A Pursuit of Home

by Kristi Ann Hunter

  Jess guided them into the deeper shadows to avoid suspicious glances. They hadn’t seen a bath or even a proper bed in days and were looking more than a little bedraggled.

  It was also easier to talk in the darker shadows.

  “How is there a wrong way to look at sacrifice?” Jess asked. “It’s one person giving up something for another.”

  He was quiet for a moment, then stopped and turned her to face him. “Why did you leave London?”

  Jess frowned. She’d been over this and over this, and as much as she would admit that possibly she’d been a bit rash in making her decision, she didn’t regret it because she’d met Kit and Daphne and the others. “I’m not going through that again.”

  Derek sighed. “I’ll rephrase it. Why did you run from London and not from Haven Manor?”

  “Because Kit and Daphne needed me,” Jess said before she could think about it.

  “Did you care for them more than you did for Ryland and Jeffreys and everyone else who worked for the duke?”

  “Of course not.” Jess would have crossed her arms and glared if her hands hadn’t been full. “That’s insulting, Derek.”

  “I have a point,” he rushed to assure her. “Staying at Haven Manor sacrificed your anonymity. Would you take it back?”

  Jess stood quietly for a moment. Would she? If she could go back knowing that staying would mean exposure, would she still have stayed? Yes. “I couldn’t have left Daphne alone like that. It would have killed me to leave then.”

  “Love is a sacrifice, but it’s also selfish, because when you are able to give the other person what they need, it comes back on you, too. Which means you don’t get to decide if you’re worth it or not.”

  Jess’s throat felt suddenly tight. “We can’t have this conversation right now, Derek.”

  He sighed. “I know, but I felt it needed to happen, and I don’t know what’s waiting for us at the top of this hill.”

  “Me neither.”

  “Shall we?” Derek wrapped his free arm around her shoulder and guided her along the path. “For what it’s worth,” he said, “God decided you were worth love a long time ago when He sacrificed Jesus on your behalf. If you’re going to continue to claim you aren’t worth it, you’re calling God a liar.”

  “Ring a fine peal over me, why don’t you, Derek,” Jess said, forcing a laugh even as the words he’d said punched her right in the soul. They didn’t say anything more as they approached the palace, where a guard stood at the gate.

  What would Jess say? Who would believe her? In the current uproar, would anyone even believe that she was there to help?

  “Feel up for one more adventure?” she asked Derek.

  He grinned at her, his teeth white against the darkening night. “Of course.”

  “There used to be an old gate around the back corner of the palace garden. Care to see if it still opens?”

  “If the alternative is explaining to him that two people who look like us should be let into the royal palace of a country in turmoil, yes. I’d very much like to see if the gate works.”

  Jess chuckled and turned down a small lane. There was a very questionable future ahead of them. She didn’t want to walk into it with the weight of their previous conversation on her mind, so she tried to lighten the mood. “Did you think you’d be doing something like this when you answered the call to catalogue the art at Haven Manor?”

  “No,” he said, his voice solemn. “I never thought something like this would happen to me.”

  The mood suddenly didn’t feel any lighter than it had been. She swallowed around a tight throat. “Me neither.”

  They continued in silence. She had to try a few different paths to find the one that led from the lane to the palace gardens, but eventually they came to the gate. Vines had grown over it, but she cut through them easily, and soon they were inside the walls.

  “There’s going to be more guards inside,” she said. “Nicolas may not even be here. If his rule is in question, they may not have granted him the palace.”

  “If he’s smart he took up residence anyway. It gives his position credence,” Derek added.

  “We’ll assume he’s here, then.”

  Derek laughed. “How do we find out if that’s true?”

  “I suppose we ask.”

  “Why didn’t we just ask the guard, then?”

  “Because it’s so much more fun to ask when you’re already inside the house.” Jess grinned up at him, but she didn’t truly feel that mirthful. Memories were assaulting her the farther they crept into the garden. In the distance, she could hear the ocean on the rocks, could smell the begonias her mother used to cut from the garden and put in Jess’s room, could remember what rooms were behind some of the windows.

  She extended the hand holding the valise toward him. “Come along.”

  He wrapped his hand with hers around the handle of her bag and nodded. “Lead on.”

  They didn’t see many guards as they worked their way around to the back of the palace. Was it because of the war? Because Nicolas wasn’t the true leader of the country? Because he wasn’t here?

  If he wasn’t here, someone would know where he was, so she simply had to continue with her plan.

  Once on the terrace, there were fewer shadows to hide in, so she pushed aside the memories of breakfasts and afternoon teas and started trying every door. Five attempts later, she found one that was unlocked.

  “We need something to prop open this door,” she whispered, looking around. Once the terrace had been grand, with potted trees and an abundance of furniture. Now it was all but bare.

  Derek set his bag down and looked around. “Something small?”

  “No, large.”

  He found a loose stone in the balustrade and brought it over. Jess winced at the removal, but she forced herself to focus. Besides, if the stone had been loose enough to pick up, repairs were already needed.

  Watching Jess place the rock in a way that held the door wide open, Derek tilted his head and asked, “How long before they notice?”

  “I hope not long,” Jess said. “Otherwise I worry greatly for my brother’s life.”

  She grabbed her bundles and entered the house.

  Here the memories were more difficult to ignore, partly because the difference was not quite so stark. The interior, at least in this section of the house, seemed to have remained mostly intact. It had been her family’s wing of the house, designed to hold advisors and visiting dignitaries.

  “The upstairs parlor, I think.” Jess led the way up the narrow back staircase that she would creep down when she’d wanted to step outside and listen to the ocean at night.

  They’d just entered the room when a shout was raised from the floor below and the sound of footsteps and people yelling filled the corridors. The open door had been discovered.

  “Do you trust me?” Jess asked.

  “If I didn’t I’d have walked away a long time ago.”

  Jess smiled. “Then let’s have a seat.”

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Where should we sit?” Derek whispered, not seeming a bit concerned with the shouts and pounding footsteps of the guards.

  Jess considered the shadowy room. They should probably sit in the chairs, but she wanted him close by. If they were physically threatened, she could protect him, and if her brother appeared, well, that was the sort of thing a girl didn’t want to face alone. “The sofa. More maneuverable.”

  He gave a short nod and they settled themselves in, their bags on the floor at the end of the sofa, and the bowl, still wrapped in its blanket, on the seat beside Jess.

  How long would they have to wait?

  Assuming the guards were loyal to Nicolas, they would be ensuring his protection first, then begin circling outward, searching the other rooms. If he’d returned to his childhood bedroom, they’d discover them soon. If he’d taken the royal suite, she and Derek might be here awhile.

  “This was our private family dr
awing room,” she whispered to Derek. “My mother had another room where she accepted visitors, closer to the front of the palace. Since she wasn’t the queen, it wasn’t overly formal, but it was used a great deal because she was more accessible than the queen.”

  At least that was the explanation her mother had given her seven-year-old daughter. Who knew if it was the truth or not? Jess couldn’t remember much of her aunt—couldn’t remember that much of her uncle, to be honest. She’d seen more of him in those short months he’d been at the farm than she’d seen of him in the entire eight years she’d lived in the palace.

  Jess pointed to the corner. “I was allowed to play checkers and cards at that table over there as long as I wasn’t too loud,” she whispered. “It’s funny how many rules there were about when and where we could spend time as a family until we were forced to live on top of one another in a tiny cottage.”

  “Survival is a powerful motivator,” Derek murmured.

  “And an amazing equalizer.” Jess had learned so much in that cottage—discovered her ability to pick up languages by listening to them over time, found the difference between quiet and silent, acquired skills like cooking and laundry and even hunting and farming that she’d never have honed living in this palace.

  The guards were moving in the corridors again, though not shouting this time. The search had begun. It was only a matter of time now.

  Jess dropped her hand to the cushion and gripped Derek’s tightly. He squeezed back but didn’t say anything.

  As the lantern light approached the drawing room door, she squinted her eyes, preparing for the onslaught of sudden brightness when they entered the room. When it came she felt Derek flinch, but he didn’t let go of her hand. It helped Jess’s smile feel a bit more natural as she turned it on the guards and eased her eyes open.

  “How do you do?” she asked in English, using the most cultured tone she could manage. In her ears, it sounded like her mother. “Would you please let my brother know he has a visitor?” She patted the still-wrapped bowl on the sofa next to her. “I’ve brought him a glad-to-hear-you’re-alive present.”

  The guards stayed in the door, weapons at the ready, lanterns held aloft, and stared. Obviously this had not been what they’d expected to find. Maybe they thought she was the ghost of her mother.

  She was fairly certain at least one of them knew English, but she switched to French and repeated herself just in case.

  No change in expression. Should she try Dutch? It wasn’t her best language, only rudimentary really, but she could probably struggle through a bit of an explanation.

  “We’ve found them,” one of the guards hollered into the hallway in French.

  More rushed feet in the corridors, and then the guards near the door parted to let another man through, one with an air of authority and strength. The kind that just might stab them first and ask questions later.

  Still, Jess smiled at him. “Ah,” she said, deciding to stay with French, “you must be the captain of the guard. Very good. Will you tell my brother I’ve come to see him alive with my own eyes?”

  The man’s lips twisted. “You are hardly the first to claim to be his sister.”

  Why hadn’t Jess thought of that? If he was saying that she was the key to holding the country, then of course there would be other people claiming to be the one he needed. The governments that wanted to absorb the little country had probably even sent some of them.

  “I’m very glad to know that you didn’t accept those impostors,” Jess said, fingers tightening their hold on Derek’s. How was she going to convince them? She wasn’t ready to show the bowl, not until she was face-to-face with her brother.

  “As the story was made up, you are all impostors.”

  Jess laughed and turned to Derek. “Isn’t that funny? What they thought was a falsehood brought out the truth.”

  Derek’s returning smile looked sick. No wonder, as there were at least three weapons still pointed in their direction.

  “Which room is he staying in?” Jess asked. “His old one, three doors down on the left? Did anyone ever repair the hole he put in the wall before we left? Or perhaps he’s in the royal suite that’s on the third floor in the center hall. Is that atrocious bird print still on the walls in that drawing room? He’s going to want to change that if he expects to receive visitors there.”

  The captain’s smirk faded a bit, and his eyes narrowed.

  “Fetch the king,” he told the guard behind him in French.

  Was it a good or bad thing that the guard already considered Nicolas the king? If the people did, too, this would be much easier. Surely no one thought Verbonne’s port was worth reopening the war. The bowl would merely be ceremony to allow everyone to back away and save face.

  It would also convince her brother she was who she said she was if he didn’t recognize her.

  The guard remained, though only one pistol stayed ready as footsteps trailed off and eventually returned.

  The guards parted again, but this time the man who passed through was in a dressing gown, his frown just as fierce as the captain’s had been.

  He looked like their father. His face had settled into similar lines, his hair was starting to recede from his forehead in the same way, and the shoulders had broadened. He was the picture of their father. “Nicolas,” Jess breathed.

  Until that moment, she wasn’t sure that she’d really believed he had survived.

  “My sister is dead. The diary is burned.” Her brother’s voice was hard and unyielding, and it made Jess flinch as if he’d struck her. Obviously he was not ready for a loving family reunion. “Why you think you can come in here and claim either is a mystery, though at least you look the part. I will know who you are before you die. Did Richard Bucanan send you? England? The German Confederation? Their threats will not work. I will protect this country. I will rule it.”

  How to play this? If she got angry in return, violence would escalate quickly, and Derek would be caught in the middle. She’d stay seated, stay calm. She’d had a month to consider the idea that she wasn’t alone. He’d had five minutes.

  “My name is Jessamine Beauchene,” she said slowly. “Ten years ago my father shoved me under the floorboards, along with a bag containing a diary and a handful of other family heirlooms. I’m sorry to say I’ve lost a couple of those over the years, but I still have the diary.” She took a deep breath and moved slowly, hoping the flickers of lantern light would disguise the movement of her hand toward the edge of the blanket that was wrapped around the bowl.

  “Your name is Nicolas Beauchene,” she continued, still moving her hand, “and when I was ten, you hid a frog in my bed, not realizing it wouldn’t happily stay under the covers, and you stayed up half the night waiting for me to discover it and threw a temper tantrum like a two-year-old the next morning when you learned it hadn’t worked.

  “And,” she said with emphasis as her fingers hooked the edge of the blanket, “if you’re hoping for a peaceful coronation, you might want this.”

  She whipped the blanket back, intending a dramatic reveal of the anointing bowl. Instead she sent it clattering to the ground. Still dramatic, she supposed, but not quite as elegant as she’d hoped. All last-minute plans couldn’t go perfectly.

  Everyone reacted to her sudden movement, pulling knives and pistols. Jess jerked Derek down to the floor in case someone chose to fire their weapon, but he surprised her by twisting and landing with her beneath him.

  Then Nicolas was down on the floor with them. The bowl lay by his knees, but he wasn’t looking at that. He was looking at her, and he looked even more like their father than he had before, so much so that Jess thought her heart might actually hurt to look at him.

  He lifted one hand to graze her cheek. “Jessamine?”

  Before she could answer, he was pushing Derek aside and crushing her to him in a strong grip. As her brother held her, she felt one more strong squeeze on her fingers before Derek let go of her hand.

>   For the next week, Derek did what he did best. He sat back and observed, giving the time and attention he’d once reserved for the past to the present. He rather thought this was what artists did: observe life, see the lights and shadows and patterns, and then put the heart of it on paper.

  Perhaps that had been what was missing when he had tried to paint. He’d been painting what he saw with his eyes instead of his heart. Maybe, when he returned home, he’d give creating art another try.

  “Monsieur,” one of the guards whispered as he entered the breakfast room where Derek was lingering over a cup of coffee and watching the waves in the distance glint in the morning sun.

  “She’s gone again?” he answered in French. His French had gotten better the past few days as he’d used it almost exclusively in the palace.

  Once the coronation bowl was in hand, things had moved quickly in the palace. Nicolas had already been planning to declare a coronation ceremony and dare the opposing forces to stop him. With bowl in hand, there was little they could do, since they’d agreed to abide by the tradition.

  After a day in the palace, though, Jess had taken to sneaking away from her guards on a regular basis. It sent them into a panic, since none of them realized she could do a better job defending herself than they could.

  The first time she’d run off, he’d tried to tell them not to worry, but he’d still gone in search of her. Ever since, she’d run away at least once a day. Derek liked to think it was because she missed him, since those times he went to find her were the only moments they managed to talk. Derek wasn’t even sure what he was still doing there.

  Each day she’d run off a bit earlier. Today she hadn’t even made it through breakfast.

  “Oui, monsieur,” the guard said urgently. “His Highness said we were to keep her in sight at all times, but she disappears.”

  “Yes,” Derek said dryly, setting his coffee cup aside. “She’s rather good at that. I’ll find her.”