A Pursuit of Home

by Kristi Ann Hunter

  “Yes, of course, Your Grace,” Mr. Ashley mumbled, because really, what else was he going to do? “One moment.”

  The auctioneer riffled through a file cabinet, triumphantly coming up with a list nearly ten minutes later. In all that time, Jess didn’t move from her position as a human coatrack. The duke moved only his head, looking about the room in disdain as he waited. It appeared to be only Derek who wanted the entire ordeal to just be over.

  With the list produced, the auctioneer began to share the names of the paintings from the auction. Occasionally the duke would hold up a hand to stop the man and turn to Derek. “What do you think?”

  What did he think? He thought Marshington and Jess needed to tell him his lines if they were going to shove him into the middle of their little play. They didn’t have time for the auctioneer to do the contacting for them. Besides, given the value of the paintings, one or two might be willing to sell, but the whole lot of them certainly wouldn’t.

  He stumbled through, keeping his answers simple: “Yes, that one would go nicely” and “While every painting by The Six is incredible, that particular one wouldn’t go with the theme we’re creating.” It was utter nonsense, but Mr. Ashley didn’t seem to notice.

  “That one,” the duke said suddenly, looking over Derek’s shoulder.

  “What?” Derek said dumbly.

  “That painting,” the duke said with a note of awe in his voice. “That is the look I want in my parlor. Tell me about this one.” He rose and walked across the room to get closer to the painting that seemed to have fascinated him.

  Derek turned in complete bafflement. The auctioneer couldn’t possibly have a Verbonnian painting hanging in his office. Derek would have noticed immediately.

  Looking at the painting in question didn’t reduce Derek’s confusion. If anything, it grew. On the wall was a painting that was not historic, important, or even all that good. Derek had to look at the corner to distinguish the artist because it was so similar to other works of the same nature. Still, he started saying things about painting in general that would apply to the work, hoping it sounded impressive.

  “Not you,” the duke growled. “Him.” He pointed to the auctioneer and waved the man over. “Tell me about this painting.”

  The relief was easy to read on Mr. Ashley’s face as he left his desk and approached the painting. Most of what he said made Derek want to make choking noises the way his brother had done when they were children. Obviously the auctioneer was excited about the possibility of selling off an essentially worthless painting and avoiding having to contact important men about decades-old purchases.

  “This,” the duke said with growling emphasis. “This is perfect. I’ll take it.” He reached up and began to remove it from the wall.

  “Your Grace, I—” The auctioneer stumbled to a halt as the duke glared at him.

  “Your job is to sell art, no?” The duke smirked at the smaller man. At least Derek could now see where Jess had picked up the habit.

  Mr. Ashley adjusted his cravat. “Well, yes.”

  “I want to buy this art.” The duke frowned. “What is the problem?”

  “Er, uh, there isn’t a problem, Your Grace.”

  “Good.” The duke shoved the painting into Derek’s hands. “My solicitor will send you a bank draft for whatever Mr. Thornbury tells me is a fair price.”

  Derek looked at the auctioneer and, trying to set the man’s mind at ease, gave him a smile and a wink. He had no idea what Marshington intended to send, but Derek was going to make sure it was enough to make the auctioneer feel like a bit of a bandit. It was a small revenge, but contemplating it made Derek feel better.

  The duke wasn’t finished, though. “You will find me other paintings by this artist. I want to see if any of the others speak to me the way this one has.”

  “I . . . Of course, Your Grace.” Mr. Ashley looked a bit dazed.

  The duke gave a sharp nod and snapped his fingers. Jess scrambled from her corner, almost knocking the plant to the ground in the process. She fell in behind the duke’s heels and followed him out the door. “Good day, Mr. Ashley,” Marshington said over his shoulder. “It’s been a pleasure doing business with you.”

  “And to you, Your Grace,” Mr. Ashley called to the duke’s retreating back.

  Derek struggled out to the front hall with the painting they’d sort of purchased. He accepted his coat from the servant, while the duke took his outer garments from Jess. Then Marshington strode out the door, nose so high he couldn’t possibly see his own feet.

  Picking up the painting again, Derek followed the duke out to the carriage, a little awed, a little angry, and more than a little dumbfounded. What in the world had just happened?

  Chapter Fourteen

  Jess bounded out of the carriage behind Ryland and rushed ahead of him to open the door, desperately trying to maintain appearances. Ryland always did well enough disguising himself, but he sometimes forgot the team aspect. She shot him a glare as she bowed him through his own front door. He just pulled one side of his mouth up in a grin.

  A footman appeared to relieve her of her position at the door, and Jess followed Ryland through the house to his study, listening for footsteps to make sure Derek had fallen in line as well. Her mind churned with the possible next steps. There was so little time in which to answer so many questions.

  A problem for which she could only blame herself. She didn’t even have time to relish the idea that her brother had survived, not if she wanted to find the one thing he needed to fulfill his destiny.

  In the study, she dropped the semblance of servitude and crossed to the chairs situated in front of the dormant fireplace. She didn’t sit, though. Instead she propped one booted foot on the hearth and put a hand on the mantel to lay her head against as she stared unseeing at the cold, charred stones.

  A grunt and a bang pulled her from the potential future in time to see Derek almost fall through the study door in his attempts to maneuver the painting through it.

  “What are you doing?” she asked with a small grin.

  He leaned the painting against a table and kicked the door shut before propping his hands on his hips and attempting to frown through his slightly quickened breathing. “I’m carrying a painting that we technically just stole.”

  Her grin widened. “Why didn’t you leave it in the carriage?”

  He blinked at her, mouth opening and closing once before settling into a firm scowl.

  “Come away from the door,” she said, pushing away from the mantel. “Jeffreys will be bringing tea any minute. He can’t stand to be left out of the planning.”

  Derek stepped away from the door and took off his hat and coat, frown fading into confusion as he tried to decide what to do with them without a servant to hand them to or a rack to hang them on.

  It was enough to turn her grin into a smile. “You can leave them on that table.”

  Derek looked over at her, eyes wide in his round spectacles. “What?”

  “Your coat and hat. Put them on the table over there. One of the servants will take them to your room later.” She gestured to the table where he’d leaned the painting. It was empty for just this reason. Ryland had made a habit of always wearing his hat and coat into the study when he returned from somewhere. It made it much less obvious when those articles had been part of a particular subterfuge.

  Such as today.

  Jess grinned once more at their success.

  Derek laid his coat across the table, his hat gently resting atop it. “What do we do now? Wait?”

  Ryland set his hat on Derek’s coat and took his own coat over to the desk. “I didn’t just buy an atrociously ugly painting in order to sit around twirling my thumbs.”

  “Yet that’s what you’ll be doing,” Jess said, cutting over to the desk and sliding the stack of papers from the coat’s hidden inner pocket before Ryland could decide to hold them hostage. “Your assistance is appreciated but no longer necessary.”
r />   Ryland frowned. “We talked about this already.”

  “You talked. I disagreed.”

  Ryland grunted and turned back to Derek. “How much is that painting worth, anyway?”

  Derek stated an amount that probably wouldn’t have even paid for the coat Ryland had just thrown across his desk. “Mr. Ashley likely thinks you a bit light in the head at the moment.”

  “Good,” Ryland said. “That way he won’t suspect me later.”

  “I’d love to know who he suspects instead,” Jess murmured, wishing for the first time that she had the network of spies and informants at her fingertips that she once had.

  “Hmm, yes, I’ll have Jeffreys send someone to watch the office, find out who Ashley contacts or who else comes visiting.”

  As much as Jess wanted to turn him down, to keep him and all his people uninvolved, to walk away today and not look back, she couldn’t. She couldn’t be in two places at once. “I’d love to say no, but you have my permission.”

  “Thank you,” Ryland said dryly, “but I didn’t ask for it.”

  “You think someone else knows about the paintings?” Derek asked.

  Jess sighed and ran a hand through her hair, dislodging the wig of short, brown hair. “Assuming the people doing the painting knew they were creating some sort of map, you have a minimum of eight people involved in the hiding of the bowl. The chances are great that at least one of them passed down some form of story about the importance of the paintings, and it is most likely whichever family decided to make a claim for the throne. So, yes, I expect someone else has been or will be looking for the paintings.”

  “I’ve someone watching the Institution as well, so we’ll know if someone takes the same path you did,” Ryland said.

  “I will know,” Jess said in as hard a voice as she could muster. “I may have to accept help, but I will be in charge of this, Ryland.”

  “How?” he asked, bracing himself on the desk and leaning forward. “You’ve a great deal of travel ahead of you if you’re taking him to see the paintings. Communicating with you will be nearly impossible. It makes sense for me to be the person coordinating everything.”

  Jess leaned in as well, rising on her tiptoes in order to reach farther. “And when the problem shows up on your doorstep and endangers your wife and baby girl?”

  He shrugged. “I’ll send them to Kent.”

  “If something happens to you . . .” She shook her head. “I won’t have that on my head, Ryland.”

  “I’m a duke, Jess, living out in the open. I’m eccentric, yes, but I’m seen. Someone would have to be very daring to do anything to me.”

  “Some people would risk a lot to gain a country.”

  “Excuse me,” Derek said, leaning in and wrapping an arm around Jess’s shoulders to pull her back and physically separate the argument. “May I remind you that despite these great plans you seem to be making, we don’t know who bought the paintings.”

  “Yes, we do,” Jess and Ryland said at the same time.

  Triumph filled her as she held the sheaf of papers up. In this, at least, she was the capable and knowledgeable one. “Here’s the whole lot.”

  A look of marvel flitted across Derek’s face, spiking her sense of triumph into something resembling pride. It was nice to be able to surprise Derek with her accomplishments for once.

  And just that quickly, her pride faded to sadness. If ever she needed proof of where she truly belonged in the world, that was it. The only place she shined was in the shadows. Perhaps, when this was all over, she should return to the War Office. Yes, Napoleon had been defeated and whatever had been happening with the former colonies seemed to have simmered down, but surely it was only a matter of time before England got into another skirmish somewhere in the world.

  Before she could consider that, though, she had to settle the issue at hand and safely haul a scholar around to look at paintings without anyone noticing.

  Take therefore no thought for the morrow. . . . Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.

  Jess shook her head. Now they had her thinking in Bible verses. Obviously living with Daphne for three years had influenced her more than she’d thought. Of course, Jess had no idea where to find that verse, what the context was, or even if she was quoting it correctly, so its usefulness at the moment was debatable.

  “Do you have a copy of Debrett’s?” Jess asked as she ran a finger down the paper, looking at names and trying to remember anything she knew about any of them. Who were the heirs of the ones that had died? Which ones were heavy gamblers or in other financial trouble and likely to have sold or traded the painting? Who had homes in town or estates in the country?

  Ryland turned toward the bookcase, but Derek was still staring down at the paper. “How . . . when . . .”

  The door opened, and Jeffreys brought in a tea tray, frowning when he noted they had already circled around the desk. Miranda entered behind him and shut the door with a gentle click.

  She stopped short when she saw the newly purchased painting. “What is that hideous thing doing in here?” Her head lifted to look at Jess. “If you brought this as some sort of apology gift, know it’s going in the same place as the tea set you gave us as a wedding present. This is almost as ugly as that teapot.”

  Ryland chuckled.

  “His Grace saw it in the auctioneer’s office,” Derek explained. “He said it spoke to him.”

  “Did it, now?” Miranda murmured. “Was it saying, ‘Burn me, please!’?”

  “No,” Ryland said with a chuckle. “It said, ‘I’m on the other side of the room and will provide a nice distraction while Jess borrows a few papers.’”

  Derek looked at Jess. “But you never moved. You were in the corner the entire time.”

  “Was I?” Jess hummed. “Interesting.” She’d had to be careful not to snag Ryland’s coat on the plant like she’d done when they were leaving, but sliding the papers from the desk had been simple. Mr. Ashley had been more than happy to abandon them in favor of a simpler sale.

  Derek took the papers from Jess and flipped through them. “That’s stealing.”

  Jess looked up with a blink. “I’m going to give them back. Not right away, of course, but once this is all over and it won’t matter if someone else sees them. I’ll sneak in and slide them between the desk and the wall. He’ll think they fell back there. If he seeks them here in the meantime, Ryland can pretend to be excessively offended by the accusation.”

  “This is war, Thornbury,” Ryland said. “The rules are a bit different.”

  “We’re not at war,” Derek said, his voice losing the confusion and wonder it had held. “And even if we were, that shouldn’t change the rules of human decency.”

  “It does if you don’t want to end up dead,” Jess said, but inside she squirmed a bit. Hadn’t that been her biggest struggle? Having to decide where the line was that she wasn’t willing to cross? Others had thrown every compulsion in the river and done whatever necessary to get the job done. She hadn’t been willing to do that, but she’d had to pick and choose what she kept.

  What if she’d chosen incorrectly? What if doing more things the right and polite way would have brought about a better outcome? What if her family—

  No. Jess shut out those thoughts with an iron gate. She could not start second-guessing the choices she’d made. They couldn’t be changed. No amount of remorse would alter the past. She could only move forward from where she was now.

  Was she going to have to move forward without Derek? She could. Would. If every painting were like the one upstairs, she should be able to translate the diary quickly enough to know what direction she was supposed to look.

  That was a rather large if.

  Derek was silent for a few moments—long moments, moments in which Jess’s heart pounded harder than she would let anyone see. She forced her breathing to remain steady and slow, even though it made her lungs burn and her throat ache to gasp. As annoying as she found him
and his brain full of knowledge that made her feel ridiculously inadequate, she wanted him to stay.

  She needed him to stay.

  He shook the too-long shock of hair away from his eyes and sighed. “Auctions are usually attended by a small set of serious art collectors.” He held out a hand. “Let me see if I recognize any of the names.”

  Jess was very glad that her hip was still braced against the desk as she handed the papers to him. All her relief settled in her knees, making them more than a little bit shaky.

  As Derek’s eyes roamed the paper, he said, “We can also try to determine what paintings go with what title. The queen’s descriptions in the diary are detailed. I don’t think every painting is a clue, but I haven’t quite determined how to know which ones matter.”

  Ryland, who along with Jeffreys and Miranda had been watching the exchange in silence, cleared his throat. “This is going to require a good bit of travel.”

  Jess took a deep breath and nodded. “You said Nicolas had a month?” That wasn’t very long. Not when some of these paintings could be at country estates. “Travel takes a lot of time.”

  “And money,” Derek added.

  “We’ll let His Grace here help with that, since he’s determined to be involved.” Jess smirked. “I’ve some money, but I wouldn’t say no to more, since we’ll need to hire horses to stay on the move. We’ll borrow your shabbiest unmarked carriage.”

  Miranda crossed her arms. “And a chaperon?”

  Jess bit her lip to hide her smile as Ryland chuckled. “My dear, chaperons are the last thing someone wants when they’re sneaking about.”

  “And that’s the first thing someone will notice when they’re seen.”

  Jess’s smile faded. Miranda was right. Hoping she was managing to look casual and unworried, Jess shrugged one shoulder. “We’ll travel as a married couple, then.” A choked noise came from her left, but she ignored it. “It won’t be the first time I’ve pretended to have a husband in order to travel without notice.”

  No, it wouldn’t be the first time, but as Jess glanced at Derek from beneath her lashes, she had to admit that it might be the most difficult.