Chapter Six

Derek gaped at the woman in front of him. She’d always seemed distant, even from the women she called friends, but was she truly so removed that she thought he would simply walk out of this inn and leave her alone in London?

Obviously the answer to that was yes. She’d had no intention of him seeing her. Now that he had, he refused to forget it.

She chewed slowly, her face a picture of contemplation and dismissal that proved her focus was on something outside this small private dining room. The delicate, fine-featured face looked out of place surrounded by an abundance of wiry grey curls and a ragged knit shawl.

The woman was making mush of his normally ordered brain.

Even though he already knew the answer, he asked, “When were you going to tell me you were in London?”

If he expected the question to make her squirm or express guilt, he was doomed to disappointment. She merely frowned and shrugged.

Probably as much of an admission as he was going to get out of her.

“Were you planning to sneak back to Marlborough and wait for me to send word?”

“That was an option,” she said coolly. “It would depend on what I found.”

What she found. This one-sided sharing of information was growing tiresome. Could he even trust her claim that this hunt was a matter of vital importance? He was quickly returning to the idea of removing himself from this entire situation.

“If I am to go to Chemsford’s, where are you going?”

She fell still, staring at her bread with an intensity that revealed great internal debate.

If she were a painting—and she was currently still enough to study her as if she were framed and on a wall—he would think her a woman on the edge of a life-changing moment. He would research the history of her life and time to see what great precipices awaited her. He would examine the painter’s life to see what agonized and plagued him, for artists frequently buried such turmoil in their work.

He would know where this moment had led her instead of wondering what decision required such effort. It would certainly be nice to know what options she was pondering.

“I suppose,” she said, seeming to talk to the bread more than to him, “that I will go visit Chemsford as well. We’ll see if your methods yield results before trying mine. Are you assured that you can ask of the paintings without raising suspicions?”

“It wouldn’t be the first time I’ve expressed fascination with Verbonnian art, and more than once I’ve sought out particular pieces for clients. If Chemsford is comfortable with me using his name, I can ask whatever I like.”

If Derek hadn’t given up on the idea of being able to understand this woman, he might have been lured into thinking the look in her eyes was something akin to respect.

Half an hour later, Derek was positive he’d misread Jess. She’d sent him here, to a street corner just out of sight of the inn, and told him to wait for her.

Like an imbecile, he’d done it. Despite the gentlemanly upbringing that insisted he not leave a lady unaccompanied in a public place, despite the fact that he was beyond certain that she wanted to disappear into the shadows of London’s smog and leave him in ignorance, he’d done it.

At least he’d kept her large satchel as an assurance that she would actually show up like she said she would.

Perhaps he wasn’t a complete imbecile.

She needed to make that appearance soon. He was starting to get strange looks. How long was she going to make him wait? Did she intend to limp and shuffle her way through the entirety of London? If so, why send him here? Why not simply catch a hack from the inn to take them to Chemsford’s?

Five minutes later, a street urchin ran up to him, speaking in a thick accent. “You new in town, guv’nor? For a ha’pence I’ll take you wherever you’re going. Won’t get lost or attacked, guarantee.”

Derek tightened his grip on both satchels. He’d heard tales of a grubby child acting as a distraction while someone else performed a robbery. This child was tall enough to cart away one of the bags himself, though. His head nearly came to Derek’s shoulder, an event that had likely happened recently given how high the ragged hem of his dirt-smeared trousers rode on the thin leg.

Suddenly, the child’s head tipped back and pale amber eyes beneath golden eyebrows laughed up at him.

The satchels nearly hit the ground as Derek’s jaw and grip both slackened.

Not limping about London, then. Closer inspection revealed a few similarities to the old woman she’d been at the inn. The knit fingerless gloves remained, though the shawl had been replaced by an overlarge cap capable of covering the entirety of her blond hair and delicate ears.

The homespun skirt was now wrapped around a lump he had to assume was her smaller satchel, making it look like a crudely knotted bag. Her legs were encased in threadbare trousers.

Knowing it was her in the drab items of clothing meant the last thing he should be noticing was the condition and placement of the hem.

Derek tried not to blush even as he averted his gaze, imagining Pieter Bruegel the Elder’s Hunters in the Snow in an attempt to escape the heat rising up his neck. Jess didn’t need anything else to mock him about.

Her ability to transform so completely was both impressive and terrifying. When she decided she no longer wanted him to know her whereabouts, she would disappear. He’d probably end up cluelessly opening the door for her and tipping his hat as she departed.

Despite his growing misgivings about his role in all this, there was nothing for him to do at the moment except play along.

“Yes,” he said and cleared his throat before setting a satchel down between his feet and extracting a coin from his pocket. “Can you direct me to, er, Lord Chemsford’s townhome?”

He placed the coin in her outstretched hand as she grinned at him.

Really grinned. Not a smirk or a sardonic smile, but a true, amused grin. It was stunning to behold, so stunning he couldn’t find it in himself to care that her amusement was at his expense. The embarrassment was worth it to pull such a rare thing from hiding.

She rolled her eyes, still grinning, and pocketed the coin.

In her trousers.

That exposed her legs.

Another lovely rare sighting that had, until this moment, been hidden.

Derek fixed his gaze on her cap, where he intended to keep it as she led him through London. A journey that would hopefully be short. “Should I flag down a hack?”

Her grin faded into an amused smirk as she tossed her sack over her shoulder and started walking. “I know a shortcut.”

Snatching up his satchel, he followed her, gaze glued to the huge brown cap.

Even when she turned down a dirty alley, he followed her, though with a bit of trepidation. He couldn’t keep his gaze on her cap and watch where he stepped at the same time.

They passed a set of mews that were well past the need of cleaning and then stepped out onto a street that felt a world away from where they’d been.

Here, neat terrace houses lined the road, well-dressed people walked along the pavement, and the traffic consisted of horse-drawn carriages instead of wagons and carts. It was everything that was polite society.

Not three minutes ago he’d been skirting a dung heap. That was London.

“It won’t be long now, guv’nor.” She grinned at him over her shoulder before continuing. Just as with the old woman, the disguise was more than a change of clothing. She’d changed the way she walked and the tone and rhythm of her voice. It was a complete transformation.

Two streets later, she stopped in front of a stately terrace house, three windows wide and four windows tall.

“Go up and knock,” she whispered in her normal voice. “I’ll go around to the back and come in through the kitchens.”

Derek wanted to protest. At this point the disguises were a bit ridiculous, weren’t they? Did she truly think someone was watching Lord Chemsford’s house and would think the grubby lad was really Jess if she went in the front door?

Unless he wanted to bodily haul her up the three stairs and hold her while he waited for someone to answer the door, Derek really didn’t have a choice. Her appearance as a poor lad might not draw a great deal of notice, but him seemingly abducting her would.

Besides, at some point one of them was going to have to trust the other. There was no chance she was going to be the first.

He turned to acknowledge her instructions, but she was already gone. With a shake of his head, he climbed the stairs and knocked.

The door was answered immediately.

Even though Derek knocked on the doors of aristocratic homes with regularity and William, Marquis of Chemsford, was someone he counted as a friend, this moment always made his mouth go a bit dry. He’d been raised the son of a gentleman, of decent society, but certainly not the type to rub shoulders with the ton.

Yet here he was. Knocking on the door of a marquis and expecting to be allowed entrance. It never ceased to strike a bit of fear and excitement in his belly.

He cleared his throat and extended his card. “Mr. Thornbury, here to see Lord Chemsford. I’ve a message from his wife.”

The butler ushered him into the front parlor and disappeared up the stairs.

Derek hadn’t even had time to stow the satchels in the corner before William appeared at the door, chest heaving as he gasped, “Is everything well? Daphne?”

“Yes, yes,” Derek rushed to assure him, wishing he’d thought to include that comfort in his initial sentence to the butler. “Your wife is well. She asked me to give you this.”

He slid a folded and sealed paper from his pocket, knuckle brushing the increasingly troublesome diary, and passed it over to the marquis. “I haven’t read it, of course, but I believe she might have explained my presence here better than I could.”

At first, Derek had assumed he was simply the messenger of private words of love and devotion. The way the day had gone, he wasn’t so sure anymore.

Lady Chemsford and her cook had worked together, a well-known fact around Haven Manor. It was even more well known that they were still friends. Until now, he hadn’t given much thought to the fact that such a relationship meant Lady Chemsford probably knew a great deal more about Jess than Derek did.

Given William’s lack of surprise as he read, he was aware of Jess’s proclivities as well. Or the letter wasn’t about Derek and Jess at all.

“By the by,” Derek said, with a nod toward the door, “Jess said she’d be coming around through the kitchens. I have no idea what she’ll look like. So far today she’s been an old woman and a grubby street child.”

William glanced up as if gauging Derek’s seriousness. “She really does that?”

Derek nodded. William’s lack of surprise meant either Jess had enacted living theater at Haven Manor prior to Derek’s arrival or something else in her past or character made the skill make sense.

For the first time in recent memory, Derek wished he possessed the ability to ask people personal questions. Normally, he didn’t care to know what someone didn’t willingly share.

His life was decidedly not normal at present.

Eyes on the letter, William walked to the bellpull.

A footman appeared before the pull’s tassel had settled.

“Have whoever knocks on the kitchen door brought up here immediately,” William said.

A slight wrinkle marred the footman’s forehead for a moment but soon smoothed back into a stoic, bland expression. He nodded and left.

Derek shook his head. “Does that ever give you airs?”

William looked up from the paper. “What?”

“That.” Derek nodded toward the door. “Having everyone take your word as law, never to be questioned, never to be called out as wrong.”

“Not here so much as it does at the country houses.” William finished reading the letter and gave a small nod before tucking it into his pocket. “I took Daphne to my childhood home, Dawnview Hall, after our wedding. By the time we left, the servants had taken to asking my valet if I was ill, I’d begun explaining my requests so much.”

He rubbed his hand across the back of his neck as he looked around the parlor, decorated in dark, sedate colors and simple, elegant furniture. “Daphne hasn’t been here yet. I never spent much time here growing up either. It still feels like I’m walking around in my father’s home. Most of the servants worked for him.”

Having a former housekeeper for a wife would likely call a lifetime of habits into question, even if the woman had been born to the same respectable level of society Derek had been raised in.

Derek had assumed that Jess’s background was similar to Lady Chemsford’s. Given her antics today, he had to adjust his thinking. In this case, adjust meant throw out everything he thought he knew.

As if his thoughts had conjured her, Jess appeared in the parlor door, looking exactly as he was accustomed to seeing her. A nondescript homespun dress and spencer jacket, plain fabric bonnet, and not a bit of dirt on her porcelain face.

Not caring if it was rude, Derek groped his way to a chair and sat down. This was why he so very much preferred ancient history. History didn’t change on a man.