A Pursuit of Home

by Kristi Ann Hunter

  “Where did you grow up?” Derek asked.

  “Why do you ask?”

  “If opinions are conditioned, I’m curious where yours were formed.”

  “A bit of everywhere, I suppose.” She looked away. “I left Verbonne when I was eight. Until then I’d known only privilege and comfort. Hiding and the tense situation was a shock, but children are adaptable. Ryland rescued me at fifteen. Since then, I’ve been all over. I’ve seen people do horrible things in the name of ambition and even more terrible things in pursuit of peace. Sometimes I helped those things happen.”

  She wrapped her hands around her mug. “I’ve also seen people smile at a funeral. I’ve seen joy in the middle of war. I’ve experienced grace from people who should have condemned me.”

  “So seeing the world differently is not a bad thing.” Derek wound his fingers tightly together to keep from reaching across the table and taking her hand. He’d never felt such a compulsion before her, but somewhere between the second inn and the second house, reaching for her had become less about projecting the idea that they were married and more about finding a way to reach over the seemingly impossible barrier between them.

  Attacking that division required he take the time to really see her, to try to understand her. Was one a natural extension of the other? Did his attempts to connect with her on a mental level somehow manifest themselves in the urge to reach out physically as well?

  That was something to think about later, but for now she was sharing details about herself she never had before. He wouldn’t risk stopping that by taking her hand. He pushed on. “What would you choose for the world, then? Should everyone be as happy as the serving lass or as glum as the man drowning his sorrows in ale over there? If everyone were the same, how would we know happiness from sadness?”

  She shook her head, but the frown she’d been wearing began to curve upward a bit at the edges. “I think you, Mr. Thornbury, are the philosopher now.”

  “Then you admit you were one earlier.”

  Her hand gripped her remaining hunk of bread as if she were considering throwing it at his head.

  He grinned as the image in his mind changed a bit more, the shadows shifting to allow a small, hidden glimmer of light. She was a painting come to life, with every angle revealing something new. Every secret he managed to uncover brought up three more. “Tell me more about the people you experienced. The good and the bad. Show me what conditioned your opinions.”

  “I went to Spain once.” She rolled the crumbs around the table with her palm. “Helped incite a riot.” Her amber eyes glanced up at him through her lashes. “I’m rather good at that, though this one didn’t really need me.” Her attention dropped back to the crumbs. “A lot of people died, but it changed the war. In the end, it freed a lot of people.”

  “The second of May, 1808,” Derek said.

  One of Jess’s eyebrows lifted. “That’s hardly had time to make it into one of your history books.”

  “Two years ago, Goya, a Spanish painter, depicted that night and the next day. I’ve never seen the paintings, of course. Few have. A colleague in Spain sent me a letter, telling me about wrapping them and putting them into storage on the king’s orders. His descriptions of the paintings were memorable, though. You were there?”

  Jess nodded. “At the beginning. Once tempers were running high, I left.”

  Her voice was flat as she went on to tell of her limited involvement in short, stark facts. “I didn’t do that type of thing often. My main skills were in getting in and out of places unseen. There were many English sympathizers and informants willing to share their information. I went and got it from them. Most of the time I wasn’t anywhere near the fighting.”

  “And when you were?”

  “I got out as soon as I could. I can defend myself against an attacker, but I can’t take down an army single-handed.” She picked up a crumb and ground it into dust between her thumb and forefinger. “There was a girl, once. I took her with me until we made it out of the battle. We got to a creek bed barely running with a trickle of water but cut deep into the ground. I told her to get low and run. I never knew if she survived.”

  Jess dusted off her hands and lifted her gaze to meet his, some of the tightness around her eyes fleeing as she blinked. “I learned Italian and spent a great deal of time in that area. Napoleon’s control kept it from being an easy place to stay.” A wry grin touched her lips. “It was the British gaining a bit of a foothold that got me wounded badly enough to cause a problem, though. Ryland managed to get me home in the hold of a British warship. Healing took a while.”

  Wanting to keep the companionable moment, Derek shared his own memories, not of facts and world history, but of his favorite paintings and the people he’d encountered in his studies. As he spoke, details about those people he’d never realized he’d collected emerged.

  Perhaps he’d been paying more attention than he thought. Perhaps their taste in art had influenced the way he viewed them. The question of why he saw people certain ways was going to drive him mad now.

  One thing began to become clear as Jess told him about getting caught in the wrong place during the British invasion of the Adriatic coast, her hand sliding to her arm almost without conscious thought. Through all her stories there was a glimmer of hope. Hope that what she was doing would come out well in the end, hope that she could save someone, hope that her walking through darkness would mean someone else, perhaps that girl in the creek bed, wouldn’t have to.

  It changed the way Derek saw her. He glanced at the serving girl when her laugh grew loud enough to drift over the chaotic noise of the tavern crowd. It was changing the way he saw everyone. Perhaps the madness that came along with paying attention to people wasn’t so bad after all.

  Eventually, the public room grew emptier, and they made their way upstairs. For the first time this trip, they’d been forced to take a single room.

  Inside, Jess began gathering some of the bedclothes and making a pallet on the floor.

  “I’ll sleep there,” Derek said, shrugging out of his jacket and telling himself the action held no great significance due to the abnormal location.

  It felt different, though. He felt exposed. It made him rethink removing his boots.

  Jess laughed and threw a pillow onto the pallet. “Have you ever slept on a floor, Derek?”

  “No,” he said, moving forward to stop her from removing the blanket, “but I have slept at many a desk. The floor has to be better.”

  “There’s no need,” Jess said, her voice a bit more strained. “I’ve done it plenty of times before.”

  “That doesn’t mean you have to do it tonight.”

  Why were they whispering? It wasn’t as if anyone was going to overhear them, despite the thin walls. They’d hardly been yelling before.

  The single candle they’d brought up with them sat on the table beside the bed, barely giving off enough light for him to see the sheen of her pale hair and the shape of her face. There was no detail, no sign that this moment meant anything to her beyond the debate over who would sleep where, but it felt momentous to him.

  They’d changed in the tavern below, changed their relationship into something more than grudging partners. She wasn’t who he’d thought she was, and now, with his earlier resentment replaced with understanding of her prior behavior, he didn’t know what to make of her.

  The compulsion to reach out and touch her rose in him again, but he didn’t give in. There was no audience here, no performance. Here he had to remember that they weren’t truly married. Hopefully, after tonight, they could at least be friends.

  “I’ll sleep on the floor,” he said and dropped onto the pallet.

  A few minutes later, he heard her climb into the bed and the pale light of the candle disappeared.

  Her breathing evened out soon after, but it was a while before Derek found sleep. The floor was seriously uncomfortable.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Morning
light had a way of picking out the cracks caused by mistakes of the night before, and the next morning’s early dawn was no different. Jess rushed through her morning preparations, which didn’t take long, as she’d slept in her dress and had to do little more than slip on her shoes. She cast a glance to the huddle on the floor where Derek was curled onto his side, his shoulder rising and falling with his steady breathing.

  How could she have allowed him to convince her to enter that conversation last night? Never had she talked that much. If he’d been working for the enemy, her side would have been as good as dead. The fact that she wasn’t sure who actually comprised her side and whether or not they were in the right was irrelevant.

  Verbonne was a fairy tale to her. A distant memory and a bedtime story. England had taken Jess in, given her purpose. Somewhere in the middle of that was the family that had raised her, instilled an idea within her that could, quite possibly, have been built on a lie.

  While she waited to find out for certain, she would maintain her current plan. One thing she couldn’t wait to do, though, was shore up the vulnerabilities created by her late-night confessions.

  Refusing to face Derek within the walls of the inn, she fled to the carriage. Everything that had happened in that inn could remain there.

  Jeffreys was just beginning to harness the horses when she arrived at the stables.

  “You’re early. Grab that strap there, will you?”

  She quickly took over the smaller buckles needed to hitch the rented horses to the carriage. He’d never admit it, but his missing finger had to make those more difficult. “Will we reach the next house today?”

  Jeffreys nodded. “A nice drive north. It’s a lucky thing that owning one of these Six paintings is a coup worthy of putting on display in the public rooms.”

  Jess gave a short laugh. “Unless you’re the Duke of Marshington.”

  “I think we can safely assume that no one else is the Duke of Marshington.” Jeffreys shook his head while he tightened the final strap.

  “Good morning,” Derek said as he approached the carriage.

  The smile immediately fell from Jess’s lips as she turned halfway toward him in greeting. Enough to acknowledge him, but not enough to meet his gaze. When she turned back, Jeffreys gave her an odd look.

  The valet turned coachman pressed his lips together. “Perhaps we should take a look at what we have so we can better know what we’re looking for today.”

  Jess gave him a narrow glare. They’d reviewed what they knew before yesterday’s stop. It wasn’t as if suddenly they had more information than before.

  “Of course.” Derek strapped his valise to the back of the carriage and then climbed inside.

  Since not climbing in would only delay the inevitable, Jess joined Derek. Jeffreys leaned in the doorway to keep an ear out for the horses.

  Derek pulled out his sketchbook and diary notes while Jess retrieved the map of England from beneath her carriage seat. They’d pinned three ribbons to the map, none of which told them anything.

  “The last painting doesn’t add another ribbon, does it?” Jeffreys asked.

  Jess shook her head. “Even if there was something significant about the way the hem of one angel’s robe fluttered to the right, we have no way of knowing where a bunch of clouds are supposed to be.”

  Derek and Jeffreys both looked at her. Jeffreys with concern, Derek with accusing resignation.

  She squirmed in her seat.

  Jeffreys’s hand came out and pointed to the green ribbon they’d added at the first house. “Are we sure about that location?”

  “Not in the least,” Derek murmured. “It was a manor house. It could be anywhere. That was our best guess based on what could be seen on the hills behind it. Even if we knew for certain that the house hadn’t been remodeled to remove that distinctive fountain from the front, we couldn’t hope to simply stumble across it.”

  “Know anyone who frequents country house parties?” Jeffreys asked with a laugh.

  Jess winced. She did know someone who went to a lot of house parties, but she was more than hesitant to say so. Endangering more people was out of the question. It was bad enough that she’d pulled Derek, with his slow, methodical ways, into this situation. She couldn’t watch over everyone, even if her friend Kit’s new husband had attended a house party at every grand estate south of Scotland.

  Jess slapped the book of maps closed, shoved it beneath the cushion, and sat over it. With a lifted brow in Jeffreys’s direction, she dared him to challenge her.

  Challenge her to what she hadn’t the faintest idea, but she’d welcome anything to ease the restlessness rushing through her veins.

  Jeffreys looked from her to Derek. “Something I should know about?”

  “We already established we know nothing new,” Jess said, arms folded across her chest in an attempt to look big and imposing. “Unless you can identify the house better than we did, we’re right where we were three days ago.”

  He clicked his tongue. “Not exactly. Three days ago, you two were what one might call friendly strangers.” He gestured from Jess to Derek and back again. “This morning you won’t look at him and he won’t look anywhere but at you.”

  Jess jerked her head around to find that Derek was, indeed, studying her from behind his wire spectacles. He blinked but didn’t drop his gaze. What was he seeing? What was he remembering?

  Probably every word she’d said. She’d practically been a living history book.

  “I would like to think we’re friends,” Derek said.

  Jess shrugged one shoulder. “That’s a matter of opinion.”

  He flinched as if she’d punched him.

  She forced a smile to cover the churning in her gut that made her want to shove Jeffreys aside and run for the nearest retiring room. “I’m simply frustrated this is taking so long. We have no idea what’s happening in Verbonne.”

  Finally, Derek looked away. Away from her, away from Jeffreys, and out the opposite window where there was nothing to be seen but the side of the stable. “Of course. We should be going.”

  “Right,” Jeffreys said, his voice low, slow, and full of speculation.

  As the horses left the innyard, Jess tried to put herself into one of her personas. She was someone cheerful and optimistic. Exuberant, even. They were making progress, even if it was slow, and despite her lapse in judgment last night, Derek wasn’t going to use his new knowledge to harm her.

  After a while, Derek’s posture shifted, and he settled deeper into the seat, a small smile on his face. When she remarked on the trees bordering the lane they were traveling, he chuckled.

  She told herself not to ask. Nothing would be gained by turning the conversation personal again, even at an innocent and superficial level. As he kept watching her and grinning, though, the urge to confront him overwhelmed her.

  “Your spirits seem higher,” she said, keeping her tone to one of icy politeness that people used at parties when they had to talk to someone they’d rather avoid.

  “Yes,” Derek said. “I find my disposition greatly improved.”

  “Why?”

  “Because”—he leaned forward and braced his elbows on his knees, watching her intently as his smile broadened into a grin—“your hands are sad.”

  Then he sat back, looked out the window, and remarked upon the trees.

  There was something wrong at Greenwood Park. Derek sensed it the moment the housekeeper granted them entrance, but it took touring three full rooms for him to grasp why. It was so obvious that he had to blame the distraction that was Jess in order to keep from feeling like an idiot.

  All the art was French.

  All of it.

  It wasn’t that it was bad art, but the distinction was an oddity in an English home, particularly after the lengthy war the country had just gone through. Charles Le Brun, Antoine Watteau, and Georges de La Tour adorned the walls, while sculptures by Antoine Coysevox, Claude Michel, and Jean-Baptiste Lemoyne
stood in corners and on bookshelves and tables. This was not a random coincidence. It was a carefully curated collection.

  A collection that, given the overall feel of neglect to the house itself, should have been parted with in order to enrich the family coffers a bit.

  “Something’s wrong,” he whispered to Jess, who had slipped her hand from his arm after they’d passed through the first room.

  She simply nodded and asked the housekeeper about the rug.

  Derek tensed even more. She never asked about the rugs, never asked about anything, but from the moment they’d crossed the threshold, Jess’s touring persona had been different.

  She simpered.

  There wasn’t another word for it. If he’d encountered her this way at their first meeting, he’d have been thoroughly convinced that she hadn’t a single coherent thought in her head. She chose ridiculous things to admire and asked questions a child who had grown up in any sort of quality home could answer.

  If someone were looking for a crafty, intelligent spy, the housekeeper would swear there hadn’t been one at her house. It wasn’t a bad disguise, but Jess was taking the idea to an extreme. She was a walking caricature.

  In the portrait gallery, the art began to look more standard. Portraits by renowned sixteenth-century English artists began the line, followed by a succession of other recognizable styles.

  As they approached the modern paintings, though, the detailed realism of the British Rococo gave way to the softer lines of the style’s French originators. Yet another sign that the home’s decor was certainly not an accident and that the owner had likely not been pleased with the recent defeat of Napoleon.

  The last portrait in the line was of a man with a high forehead, a thin scar, and a thick, curly black beard.

  Jess’s incessant prattle stumbled into silence for a moment, and he could feel the tension emanating from her across the small space she was maintaining between them. He reached out a hand to . . . to . . . what? Comfort her? Calm her? Assure her that he was with her?

  When his hand landed on the back of her spencer jacket, he didn’t feel the warmth of her body through the fabric. He felt four hard ridges. What were those? He shifted his hand a bit. They were long and smooth, one end rounded more than the other. They almost felt like . . . knives?