up and absorb it.

  If anything, an increase of valuable art or knowledge would only make the area more desirable.

  Mr. Thornbury folded his fingers together and gave her that thin frown again. “They are some of the most valuable paintings in the world. I will not help you steal one.”

  A laugh burst from Jess. Sharp, dry, and crackling around the edges. “I assure you that a painting will not solve the problem. I was told this book held the path to the secret that would restore history. A painting cannot do that.”

  He lifted his brows until they were visible over the tops of his spectacles. “I once saw a man offer the owner of a Fournier masterpiece four hundred pounds. The owner would not hear of parting with it.”

  “Then both men are fools,” Jess bit out. This couldn’t possibly be about a painting. Even if funds were what was required, at the time Queen Marguerite had written this, the paintings would have been worth little or even nothing. Jess thrust the book back toward him. “You mumbled about a secret passage. What does that part say?”

  Grudgingly, Mr. Thornbury took the book back and turned to the page he’d been on before. “It says ‘the heart is a secret path to the head, though some would think it otherwise. Without understanding the passion of . . . ’ heart? Possibly love or emotion? The writing is a bit smudged.”

  “Heart will work. Please continue,” Jess whispered, an idea niggling at the back of her mind. She tried to relax, tried to stop her conscious thought and just listen for what wasn’t being said.

  Mr. Thornbury cleared his throat and continued. “‘Without understanding the passion of the heart, the head will never properly reign, the hand will never properly rule, and the land will dry up into chaos.’”

  Air whooshed from Jess’s lungs as she collapsed back into her seat. Childhood stories, legends, and bedtime tales. Had they been real? Had her father all along been planting in his children’s minds the information they would one day need to know? Had those tall tales of legendary loyalty been true?

  “Oh, grand-mère, what did you do?” Jess breathed out.

  Mr. Thornbury looked up. “This means something to you?”

  Other than the fact that another impertinent, strong, too-brave-for-her-own-good female was lurking somewhere up Jess’s family tree? Yes. It meant something. Jess swallowed and allowed her eyes to find his. The stakes had just become too great to ignore. Whatever it took to secure Mr. Thornbury’s help, she had to do it.

  “Yes,” she said, straightening her shoulders. “It means we aren’t looking for a painting.”

  Chapter Three

  Derek had never been very good at sports, mostly because he couldn’t care less whether or not he won, which tended to make his teammates a bit perturbed. In the classroom, though, and particularly in the library, he’d been a whirling bundle of unstoppable energy.

  Whatever drove other young men to succeed on the athletic field made Derek rabid for information. History and the way it manifested itself into life and art fascinated him. He couldn’t get enough of it. He delved and dug until the minute secrets of the past found light.

  The current secret in question, though, didn’t appear to have an answer buried in a dusty library tome, protected only by its forgotten presence. Instead, it was held tight by a woman. A woman who, until twenty minutes ago, lived to thwart him.

  He still didn’t know how he’d angered her, but from almost his first moment in the house, she’d held him in obvious dislike.

  Dislike or not, now she needed him, and the opportunity she was offering was going to plague him for the rest of his life if he walked away from it.

  The paintings of The Six, a group that wanted only to present the art and not themselves, had always intrigued him. He’d done as much research into them as he could, but there was pitifully little to learn. No names had ever been recorded, though a few had distinguishable habits, such as the one who tended to put a little flick at the end of his short, thin strokes.

  But the writer of the diary had known them.

  If Derek didn’t work with Jess, didn’t examine every page of that diary, he’d slowly go insane.

  “What does that passage mean to you?” He reread the sentences, trying to make sense of the cryptic statement.

  “What else does it say?”

  Derek pressed his lips together to keep from muttering to himself. That was how she intended for this to go? He was merely to translate and ask no questions? He hadn’t become the foremost expert on antiquities and art history by not asking questions.

  She wouldn’t be the first to assume his scholarly interests made him weak-willed, though. The question was whether it was more beneficial to go along
with it for now or stand his ground from the beginning.

  “Mr. Thornbury? What does it say?” Her lips twisted into a smirk. “You can read it, can’t you?”

  The decision was suddenly much easier—or at least his pride seemed to think it was—but Derek didn’t do anything without thinking it through.

  He closed the book with a snap, barely avoiding the desire to wince at the rough treatment of the old book, and folded his arms across his chest, casually tucking the book into his jacket beneath his arm. “I’ll work on it and get back to you.”

  The smirk, which had fallen somewhere between teasing and goading, fell into a displeased frown. “What?”

  “Unless you care to sit about while I work through the book. Or did you think I would translate on the go, so to speak, and sit here and read it to you?”

  “I can’t allow this to drag on for months,” she grumbled. “This is a matter of some urgency, Mr. Thornbury.”

  “Yes, yes. Lives at stake and such. I may be a historian, Miss, er, Jess, but I am not unaware of the present and the dangers it possesses. Nor am I ignorant of the fact that association can be just as deadly as intent. You’ve given me your word but not a bit of proof. Forgive me if our past encounters make me cautious.”

  Derek bit his lip to keep from grinning at his sanctimonious speech. Everything he’d said was true, but poking at the little cook was also a great deal of fun. He’d never been the type to cause trouble on a lark. Mostly he’d just stumbled into it—usually quite literally—and even then it was no more than a social blunder of some order.

  Riling Jess up was a challenge, though, one that required wit and brains and forced him to dodge one step ahead of her mentally. He always had enjoyed challenges of the mind.

  “You have one day.” Her teeth clicked together. “One day to determine something about the contents of the diary.”

  One day? He’d never be able to uncover the layers and subtexts and undertones of a significant portion in a single day.

  Then again, she wasn’t looking for that, was she? She only wanted the instructions, which might be even more difficult, given the pages he’d glanced at.