Chapter Ten
Derek was having tea with the Duke and Duchess of Marshington, the duke’s valet, and a reclusive country house cook who had most certainly been withholding significant information.
Jess could have—should have—prepared him for this. Obviously she wasn’t the simple country lass she’d wanted him to think her, though he’d never completely believed that idea anyway. He’d known the gulf between him and her trust was wide, but he’d never imagined it so large as to provoke her keeping a secret of this magnitude.
This morning, their conversation had been almost friendly as they walked through London in the early dawn. He’d thought it was the beginning of a new direction in their partnership.
It would seem she thought otherwise. He didn’t know her at all.
The people in this room, however, did, and unlike William’s new wife, they had no problem talking in front of him. Derek would sit quietly and see how much he could learn.
Then he would corner Jess and demand answers for his growing list of questions. If the explanations were not forthcoming, he would walk away. He would. Art and history had frequently stolen his attention to the detriment of his awareness of place and time, but the mix of past and present he was currently walking in was an emotional torture rack.
Before he walked away, though, he’d need at least a few more details to satisfy his curiosity. Such as how Jess had come to be known as the girl in the floorboards.
The tea and biscuits made their rounds, but no one returned to the conversation. They just sipped, looking contemplatively at one another and occasionally glaring at Jess, who in turn stared into the depths of her cup.
The valet, Jeffreys, snapped a biscuit in half, breaking the tense silence with a cracking noise that only seemed to make everything heavier.
Then the duke smiled and turned to Derek.
Derek almost dropped his tea. They were supposed to be interrogating Jess so that he could learn more about her.
“Where are you from, Mr. Thornbury?”
Jess slumped lower in her chair with a heavy sigh before glaring at the duke. “Unfair.”
The duchess didn’t bother smothering her grin. “You brought him here.”
The trepidation he’d felt on the front stoop returned as Derek took in the duke’s easy posture. The eyes gave away the lack of true relaxation. They held a sharp perception that indicated he saw far more than he acknowledged.
“I’m originally from Cowley in Oxfordshire, Your Grace.”
The large man waved a hand in the air as he set his teacup on a nearby table. “No need to bother with the ‘Your Grace.’ You may call me Marshington.”
The offer was probably made to make Derek feel more at ease.
It didn’t.
Was he supposed to offer that the man be allowed to call him Derek? Or Thornbury? He’d rubbed shoulders with many a high-ranking man, but always in the capacity of education or work. And while this didn’t quite feel social, it was hardly Derek’s normal element.
“Yes.” Derek swallowed, simply resolving to not call the man anything. “Thank you.”
“And what do you do?” The duke picked up a biscuit and contemplated the pattern baked into the top before taking a bite.
“I teach some, but mostly I work with antiquities and art. I appraise them, catalogue them.”
The duke looked around the drawing room. “Interesting. I’ve never had the contents appraised. Is there anything of value in here?”
Derek had been aching to look around the room but for once thought it might behoove him to give more attention to the occupants than the furnishings. This was obviously some sort of test, but one Derek had complete confidence he could pass as he gave in to the urge to look around. Statues and paintings were ever so much easier to understand than people.
Whoever had decorated the room had a keen sense of style and an eye for creating a beautiful room instead of a gallery of wealth. A Rembrandt hung on one wall beside a piece that he didn’t recognize but guessed had come from a modern painter who’d studied the work of Rembrandt. The works looked good together, but one was clearly of superior quality.
Well, the quality difference was clear to Derek. Probably not so much to the rest of the people in the room.
“I would need to inspect them more closely to give you a full report, but from here I can see at least two pieces of significance.”
One dark brow lifted and the man inclined his head, asking without words for Derek to elaborate.
At least in this Derek knew he could excel without bumbling. “The Rembrandt on the wall there is of great value. It’s one of his few mythological pieces and quite desirable among many collectors of his work.” With a hard swallow, Derek pointed toward a bronze statue on a table near the window. Even knowing that he knew what he was talking about, the unbroken attention of the duke made him nervous. “If I’m not mistaken, you’ve a Giambologna piece over there, possibly one of the ones he made for the Medici family. If it’s genuine, you could get a great sum for it.”
“It’s genuine,” the duke said softly. “A gift of appreciation.”
With that single statement, Derek was pulled back into the mystery around him, and his heart started thundering once more. Fortunately, he’d already set his teacup on a nearby table. What sort of deed could the duke have done to merit such an expensive show of gratitude? “You must have been very helpful.”
“Hmmm.”
A movement in the corner of his eye caught his attention, and he turned to see Jess poised to throw a biscuit at the duke. That she would even contemplate tossing food at a man in his own house was quite the indication of their close relationship. That she would consider tossing food at a duke anywhere was quite the indication of her audacity. Just what had Derek gotten himself into?
“Where did you meet Jess?” the duke asked.
Jess groaned and bit into the biscuit instead of throwing it. “Where do you think?” she mumbled as she chewed.
“How would I know?” The duke turned narrowed eyes in her direction. “You didn’t see fit to tell anyone where you were going.”
“It’s hardly hiding if you tell people where you are.”
“And you didn’t trust me to keep your secret? Try again, Jess.”
As much as Derek was grateful to be freed from the direct and uncomfortable gaze of the duke, he didn’t delight in the fact that it had been turned on Jess without the benefit of the veneer of charm.
He’d seen moments of vulnerability—fleeting, yes, but enough to know that she could be hurt. Something about this situation had put her at risk.
“I met her in Wiltshire,” Derek said, clenching his hands in his lap to keep from fidgeting with them. He never brought attention on himself. On his knowledge and expertise, yes, but never himself. “I was working on cataloguing an estate for the Marquis of Chemsford.”
The duke’s attention swung back around to Derek, looking a bit more relaxed around the eyes. “The new one or the old one?”
“Wouldn’t the old one have to be dead for there to be a new one?” his wife asked with a tilt of her head.
“Yes,” the duke sighed, “but he could have hired Thornbury here before popping off.”
It would seem dukes didn’t need permission to address a person informally.
“But then he would be working for the new one, wouldn’t he? He would hardly be doing a job he wasn’t getting paid for.”
The duke frowned at the duchess. Jess coughed and looked down into her tea, a smirk on her face. Jeffreys, who until now had been sitting silently and glaring in Jess’s direction, gave a soft chuckle.
“Very well,” Marshington said with an inclination of his head. “He works for the new one. Chemsford’s a good man. A bit reclusive, but good.”
As William hadn’t volunteered to approach the duke on Derek’s behalf after learning he had a painting, Derek could only assume the duke knew William by reputation or chance meeting or a habit of observing every man who came into his title.
“This estate,” the duke said. “What is it called?”
“Er, um.” Derek scooped up his tea and took a great swallow of it to buy a moment of time. It wasn’t that he didn’t know the estate’s name, but it had held a great secret for the past dozen years or so, one that Jess had been a part of. It was all in the past now, but Derek didn’t want to be the one to bring the old news into light if it hadn’t come out already. Would naming the estate tell the duke anything about what Jess had involved herself in?
“You know where I was,” Jess said. “You sent the message.”
It was now Derek’s turn to glare at the little woman. She really should have prepared him for this.
“Yes,” the duke said, his voice even icier than his stare. “I did send the message, and you received it nearly six months later than you should have. If you had seen fit to tell me where you were going, we could have notified you as soon as we had news about your brother.” He shrugged. “And as soon as he made you the target.”
Jess’s eyes narrowed. “Whose target?”
“Possibly everyone’s. The details are murky on who truly wants what, but there’s quite a bit of disagreement over what should happen with your former home.”
“The palace?” Jess asked before cutting a short look Derek’s way. He’d already considered she was somehow tied to the royal family based on the diary, so that wasn’t news.
“The country,” the duke corrected. “Nicolas emerged after the war and declared himself the rightful king and stated that Verbonne should be its own sovereign nation again. Others disagree. Some say the land is unstable and should be part of one of the adjoining countries. Others say it should be sovereign but that your brother shouldn’t rule it. There is a great deal of closed-door political wrangling, and we aren’t even sure who all the players are.”
“What does that have to do with Jess?” Derek couldn’t stop himself from asking, then wished he hadn’t, because the question drew not only the duke’s attention but everyone else’s.
“Because Nicolas told everyone that she was in possession of the proof of his lineage. He said the queen had written a diary about her escape and where she’d hidden the heart of Verbonne, and it proved Nicolas is the heir of the last ruling monarch.” The duke slid his narrowed gaze from Derek back to Jess. “A diary I wasn’t aware existed.”
“Hardly the point at the moment,” Jess murmured.
“Debatable,” the duke answered. “He’s implied that you are holding the proof, which is supposedly some artifact of great value, but you won’t come out of hiding until he is safely on the throne and able to offer you stability. He’s talked this up so much that the other powers in this matter have told him to produce something of substance or step aside. The time limit they’ve given him is only a month away.
“If someone else manages to produce the diary or some other convincing artifact other than the ones Napoleon stole, they’ll have a strong claim that they should control Verbonne and its port.”
That certainly would make Jess a target. Derek swallowed and slid a hand over his side, where the weight of the diary in his jacket pocket suddenly felt much more significant.
Everyone was silent for a moment, then the duke said, “You have questions.”
“Yes,” Jess said in a near whisper. “Many.”
“So do I.”
Jess flattened her mouth into a grim line. “At the moment, the most important one is whether or not they know where I am.”
“No. Even if someone knows who you are and that I didn’t actually find you in a French general’s trunk, you’d be difficult to trace. The War Office wasn’t told you came to work for me. The official record has you moving to the border of Scotland after you healed. The fact that someone is searching up there now is why I don’t have more information. I’ve been discreet in whom I’ve chosen to talk to. The man who saw you in Marlborough, though, wasn’t one of mine. He’s never been known to have qualms about selling to the highest bidder.”
Jess nodded and straightened her spine before setting her cup on the table and staring down the duke with a coolness that matched his own. “Perhaps we should forgo the interrogation, then, and set about finding the painting.”
One dark eyebrow lifted. “You don’t think the diary is the artifact in question?”
“No.” Jess took a deep breath and let it out in a long rush. “I think it tells us where it’s hidden.”
Derek wanted to grab Jess and shake her, to scream at the room in general that he had questions as well, and the main one consisted of what in the world was going on here. He wanted to toss the diary in Jess’s lap and walk out the door. He wanted to have never learned what little he had, because the seriousness before him indicated that the danger was very real.
She’d said the fate of a country rested on it. She hadn’t been exaggerating.
The duke’s gaze narrowed. “No more disappearing, Jess. You’re a woman of honor, and I’ll be having your word before we go another step. You will never disappear again. I didn’t save your life only for you to throw it away by being stubborn.”
“You have my word,” Jess bit out. “But I’ll have a promise from you as well.”
The duke, who looked far more comfortable with his threatening coldness than Jess did, took a sip of tea and lifted his eyebrows. “You may request one, of course, but you’ll not force a promise from me.” He set the cup aside. “And should your life or person be in danger, that promise becomes void.”
Jess knotted the fingers of one hand together but otherwise remained still. “You have a daughter. A wife. A title. I want you to promise me that you will protect them before protecting me.”
He gave a small, sharp nod.
“I don’t mean mere physical protection,” Jess added.
“I know,” the duke said quietly. “You don’t want me to participate in this little search of yours.”
“If they manage to find my path, my association with you will be old and cold, just as I intended it to be. You will be watched but safe. They will be safe. Don’t jeopardize that.”
Derek was very glad he was sitting down as his legs went numb. Jess had put a contingency plan in place three years ago? Clearly her past was a great deal larger than she was, and this task was a great deal more important than he’d considered.
The duke watched Jess silently for another moment, then turned to his wife and held out his hand to her. She took it and squeezed before giving a small smile in return.
Derek looked away from the intimate moment. There’d been nothing untoward about it, but it seemed like he’d just witnessed an entire private conversation. What would it be like to know someone that well? To be known that well? He’d always been something of an enigma, even among his friends and colleagues and especially his family. It hadn’t made him lonely, but it was rare that he was truly understood.
“I’ll agree to stay out of it to a point,” the duke said.
“Ryland,” Jess growled, adding one more brick to the crushing weight of questions in Derek’s mind. She was referring to the duke by his Christian name. How? Why?
“I’ll stay here.” The duke held up both hands in a motion of surrender, even though it seemed very much like he was determining his own conditions. “But I want to help you. If I am in possession of one of these paintings you need to see, it stands to reason that the rest of them are in places as impossible to reach. I can open doors for you.”
“They. Come. First,” Jess said, mouth flattened into a firm line and arms crossed over her chest. She was half the width of the duke and could maybe poke him in the shoulder if she reached high and stood on her toes, but she met him glare for glare.
He gave a sharp nod. “They come first.”
Jeffreys, who had been silent while steadily working his way through a plate of biscuits, said, “That’s it? A few glares and a promise and we’re going to forgive her for slipping away like a thief in the night?”
“You have a better idea?” the duchess asked.
“We should get an apology dinner or at least a tea,” the wiry man grumbled.
“Make her pay her penance in the kitchen?” the duchess asked. “I do like the sound of that.”
“Her coq au vin is fabulous,” Derek said, before remembering he intended to stay as silent as possible.
Three shocked faces swung his direction while Jess stared up at the ceiling. “I thought you hated that dish,” she said.
“It wasn’t hard to see that you stopped cooking anything I complimented.” It had been embarrassingly obvious, actually. He’d then begun grumbling about his favorite dishes so they appeared more often.
“She’s cooked for you?” Jeffreys asked in clear astonishment.
Derek rubbed one hand over his leg in discomfort as he looked around the room. The grim, serious expressions had all been replaced with curiosity. Hadn’t Jess been the cook here? Hadn’t it been the same friendly connection between master and servant that she had at Haven Manor?
It would seem not. Then again, if he’d learned anything this morning it was that assuming he knew anything about Jess was dangerous. He cleared his throat. “She’s the cook for Chemsford’s estate.”
The duke laughed. A deep, full laugh that had him bending forward to brace against his knees. “You’ve spent the past three years in a kitchen?”
“Yes. No.” Jess sighed. “It’s complicated. Can we look for the painting now?”
The duke was still grinning as he nodded. “Of course. Hopefully it’s here and not down at Marshington Abbey. What painting is it?”
“We don’t know,” Jess grumbled, inspiring another chuckle from the duke.
“Makes it harder,” he said.
As the conversation was shifting back to the actual art, Derek felt a bit more confident in speaking up. “We’re looking for a painting by a Verbonnian painter, one who was part of a group called The Six.”
“So you’re looking for a painting, but you don’t know what it’s called, what it looks like, or even who painted it?” The duke looked from Jess to Derek and back again. “How in the world are we supposed to find that?”
Jess beamed at Derek, nearly sending him into shock all over again. She’d never given him a smile like that before. He’d never seen her give anyone a smile like that. “We use him.”