A Pursuit of Home

by Kristi Ann Hunter

  “Amazing. Where did you find it? I don’t think anyone has used anything like it in a hundred years.”

  Jess knelt to extract her other foot. “Unutilized but not forgotten,” she said as she stood with the other shoe and the dress in her arms. “Should anyone remember me later, they’ll never be able to recognize me.”

  Derek glanced down at his undisguised self. He’d even worn his normal spectacles. “What about me?”

  “Unless the man is an arbiter of fashion or a man of political prowess, no one tends to notice.”

  More shifting and tugging drew Derek’s gaze to a wide leather strap that circled her waist. Jess wriggled until the satchel that had been hanging across the back of her legs, providing additional shape to the dress, swung free.

  Derek could only stare as she bundled the dress into a small folded rectangle and shoved it and the shoes into the bag.

  After flipping the flap closed and securing the satchel so that the strap crossed her chest, she rose and started walking. “Come along.”

  Without a word, Derek fell in behind her as she cut through the dark garden to a tall fence. She shoved one boot into a small shrub, turning it until it looked secure. Then Jess grabbed the top of the fence before pulling herself up. She glanced down at him, a white grin glinting in the moonlight. “Think you can follow?”

  Given the fact that his fingers could graze the top of the fence while still standing flat-footed, he was fairly certain, with the aid of the same sturdy bush, he could make it to the top.

  Still, he waited until she’d gone all the way over in case his attempt was less than graceful.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  The chopines had been useful on more than one occasion as they lifted Jess to an average and unmemorable height, but walking with six-inch blocks strapped to her feet was no easy task, and she was more than happy to have her feet back on solid ground.

  Surprising Derek with her new height had been fun, though.

  It was a good thing Jess didn’t ever give precious space in her mind to regretting her decisions, because if the struggle she’d had when debating whether to send Derek the clothes was any indication, the second thoughts she’d be having now would have been debilitating.

  Especially as he hoisted himself inelegantly over the top of the fence and rolled over to fall to the ground at her side.

  Even though it resembled a fish flopping out of a boat, the man managed to land somewhat on his feet and without calling out, so Jess would consider it well done. Not that she’d have said anything either way. Derek was keeping up with her despite everything, and, while she’d never admit it aloud, she was rather glad to have him with her tonight.

  The house and the garden were both dark, and the uproar from the party covered any slight noise they made as they moved to the house. So far, everything had gone according to plan, if not better. The receiving line had been short but not empty, allowing them to move through quickly but with an excuse not to linger.

  If they found an unlocked door on the back side of the house, Jess would have to admit that maybe, just maybe, God wanted Jess’s forced journey into facing her past to be as painless as possible. Ryland had said as much when Jess went to his house to collect the dress. At the time she hadn’t given the statement much merit.

  Though the servants’ doors were likely unlocked, Jess avoided approaching that portion of the house. Her sources said the ambassador spent every evening at the club, particularly if his neighbors were entertaining. When the master was away, the mice tended to sleep or head out to their own enjoyments, so the main floors should be clear of people.

  Heading up the stairs to the back terrace, she peered into every visible nook and cranny. If any staff were there, they were masterful at remaining still. Derek remained close behind her, a steady, solid presence she could sense, even though he seemed to be giving her space to maneuver.

  Starting in the darkest terrace corner, she checked doors and windows, looking for easy access. When one of the windows gave way beneath her questing fingers, that familiar combination of excitement, trepidation, and wonder slid through her. Even as she’d grown to hate everything about the war and her part in it, the success of this sort of challenge had still given her a thrill.

  She pulled the window the rest of the way open. It wasn’t as good as a door, but it saved the time required to pick a lock.

  With one hand she braced herself on the window frame while the other hauled up her skirt in preparation for stepping through. A choked cough sounded behind her. It was the first noise Derek had made since climbing the fence, and Jess was immediately at attention. Had he heard someone? Seen something?

  Spinning around, one hand went to the knife tucked into a sheath near her waist, but her companion wasn’t staring down some surprise adversary. No, he was staring at the exposed portion of her legs.

  Jess rolled her eyes and said in a toneless whisper, “You’ve seen them before.”

  “In trousers,” he hissed back, not quite as low as she had been. “And I tried not to look.”

  “Then don’t look now.”

  He cast his gaze skyward as she turned back to the window with a shake of her head, unsure why her chest suddenly felt a bit tighter and breathing was a bit more difficult. Surely she wasn’t bothered by her exposed legs. It wasn’t the first time she’d had to be a little bit less than ladylike in order to get through a tight space. Still, she draped the skirt a bit more over her outside leg as she climbed through the window.

  “Come along.”

  The window had dumped them into a music room, ornate and gaudy, but not holding anything she thought was a Verbonnian painting, though she didn’t completely trust herself to know one when she saw it.

  Grunting from behind her indicated her companion, despite his lack of inhibiting skirts, was finding the climb through the window a bit difficult. She allowed another grin to fade into the darkness around her as his muttered oof preceded the dull thud of his knee landing on the carpet-covered floor.

  She peeked over her shoulder. “If you’d like we could just go around front and use the knocker.”

  He pushed to his feet and straightened his spectacles. The lapels of his evening jacket were still askew, but he didn’t seem to notice. “That won’t be necessary.”

  No running footsteps or inquisitive calls sounded through the house, so the soft thud had likely not been heard. “I don’t suppose you’ve a notion of where he keeps the painting?”

  “Auction houses don’t exactly ask for an intention of display.” He kept his voice quiet, but there was no question that the tone had grown hard and biting. She was starting to influence him. Was that good or bad? “We’ll just have to go room by room like we’ve done everywhere else.”

  She grunted, acknowledging that her question had been a bit ridiculous. The petty urge to strike back at him refused to be doused. “No stopping to look at anything else. If it isn’t our painting, we move on.”

  After exiting the music room, Jess felt the weight of the responsibility of keeping Derek safe.

  He crowded close behind her, and the smell of soap that she’d been able to ignore in the carriage and garden enveloped her. The fact that he’d taken time to clean up before dressing in his disguise twisted something inside her. Had he done it for her? Eventually, she knew she would stop smelling it, but until she reached that point, it was distracting indeed.

  Room by room, she tested for weak floors and paused at doorways to listen and look before moving slowly along. The ground floor was filled with large public rooms that could be quickly searched. While treasures abounded, some of which Jess had a suspicion might have been obtained through less-than-honorable means, the painting they sought wasn’t among them.

  That meant they were going to need to go up the stairs. Their imminent danger increased, while their options for escape decreased. Jess’s heart steadied into a slow thump. Her breathing settled into a silent rhythm.

  And a male han
d wrapped around her elbow and clung tightly.

  Even as she cast her eyes to the ceiling in exasperation, she felt pleasure that he trusted her enough to keep going. There was no hesitation in his grip, just a desire to keep them close. Hoping he remembered what she’d taught him about stairs, she headed up.

  Three rooms later, in a private parlor considerably less ostentatious than the drawing room below, they found it.

  Jess didn’t need Derek’s sudden squeeze to know, but she was glad she hadn’t thought to slip in by herself and abscond with it. The painting was enormous, almost as wide as she was tall. None of the other paintings had been this large. One of The Six must have been more ambitious than the others.

  Leaving Derek in front of the painting, Jess crossed the room to open the drapes. They’d been walking through the dark house without a candle, but now simply seeing shadows and shapes wasn’t going to be enough.

  Moonlight brightened the room into a silvery haze.

  Derek examined the painting closely, but Jess didn’t join him. From where she stood she couldn’t make out any details but could see the basic scene, see the enormous number of people in it—children, mothers, fathers.

  “Do you recognize anything?” Derek asked in a hushed, awed tone. “I think we’ve been missing something in the other paintings, something that relates back to Verbonne.”

  It made sense. Which meant Jess was the only chance they had of seeing beyond what was mentioned in the diary. She should cross the room and look at the painting, try to remember her childhood.

  She didn’t want to remember, didn’t want to make this mission any more personal than it already was. When things were personal, people tended to make very costly mistakes.

  But not looking would be the height of cowardice. That would not—could not—be part of who Jess was. Her bravery and resiliency were all she had, so she stepped across the room and let her eyes roam over the canvas. The figures were the place she wanted to look the least, so that was where she forced her gaze to go.

  A group of finely dressed people huddled beneath a tree as rain pummeled the makings of a pleasant picnic outing. Other figures ran about in the background, presumably the servants trying to gather the items. There was nothing remarkably notable about the setting. Trees and a field. Faded objects in the distance that looked like possibly a lake and a house might have told her more, but it was too dim to really see them.

  That was going to be a problem. Hadn’t they determined that part of the secret to the paintings was knowing where they were set?

  “I think—”

  Jess clamped a hand over Derek’s mouth as something else pricked at her senses. She held her breath and then heard it again. Movement. People coming up the stairs, unconcerned by whether they were heard or not and therefore likely to be there by invitation.

  She glanced about the room, looking for a means of escape. The door they’d entered wasn’t an option. It opened directly onto the landing, near the top of the stairs. There were two other doors in the room, though, both of which headed to rooms away from the landing and therefore away from the people. Hopefully they could find the servants’ stairs from there.

  She grabbed Derek’s arm and jerked him toward the closest of the two doors, watching behind her as she opened the door and pushed him through before following him and pulling it shut.

  Her nose smashed into Derek’s back, and he gave a quiet grunt.

  “Unless you’ve an axe for me to use, I can’t go any farther,” Derek whispered. “And I feel I should warn you, before you produce an axe from some random corner of your person, I haven’t the ability to chop wood silently.”

  Jess winced. Short sentences. Didn’t the man know anything? In times of danger, distribute necessary information in as few words as possible. Although in this case, she didn’t even need words to know what the problem was.

  He shifted around until he faced her, and even though she craned her neck, she couldn’t see a thing. Deep, dark blackness pressed in on them.

  She’d hauled them both into a closet.

  They were quite effectively trapped.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  A spike of anxiousness shot through her but was immediately quelled by the deep breath she took. The mind-numbing scent of Derek’s soap rushed in with her calming breath. She huffed it out in frustration. That was not what she needed right now.

  Focus. Assess. Plan. She’d been in worse situations and managed to get out. She was the girl who didn’t get caught. Ever.

  The best scenario at the moment would be that the approaching person was a footman or butler, taking a trip about the house. After a few minutes of hiding, they’d be able to slip out of the closet, examine the painting, and leave as planned.

  On the other side of the possibility scale was the chance that Lord Bradford had sent word to London—or worse, come himself—to ensure she didn’t get her eyes on any more paintings. All it would take was one noise, one opening of a door, and Jess and Derek could find themselves wrapped in ropes and enduring torture by morning.

  Jess never liked to risk the worst possibility.

  She pushed farther into Derek’s half-turned body and slid her hand along the doorframe to ensure it had latched behind her. It had; the door was as secure as it could possibly be. The only problem was that there was no latch on the inside. Getting out of this closet was going to be an interesting endeavor.

  Almost as interesting as pondering why in the world a parlor had a closet in the first place.

  But nowhere near as interesting as what she would need to do if the door were opened from the outside. If they survived the next few minutes, she’d find a way to open the door. That was the least of her problems.

  She forced her breathing to remain slow, steady, and silent to combat the pounding of her heart and the burn that tightened her muscles. Hiding wasn’t nearly as enjoyable a part of spying as breaking in was. As long as they stayed quiet, there was no reason for anyone to look for them in this closet.

  Unless, of course, they already suspected she and Derek were in the house.

  Pushing her shoulder closer to Derek’s chest, she slipped a hand up to cover his mouth, just in case he was tempted to do more long-winded whispering.

  A sharp nip on her palm had her jerking her hand back to her side in silent outrage. She tilted her head up, trying to squint through the dark.

  It was useless. She couldn’t see a thing, but somehow she felt his irritation at her, could almost picture him glaring at her. The man had bitten her, and he had the audacity to glare as if she’d done something wrong?

  Her breath huffed out of her in a muted growl, causing Derek to shift and press his hand against her mouth. Long fingers pressed lightly into her chin and cheek. She turned more fully toward him, difficult in the confined space and dangerous because one wrong move could send whatever was stacked in here toppling to the floor.

  A sound beyond the closet door made her still her movements and remember her priorities. Get out alive. Then blister the art scholar’s ears until they fell off.

  There was too much noise beyond the door for a single person. So much for it being the butler making his rounds.

  Light slid around the edges of the door, making Jess feel vulnerable, even though the closet would look no different to the room beyond than it had a moment earlier.

  The group spoke in rapid French, with multiple conversations making it difficult for Jess to listen effectively. If this were a social call, she and Derek were going to be in this closet for a very long time.

  If it weren’t a social call, there might be much to be learned if she could simply distinguish the voices from one another and follow the most important conversation.

  Jess’s muscles loosened a bit as laughter covered some of the conversation. The group was at ease, relaxed, and unconcerned, not looking for suspected interlopers.

  All she had to do was wait it out.

  With a male hand slapped over her mouth.<
br />
  The fact that she couldn’t afford to fight with him about it was irritating. Not quite as irritating, though, as the fact that her minute relaxation about the events going on outside the closet heightened her awareness of what was going on inside the closet.

  It wasn’t the first time she’d been pressed up against a male body in the name of self-preservation, though shoving herself into confined spaces was something she usually did on her own. Being little had its advantages. She’d hidden beneath desks, under beds, on top of wardrobes, and even inside walls.

  This was different. She’d done her best to pretend their relationship was the same as it had always been, but the conversation in that inn and the night in the hayloft had changed everything.

  Now, despite the fact that keeping them safe was her responsibility, she had the ridiculous urge to snuggle into him, embed herself beneath his arm, curl up against his warmth, and indulge in whispered conversations about everything and nothing.

  It was nonsense.

  As much as she wanted to call it mere relief at knowing she wasn’t about to die, since the conversation outside revolved around possibly attending the party next door and whether a particular lady would be in attendance, she knew better.

  She’d felt attraction before, but until now it had always occurred at the initial meeting. Even Ryland had inspired a few jittery insides until she’d gotten to know him. It hadn’t taken long for the idea of anything other than friendship to make her shudder. Attraction had been the last thing she’d felt upon meeting Derek, though.

  So why would it show up now, months later?

  Derek shifted slightly and brought his mouth to her ear to whisper in low, toneless words, “What are they saying?”

  Her answer was stopped by the fact that his hand was still pressed over her mouth. She considered biting his palm, but he’d done that to her, and she didn’t want to mimic him. He was probably expecting such an assault.