A Pursuit of Home

by Kristi Ann Hunter

  Suddenly, the child’s head tipped back and pale amber eyes beneath golden eyebrows laughed up at him.

  The satchels nearly hit the ground as Derek’s jaw and grip both slackened.

  Not limping about London, then. Closer inspection revealed a few similarities to the old woman she’d been at the inn. The knit fingerless gloves remained, though the shawl had been replaced by an overlarge cap capable of covering the entirety of her blond hair and delicate ears.

  The homespun skirt was now wrapped around a lump he had to assume was her smaller satchel, making it look like a crudely knotted bag. Her legs were encased in threadbare trousers.

  Knowing it was her in the drab items of clothing meant the last thing he should be noticing was the condition and placement of the hem.

  Derek tried not to blush even as he averted his gaze, imagining Pieter Bruegel the Elder’s Hunters in the Snow in an attempt to escape the heat rising up his neck. Jess didn’t need anything else to mock him about.

  Her ability to transform so completely was both impressive and terrifying. When she decided she no longer wanted him to know her whereabouts, she would disappear. He’d probably end up cluelessly opening the door for her and tipping his hat as she departed.

  Despite his growing misgivings about his role in all this, there was nothing for him to do at the moment except play along.

  “Yes,” he said and cleared his throat before setting a satchel down between his feet and extracting a coin from his pocket. “Can you direct me to, er, Lord Chemsford’s townhome?”

  He placed the coin in her outstretched hand as she grinned at him.

  Really grinned. Not a smirk or a sardonic smile, but a true, amused grin. It was stunning to behold, so stunning he couldn’t find it in himself to care that her amusement was at his expense. The embarrassment was worth it to pull such a rare thing from hiding.

  She rolled her eyes, still grinning, and pocketed the coin.

  In her trousers.

  That exposed her legs.

  Another lovely rare sighting that had, until this moment, been hidden.

  Derek fixed his gaze on her cap, where he intended to keep it as she led him through London. A journey that would hopefully be short. “Should I flag down a hack?”

  Her grin faded into an amused smirk as she tossed her sack over her shoulder and started walking. “I know a shortcut.”

  Snatching up his satchel, he followed her, gaze glued to the huge brown cap.

  Even when she turned down a dirty alley, he followed her, though with a bit of trepidation. He couldn’t keep his gaze on her cap and watch where he stepped at the same time.

  They passed a set of mews that were well past the need of cleaning and then stepped out onto a street that felt a world away from where they’d been.

  Here, neat terrace houses lined the road, well-dressed people walked along the pavement, and the traffic consisted of horse-drawn carriages instead of wagons and carts. It was everything that was polite society.

  Not three minutes ago he’d been skirting a dung heap. That was London.

  “It won’t be long now, guv’nor.” She grinned at him over her shoulder before continuing. Just as with the old woman, the disguise was more than a change of clothing. She’d changed the way she walked and the tone and rhythm of her voice. It was a complete transformation.

  Two streets later, she stopped in front of a stately terrace house, three windows wide and four windows tall.

  “Go up and knock,” she whispered in her normal voice. “I’ll go around to the back and come in through the kitchens.”

  Derek wanted to protest. At this point the disguises were a bit ridiculous, weren’t they? Did she truly think someone was watching Lord Chemsford’s house and would think the grubby lad was really Jess if she went in the front door?

  Unless he wanted to bodily haul her up the three stairs and hold her while he waited for someone to answer the door, Derek really didn’t have a choice. Her appearance as a poor lad might not draw a great deal of notice, but him seemingly abducting her would.

  Besides, at some point one of them was going to have to trust the other. There was no chance she was going to be the first.

  He turned to acknowledge her instructions, but she was already gone. With a shake of his head, he climbed the stairs and knocked.

  The door was answered immediately.

  Even though Derek knocked on the doors of aristocratic homes with regularity and William, Marquis of Chemsford, was someone he counted as a friend, this moment always made his mouth go a bit dry. He’d been raised the son of a gentleman, of decent society, but certainly not the type to rub shoulders with the ton.

  Yet here he was. Knocking on the door of a marquis and expecting to be allowed entrance. It never ceased to strike a bit of fear and excitement in his belly.

  He cleared his throat and extended his card. “Mr. Thornbury, here to see Lord Chemsford. I’ve a message from his wife.”

  The butler ushered him into the front parlor and disappeared up the stairs.

  Derek hadn’t even had time to stow the satchels in the corner before William appeared at the door, chest heaving as he gasped, “Is everything well? Daphne?”

  “Yes, yes,” Derek rushed to assure him, wishing he’d thought to include that comfort in his initial sentence to the butler. “Your wife is well. She asked me to give you this.”

  He slid a folded and sealed paper from his pocket, knuckle brushing the increasingly troublesome diary, and passed it over to the marquis. “I haven’t read it, of course, but I believe she might have explained my presence here better than I could.”

  At first, Derek had assumed he was simply the messenger of private words of love and devotion. The way the day had gone, he wasn’t so sure anymore.

  Lady Chemsford and her cook had worked together, a well-known fact around Haven Manor. It was even more well known that they were still friends. Until now, he hadn’t given much thought to the fact that such a relationship meant Lady Chemsford probably knew a great deal more about Jess than Derek did.

  Given William’s lack of surprise as he read, he was aware of Jess’s proclivities as well. Or the letter wasn’t about Derek and Jess at all.

  “By the by,” Derek said, with a nod toward the door, “Jess said she’d be coming around through the kitchens. I have no idea what she’ll look like. So far today she’s been an old woman and a grubby street child.”

  William glanced up as if gauging Derek’s seriousness. “She really does that?”

  Derek nodded. William’s lack of surprise meant either Jess had enacted living theater at Haven Manor prior to Derek’s arrival or something else in her past or character made the skill make sense.

  For the first time in recent memory, Derek wished he possessed the ability to ask people personal questions. Normally, he didn’t care to know what someone didn’t willingly share.

  His life was decidedly not normal at present.

  Eyes on the letter, William walked to the bellpull.

  A footman appeared before the pull’s tassel had settled.

  “Have whoever knocks on the kitchen door brought up here immediately,” William said.

  A slight wrinkle marred the footman’s forehead for a moment but soon smoothed back into a stoic, bland expression. He nodded and left.

  Derek shook his head. “Does that ever give you airs?”

  William looked up from the paper. “What?”

  “That.” Derek nodded toward the door. “Having everyone take your word as law, never to be questioned, never to be called out as wrong.”

  “Not here so much as it does at the country houses.” William finished reading the letter and gave a small nod before tucking it into his pocket. “I took Daphne to my childhood home, Dawnview Hall, after our wedding. By the time we left, the servants had taken to asking my valet if I was ill, I’d begun explaining my requests so much.”

  He rubbed his hand across the back of his neck as he looked around the
parlor, decorated in dark, sedate colors and simple, elegant furniture. “Daphne hasn’t been here yet. I never spent much time here growing up either. It still feels like I’m walking around in my father’s home. Most of the servants worked for him.”

  Having a former housekeeper for a wife would likely call a lifetime of habits into question, even if the woman had been born to the same respectable level of society Derek had been raised in.

  Derek had assumed that Jess’s background was similar to Lady Chemsford’s. Given her antics today, he had to adjust his thinking. In this case, adjust meant throw out everything he thought he knew.

  As if his thoughts had conjured her, Jess appeared in the parlor door, looking exactly as he was accustomed to seeing her. A nondescript homespun dress and spencer jacket, plain fabric bonnet, and not a bit of dirt on her porcelain face.

  Not caring if it was rude, Derek groped his way to a chair and sat down. This was why he so very much preferred ancient history. History didn’t change on a man.

  Chapter Seven

  Jess knew how to look relaxed. A small smile, shoulders down and slightly rolled forward, elbows slack, and fingers lightly clasped. She’d gone through the mental checklist just before entering the room, ensuring the men would think her at complete ease, even though she was anything but.

  “We need you to give Mr. Thornbury permission to seek out a piece of art on your behalf,” Jess said. She braced herself for an interruption from Mr. Thornbury, but given his current position inelegantly flopped over a chair, skin looking more than a little pale, she was safe from him claiming control of anything.

  “I need more art?” Lord Chemsford asked. “I have more than I know what to do with right now.” He gestured toward Derek. “I had to hire someone just to determine what all I have.”

  “You don’t have to actually buy it.” Jess was equal parts amused and exasperated. Amusement better served her right now, so she let it tilt one side of her mouth upward. “You only need pretend like you might.”

  “I suppose I could do that.” He pulled a piece of paper from his pocket and waved it about. “Daphne says you may have found your family?”

  Jess groaned. “Daph has a loose tongue.”

  It was true what they said: three can keep a secret if two of them were dead. Since Jess was a little too fond of Daphne to kill her and she wasn’t entirely sure where Kit was, she might as well accept that at least part of her secret past wasn’t secret anymore.

  The question was just how much her two friends had told their husbands about Jess. And how much had Lord Chemsford told Mr. Thornbury?

  “Your family was lost?” Mr. Thornbury asked, straightening a bit in his chair.

  “Her family is dead,” Lord Chemsford responded. “At least she thought they were.”

  “Yes, I thought my family dead.” Volunteering a few facts might stem the curiosity. “Most of them are, as far as I know. If even one of them is alive, though, that changes everything.” She took a deep breath and looked at Mr. Thornbury. “That’s why I need your help.”

  It was becoming slightly less painful to say those words, even though the more she allowed him to do, the more beholden she became. She didn’t like owing people. It left her under their control, at their mercy. Her arms tightened over her chest and her chin lifted the slightest bit as she stared down the men.

  The color was back in Mr. Thornbury’s face, and that little crease he got on his forehead before asking a question was starting to form.

  There was a good possibility his question would go in a direction she didn’t prefer, so she gave a bit more. “If my family is alive, there is likely someone out there who wants to change that. I’d rather not lose them again.”

  She opened her eyes wide, pushing until the strain caused her lashes to tremble a bit. It made her look vulnerable and on the verge of crying. That form of manipulation had always made her feel a bit ill, but it had seemed to work for the children fairly often when they wanted something from Daphne.

  Jess blinked, surprised to feel a genuine burn at the edge of her eyes. It had been ages since she’d cried. Lifetimes. But the memories being dredged up in her mind were from a time when crying had been allowed—in private, anyway. “Their only hope is that I uncover the secret of that diary.”

  Mr. Thornbury’s mouth opened and then snapped shut. The line between his brows smoothed. “I’ll visit the museum tomorrow.”

  “I’ll go with you,” Chemsford offered. “Perhaps my presence will lend credence to your request.”

  The burn at the edge of her eyes had been bad enough. The strange ache sliding along her breastbone was worse. Jess resisted the urge to rub a hand against the sting, knowing it wouldn’t do any good. It wasn’t truly there.

  She’d felt it before, whenever she encountered someone with the potential to send her life spiraling in another direction. It wasn’t any sort of mystic premonition, but something was happening in this room, something she saw but couldn’t quite recognize, that her mind considered a threat to her current life.

  Since Chemsford had never caused her any distress, that something had to be Mr. Thornbury, the one man she needed if this mission was going to be a success. Keeping him at arm’s length was more imperative than ever.

  The chamber Derek was shown into was vastly different from the one he’d been residing in at Haven Manor. Everything about this room had been designed to impress and give comfort to the occupant. He ignored the cozy chairs and comfortable bedding for the solace of pacing. The busyness and opulence felt unsettling instead of restful.

  Or perhaps that was simply the situation.

  Tomorrow he was going to seek out an old friend—a professional acquaintance, really. He was going to actively involve himself in this scheme of Jess’s. No longer would he be able to claim he’d been a mere bystander. If he did this . . . if he involved himself in the diary’s treasure hunt . . . if he accepted the sense of urgency that had propelled Jess to do everything she’d done in the past few days . . .

  His thoughts stumbled to a halt as he realized that was the tipping point for him.

  Jess.

  He’d seen her trembling in the drawing room, seen the emotion in her eyes. Mentioning her family had driven away that irritated, bored anger he was so accustomed to seeing on her face.

  This wasn’t about the diary anymore. It was about her.

  Derek didn’t know how to handle a her. She was alive and breathing, with life still ahead of her. What direction would that life take if he succeeded?

  He swallowed around a suddenly thick throat. What would happen if he failed? If they failed? Because they were a they now, whether she realized it or not. She may think he was simply going to hand over the information he learned and let her scamper away, but he was invested now, putting his personal and professional convictions on the line. They were partners.

  Derek blinked and stumbled to a halt. He hadn’t consciously chosen to entwine his life and immediate fate with Jess’s, but the idea was firmly rooted in his mind now and refused to be reconsidered.

  All that remained was convincing Jess it had been her idea.

  It took both William’s title and Derek’s reputation to gain them entrance to the British Institution in Pall Mall. The gallery walls of the prestigious museum were covered in the enormous paintings of foreign masters. Only the resolve from the previous night allowed Derek to walk past them with a mere glance, keeping the objective in the forefront of his mind.

  William sighed and shifted his shoulders.

  “Try to look a bit impressed,” Derek whispered, punctuating it with a nudge from his elbow. “We’re supposedly here because of your obsession with art.”

  “Right,” William murmured. He clasped his hands behind his back, tilted his head, and gave a low, thoughtful hum as he gazed at a nearby painting.

  Derek resisted the urge to chuckle as he continued the search for his former schoolmate and colleague. They found him in the central exhibition hall,
examining the work of one of the resident student painters.

  “Mr. Cathers,” Derek said, injecting his tone with a note of friendship while maintaining the somberness a room with this much beauty required. “It’s been much too long.”

  The short, portly man turned his head, and a large smile stretched across his face as he extended his hand. “Mr. Thornbury. I had no idea you were in London. What brings you to the Institution?”

  Mr. Cathers led Derek and William a step closer to the center of the room as a woman entered with a small easel and a bag of supplies. She set up her easel among the other students lining the room, using the inspiration of the painters they admired to perfect their own work.

  Derek had to fight a pang of jealousy as those men and women worked steadily away, the low swish of brush and paint on canvas filling the room with as much gentle ambience as the sunlight pouring through the ceiling glass. There had been a time when he’d aspired to be among their ranks, but his paintings had always been lacking something.

  “Ah,” Mr. Cathers said, nodding as he looked toward the wall that had captured Derek’s attention. The woman was setting up her small workspace beneath an exceptionally large Tintoretto painting. “You couldn’t stay away from our Italian masters, could you? They are spectacular. Can I show you around?”

  As much as Derek wanted to say yes, the urgency from last night, as well as the fact that William would slaughter him for dragging him about the museum, gave Derek the wherewithal to turn down the offer with a small, sad shake of his head. “Not today, old friend. I’m doing a bit of work on the Marquis of Chemsford’s collection.”

  Mr. Cathers’s demeanor shifted in an instant as he straightened his back and smoothed the smile from his face. “My lord.” He bowed. “Highest apologies for not recognizing you. Please accept my condolences on your recent loss.”

  William’s eyebrows shot up, and he dipped his head low enough to cover his cough. The death of his father a few months prior hadn’t been the blow many assumed it to be. William had considered the relationship lost long ago. Still, he managed a somber, “Thank you.”