A Pursuit of Home

by Kristi Ann Hunter

  “I didn’t. He mentioned it in passing. Didn’t even realize he was in possession of valuable information.”

  Well, there was that at least.

  “I must confess,” Ryland continued, “I was surprised you stayed that close to London.”

  She was, too. Her original intention had been to go to Ireland, but then she’d stumbled across Kit in a London back alley, holding off a group of drunken gentlemen with nothing but her wits. Jess, with a bit more than wits at her disposal, had stepped in to even the odds. When Jess had offered to teach the other woman a few defensive tactics, Kit had offered a new destination, a refuge from everyone she’d ever known.

  What was supposed to have been a few months’ stay in order to teach another woman how to walk safely in the shadows had turned into three years.

  It would have been longer if Ryland’s letter hadn’t arrived. It was possible Jess would never have left.

  After this was over, there’d be no reason for her to hide anymore, though. Her life would be wide open.

  How terrifying.

  There was always the chance she might not survive, of course. The fact that such a consideration made her less afraid, instead of more afraid, proved just how scrambled her head was.

  “Years ago,” Ryland said, breaking Jess from her memories, “you refused to let me handle a situation alone when someone threatened the new life I was trying to build.” He stopped and curled his hands over her shoulders, dipping his head to look her in the eye. It was the position he took when he was moving from friend to mentor. “I told you to let me go alone and you didn’t listen. If you had, Miranda and I might both be dead. You were right then.”

  Jess released the breath she’d been holding as she braced for the censure that usually came with his shift in attitude. Confirmation of her actions was a surprise.

  “This time, you’re wrong.”

  Ah, there it was.

  Ryland squeezed her shoulders until Jess was forced to look up at him or challenge him to put enough pressure to cause a bruise. “This time I am right, and I refuse to let you go alone.”

  “I’m not alone,” Jess said, forcing a jaunty smile. “I’ve got the brains of Derek Thornbury.”

  They both paused and looked across the room, listening to Derek’s speculation on the origin of one of Ryland’s tapestries.

  “If nothing else,” Ryland said wryly, “you’ll be able to pull out your knives while he talks your adversary into a stupor.”

  “They use silk to create the depth against the wool,” Derek said, pointing to an area of the tapestry.

  “Is he always like this?” Ryland asked in a toneless whisper as they approached the wall hanging.

  Jess gave him a wide-eyed look. “You have no idea.”

  Derek shot them a look that proved he wasn’t as ignorant of their conversation as Jess had thought. “That’s why I’m here.” He ran a hand along the side of the tapestry. “If you knew everything I knew, you wouldn’t need me.”

  “You only have a month,” Ryland said.

  “I know,” Derek returned, looking at Jess instead of the duke. “But at the moment I’m still deciding if lending you the use of my brain is worth the danger that comes along for my person.”

  He didn’t wait for an answer before moving back into the corridor to continue his search.

  Ryland chuckled as he fell into step behind the art historian.

  “Why are you laughing?” Jess huffed.

  “He’s a good fit for you.”

  “What?”

  Ryland shrugged, his attention seeming divided as they were now standing in closer proximity to his wife. The large man always looked a bit like a puppy when he watched his wife.

  Jess shook her head. “You think because you found a normal person who could handle your crazy past, the rest of us will be able to as well.” She grinned at his lovesick expression. “I never thought you a romantic.”

  He folded his hands at his back and gave another shrug. “I don’t think it’s about romance so much as living life. I’ve learned a lot about doing that the past few years. Have you?”

  As much as Jess wanted to dismiss his statement as the ramblings of a man suddenly luxuriating in a life of leisure, she couldn’t. Haven Manor, Daphne, Kit, and even the children and Martha’s burnt bread had shown Jess what it meant to care about people who had nothing to offer in return except their own regard. There was no hiding behind practicalities, no lies to tell herself.

  That was why she’d stayed, even when the house was no longer a hidden refuge.

  Was that what living was? Putting yourself and others at risk because you couldn’t bear to lose them? Did Ryland consider that love?

  If so, love was foolish and selfish, and Jess had been smart to leave Ryland and Jeffreys and the rest of them three years ago. The war was over—or at least everyone had thought it was—and the people who had hunted her and her family down would have been free to return to England. As the visible maid of a powerful man, her position had held too much risk of exposure. Remaining in London would have been tempting fate.

  Just like staying at Haven Manor had been. She hadn’t been willing to put herself through the turmoil again, though, couldn’t rip herself away from her friends. They’d needed her at Haven Manor in a way Ryland, Jeffreys, and the others never had.

  That was selfish thinking, though, wasn’t it? Staying because being needed felt good, even if it meant she spent all day every day in the kitchen.

  Did that mean she’d cared more for the people she’d left in London than the people she’d stayed with in Marlborough?

  It was a conundrum that made her head spin.

  “‘Look not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others,’” Ryland said.

  Jess dropped her gaze to her toes to avoid the urge to glare and sigh. She’d understood and even encouraged Ryland’s frequent Bible quotations and prayers during the war. All she’d had to do was look around her to know they desperately needed God to intervene. The matter before them now was certainly serious, but it wasn’t anything they couldn’t handle yet.

  She was saved from having to come up with a response when Derek stopped at the door to the duke and duchess’s private parlor, a look of awe and reverence on his face as he swiped his hair back from his forehead.

  “We’ve found it,” he said quietly before his mouth curved into a large grin.

  Chapter Twelve

  Derek had seen a great deal of art in his lifetime. Paintings, sculptures, tapestries, anything people made to commemorate moments both significant and mundane had filled his life.

  Never had he seen anything like this.

  The paintings of Fournier and his students had always given him pause, though he’d had few occasions to see them in person. The first time he’d seen a painting by one of The Six, he’d stared for a full twenty minutes in awed silence. There was such depth and life to their work.

  Before him now was a prime example of the masterful wielding of an art brush that had marveled many an art scholar. Beyond the skill, though, beyond the technique, there was something more.

  His hip bumped the doorframe as he stumbled into the room, not even looking around to see what room he was entering. All he could see was the painting. Even blinking was an irritation.

  A young woman stood on a cluster of rocks, flat and wide with grooves worn from the trails of the tide, a thick wall that had been built in an attempt to tame the sea and only partially succeeded. Water sprayed around her as the waves crashed against the wall. Beyond the wall, a single rock formation jutted out into an ocean roiling with turmoil and chaos. Dark clouds stretched to the horizon, a storm powerful enough to stir the sea into a cauldron of fury.

  The image was so real, so alive, that Derek had to resist the urge to wipe his brow and clear it of salt spray.

  Whether it was moments or hours before someone cleared their throat and broke his reverie, he didn’t know. He blinked and pu
lled his gaze from the painting to look around at the rest of the party.

  Beside him stood the duchess, the epitome of quiet ladylike grace she’d been throughout the tour of the house. The duke stood on her other side, looking a bit softer than he had in the drawing room but no doubt still as lethal. He possessed a leashed power one would have to be an idiot to miss.

  Derek wasn’t an idiot. He swallowed and shifted his head in the other direction, seeking out Jess, expecting her to be looking at him with that same hint of condescension she’d frequently worn at Haven Manor, or perhaps the quiet curiosity of her aristocratic friends.

  He found neither.

  She was, without question, deeply affected by what she was viewing. Awe filled her features along with a sign of sadness. There was something incredibly despondent about the woman on the rock wall as she looked out across the tumultuous water. Perhaps Jess was beginning to see the power of art, the way a picture could transport a person in the way a history book never could.

  “Is this the painting, then?” The duke’s quiet voice startled Derek, and he turned to find the duke had moved to a spot just beyond Derek’s shoulder, forcing him to look up to see the other man’s profile.

  “Er, yes, Your Grace, this is it.” Derek resisted the urge to wipe his palms on his trousers. Some of the powerful men he’d worked with in the past had been terrifying and unbalanced. They never made him as nervous as the combination of intimidating duke, tenuous situation, and mysterious woman.

  “Good,” the duke said with a nod. “This has always been one of my favorites.”

  “You have exquisite taste,” Derek murmured, cringing a bit at the inanity of such a phrase.

  What should he do now? He’d brought the diary, afraid something would happen to it if he left it at Chemsford’s, including Jess sneaking into his room to take it back and leave him out of everything. A small sketchbook remained in his other pocket, part of the reason he always had his coats cut a shy too large. What should he do with them, though? Pull out the diary and find the appropriate passage for a comparison? Sketch the essence of the painting so he and Jess could discuss it later? Both?

  He glanced to Jess for direction. Until that moment, his knowledge and abilities had given him the upper hand in this adventure, but he hadn’t the first idea how to move forward in the actual hunt.

  Jess was still staring at the painting, but her face had changed. Gone was the raw emotion of earlier. Now her features were smooth and blank, as if she herself had become polished marble.

  Derek moved to her side, close enough that their sleeves brushed as they breathed. He tilted his head a bit closer and pitched his voice low. “Are you all right?”

  His voice broke her trance, and she blinked rapidly before turning in his direction. In a raspy, thick voice, she asked, “Why aren’t you telling us about it?”

  Why wasn’t he . . . was she serious? Did she not understand the importance of this moment? This wasn’t just Derek telling someone about the art they owned. This painting had been created with some greater purpose in mind, giving the viewing of it a very weighty significance. Here was the first step toward the hidden treasure indicated in the diary.

  Until now it had all been hypothetical.

  He’d accepted that the danger was real, but until he’d seen this painting he hadn’t been sure that the treasure hunt was. Walking away from everything was no longer an option he could even pretend to entertain. History was speaking directly to them. There would never be another chance to experience something like this.

  Going into it blind wasn’t an option, though. He wanted to continue experiencing mundane moments that might pale in significance to this one but would signify that he was still among the living.

  “We’re going to have a conversation later, you and I,” Derek said quietly, “about what we will and will not share. So you can be prepared, the only answer I intend to accept is sharing everything. I’ll not be walking into another situation already back on my heels.”

  Jess lifted a haughty eyebrow in his direction. “I’m sure I don’t know what you mean.”

  Derek shrugged. “I assumed you wouldn’t want to have this conversation here, as you obviously have a relationship with the duke—one you chose not to disclose, by the way—but if you’d rather discuss it now, I’ll defer to your wishes. We’re among your friends, after all.”

  A low chuckle came from behind them. Derek glanced over his shoulder to find the duke grinning.

  The wide, tooth-baring grin was nearly as frightening as his earlier scowl.

  Derek pulled the diary from his jacket. A few translation notes jutted from between the pages and caught on the rough wool. After a bit of shifting, he opened to the passage he thought matched the painting. “I believe this is one of the earliest paintings described. She never calls them by name, but she’s incredibly descriptive in the subject matter, methods, and materials.”

  There were a few ocean paintings described in the first part of the book, discussing the mix of colors and angle of strokes needed to create proper water. The seventh passage, though, was different. It discussed how to create the depth and turmoil of a stormy sea, but there was more than just the details. “There’s a shift in her manner when she describes this one as opposed to the ones before it.”

  He turned another page and pulled out the translation notes he’d tucked inside. “I believe this goes along with the opening passage, the one we read at the house. ‘She looks toward the secret passage that will one day be opened; hope is her beacon in the storm that surrounds her. Where she leads, the worthy will follow until they have all they need to right the wrongs of the past.’”

  “It’s a map.” The duke’s voice held an element of surprise as he looked from the diary to the painting to Jess to Derek.

  “What?” Derek looked up from his notes and at the painting. Was there an image within it that he hadn’t seen? Something that would help them finish the clue in the diary?

  “It says she’s looking toward the secret passage, so it must be in that direction, right?” The duke pointed to the wall beyond the frame.

  It was the most literal consideration for the meaning of the words, which was never a bad place to start when interpreting old texts. “Possibly,” Derek said quietly, “but if it is a map I haven’t any idea how to read it. She’s looking toward hope. Perhaps if we knew where she was, we would know where she looked. Could the paintings indicate an actual path we are supposed to take?”

  “It’s the ocean,” the duke muttered. “That could be anywhere.”

  “I know where it is,” said a small voice that Derek could only attribute to Jess by process of elimination and direction.

  He looked up from the diary, surprised to see her looking as small as she’d sounded. The woman had always been short in stature, her head just barely grazing Derek’s shoulder. Despite her size, she’d never looked like she believed herself to be tiny.

  “I can’t do this.” She whispered so quietly he could barely make out the words.

  “I don’t think I’ve ever heard that word come out of your mouth,” the duke said, moving around to stand on her other side.

  She glanced in his direction, and a ghost of a smile curved her lips. “Yes, you have. Mostly when I’m telling you that you can’t stop me.”

  “True,” he said with a nod. “And if I can’t stop you, this hundred-year-old painting shouldn’t either.”

  Derek coughed. “One hundred fifty-six.”

  “What?” the duke and Jess asked at the same time.

  “The painting.” Derek nodded toward the wall. “It’s one hundred fifty-six years old.” He held up the diary. “According to this, at least.”

  “Right,” Jess said.

  Derek cleared his throat. “You know this setting?”

  She nodded. “It’s the coast of Verbonne.”

  “The Verbonne coastline is made up almost entirely of the port of Mermaison. The rest is pure white sand.” Derek fr
owned. “A rock formation such as that one would wreak havoc with a port area.”

  “It’s behind the Royal Palace,” Jess said. “There were more rocks in the area, but they dug them out and used them to build the palace.” She nodded at the painting. “And the wall. You have to go through the private gardens and take a short trail down to sea level.”

  Derek closed the diary and ran a hand over the royal crest on the front. Hearing Jess casually mention her connection to royalty still knocked him a bit sideways.

  Jess took a deep, shaky breath, but her words didn’t waver when she spoke again. “I was standing in that same place the first time I heard the story. She’s looking toward England.”

  “Finally ready to admit that you are a member of the royal family?” Derek asked in his matter-of-fact, I-know-everything-and-will-find-out-what-I-don’t voice.

  Jess really hated that voice.

  Not quite as much as she hated how much of herself she was going to have to reveal, though. It would seem the stories had been true. The queens had taken an essential piece of Verbonne’s sovereignty with them and didn’t want anyone not connected with the royal family or at least the old government to find it. That was what was meant by worthy.

  It didn’t seem the most apt definition of the word.

  “I am not royal.” That was true, so far as it went. She hadn’t really been considered royal, even though she lived in the family wing of the royal palace. Her uncle was the king, but he’d moved his extended family into the palace after the French revolution, for fear that similar sentiments would leak over the border of his beloved little country.

  Jess had been born within those walls, and they were all she knew until even that safe haven was threatened.

  “I’m not royal,” Jess repeated, “but she is.”

  She pointed to the woman in the painting. Jess had never seen this painting before, never even heard of it, but she’d seen the woman. That same woman, dressed in that same dress and with the same ring of flowers in her hair, hung in the portrait gallery of the palace.