A Pursuit of Home

by Kristi Ann Hunter

  Even though she never hid in the same place twice, Derek never had much difficulty locating her. All he had to do was pinpoint the bulk of the current activity and then go in the other direction.

  Today she was in the portrait gallery on the opposite end of the palace from the ballroom, where the preparations for the coronation ball were taking place.

  “You know,” Derek said, trying to look casual as he strolled into the room, “this would go much faster if you would just take me with you when you disappear.”

  She threw him a ghost of a grin over her shoulder. “I’m just trying to give you something to do.”

  “Have you seen this place? There’s enough art here to keep me busy for years. I can’t believe it wasn’t pilfered during the war.”

  “My father and uncle hid most of it away in a secret vault underground. It’s behind where the dungeons used to be. Nicolas showed it to me a couple of days ago when he talked about making sure the palace was ready for the foreign dignitaries and leaders who will be arriving tomorrow.”

  Derek leaned against the wall, looking at her instead of any of the paintings. He’d been in here twice already, spending a great deal of time staring up at the portraits of Queen Jessamine and Queen Marguerite. Two women, long dead, who had somehow managed to change his life.

  He didn’t need to look up at them now, though. Instead his full attention was on the woman who’d had a much more direct hand in altering his future. Eventually he would leave this place, leave her, but he wouldn’t be the same man when he returned to England.

  “Are the dignitaries going to stay here?” Derek asked. The room he’d been given was functional but hardly impressive.

  Jess nodded. “Everything of quality has been gathered into one wing of the palace. The guests will be placed there.”

  “And where will you be?”

  “I don’t suppose miles away on a frigate returning to England is a good answer, is it?” she asked quietly.

  “Do you want it to be?”

  “I don’t know.” Her gaze dropped from the portraits to him. “He wants me to announce my engagement at the ball.”

  Derek nearly doubled over in pain as the words slammed into his gut. He’d known he loved her, but until that moment he’d convinced himself it was as one loved a friend or a sister, that he would be happy for her wherever life took her.

  He’d been lying to himself.

  “To whom?” he finally managed to choke out.

  “James Ascot. A distant cousin of sorts who’s apparently been living in Germany. Nicolas wants us to marry and act as ambassadors to England. He thinks my connections will smooth the way.”

  Jess’s voice was flat, but Derek’s heart felt flatter. Not only would she be married to someone else, but she’d be in England. Within reach but still as far away as the moon. “He’s not wrong.”

  “I know he’s not. England would welcome a friendly port here, one they don’t have to guard or manage. But Ascot’s been in Germany. What does he know of England—or even Verbonne, for that matter?”

  “What does anyone know of Verbonne?” Derek asked. “It’s a new country, strictly speaking. Your brother may be incorporating traditions and heritage, but he’ll be starting from scratch when it comes to governing.”

  Jess gave a dry laugh. “I’m afraid I won’t be much help there. I only know how to break the rules.”

  Derek hated seeing her like this. Cold. Pale. Tense. If he was going to have to rip his own heart out and leave her, he at least wanted to fool himself into thinking she had a chance to be happy. He wanted to remember her that way. Maybe, while he was still here, he could help her see that she could be content within these walls. It didn’t have to be all doldrums and tension.

  “Did you play here as a child?”

  Jess nodded, a hint of a true smile playing at her lips. “My governess liked to bring me here. She could claim she was teaching me about my heritage, but all she really did was sit in that chair and watch me run around.” Her grin grew a bit. “I had a lot of energy.”

  “I don’t doubt it.” Derek grinned in return.

  “What was your first painting?” she asked, looking up at the wall of portraits again but without the same weight about her as before.

  “It was called Baptism of the Lord. I used to look at it every Sunday while I pretended to listen to the sermon. The priest noticed and invited me to come in one day and give it a closer look. Then he started explaining what was happening in the painting, what would be happening to Jesus in the days following. I started listening to the sermons after that, but he let me come in during the week and showed me the other art around the church.”

  “Want to see the first place I ever hid from my governess?” She tossed him the smirk he had grown to find beautiful, and he knew he’d willingly follow her anywhere. He wouldn’t have any trouble questioning his loyalties. If she asked him to stay, he would.

  She wasn’t going to ask him, though, because he wasn’t what her family needed. Jess’s marriage wasn’t just going to be about her. If she was to announce it in mere days, it wasn’t about her at all. It was going to be about reestablishing this country.

  He still had today, though, and maybe a few days after that. He’d take them. Maybe when he returned home, he’d paint them. “I’d love to.” He gave her an answering grin. “Lead on.”

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Jess and Derek rejoined the rest of the palace inhabitants for luncheon, but it was a strained affair. She would have given almost anything to be back in the portrait gallery with Derek.

  She’d have given almost anything to be back in England, truth be told. Guilt turned the food she’d eaten into a rock in her stomach. Shouldn’t this feel like home now? Did it just need time?

  After luncheon, her brother approached her from the other side of the table. She’d seen precious little of him, even when she’d sought him out. On the rare occasion she was allowed into whatever room he was in, he did little more than send her a vague nod and continue about his business.

  Most of the time he spoke in Italian, obviously thinking she didn’t know the language, as she’d admitted to him that she’d needed Derek to translate the diary for her. That Nicolas didn’t want her to know about his plans after the coronation bothered her.

  So did his plans.

  He spoke often of removing the threat that was Richard Bucanan. Every time Jess heard the name she tried to remember where she’d heard it before. Had Lord Bradford said it? Had she heard it somewhere else?

  Beyond that, the tight control he intended to exert over the people was almost oppressive. Given what they had already suffered in their war-ravaged land, was taking even more from them the way to start a new country? Some of Nicolas’s advisors, the older ones, had spoken against his plan.

  Jess never saw them at another meal.

  “Jessamine,” her brother said, taking her arm.

  Jess sighed. He simply refused to use the shortened version of her name. “Yes, Nic?”

  He frowned but said nothing. Either he’d given up on having her address him by a formal title—or at least his full name—or he didn’t want to rehash the argument in front of others. “I’d like to speak with you in my office, please.”

  Jess’s eyebrows rose. “Of course.” Was he was finally going to talk to her, ask her where she’d been, what she’d been doing? He’d asked nothing beyond how she’d survived the invasion of the farm. His openness about his own story was as absent as his curiosity over hers. She’d learned more from Ryland than her own brother.

  They’d never been close, but didn’t it matter to him that all they had left was each other?

  Once the door shut behind them, Jess jumped in, hoping to have the conversation she’d been wanting to have for the past week. “I was so happy to hear you were alive. Has there been a search to see if any of the others—”

  “Mother and Father are dead. I saw the execution records. Our uncle’s family as well.”
He said the words coldly as he sat behind his desk.

  “Oh.” Jess lowered herself into a chair. “What about the servants and advisors? You survived by pretending to be one of them. Perhaps others did as well.”

  He shrugged. “If they make their way back here, I’ll gladly welcome them, but Jessamine, while you’ve been living coddled away in England, the rest of Europe has been ripped apart. You don’t understand how difficult it’s been.”

  While she’d been coddled in England? Jess gritted her teeth. This was about moving ahead, not reliving the past. “After the coronation—”

  “Ah yes,” Nicolas interrupted her again. “James Ascot will be arriving Saturday. I’d like you there to greet him. You’ll need to hurry your dress fitting along.”

  He’d brought her in here to talk about dresses and James Ascot? What about them as a family, what about the country? Jess frowned. “My dress fitting?”

  “Yes, for the ball. The dressmaker is waiting in your room now.”

  One of his advisors—she didn’t know his name because Nicolas had never seen fit to introduce her—entered the room. He glanced at Jess and began speaking in halting Italian.

  It was all she could do not to laugh when he mentioned the risk of dust affecting the coronation plans when he likely meant rain.

  In flawless Italian, Nicolas brushed the problem aside, saying, “I have no concern for the weather right now. I must get rid of the woman’s distraction.”

  He flashed Jess a wooden smile. “Pardon me, dear sister, but I have urgent business.”

  Of all the moments she’d overheard, Jess wanted to reveal her knowledge of Italian more than ever in that moment. She had no doubt that she was the woman and Derek was the distraction. If Nicolas so much as scratched Derek with his fingernail, she’d show him where he could stick the bowl she’d retrieved.

  So far nothing had gone like she’d hoped with this reunion. Nothing had been what she expected. Derek was the only light in her day. If that was taken away, what would she do?

  Jess was almost afraid to find out.

  If someone had told Derek a month ago that he would be in a place like this and wish he could visit with the people, well, one person, instead of inspecting the priceless treasures, he wouldn’t have believed it. Somehow, in that short span of time, everything he knew about life had changed.

  He liked it.

  While he still appreciated the world around him—and he really wanted to know if that painting was by Nathaniel Bacon—he liked the fullness Jess brought to him.

  The door behind him opened and he turned from the painting. Had Jess disappeared again already?

  It wasn’t the guard who had sought him out, though. It was her brother. Derek had seen him only at meals, and never had the man spoken to him. It was as if, in the soon-to-be king’s eyes, Derek did not exist. Or at least, he hadn’t. Derek was now quite obviously in the forefront of the ruler’s mind.

  Derek gave his most courtly bow. “Your Highness. May I be of assistance?”

  “You can pack your bags.” He looked Derek up and down. “Or leaving them behind may be more of a blessing. Perhaps in gratitude for your service we will provide you a new suit of clothing.” His eyes lifted to his hair. “And a trim. Either way, there is a ship leaving our port for England’s shores Sunday morning. You will be on it.”

  The coronation was Sunday morning. The ball was Saturday night, a beginning of the celebration that would end in the solemnity of a new king, a new beginning.

  And Derek was being uninvited. Though he hadn’t truly been invited in the first place.

  “Jessamine is needed here, and you are a distraction she does not need. She is grateful to you for your assistance.”

  The king’s words implied that Jess had sent her brother to do what she could not. That showed how little King Nicolas knew his sister now. Jess would never be so cowardly.

  That didn’t change the fact that the ruler of the country Derek was in wanted him gone.

  “I see,” Derek said, because he did see what was happening. This king wanted Jess to do his bidding, wanted to give her an order and have her follow it. Derek would wish him luck with that, but he didn’t feel the sentiment in the least. Jess should not be a political decoration, and she wouldn’t stand for being one long.

  Perhaps Derek could give Jess one last gift before he left. “May I offer you a piece of advice before I go?”

  “No.” The word was cold, succinct, and final.

  Perhaps the advice he’d give Jess, then, would be to turn her brother’s life into a veritable circus. “I’ll go say my good-byes to Jess.”

  “Jessamine is busy. There are final fittings to be made to her gown and then introductions to the arriving dignitaries. As I said, your services are no longer needed. She cannot afford the distraction.”

  Derek could fight back and argue with the man, but that wouldn’t get him anywhere. He would leave on that boat, but he would also see Jess before he did so.

  “I understand,” Derek said, being sure not to give voice to anything indicating agreement. Jess would let her brother think he was getting what he wanted and then go around him. Derek would do the same.

  “Good. The guard will escort you to the docks Sunday morning.”

  Derek watched the man go. What had he said Jess was doing? Final fittings for her gown? A gown that likely didn’t include a short jacket under which to hide her knives.

  He had time before he left. He could give her something to remember herself by. She didn’t have to reinvent herself to help her brother. After all she’d done for England as herself, her brother was foolish to ask her to change. If at the same time, Derek’s gift reminded her of him, well, he couldn’t say he’d find that disappointing in the least.

  Something was very wrong. There was an itch between Jess’s shoulder blades, which she normally considered a warning from her instincts that she’d noticed something but hadn’t understood it completely.

  The problem was that she didn’t know if the something wrong was going on around her or was simply her. She was already despising the dress she was wearing to tonight’s ball. It was heavy, ornate, and nothing like what she would have chosen herself. She hadn’t gotten to choose, though. Instead her brother wanted her swathed in three layers of skirts, the outer one so heavily embroidered it could stand up on its own.

  Unfortunately it wasn’t much worse than the dresses he’d insisted she wear to greet the people who had traveled to Verbonne. Well, the ones he greeted. She’d been told to smile and nod and stop fidgeting so much. Considering the only movement she’d been doing at the time was breathing, she had to assume he’d prefer one of Derek’s statues in her place.

  She knew what he’d done, knew he’d sent Derek away. What she didn’t know yet was what she was going to do about it.

  When a man with weak shoulders, dressed in the latest fashion, had come through the greeting line, Nicolas had introduced him only as her future husband.

  Jess had smiled, nodded, and left the room before going down to the kitchens, where she made Naples biscuits soaked in syrup. The servants gave her terrified glances, but no one said a word. A guard appeared in the door and stood there, watching her in similar tense silence.

  There were many factors to consider as she rolled dough and cut out biscuits. She examined every statement, considered every angle. If he weren’t her brother, what would she do with the information she had?

  When the biscuits were done, she nibbled on one, still thinking. It was only when she swallowed that she realized she’d baked as a form of comfort. It hadn’t been torturous or left her wracked with guilt.

  She picked up one of the biscuits and stared at it. Cooking had been her refuge at the farm as well; the tiny kitchen was the place she’d been happiest. It had only been when she was running from those memories that she’d hated the room. Had letting the bad memories come, and addressing them, allowed the good ones to linger?

  Grabbing a bowl
and a square of linen, Jess wrapped up the biscuits. The first time she’d met Derek, he’d complimented her on her Naples biscuits and then proceeded to tell her that adding syrup would make them better. He’d been right, but she’d thrown the first batch she made into the fire out of spite. Would he remember that?

  A young kitchen servant with wide eyes and brown hair stood to the side, and Jess called for her.

  “Yes, milady?”

  Jess frowned. She supposed she was a lady now. Did she have a title? Her father had been a duke, but what did that make her?

  Marriage material. A political bartering tool.

  She pushed the growing bitterness aside and focused on the biscuits. “I want you to find the man named Derek Thornbury. He’s a guest here, though he’ll have stayed out of the way.”

  “I know who he is, ma’am. We’ve been instructed to stay away from him.”

  Of course they had. “Well, I’m changing your instructions.”

  “But they came from the king, milady.”

  He wasn’t actually king yet. Jess couldn’t stop the unkind thought, but she didn’t voice it. Instead she asked, “What’s your name?”

  “Maria, ma’am.”

  This girl had been staring at Jess the entire time Jess had been in the kitchen—not in horror but in fascination. Jess knew a kindred spirit when she saw one. This girl knew the art of breaking a rule or two.

  “Ever wanted to be a lady’s maid, Maria?”

  The young girl’s eyes widened. “I work in the scullery.”

  “Not what I asked.”

  The girl nodded. “My mother taught me how to sew. I was going to be a seamstress, but her shop was burned.”

  Jess didn’t have to ask how the shop had burned. Outside the palace walls, it was obvious war had been here, even if Nicolas wanted it to look like the country had moved on. He was doing everything he could to make Verbonne look as splendid as it had once been, to prove it was a phoenix rising from the ashes.

  He was almost more concerned with the appearance of it than how it would actually happen. And that was what had been bothering her that she’d been unable to pin down until now.