“That’s Queen Jessamine. I was named after her.” And she’d grown up with stories of her namesake uttered in reverent tones normally reserved for saints and war heroes. “It was when Leopold the First was the Holy Roman Emperor. His power was lessening by then, but he still had enough to take over Verbonne. She ran away with the heart of Verbonne, or so the stories go. He might take over the land, but he wouldn’t take over the soul.”
“That’s when Fournier and his students fled the country,” Derek said. “In Fournier’s painting, their departure is in the dead of night, and they’re wrapped in fishing nets.”
Jess nodded. “It wasn’t only one fishing boat, though. There were four that left Verbonne that morning, all to convene at the larger ship anchored near that rock outcrop, away from all the normal water traffic.”
“Four boats?” Derek frowned. “But his painting shows him and what is assumed to be The Six huddled in one boat.”
“I suppose art isn’t always an accurate representation, then. Or perhaps the stories designed to ignite the passion from one generation to the next aren’t accurate.” She shrugged. “Maybe both.”
Jess took a deep breath. She could do this. She could separate her family’s ancient history from the father who’d told it to her. These were the stories of people long dead and a country she didn’t really know. It should be easy to disconnect them from the man who’d told her bedtime stories, showed her the stars, and used his last breath of freedom to shove her to safety.
She would keep to the facts, or what she’d been told were facts, and stay far away from anything she’d actually experienced.
“Queen Jessamine fled and took much of the royal family with her, including the king’s mother and the young prince.” It was so similar to her own story, with all of the family retreating to the farm, leaving King Gerard behind to govern the country alone. Unlike her uncle, though, King Nicolas, whom Jess’s brother had been named after, hadn’t been able to rejoin his family, even for a while.
There were those who believed that the queen had been with child when she left that night, but no one knew for certain. Jess glanced at the diary. Did the book say? Would she find that the people who had hunted her family down, stating they had the true right to the throne, had a valid claim after all?
She kept that part of the story to herself. It wasn’t relevant to the hunt.
“She sent word back to her husband with instructions on how to send for her once it was safe to return. It took years, but King Nicolas finally came to an agreement with the emperor. The king was left as little more than the caretaker of Verbonne. He sent word for his wife to return, but it was too late.
“His mother wrote back with the news that Queen Jessamine and their young son had died. Later, she sent him the diary, saying she still believed that Verbonne would return to glory and that one day someone would come retrieve the heart of Verbonne. At least we think that’s what she said. The king burned the letter before hiding the diary.”
Jess could almost hear her father saying the words, embellishing the tale with colorful descriptions of life before he’d been born to see it. “The king married again, determined to continue the line in hopes that one day Verbonne would be restored as an independent nation. He told no one of the diary save his eldest son, but he spread tales of his wife’s heroism everywhere.
“That line continued until my uncle. His sons were very young as war knocked on Verbonne’s borders once more in the form of Napoleon. So he told his brother of the diary, and he, in turn, told all of his children, since they had no idea who would manage to survive the war they knew was coming.”
Jess stopped talking there, allowing her companions to draw the conclusion that she was one of the children raised on the story of the brave queen and the diary and a legacy passed down through the blood of generations. Raised on the idea of a country she could barely remember, let alone feel connected to.
Even though Jess hadn’t shared anything personal about herself, she felt raw and exposed. Ryland knew some of it, of course, as he’d been sent to rescue them before Napoleon’s men could find them. The dissolution of even the semblance of the Holy Roman Empire had left all of Europe vulnerable. England had been hoping to maintain access to the port of Verbonne through the king.
Derek held up the diary. “What is this a map to, then?”
“If I had to guess,” Jess said, “it shows where Queen Jessamine hid the coronation bowl. Evrart the Wanderer had the bowl made soon after establishing his kingdom. In the center is the waterstone.”
“That must be what Nicolas claims will prove he’s the true king,” Ryland said. “He’s been ripping apart the palace, hoping to find something that hasn’t been there in a hundred years.” He glanced in Derek’s direction. “Sorry. One hundred fifty-six.”
Jess shook her head. “We’d always assumed the heart of Verbonne was the young prince. We had no idea it was the coronation bowl. I always thought that was tucked away in the secret vault.”
“What is the waterstone?” Derek asked.
“A large opal said to have been pulled from the mouth of the spring that Evrart stood by when he claimed the land.”
Derek frowned. “That’s not where people find opals.”
Jess shrugged. “I don’t think legends much care about that. The old law stated that the king must be anointed by water that has rolled over the waterstone, and any party of royal lineage that is in possession of the bowl at the time of coronation becomes the rightful king.”
Chapter Thirteen
Part of the reason Fournier’s and his student’s work was so mesmerizing to Derek, beyond their incredible skill, was the mystery surrounding them. Much of what Jess was now telling him had never made it into a history book, and he had to resist the instinct to write it all down and press her for more details.
Had the queen mother been one of the painters? He glanced at the roiling ocean on the wall. Had she painted that? Were other royal family members part of The Six?
He could spend weeks, months, possibly even years digging into all the nuances of what had happened, taking what Jess knew of her family history and matching it to fragments of other known events, but right now, moving forward was possibly more important than understanding the past. Except understanding the past was the only way to move forward. It was rather a conundrum.
“When did your father give you the diary?” Derek wanted—needed—to understand more fully how Jess herself fit into this picture. Not for the sake of the hunt, obviously, since the long-dead diary writer would have no way of knowing which ancestor would be charged with interpreting her clues, but for his own peace of mind.
“Before he died.”
Derek gritted his teeth and counted to ten.
“If you’re going to dole out information at that rate,” the duke said with a shake of his head, “I’ll have rooms made up for you.”
“We have rooms,” Jess said, crossing her arms over her chest and glaring up at the duke. “At Chemsford’s.”
The duke grinned again, making Derek squirm at the way the man’s happiness seemed tinged with threat, as if knowing that he was about to win a battle was the only thing that made him giddy. “Chemsford doesn’t have your trunk.”
“He will once you send it to him,” Jess returned.
“You know me better than that.”
The duchess appeared next to her husband, looping her arm into his. Derek glanced to where she’d been earlier. How had she moved so quickly and silently?
The duke gave a small grunt and then turned to his wife, his face softening instantly. “Did you pinch me?”
“Why didn’t you tell me she was a princess?” the duchess hissed.
“Because she’s not,” the duke returned in a whisper that was anything but quiet. “She’s a duchess.”
“I wasn’t even that,” Jess said with a roll of her eyes. “My mother was a duchess. I was a lady, though I doubt I’m even that anymore.” She shrugged. “Whatever state the cou
ntry is in now, it’s not the same one I left. I think, for now, I’ll stay the farm girl from France who spent a bit of time as your parlormaid.”
Normally, Derek did quite well with silence, retreating into his brain to think, but the quiet that filled the private parlor now was the sort that demanded one pay attention, even though it seemed nothing was happening.
With this group, something was probably always happening.
Even now as Jess and the duke did nothing but breathe in each other’s general direction, Derek suspected a silent war was raging between them. Jess broke eye contact first, so he had to assume she’d lost whatever argument they were having.
She turned to him, that golden gaze looking shuttered. “I understand if you want out. If you could leave whatever translation notes you’ve completed, I would appreciate it.”
“This bowl,” Derek said, ignoring her offer, “whoever has it becomes the king of Verbonne? A true king, ruling over a free nation? Everyone has agreed to that?”
“If Nicolas has convinced them to uphold the old laws from the country’s prior freedom, yes. Possession of the bowl and the stone would be strong argument in that person’s favor, particularly if they could prove a royal blood connection.”
“That could lure a lot of people,” Derek muttered.
Jess looked to the duke. “How many claims have been made?”
“Only two that carry any weight. Both are claiming they can produce proof, but Nicolas is the only one with known lineage.”
The nod Jess gave indicated she wasn’t surprised by such a thing. “For the past hundred years there have been grumblings of another heir, the rightful king. Proof was never given, but the line has been a continual problem for Verbonne’s royal family.”
There was more to what she was saying, Derek knew, because her mouth tightened at the corners just a bit. She didn’t volunteer it, though, and Derek didn’t know what question to ask to get her to share.
“No one has seen the bowl since the night of the Great Flight. If someone possesses it, they will be able to say it’s passed through their line—a claim that would be difficult to refute.” Jess’s face was grim.
This mattered. This hunt, the results, deciphering the clues, the pictures, all of it mattered. One day, there would be paintings made of the coronation of the new king of Verbonne. Assuming there was a new king, of course, and another country didn’t swallow the land at the end of a month’s time.
Derek could be a part of that. How often did a man get to do something that would have lasting, true historical significance?
And if it came to light that Jess and her brother were, in fact, the imposters and the other line was the rightful one? Having an uninvolved third party along to verify the validity of the clues would ensure everything turned out as it should, right?
In two hundred years, someone might be reading about him or seeing him in a painting. That was a seductive idea indeed.
That was also a great risk. History was filled with people who had been caught up in the idea of power and legacy only to have it go horribly wrong.
As long as he remained aware and alert, he could make sure any painting depicting him down the road wouldn’t tell a cautionary tale but a heroic one.
He took out his sketchbook and began to draw. “We don’t know yet how these paintings fit together or if there’s some sort of symbolism, so I’ll make a sketch for future reference.”
“What about the rest of the paintings?” the duchess asked.
“The earliest accounts of paintings by The Six had them, for the most part, in a single collection. They were meant to be looked at together.” Derek sighed and brushed the hair from his forehead with an impatient swipe before he resumed drawing. “That collection was auctioned off twenty-five years ago. Unfortunately, auction houses don’t give up their lists of clients easily.”
“Well then,” the duke said with another of those wily grins, “it’s a good thing people like doing favors for dukes.”
With most of the world’s precious art residing in the homes of the rich and powerful, Derek had been in many aristocratic homes. Certainly he’d been in enough to know that when said aristocrat wanted something done, it happened as quickly as possible.
The Duke of Marshington’s servants, however, were miracle workers. How else could they have retrieved Jess and Derek’s belongings from Lord Chemsford’s townhome before the duke and his unexpected company were able to finish their late breakfast? Derek didn’t even want to think about how the servants had managed to convince William to let them take everything.
After the meal, which was a combination of idle chatter that seemed to veil more serious statements and awkward silence, Derek was shown to a room, told to be dressed in his nicest day clothes and ready to go to the auction house at two, and then left to his own devices.
Any remaining wavering thoughts were silenced by the time he pulled on the only coat he’d had cut to truly fit his frame and left the room. The risk was worth it. If he didn’t take it, he’d always wonder. The chances of Jess succeeding in finding the bowl within a month without his assistance were slim. Derek couldn’t risk being the reason a country, a culture, ceased to exist. Jess didn’t have to know that he intended to discover who the rightful heir should be as they went along. She wasn’t the only one capable of keeping secrets.
She might have agreed to tell him everything, but Derek wasn’t foolish enough to believe she actually intended to do so.
The duke was waiting in the front hall, the classic, utilitarian lines of his earlier riding clothes exchanged for the fine tailoring and dashing impressiveness of a perfectly made suit of clothing. A diamond pin sparkled from the center of his cravat, and a jewel-encrusted cane rested against his leg as he pulled on a pair of pristine white gloves. Jeffreys draped a many-caped greatcoat across the duke’s shoulders, completing the transformation.
Beside him stood a young servant lad, dressed in neat, simple clothing very similar to the valet’s, if a bit loose. Likely, the clothing had been inherited from another servant and the boy hadn’t yet grown into it completely.
Derek narrowed his eyes as the servant handed the duke his hat. “Good afternoon, Jess.”
Her head tilted up immediately, revealing a face that was neither masculine nor adolescent but was heavily shaded by the brim of a cap set over some sort of dark-haired wig. Pale eyes narrowed at him, but she didn’t say anything.
The duke chuckled. “Perfect fit,” he said as he situated his hat upon his head before gesturing toward the door with his glittering cane. “Shall we?”
The three piled into a waiting carriage, Jess taking the seat facing backward, the way an actual servant would do if riding within the carriage. It was a wonder she hadn’t climbed atop the roof or held on to the back to extend the ruse.
At the auctioneer’s office, the duke breezed right past the servant attempting to welcome them and take their coats.
“I never trust my coat to a servant I don’t know,” the duke said in a snotty tone, followed by a short, sharp sniff of disapproval. “I brought my own coatrack.” With that, he plopped his hat onto Jess’s head, further obscuring anyone’s attempt at seeing her face, and draped his coat over her outstretched arms. “You may take my companion’s coat, though. He is less fastidious than I am.”
Derek shrugged out of his coat and gave it to the waiting servant, pretending he didn’t notice the fine trembling in the man’s hand and the furtive looks in the duke’s direction.
Mr. Ashley, the auctioneer, was more than happy to have a duke of wealth, power, and reputation in his office. “What a pleasant surprise, Your Grace,” he said, bowing a bit too low and smiling a bit too wide. “What can I do for you?”
The duke sniffed again and tilted his nose in the air. “I have decided I need a theme—I say, boy, you’re to stand within my sight at all times, but not at such proximity that I can smell the stench of your breath. Go over there.” He frowned and gestured for Jess to
move deeper into the room, tucking herself into a corner beside a short plant.
With a dismissive sneer, the duke turned back to the auctioneer. “As I was saying, I require a theme to my private parlor. I like consistency in my life. I have one piece of art already that I wish to use. I want to find more paintings by the artist, and this man”—he gestured in Derek’s direction—“assures me that you know where they are.”
Derek was going to strangle both Jess and Marshington. He didn’t care if one of them was a duke. Once again he’d been plopped into a situation with no explanation, no warning, no clue of what part he was to play.
Derek smiled—not too big a smile, of course—and nodded at the auctioneer, whose returning smile looked considerably more genuine than Derek’s felt.
“Tell him what I require,” the duke said.
Derek blinked and maintained his fake smile until he realized Marshington had been talking to him.
Yes, Derek was definitely going to harm a duke. Hopefully there were a few nice paintings to look at in Australia.
He cleared his throat. “The painting currently in the space is by one of Fournier’s students. It was bought at an auction from this house twenty-five years ago. The duke wants more of the paintings that were auctioned then.”
“We don’t make it a practice to hand out our auction results,” Mr. Ashley said hesitantly. “I could perhaps contact them on your behalf.”
The duke sneered. “If that is what we must do. Retrieve the list. I will wait.”
The auctioneer’s mouth dropped open a bit, but he recovered quickly. In his line of work he’d probably seen many a demanding and selfish man and learned how much he needed to give in order to keep them placated. “I can hardly contact them while you’re here, Your Gra—”
“If you don’t get the list,” the duke bit out, revealing some of the hardness Derek had sensed in him that morning, “I won’t know which paintings I desire.” His lip curled into a sneer once more. “Unless you can list the items in question from memory.”
A Pursuit of Home Page 13