A Pursuit of Home

by Kristi Ann Hunter

  Three gazes turned toward him, eyebrows lowered and faces frowning.

  “Now you’ve done it,” William muttered. Until now, the rest of their group had been standing in a silent circle, most looking on in some form of fascinated horror. Lady Wharton frowned, her eyes narrowed, while the duchess exhibited the calm, exasperated patience of one who had seen this play out before.

  Or perhaps Derek should call them Kit and Miranda. Despite the abundant titles, this group seemed rather bent on informality.

  “That’s true,” the duke said with a shrug.

  Derek cleared his throat and continued. “They had two of the key paintings. All of the other paintings were simply to help establish the locations of the key paintings, but if they knew where the settings were, they might know about Kettering.”

  “But only two of the paintings were on the slides,” Jess said stubbornly, “hope and despair.”

  “How do we know they haven’t seen the third one at some point? Perhaps there were more slides somewhere. What if they have their own diary or some less abstract code that passed down through their family?” Jeffreys crossed his thin arms and stuck his crooked nose in the air.

  “You’re going,” Ryland said, pointing at Jess, “because you’ll be taking the bowl to Verbonne once we find it.” The finger swung in Derek’s direction, and he tried not to flinch. “He’s going because we have no idea what we’ll run into in Kettering, and if there’s more art and diary clues there, we’ll need him.”

  “I’m driving the carriage,” Jeffreys said, looking ready to fight anyone who said anything different.

  The duke nodded before pointing a thumb at himself. “I am also going because someone needs to watch your back, scrawny though it may be. Besides, you might need a distraction as you run for the hills—or the water, in this case.”

  “England is at peace,” Jess said dryly. “You can’t just blow up a building in the name of distraction.”

  “You aren’t the only one who can cause a riot. If I buy enough rounds at the local taverns I can unleash an entire squad of drunk men on the town.” The duke grinned as if he was considering doing just that, regardless of the outcome of their search.

  “That leaves one open seat in the carriage,” Kit said. “I think I’ll take it.”

  Never had such silence filled a room so quickly. Derek rather imagined this was what it was like when Thomas Gainsborough’s portraits had first been presented at the royal art shows. No one had known quite what to do with them.

  Then the silence exploded as everyone started talking at once. Derek became dizzy trying to identify the speakers and pull their sentences from one another. Life had no compulsion to stand still and allow a person to examine it the way art did.

  Kit glared them all down as her husband chuckled. Why wasn’t he concerned? Yes, Lord Wharton had struck Derek as a rather happy fellow, quick to make a joke, but surely he couldn’t laugh off his wife walking into danger.

  Unless she was also more than she appeared to be. Derek narrowed his gaze in her direction. He didn’t know her well, having only seen her a time or two while working at Haven Manor and then these few days here at Montgomery House. The grit she’d had to possess to care for all those children in the middle of nowhere was admirable, but was it enough to prepare her for something such as this?

  Jess didn’t protest, though the duke and Jeffreys were vehemently campaigning against it. Even Miranda was looking nervous about the idea.

  Then William and his wife spoke up, adding their support for Kit. Lord Wharton had stopped chuckling, though a wide grin remained, and he set a hand on his wife’s shoulder in solidarity.

  “Are you sure, Kit?” Jess’s voice cut through the yelling mob.

  Ryland frowned. “She can go but I can’t?”

  Jess lifted a brow in the duke’s direction. “I thought you’d declared you were going. If you’re there, she can be, too.”

  The duke crossed his arms and glared. Even though the glare wasn’t aimed his direction, Derek took a step back. Jess crossed her arms over her chest and glared back.

  “I’m not taking a future countess into danger,” he said.

  “It’s hardly my first time.” Kit stepped into the circle, keeping Jess between her and Ryland.

  With the ladies a united front, the duke turned to Lord Wharton. “You are ready to allow this?”

  “I can’t say I’m thrilled with the idea, but Kit isn’t going to be stupid. She knows how to get in and get out and how not to be seen. I’ve lost her enough times to give testament to that fact.”

  Jess leaned back into Kit. Only Derek’s angle allowed him to see it, but there was a definite shift of Jess’s weight that brought her closer to the other woman. “Both of you or neither of you.”

  Ryland nodded his head toward Lord Wharton. “You think his testament of her skills is enough?”

  “No, I think my judgment of her skills is enough. I didn’t run off to Haven Manor on a whim. I met Kit in an alley off St. James.”

  The duke’s glare faded to curiosity. “What were you doing—never mind. You can tell me later.”

  “Or not tell you,” Kit said with a shrug.

  Jeffreys chuckled. “Lady’s got my vote.”

  “All right, then,” Ryland said. “Jess, Jeffreys, me, Derek, and Lady Wharton.”

  “Call me Kit,” she said. “I’m hardly going to paint a target on myself by being the only one in the party called by her title.”

  Jess snickered, crossing her arms and looking so triumphant Derek expected her to cheer.

  The duke growled. “Jess, Jeffreys, me, Derek, and Kit, then. We leave in the morning.” He jabbed a finger toward Jess. “Pack lightly.”

  Everyone filtered away to prepare for the journey until only Jess and Derek remained in the drawing room.

  “Care to help me pack up the drawings and translations?” he asked. It hardly took two people to stack up a few papers, but this might be the last time it was just the two of them.

  She nodded and preceded him to the study.

  “Once you have the bowl,” he said as he put the translated pages in order, “you’ll take it to Verbonne?”

  “Yes. I don’t know what the situation currently is, but if the bowl is all that stands between Verbonne and freedom, then the country should have it.” She swallowed. “Then I’m going to try to learn if there was indeed another child.”

  Derek stopped stacking papers. “You think the other line has a valid claim?”

  “No. Despite the possible birth of another child, I think the crown belongs to those with a true attachment to the country. One could argue that Queen Jessamine abdicated her royal position when she fled, and any child she had certainly wasn’t raised to rule. But if there are others who are truly of a mind to help save Verbonne, that should be considered.”

  Jess sighed and ran a hand over the cover of the diary. “The country was in chaos when I was a child, probably quite a bit more so than I knew. The continued war would have only weakened it. It needs all the supporters it can get. If the question of blood is answered and settled, then maybe everyone can focus on developing a vision for a future Verbonne together.”

  Derek’s heart pounded and his fingers tightened until the papers in his hand started to wrinkle. He could see himself in that future. Verbonne was rich in culture and history; it was in their blood. They would want to preserve that, wouldn’t they? Build upon that tradition again? He could help.

  With a shake of his head, he released his grip and smoothed the notes. One thing at a time. They had to find the bowl, get it out of England, find her brother, and establish a renewed government. Then he could see if the idea of more time with Jess still made him as excited as the prospect of free rein of the British Museum on a clear sunny day.

  Because a duke caused a stir wherever he went and Jess looked a lot like her mother, whom Lord Bradford and possibly others had seen, Kit and Derek went in to make arrangements for rooms at the in
n in Kettering.

  That left Jess alone in the carriage with Ryland. She’d avoided being alone with her friend and mentor, knowing he’d seen her at her most vulnerable. Could he still prod at her weak spots?

  “The last communication I received was that your brother was still arguing his claim to the throne, even though he had not presented an artifact, diary, bowl, or otherwise. A distant cousin has come out of hiding as well.” He paused. “There could be others who are still keeping quiet.”

  Jess wasn’t about to build up that sort of hope. “There’s no need to try to build castles on clouds, Ryland. News of one survival is enough to keep me focused.”

  They fell silent again until Ryland said, “What will you do?”

  Why did people keep asking her that? “You say that as if there’s a choice.”

  Ryland slid across his seat until he was directly across from her, their knees almost touching as both of them leaned forward to look out the carriage window. “There’s always a choice to make.”

  Jess sent him a quizzical look. “You mean like you did?”

  “There was no choice in holding the title, but I had a choice on whether or not to live it. I chose not to for a long time.”

  “Are you glad you claimed it?”

  “Yes,” he said without hesitation. “It allows Miranda to be in my life, allows me to help my country in a way that will continue through peace and war and old age.”

  Jess couldn’t quite grasp being in such a position. She’d been on her own for so long that such a deep connection to an established group was hard to fathom. Then again, what would she do in Verbonne? Her brother would be the one ruling the country. She would . . . what? Renovate the palace?

  Ryland continued, “There’s something freeing about it, too, living in the light. I spent so much time in the shadows I think I’d forgotten what it was like not to hide. Remembering that it wasn’t just about the end but how you got there was becoming harder.”

  That was something Jess understood all too well. She knew how to hide, how to run, how to cling to the dark. Ryland had always known that one day he would return. Jess hadn’t. She’d always thought that one day the dark would simply swallow her whole. One day she’d step a little too far into the shadows and disappear.

  And no one would notice or care.

  Remembering the people filling Ryland’s drawing room, she had to allow that that last assumption might be the slightest bit erroneous.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Once the door to the room Jess and Kit were to share latched shut, the viscountess groaned and flopped onto the bed. “I’ve become spoiled by Graham’s carriage. I think he managed to have it sprung on clouds, the ride is so smooth.”

  Jess crossed her arms and leaned one shoulder to the wall. “You didn’t have to come.”

  Kit’s head lifted from the bed, blond hair knocked from its pins and sticking out at funny angles. The glare on her face was serious. “Yes, I did. I could not let you go into this alone.”

  “I’m not alone.”

  She waved a hand and flopped her head back down. “Those men don’t count. Well, Derek does, obviously, but those other two treat you with the delicacy of a stone.”

  There were so many ways answering that sentence could come back to bite Jess that she sidestepped it entirely. She didn’t want to talk about how coddling her during the war hadn’t been an option, or how often she’d been on her own, and she certainly didn’t want to discuss why Derek treated her differently.

  Before Jess could redirect the conversation, Kit said, “This is what you were running from that night we met, isn’t it?”

  When had all the people in her life become so incredibly astute? Or had they always been, but she hadn’t let them in enough or listened to them enough to tell?

  “We thought the war was ending,” Jess said, “which meant political lines would be drawn, much like they are being drawn now. I didn’t know where Verbonne would fall, if it hadn’t already disappeared.”

  She hated talking about this, hated how much of it was still rooted in the childlike fear she couldn’t shake. “All I knew was the man who’d come that night had been British, and his anger had been personal. Ryland was moving about in society again, so his home was no longer a safe place. I look like my mother. And if that man had managed to come back to England . . .”

  From what she knew now, though, that man had already been here and had likely been traveling to France and back with the smugglers. When this was over, Ryland would pass the slides and the other information to the Home Office. The question was whether Lord Bradford was a traitor to the Crown or to Verbonne. Could one be a traitor to a country he didn’t belong to?

  Jess crossed the room and placed her valise on a table before digging through it and pulling out a dark dress. “While I appreciate your concern for my delicate sensibilities,” Jess said, giving Kit a pointed look over her shoulder, “that’s all you’re going to do. You aren’t pulling out your cloak and skulking around with me.”

  “Ha!” Kit lurched into a sitting position and pointed a finger at Jess. “So you admit you intend to skulk about.”

  “Of course.” Jess rolled her eyes. “How else am I to learn anything?”

  The truth was that the whole way to Kettering, while everyone in the carriage had talked about methodical plans, Jess had been feeling every additional mile. She was at least two days’ ride from the coast. If she found the bowl, she wasn’t waiting. She was running and taking the first boat across the water, whether by fair means or foul. Verbonne, France, Belgium, it didn’t matter to her where it landed as long as she was on the continent and out of Lord Bradford’s reach.

  “I didn’t come for your reputation,” Kit said. “That’s probably already murkier than I want to consider. I came because you shouldn’t be alone. I know it’s different here, with all of this, but you didn’t leave Daphne and me alone when life was difficult and you could have.”

  “Haven Manor was a good place to hide,” Jess said.

  “Do you really believe that’s all it was?”

  Did she? Yes. No. At first. Jess squirmed and avoided the question. “I’m not alone. I’ve acquired quite the collection of guard dogs, remember?”

  “They—we—are simply worried about you. We care.” Kit dragged out the last word like she expected Jess to flinch from the statement.

  Inside, she did.

  “I know,” Jess said. She wished they wouldn’t, though. All of them were taking a risk by being here. Derek’s family didn’t even know he was on this adventure. How would they ever understand if something happened to him? Had he even written them in the past month? They’d already shown signs of worry when she’d met them. Would one of them go to Haven Manor, only to find it uninhabited by anyone other than servants?

  Jeffreys didn’t have a family, but he’d never convince Jess that he didn’t have a fondness for Ryland’s little girl. He probably slipped the child treats and was already planning grand London adventures for when she was older.

  “I think you’re lying,” Kit said, rolling over until she could climb off the bed. “I don’t think you have any idea how much people care for you.”

  “Apparently enough to leave a husband, a wife, and a child waiting to see if and when they return.” The jab was unnecessarily harsh, but Jess wanted Kit to step back, to be a little bit angry. Just because they cared about her didn’t mean she deserved it, didn’t mean they should risk their safety.

  “Graham knows I owe you my life.”

  “You don’t owe me anything,” Jess said, draping the dress over the back of a chair and digging in her valise, even though she was just moving the same four items around in the depths of the small bag.

  “You mean I could have gotten out of that predicament on my own? Here I thought that thug had only run away because you threw a knife at his feet and said the next one was going to be aimed higher.” Kit giggled. “I borrowed that line once, by the way.”

>   “You only said it because you missed,” Jess said, having heard the full story of that night from Graham.

  Kit shrugged. “It worked.”

  “You’d have talked your way out of it eventually.”

  Kit shoved Jess’s valise to the floor and plopped herself in the chair so that Jess was staring down at her. “Maybe. Maybe not. That’s not the point, anyway. The point is, you laid into me for walking alone in that area at two in the morning even though you were doing the same thing. Even then, you were looking out for those weaker than yourself.”

  “I’m not a martyr, Kit. I don’t have a noble goal like you and Daphne.” Jess stepped back but didn’t turn away. If Kit insisted on having this discussion, Jess would give it to her. Jess would let her see it all.

  “Just because it isn’t organized doesn’t mean you aren’t helping people. You do little things in the moment. I see it all the time.” Kit grinned. “You care about us. Admit it.”

  Was that all Kit wanted? Jess had admitted it to herself a long time ago, and even though it had made her vulnerable, she hadn’t been able to deny it, nor truly regret it. “Yes, I care.”

  Kit’s face grew serious. “We care, too. You matter. You’re family. We love you.”

  Jess turned away. “Derek said love requires sacrifice.”

  “‘Hereby perceive we the love of God, because he laid down his life for us.’”

  “Are you quoting scripture to me?” Jess asked, one side of her mouth tilting up.

  Kit laughed. “Of course. You don’t think I say ‘hereby perceive we’ in normal conversation, do you? In any case, Derek is right.” Kit crossed the room and gave Jess’s shoulder a slight push. “It’s why we put up with you, you know. It’s obvious you love us even if you don’t say anything. When you love someone, you sacrifice for them because they mean more than you do.”

  Jess did love them. She wanted them all to live happier, better lives.

  They’d all gotten there. Kit was with a man who made her smile and was no longer trapped by guilt and obligation. Daphne was starting anew, reunited with her father and fulfilling a mission that made her heart sing, with a man who appreciated her uniqueness. Ryland and the others were building their lives. It was easy to see his household was a happy one.