A Pursuit of Home

by Kristi Ann Hunter

  “What does that have to do with Jess?” Derek couldn’t stop himself from asking, then wished he hadn’t, because the question drew not only the duke’s attention but everyone else’s.

  “Because Nicolas told everyone that she was in possession of the proof of his lineage. He said the queen had written a diary about her escape and where she’d hidden the heart of Verbonne, and it proved Nicolas is the heir of the last ruling monarch.” The duke slid his narrowed gaze from Derek back to Jess. “A diary I wasn’t aware existed.”

  “Hardly the point at the moment,” Jess murmured.

  “Debatable,” the duke answered. “He’s implied that you are holding the proof, which is supposedly some artifact of great value, but you won’t come out of hiding until he is safely on the throne and able to offer you stability. He’s talked this up so much that the other powers in this matter have told him to produce something of substance or step aside. The time limit they’ve given him is only a month away.

  “If someone else manages to produce the diary or some other convincing artifact other than the ones Napoleon stole, they’ll have a strong claim that they should control Verbonne and its port.”

  That certainly would make Jess a target. Derek swallowed and slid a hand over his side, where the weight of the diary in his jacket pocket suddenly felt much more significant.

  Everyone was silent for a moment, then the duke said, “You have questions.”

  “Yes,” Jess said in a near whisper. “Many.”

  “So do I.”

  Jess flattened her mouth into a grim line. “At the moment, the most important one is whether or not they know where I am.”

  “No. Even if someone knows who you are and that I didn’t actually find you in a French general’s trunk, you’d be difficult to trace. The War Office wasn’t told you came to work for me. The official record has you moving to the border of Scotland after you healed. The fact that someone is searching up there now is why I don’t have more information. I’ve been discreet in whom I’ve chosen to talk to. The man who saw you in Marlborough, though, wasn’t one of mine. He’s never been known to have qualms about selling to the highest bidder.”

  Jess nodded and straightened her spine before setting her cup on the table and staring down the duke with a coolness that matched his own. “Perhaps we should forgo the interrogation, then, and set about finding the painting.”

  One dark eyebrow lifted. “You don’t think the diary is the artifact in question?”

  “No.” Jess took a deep breath and let it out in a long rush. “I think it tells us where it’s hidden.”

  Derek wanted to grab Jess and shake her, to scream at the room in general that he had questions as well, and the main one consisted of what in the world was going on here. He wanted to toss the diary in Jess’s lap and walk out the door. He wanted to have never learned what little he had, because the seriousness before him indicated that the danger was very real.

  She’d said the fate of a country rested on it. She hadn’t been exaggerating.

  The duke’s gaze narrowed. “No more disappearing, Jess. You’re a woman of honor, and I’ll be having your word before we go another step. You will never disappear again. I didn’t save your life only for you to throw it away by being stubborn.”

  “You have my word,” Jess bit out. “But I’ll have a promise from you as well.”

  The duke, who looked far more comfortable with his threatening coldness than Jess did, took a sip of tea and lifted his eyebrows. “You may request one, of course, but you’ll not force a promise from me.” He set the cup aside. “And should your life or person be in danger, that promise becomes void.”

  Jess knotted the fingers of one hand together but otherwise remained still. “You have a daughter. A wife. A title. I want you to promise me that you will protect them before protecting me.”

  He gave a small, sharp nod.

  “I don’t mean mere physical protection,” Jess added.

  “I know,” the duke said quietly. “You don’t want me to participate in this little search of yours.”

  “If they manage to find my path, my association with you will be old and cold, just as I intended it to be. You will be watched but safe. They will be safe. Don’t jeopardize that.”

  Derek was very glad he was sitting down as his legs went numb. Jess had put a contingency plan in place three years ago? Clearly her past was a great deal larger than she was, and this task was a great deal more important than he’d considered.

  The duke watched Jess silently for another moment, then turned to his wife and held out his hand to her. She took it and squeezed before giving a small smile in return.

  Derek looked away from the intimate moment. There’d been nothing untoward about it, but it seemed like he’d just witnessed an entire private conversation. What would it be like to know someone that well? To be known that well? He’d always been something of an enigma, even among his friends and colleagues and especially his family. It hadn’t made him lonely, but it was rare that he was truly understood.

  “I’ll agree to stay out of it to a point,” the duke said.

  “Ryland,” Jess growled, adding one more brick to the crushing weight of questions in Derek’s mind. She was referring to the duke by his Christian name. How? Why?

  “I’ll stay here.” The duke held up both hands in a motion of surrender, even though it seemed very much like he was determining his own conditions. “But I want to help you. If I am in possession of one of these paintings you need to see, it stands to reason that the rest of them are in places as impossible to reach. I can open doors for you.”

  “They. Come. First,” Jess said, mouth flattened into a firm line and arms crossed over her chest. She was half the width of the duke and could maybe poke him in the shoulder if she reached high and stood on her toes, but she met him glare for glare.

  He gave a sharp nod. “They come first.”

  Jeffreys, who had been silent while steadily working his way through a plate of biscuits, said, “That’s it? A few glares and a promise and we’re going to forgive her for slipping away like a thief in the night?”

  “You have a better idea?” the duchess asked.

  “We should get an apology dinner or at least a tea,” the wiry man grumbled.

  “Make her pay her penance in the kitchen?” the duchess asked. “I do like the sound of that.”

  “Her coq au vin is fabulous,” Derek said, before remembering he intended to stay as silent as possible.

  Three shocked faces swung his direction while Jess stared up at the ceiling. “I thought you hated that dish,” she said.

  “It wasn’t hard to see that you stopped cooking anything I complimented.” It had been embarrassingly obvious, actually. He’d then begun grumbling about his favorite dishes so they appeared more often.

  “She’s cooked for you?” Jeffreys asked in clear astonishment.

  Derek rubbed one hand over his leg in discomfort as he looked around the room. The grim, serious expressions had all been replaced with curiosity. Hadn’t Jess been the cook here? Hadn’t it been the same friendly connection between master and servant that she had at Haven Manor?

  It would seem not. Then again, if he’d learned anything this morning it was that assuming he knew anything about Jess was dangerous. He cleared his throat. “She’s the cook for Chemsford’s estate.”

  The duke laughed. A deep, full laugh that had him bending forward to brace against his knees. “You’ve spent the past three years in a kitchen?”

  “Yes. No.” Jess sighed. “It’s complicated. Can we look for the painting now?”

  The duke was still grinning as he nodded. “Of course. Hopefully it’s here and not down at Marshington Abbey. What painting is it?”

  “We don’t know,” Jess grumbled, inspiring another chuckle from the duke.

  “Makes it harder,” he said.

  As the conversation was shifting back to the actual art, Derek felt a bit more confident in spea
king up. “We’re looking for a painting by a Verbonnian painter, one who was part of a group called The Six.”

  “So you’re looking for a painting, but you don’t know what it’s called, what it looks like, or even who painted it?” The duke looked from Jess to Derek and back again. “How in the world are we supposed to find that?”

  Jess beamed at Derek, nearly sending him into shock all over again. She’d never given him a smile like that before. He’d never seen her give anyone a smile like that. “We use him.”

  Chapter Eleven

  I can’t quite decide if I’m fascinated, bored, or questioning everything I ever thought about myself,” Ryland whispered to Jess as they strolled through yet another room in Montgomery House, watching Derek examine the paintings.

  Jess wanted to admonish him but she couldn’t, as she had been battling the same thing. Yes, she still found Derek’s wealth of knowledge and ability to know absolutely everything an incredible annoyance, but if she looked past that, his obsessive enthusiasm became just a bit . . . endearing. The fact that he hadn’t run screaming from the house after everything he’d heard in the drawing room probably had a little to do with her softening attitude.

  Several paces ahead of them, Derek motioned to yet another painting, telling Miranda about the artist and the circumstances being depicted. He hadn’t known every painting they’d passed, of course, but he’d known enough. Miranda made admiring, polite noises of interest as any well-trained lady would.

  That type of polite diplomacy was something Jess had never learned. Mama’s attempts to teach deportment and etiquette had been difficult to take seriously with thirteen people squeezed into a four-room cottage and a barn.

  “Do you think she’s actually listening?” Jess asked.

  Ryland winced. “Enough to subject me to a torturous discussion about it later tonight.”

  “Does that mean you should be listening so you can participate?” Jess really hoped not. If Ryland felt the need to close the gap growing between him and the art discussion, Jess would have to follow.

  “No. She’ll find it much more enjoyable if I have to pull answers from my imagination.”

  Jess laughed. “She’ll find it ten times more irritating, you mean.”

  He shrugged. “Then I’ll find it more enjoyable.”

  They walked along in silence until the group climbed the stairs to the first floor. Halfway up, Jess paused, staring at the wood grain of the polished banister railing. “How did my brother survive, Ryland? I saw that man’s face that night. I felt his anger. He had no intention of leaving anyone in my family alive.”

  “No, he didn’t.” Ryland guided Jess the rest of the way up the stairs but paused in the gallery at the top. “Somehow in the course of that evening, one of the servants was mistaken for Nicolas. We don’t know if he lived long enough to proclaim his innocence, but if he did, his captors didn’t believe him.”

  “So Nic became the servant?” Jess knew the hard work that came along with such a deception. At least she’d had the benefit of close relationships with those who’d employed her. How had her proud brother survived it?

  “Yes,” Ryland said. “A few of the servants were interrogated and then put to work—without pay or consideration, of course, but at least they had their lives. Nicolas had the presence of mind to continue the charade after his identity was misconstrued.”

  The words formed on Jess’s tongue to ask if Ryland knew if Ismelde had been one of those who lived, but she didn’t voice the question. It was better to assume the kind German cook had somehow survived than to have it confirmed that Jess was the only one still making the woman’s secret rye bread recipe.

  “War and time make people forgetful,” Ryland continued. “Eventually Nicolas found work at another estate. Real work. He disappeared until the war ended.”

  Jess frowned. It was a lovely story, one that inspired hope in the middle of the chaos war left behind, but it seemed almost too lovely. “How do they know it’s really him?”

  Ryland rubbed a hand along the back of his neck. “He has a documented birthmark and was questioned thoroughly when he came forward to claim the palace. I think in the end it was his ability to open the secret treasure vaults that convinced everyone.”

  “Not much of a secret anymore, then,” Jess muttered. She knew of the vault, hidden away beneath the floor somewhere in the throne room, but she’d never been shown it. She tried to tell herself it was because she’d been so young when they departed the palace, but she didn’t quite believe it. Her value had never been that great to the country.

  Until now, of course. Now she was the only person who could secure the throne her father, uncle, and grandfather had dreamed of redeeming.

  “Has he been looking for me?” Jess asked.

  “We’ve fallen a bit far behind,” Ryland said, taking her arm and continuing their walk down the corridor.

  “Ryland,” Jess said, irritation flaring. “I am not a child who needs coddling, nor an innocent who thinks the world is full of daisies and sunshine. What aren’t you telling me?”

  Ryland frowned. “We—that is, my contact—doesn’t think Nicolas actually believes you’re alive. There is no record of you from that night. It was assumed you’d died, and since we never told anyone who you really are, that assumption held. Your unconfirmed fate allowed him to make claims about you and buy some time. He’s been making gestures toward setting up a government but has also spent time scouring the palace.”

  “He’s looking for the diary,” she murmured, trying to keep her thoughts practical. Nicolas would have mourned her death long ago just as she had mourned his, assuming a single survival was an utter miracle. If she’d had an inkling that her brother might be alive, though, Jess would have done everything she could to find him.

  “He’s more likely looking for something that would pass for the artifact itself,” Ryland said. “He has a month left to produce what he claims is the key Verbonnian tradition and legend. He’s put such effort into convincing everyone of the importance of the land’s legends that if someone else can produce something related to them, they’ll probably be able to claim the throne.”

  Jess’s skin itched at the implications. Her entire life, there’d been someone else who wanted the throne and wanted it badly, claiming they were the true inheriting bloodline. If they were still alive, they would certainly attempt to claim it now.

  What if there was another guide, one that was less cryptic than the diary? Queen Marguerite hadn’t laid her clues in isolation. If those other persons were traveling the same path, searching the same areas, Jess’s anonymity and years of remaining unseen might not be enough to protect her.

  For that matter, someone else might actually know what was at the end of this hunt. The heart of Verbonne could be any number of things.

  Every answer she found just made this situation more complicated.

  Ryland stumbled to a halt as they turned a corner and found Derek studying the corner of a painting.

  “Is that it?” Ryland asked.

  Derek glanced at them and then back to the painting. Miranda’s look was longer and a great deal more accusatory.

  “No,” Derek said, “but it’s fascinating. I’ve never seen this signature before. I want to look it up later.”

  “Shouldn’t he be in a hurry to find this painting?” Ryland asked Jess in a rough whisper.

  “Trust me,” Jess answered on a sigh. “For him this is quick.”

  A low chuckle shook Ryland’s shoulders. “Given all the times you foiled my plans by barreling in and doing it your own way, it’s rather lovely to see it happen to you.”

  Jess coughed. “Since when do you use the word lovely?”

  “Since I became a stodgy old duke, settled in his business and homes, and, apparently, incapable of handling matters of secrecy and danger. I had no idea a man could fall so far in such a short amount of time.”

  Jess fought the urge to groan, knowing any reaction from
her would just encourage him to air his soreness over her betrayal—or what he saw as her betrayal. She had meant it as a gift and still considered it as such, particularly given recent events. Her danger and risk had been removed from his family. It had also been removed from Ryland’s control, which was, of course, the thing he couldn’t quite stomach.

  Still, it wouldn’t hurt him to appreciate her intentions.

  Finally, Derek moved on, gazing longingly at a few other paintings before moving to the next room.

  “Why do you have so much art?” Jess grumbled, hoping to move on from the discussion of the past.

  “You think I chose any of this?” Ryland scoffed. “I couldn’t care less what the walls of my houses look like.” His silver-grey eyes shot Jess an assessing look. “What have you told him?”

  “Less than you did.” Jess wasn’t looking forward to explaining away everything that had been said in the drawing room. The visit wasn’t over yet either.

  “Ah well.” Ryland gave an exaggerated sigh. “I suppose it’s easy to forget a person’s preferences if you don’t see them for three years.”

  “It’s done, Ryland,” Jess said flatly. She refused to consider how it could have been different. If she opened the door to guilt and shame and what could have been, the ensuing avalanche would bury her alive. She needed a subject enticing enough to distract Ryland. “How did you find me?”

  “Billings saw you at Chemsford’s wedding.”

  Jess thought she’d caught sight of him in the back of the church, but she’d hoped he wouldn’t recognize her, since the last time they’d seen each other she’d been spouting German and working in a tavern. To say Billings was willing to sell information to the highest bidder, though, was an understatement. “I can’t believe you trusted Billings enough to tell him you were looking for me.”