A Pursuit of Home

by Kristi Ann Hunter

  Motherhood? She’d known it was possible, even likely, given the amount of time she’d been away, but the confirmation of such an event hit her with a painful stab. Such a significant moment in her friend’s life and she hadn’t even known. For the last three years, she’d helped care for the children of Haven Manor and learned a lot about the significance of tiny young humans. The idea of a miniature Ryland running around brought a small smile to her face. “Congratulations.”

  Ryland nodded toward Derek, who was silent but very noticeably observant. “Is he really an Oxford man?”

  She nodded. “Yes. He’s helping me interpret a diary.”

  His eyes narrowed. “There really is a diary? And you’ve had it this entire time?”

  After news of the royal family’s capture had spread, the countryside had erupted in people searching for Verbonnian treasures that had supposedly been smuggled from the palace, but the diary had not been among those rumors. As far as she knew, the book had been a family secret. “How did you know about the diary?”

  Ryland’s answer was more silent accusation.

  “Yes, I have the diary.” She sighed and gestured helplessly toward Derek. “Well, he has it right now.”

  “I see.” Ryland shifted his weight and crossed his arms over his chest. “Am I truly in possession of a painting that is somehow connected to it?”

  Jess nodded. “It would seem the diary was written while a group of Verbonnian artists, who had recently sought asylum in England, generated a significant amount of art. Queen Marguerite had clues hidden among them.”

  “Clever.”

  “Annoying.”

  “I’ve brought tea. Should I lace it with arsenic?”

  Jess turned her head to see a wiry man with a large, heavily laden tea tray and an even larger frown.

  “Definitely friends of yours,” Derek mumbled, so low she barely heard him and knew no one else in the room had.

  She fought back the urge to smirk at his observation and turned to Jeffreys. “I didn’t know valets were bringing tea these days.”

  “I didn’t want to miss the chance to dump it on your head.” Jeffreys’s frown softened a bit. “Three years, Jess. We thought you were dead.”

  “I didn’t.” A feminine voice joined the group in the drawing room. “I knew you were too stubborn to die.”

  Miranda, Duchess of Marshington, strode into the room with a young child on her hip and a quiet woman in a light grey dress trailing behind.

  Jess swallowed and gave a curtsy. “Your Grace.”

  The duchess paused, and two pale eyebrows shot up as her green eyes widened. “Really? We’re doing that?”

  Jess blushed. “I think, perhaps, I owe you an apology.” More likely several. Jess had rather relished making this woman’s life difficult for several months. She wasn’t even sure why she’d been determined to be such a pest. It wasn’t jealousy. As friendly as she and Ryland were, Jess had never entertained such notions, even when they’d been pretending to be married.

  Instead of taking her due, the duchess rushed to her husband’s side. “Quick, Ryland, send for a physician. There’s something terribly wrong with Jess.”

  The duke chuckled and scooped the little girl from her mother’s arms. “This one’s up early.”

  “Yes,” Miranda said, reaching out to tweak the child’s toes peeping out from under a muslin gown. “She hasn’t yet had her breakfast, but I wanted Henrietta to have a chance to meet Jess.” The duchess grinned. “It could be another three years before she gets the opportunity again.”

  How was Jess supposed to answer such a statement? This woman had never liked Jess before, grumbling often that Ryland needed to fire her or send her to work somewhere else, and now she wanted Jess to meet her daughter?

  Apparently so, as Miranda claimed her daughter back from her husband and crossed the room to stand in front of Jess.

  Dark brown curls framed bright green eyes that looked at Jess with the confident directness of a child.

  Three years ago that would have sent Jess scampering beneath a sofa, but she’d had a lot of time to learn about young people and how they worked. Seeing this child was different, though. She was the daughter of the man who’d saved Jess’s life—twice in a very literal sense, but in countless other ways as well. He’d helped her find purpose and strength when she’d barely known how to breathe.

  “Henrietta, this is, er, Jess.” Miranda sighed and glared at her husband over their child’s head. “With all the unconventional relationships you have, it will be a miracle if we manage to teach her proper manners. She’s going to be laughed out of court when she gets presented.”

  Ryland leaned against the wall and gave a half shrug. “What is life without a little unpredictability?”

  “Jesh,” the little girl said while sticking one finger in her mouth and twirling her other hand into her hair. “F’oorboards.”

  Jess choked in surprise and sudden laughter while Miranda cast her eyes to the ceiling in exasperation. Her frustrated groan was belied by the grin on her face.

  “Yes,” she said, pulling her daughter in closer. “This is the girl in the floorboards.”

  Jess crossed her arms over her chest and cocked her head as she considered Ryland. Not only was he sharing stories, he was sharing the truth. “Did you decide your exploits made for good bedtime stories?”

  He gave another nonchalant shrug. “Some of them.”

  “Good thing the war is over, then,” Jess muttered.

  “Off you go now.” Miranda passed the girl to the waiting nanny and then set about serving tea. “I hope you’ve a fascinating story yourself, Jess. That might be the only thing to appease Ryland. He’s rather miffed at you for running away.”

  Jess had expected as much, though she hadn’t three years ago. Back then, she’d assumed their connection was one of loyalty or shared experience. She’d thought Ryland and Jeffreys and everyone else could be left behind the same way she’d walked away from other people she’d encountered over the years. It was a lie she’d clung to even as she’d learned that the gaping hole in her heart wasn’t fear or even boredom. Years of refusing to look back, refusing to remember, had helped her continue the pretense.

  Here, now, with Ryland and Jeffreys and even Miranda staring at her without any attempt to mask their hurt, she couldn’t pretend anymore.

  Miranda held up a cup of tea. “Would you like to sit for this or simply gulp it down where you stand?”

  Jess dropped into a chair before her legs could give out and send her to the floor. How strange to be treated as a guest. When she’d lived here before, she’d been welcomed, treated as an equal, but she’d still held a position. As head parlormaid, she’d never been idle, but now . . . Now there was no reason for her to be here other than Ryland and Miranda’s generosity and Derek’s guess that the paintings were required to interpret the diary.

  With wide eyes, Jess glanced over to Derek. What was he making of this?

  At some point he’d propped himself on the arm of the sofa, likely when the duchess had entered and manners dictated that he stand. Now he was sliding back down to the seat, appearing a bit shaky, but only in the physical sense. His mind must have recovered as the look he returned was steady and full of emotion she couldn’t read. Anger? Confusion?

  She turned away, trying to act as if his presence was completely ignorable. So what if he was confused? She spent most of her time in his presence feeling senseless. All his thoughts and logic and knowledge, the way he’d seen through her disguises. It would do him good to feel a bit lost.

  “Why don’t we start from the present and work our way backward?” Ryland eased into his own chair and took a sip of tea. “You can start by introducing your friend properly. He’s caught an earful already, so I’m trusting that you wouldn’t bring a man of loose lips into my house.”

  Derek was a lot of things, not the least of which was a thorn in Jess’s side, but he was not prone to gossip. Sometimes he wasn�
��t even prone to finishing sentences. If he had thoughts unrelated to art and history, he’d always chosen to keep them to himself.

  Until now, Jess hadn’t cared what he thought about her, or at least she thought she hadn’t. Faced with the vulnerability created by Ryland and the others, she had to admit it was one more lie she’d told herself.

  Chapter Ten

  Derek was having tea with the Duke and Duchess of Marshington, the duke’s valet, and a reclusive country house cook who had most certainly been withholding significant information.

  Jess could have—should have—prepared him for this. Obviously she wasn’t the simple country lass she’d wanted him to think her, though he’d never completely believed that idea anyway. He’d known the gulf between him and her trust was wide, but he’d never imagined it so large as to provoke her keeping a secret of this magnitude.

  This morning, their conversation had been almost friendly as they walked through London in the early dawn. He’d thought it was the beginning of a new direction in their partnership.

  It would seem she thought otherwise. He didn’t know her at all.

  The people in this room, however, did, and unlike William’s new wife, they had no problem talking in front of him. Derek would sit quietly and see how much he could learn.

  Then he would corner Jess and demand answers for his growing list of questions. If the explanations were not forthcoming, he would walk away. He would. Art and history had frequently stolen his attention to the detriment of his awareness of place and time, but the mix of past and present he was currently walking in was an emotional torture rack.

  Before he walked away, though, he’d need at least a few more details to satisfy his curiosity. Such as how Jess had come to be known as the girl in the floorboards.

  The tea and biscuits made their rounds, but no one returned to the conversation. They just sipped, looking contemplatively at one another and occasionally glaring at Jess, who in turn stared into the depths of her cup.

  The valet, Jeffreys, snapped a biscuit in half, breaking the tense silence with a cracking noise that only seemed to make everything heavier.

  Then the duke smiled and turned to Derek.

  Derek almost dropped his tea. They were supposed to be interrogating Jess so that he could learn more about her.

  “Where are you from, Mr. Thornbury?”

  Jess slumped lower in her chair with a heavy sigh before glaring at the duke. “Unfair.”

  The duchess didn’t bother smothering her grin. “You brought him here.”

  The trepidation he’d felt on the front stoop returned as Derek took in the duke’s easy posture. The eyes gave away the lack of true relaxation. They held a sharp perception that indicated he saw far more than he acknowledged.

  “I’m originally from Cowley in Oxfordshire, Your Grace.”

  The large man waved a hand in the air as he set his teacup on a nearby table. “No need to bother with the ‘Your Grace.’ You may call me Marshington.”

  The offer was probably made to make Derek feel more at ease.

  It didn’t.

  Was he supposed to offer that the man be allowed to call him Derek? Or Thornbury? He’d rubbed shoulders with many a high-ranking man, but always in the capacity of education or work. And while this didn’t quite feel social, it was hardly Derek’s normal element.

  “Yes.” Derek swallowed, simply resolving to not call the man anything. “Thank you.”

  “And what do you do?” The duke picked up a biscuit and contemplated the pattern baked into the top before taking a bite.

  “I teach some, but mostly I work with antiquities and art. I appraise them, catalogue them.”

  The duke looked around the drawing room. “Interesting. I’ve never had the contents appraised. Is there anything of value in here?”

  Derek had been aching to look around the room but for once thought it might behoove him to give more attention to the occupants than the furnishings. This was obviously some sort of test, but one Derek had complete confidence he could pass as he gave in to the urge to look around. Statues and paintings were ever so much easier to understand than people.

  Whoever had decorated the room had a keen sense of style and an eye for creating a beautiful room instead of a gallery of wealth. A Rembrandt hung on one wall beside a piece that he didn’t recognize but guessed had come from a modern painter who’d studied the work of Rembrandt. The works looked good together, but one was clearly of superior quality.

  Well, the quality difference was clear to Derek. Probably not so much to the rest of the people in the room.

  “I would need to inspect them more closely to give you a full report, but from here I can see at least two pieces of significance.”

  One dark brow lifted and the man inclined his head, asking without words for Derek to elaborate.

  At least in this Derek knew he could excel without bumbling. “The Rembrandt on the wall there is of great value. It’s one of his few mythological pieces and quite desirable among many collectors of his work.” With a hard swallow, Derek pointed toward a bronze statue on a table near the window. Even knowing that he knew what he was talking about, the unbroken attention of the duke made him nervous. “If I’m not mistaken, you’ve a Giambologna piece over there, possibly one of the ones he made for the Medici family. If it’s genuine, you could get a great sum for it.”

  “It’s genuine,” the duke said softly. “A gift of appreciation.”

  With that single statement, Derek was pulled back into the mystery around him, and his heart started thundering once more. Fortunately, he’d already set his teacup on a nearby table. What sort of deed could the duke have done to merit such an expensive show of gratitude? “You must have been very helpful.”

  “Hmmm.”

  A movement in the corner of his eye caught his attention, and he turned to see Jess poised to throw a biscuit at the duke. That she would even contemplate tossing food at a man in his own house was quite the indication of their close relationship. That she would consider tossing food at a duke anywhere was quite the indication of her audacity. Just what had Derek gotten himself into?

  “Where did you meet Jess?” the duke asked.

  Jess groaned and bit into the biscuit instead of throwing it. “Where do you think?” she mumbled as she chewed.

  “How would I know?” The duke turned narrowed eyes in her direction. “You didn’t see fit to tell anyone where you were going.”

  “It’s hardly hiding if you tell people where you are.”

  “And you didn’t trust me to keep your secret? Try again, Jess.”

  As much as Derek was grateful to be freed from the direct and uncomfortable gaze of the duke, he didn’t delight in the fact that it had been turned on Jess without the benefit of the veneer of charm.

  He’d seen moments of vulnerability—fleeting, yes, but enough to know that she could be hurt. Something about this situation had put her at risk.

  “I met her in Wiltshire,” Derek said, clenching his hands in his lap to keep from fidgeting with them. He never brought attention on himself. On his knowledge and expertise, yes, but never himself. “I was working on cataloguing an estate for the Marquis of Chemsford.”

  The duke’s attention swung back around to Derek, looking a bit more relaxed around the eyes. “The new one or the old one?”

  “Wouldn’t the old one have to be dead for there to be a new one?” his wife asked with a tilt of her head.

  “Yes,” the duke sighed, “but he could have hired Thornbury here before popping off.”

  It would seem dukes didn’t need permission to address a person informally.

  “But then he would be working for the new one, wouldn’t he? He would hardly be doing a job he wasn’t getting paid for.”

  The duke frowned at the duchess. Jess coughed and looked down into her tea, a smirk on her face. Jeffreys, who until now had been sitting silently and glaring in Jess’s direction, gave a soft chuckle.

  “Very
well,” Marshington said with an inclination of his head. “He works for the new one. Chemsford’s a good man. A bit reclusive, but good.”

  As William hadn’t volunteered to approach the duke on Derek’s behalf after learning he had a painting, Derek could only assume the duke knew William by reputation or chance meeting or a habit of observing every man who came into his title.

  “This estate,” the duke said. “What is it called?”

  “Er, um.” Derek scooped up his tea and took a great swallow of it to buy a moment of time. It wasn’t that he didn’t know the estate’s name, but it had held a great secret for the past dozen years or so, one that Jess had been a part of. It was all in the past now, but Derek didn’t want to be the one to bring the old news into light if it hadn’t come out already. Would naming the estate tell the duke anything about what Jess had involved herself in?

  “You know where I was,” Jess said. “You sent the message.”

  It was now Derek’s turn to glare at the little woman. She really should have prepared him for this.

  “Yes,” the duke said, his voice even icier than his stare. “I did send the message, and you received it nearly six months later than you should have. If you had seen fit to tell me where you were going, we could have notified you as soon as we had news about your brother.” He shrugged. “And as soon as he made you the target.”

  Jess’s eyes narrowed. “Whose target?”

  “Possibly everyone’s. The details are murky on who truly wants what, but there’s quite a bit of disagreement over what should happen with your former home.”

  “The palace?” Jess asked before cutting a short look Derek’s way. He’d already considered she was somehow tied to the royal family based on the diary, so that wasn’t news.

  “The country,” the duke corrected. “Nicolas emerged after the war and declared himself the rightful king and stated that Verbonne should be its own sovereign nation again. Others disagree. Some say the land is unstable and should be part of one of the adjoining countries. Others say it should be sovereign but that your brother shouldn’t rule it. There is a great deal of closed-door political wrangling, and we aren’t even sure who all the players are.”