Chapter Twelve

Derek had seen a great deal of art in his lifetime. Paintings, sculptures, tapestries, anything people made to commemorate moments both significant and mundane had filled his life.

Never had he seen anything like this.

The paintings of Fournier and his students had always given him pause, though he’d had few occasions to see them in person. The first time he’d seen a painting by one of The Six, he’d stared for a full twenty minutes in awed silence. There was such depth and life to their work.

Before him now was a prime example of the masterful wielding of an art brush that had marveled many an art scholar. Beyond the skill, though, beyond the technique, there was something more.

His hip bumped the doorframe as he stumbled into the room, not even looking around to see what room he was entering. All he could see was the painting. Even blinking was an irritation.

A young woman stood on a cluster of rocks, flat and wide with grooves worn from the trails of the tide, a thick wall that had been built in an attempt to tame the sea and only partially succeeded. Water sprayed around her as the waves crashed against the wall. Beyond the wall, a single rock formation jutted out into an ocean roiling with turmoil and chaos. Dark clouds stretched to the horizon, a storm powerful enough to stir the sea into a cauldron of fury.

The image was so real, so alive, that Derek had to resist the urge to wipe his brow and clear it of salt spray.

Whether it was moments or hours before someone cleared their throat and broke his reverie, he didn’t know. He blinked and pulled his gaze from the painting to look around at the rest of the party.

Beside him stood the duchess, the epitome of quiet ladylike grace she’d been throughout the tour of the house. The duke stood on her other side, looking a bit softer than he had in the drawing room but no doubt still as lethal. He possessed a leashed power one would have to be an idiot to miss.

Derek wasn’t an idiot. He swallowed and shifted his head in the other direction, seeking out Jess, expecting her to be looking at him with that same hint of condescension she’d frequently worn at Haven Manor, or perhaps the quiet curiosity of her aristocratic friends.

He found neither.

She was, without question, deeply affected by what she was viewing. Awe filled her features along with a sign of sadness. There was something incredibly despondent about the woman on the rock wall as she looked out across the tumultuous water. Perhaps Jess was beginning to see the power of art, the way a picture could transport a person in the way a history book never could.

“Is this the painting, then?” The duke’s quiet voice startled Derek, and he turned to find the duke had moved to a spot just beyond Derek’s shoulder, forcing him to look up to see the other man’s profile.

“Er, yes, Your Grace, this is it.” Derek resisted the urge to wipe his palms on his trousers. Some of the powerful men he’d worked with in the past had been terrifying and unbalanced. They never made him as nervous as the combination of intimidating duke, tenuous situation, and mysterious woman.

“Good,” the duke said with a nod. “This has always been one of my favorites.”

“You have exquisite taste,” Derek murmured, cringing a bit at the inanity of such a phrase.

What should he do now? He’d brought the diary, afraid something would happen to it if he left it at Chemsford’s, including Jess sneaking into his room to take it back and leave him out of everything. A small sketchbook remained in his other pocket, part of the reason he always had his coats cut a shy too large. What should he do with them, though? Pull out the diary and find the appropriate passage for a comparison? Sketch the essence of the painting so he and Jess could discuss it later? Both?

He glanced to Jess for direction. Until that moment, his knowledge and abilities had given him the upper hand in this adventure, but he hadn’t the first idea how to move forward in the actual hunt.

Jess was still staring at the painting, but her face had changed. Gone was the raw emotion of earlier. Now her features were smooth and blank, as if she herself had become polished marble.

Derek moved to her side, close enough that their sleeves brushed as they breathed. He tilted his head a bit closer and pitched his voice low. “Are you all right?”

His voice broke her trance, and she blinked rapidly before turning in his direction. In a raspy, thick voice, she asked, “Why aren’t you telling us about it?”

Why wasn’t he . . . was she serious? Did she not understand the importance of this moment? This wasn’t just Derek telling someone about the art they owned. This painting had been created with some greater purpose in mind, giving the viewing of it a very weighty significance. Here was the first step toward the hidden treasure indicated in the diary.

Until now it had all been hypothetical.

He’d accepted that the danger was real, but until he’d seen this painting he hadn’t been sure that the treasure hunt was. Walking away from everything was no longer an option he could even pretend to entertain. History was speaking directly to them. There would never be another chance to experience something like this.

Going into it blind wasn’t an option, though. He wanted to continue experiencing mundane moments that might pale in significance to this one but would signify that he was still among the living.

“We’re going to have a conversation later, you and I,” Derek said quietly, “about what we will and will not share. So you can be prepared, the only answer I intend to accept is sharing everything. I’ll not be walking into another situation already back on my heels.”

Jess lifted a haughty eyebrow in his direction. “I’m sure I don’t know what you mean.”

Derek shrugged. “I assumed you wouldn’t want to have this conversation here, as you obviously have a relationship with the duke—one you chose not to disclose, by the way—but if you’d rather discuss it now, I’ll defer to your wishes. We’re among your friends, after all.”

A low chuckle came from behind them. Derek glanced over his shoulder to find the duke grinning.

The wide, tooth-baring grin was nearly as frightening as his earlier scowl.

Derek pulled the diary from his jacket. A few translation notes jutted from between the pages and caught on the rough wool. After a bit of shifting, he opened to the passage he thought matched the painting. “I believe this is one of the earliest paintings described. She never calls them by name, but she’s incredibly descriptive in the subject matter, methods, and materials.”

There were a few ocean paintings described in the first part of the book, discussing the mix of colors and angle of strokes needed to create proper water. The seventh passage, though, was different. It discussed how to create the depth and turmoil of a stormy sea, but there was more than just the details. “There’s a shift in her manner when she describes this one as opposed to the ones before it.”

He turned another page and pulled out the translation notes he’d tucked inside. “I believe this goes along with the opening passage, the one we read at the house. ‘She looks toward the secret passage that will one day be opened; hope is her beacon in the storm that surrounds her. Where she leads, the worthy will follow until they have all they need to right the wrongs of the past.’”

“It’s a map.” The duke’s voice held an element of surprise as he looked from the diary to the painting to Jess to Derek.

“What?” Derek looked up from his notes and at the painting. Was there an image within it that he hadn’t seen? Something that would help them finish the clue in the diary?

“It says she’s looking toward the secret passage, so it must be in that direction, right?” The duke pointed to the wall beyond the frame.

It was the most literal consideration for the meaning of the words, which was never a bad place to start when interpreting old texts. “Possibly,” Derek said quietly, “but if it is a map I haven’t any idea how to read it. She’s looking toward hope. Perhaps if we knew where she was, we would know where she looked. Could the paintings indicate an actual path we are supposed to take?”

“It’s the ocean,” the duke muttered. “That could be anywhere.”

“I know where it is,” said a small voice that Derek could only attribute to Jess by process of elimination and direction.

He looked up from the diary, surprised to see her looking as small as she’d sounded. The woman had always been short in stature, her head just barely grazing Derek’s shoulder. Despite her size, she’d never looked like she believed herself to be tiny.

“I can’t do this.” She whispered so quietly he could barely make out the words.

“I don’t think I’ve ever heard that word come out of your mouth,” the duke said, moving around to stand on her other side.

She glanced in his direction, and a ghost of a smile curved her lips. “Yes, you have. Mostly when I’m telling you that you can’t stop me.”

“True,” he said with a nod. “And if I can’t stop you, this hundred-year-old painting shouldn’t either.”

Derek coughed. “One hundred fifty-six.”

“What?” the duke and Jess asked at the same time.

“The painting.” Derek nodded toward the wall. “It’s one hundred fifty-six years old.” He held up the diary. “According to this, at least.”

“Right,” Jess said.

Derek cleared his throat. “You know this setting?”

She nodded. “It’s the coast of Verbonne.”

“The Verbonne coastline is made up almost entirely of the port of Mermaison. The rest is pure white sand.” Derek frowned. “A rock formation such as that one would wreak havoc with a port area.”

“It’s behind the Royal Palace,” Jess said. “There were more rocks in the area, but they dug them out and used them to build the palace.” She nodded at the painting. “And the wall. You have to go through the private gardens and take a short trail down to sea level.”

Derek closed the diary and ran a hand over the royal crest on the front. Hearing Jess casually mention her connection to royalty still knocked him a bit sideways.

Jess took a deep, shaky breath, but her words didn’t waver when she spoke again. “I was standing in that same place the first time I heard the story. She’s looking toward England.”

“Finally ready to admit that you are a member of the royal family?” Derek asked in his matter-of-fact, I-know-everything-and-will-find-out-what-I-don’t voice.

Jess really hated that voice.

Not quite as much as she hated how much of herself she was going to have to reveal, though. It would seem the stories had been true. The queens had taken an essential piece of Verbonne’s sovereignty with them and didn’t want anyone not connected with the royal family or at least the old government to find it. That was what was meant by worthy.

It didn’t seem the most apt definition of the word.

“I am not royal.” That was true, so far as it went. She hadn’t really been considered royal, even though she lived in the family wing of the royal palace. Her uncle was the king, but he’d moved his extended family into the palace after the French revolution, for fear that similar sentiments would leak over the border of his beloved little country.

Jess had been born within those walls, and they were all she knew until even that safe haven was threatened.

“I’m not royal,” Jess repeated, “but she is.”

She pointed to the woman in the painting. Jess had never seen this painting before, never even heard of it, but she’d seen the woman. That same woman, dressed in that same dress and with the same ring of flowers in her hair, hung in the portrait gallery of the palace.

“That’s Queen Jessamine. I was named after her.” And she’d grown up with stories of her namesake uttered in reverent tones normally reserved for saints and war heroes. “It was when Leopold the First was the Holy Roman Emperor. His power was lessening by then, but he still had enough to take over Verbonne. She ran away with the heart of Verbonne, or so the stories go. He might take over the land, but he wouldn’t take over the soul.”

“That’s when Fournier and his students fled the country,” Derek said. “In Fournier’s painting, their departure is in the dead of night, and they’re wrapped in fishing nets.”

Jess nodded. “It wasn’t only one fishing boat, though. There were four that left Verbonne that morning, all to convene at the larger ship anchored near that rock outcrop, away from all the normal water traffic.”

“Four boats?” Derek frowned. “But his painting shows him and what is assumed to be The Six huddled in one boat.”

“I suppose art isn’t always an accurate representation, then. Or perhaps the stories designed to ignite the passion from one generation to the next aren’t accurate.” She shrugged. “Maybe both.”

Jess took a deep breath. She could do this. She could separate her family’s ancient history from the father who’d told it to her. These were the stories of people long dead and a country she didn’t really know. It should be easy to disconnect them from the man who’d told her bedtime stories, showed her the stars, and used his last breath of freedom to shove her to safety.

She would keep to the facts, or what she’d been told were facts, and stay far away from anything she’d actually experienced.

“Queen Jessamine fled and took much of the royal family with her, including the king’s mother and the young prince.” It was so similar to her own story, with all of the family retreating to the farm, leaving King Gerard behind to govern the country alone. Unlike her uncle, though, King Nicolas, whom Jess’s brother had been named after, hadn’t been able to rejoin his family, even for a while.

There were those who believed that the queen had been with child when she left that night, but no one knew for certain. Jess glanced at the diary. Did the book say? Would she find that the people who had hunted her family down, stating they had the true right to the throne, had a valid claim after all?

She kept that part of the story to herself. It wasn’t relevant to the hunt.

“She sent word back to her husband with instructions on how to send for her once it was safe to return. It took years, but King Nicolas finally came to an agreement with the emperor. The king was left as little more than the caretaker of Verbonne. He sent word for his wife to return, but it was too late.

“His mother wrote back with the news that Queen Jessamine and their young son had died. Later, she sent him the diary, saying she still believed that Verbonne would return to glory and that one day someone would come retrieve the heart of Verbonne. At least we think that’s what she said. The king burned the letter before hiding the diary.”

Jess could almost hear her father saying the words, embellishing the tale with colorful descriptions of life before he’d been born to see it. “The king married again, determined to continue the line in hopes that one day Verbonne would be restored as an independent nation. He told no one of the diary save his eldest son, but he spread tales of his wife’s heroism everywhere.

“That line continued until my uncle. His sons were very young as war knocked on Verbonne’s borders once more in the form of Napoleon. So he told his brother of the diary, and he, in turn, told all of his children, since they had no idea who would manage to survive the war they knew was coming.”

Jess stopped talking there, allowing her companions to draw the conclusion that she was one of the children raised on the story of the brave queen and the diary and a legacy passed down through the blood of generations. Raised on the idea of a country she could barely remember, let alone feel connected to.

Even though Jess hadn’t shared anything personal about herself, she felt raw and exposed. Ryland knew some of it, of course, as he’d been sent to rescue them before Napoleon’s men could find them. The dissolution of even the semblance of the Holy Roman Empire had left all of Europe vulnerable. England had been hoping to maintain access to the port of Verbonne through the king.

Derek held up the diary. “What is this a map to, then?”

“If I had to guess,” Jess said, “it shows where Queen Jessamine hid the coronation bowl. Evrart the Wanderer had the bowl made soon after establishing his kingdom. In the center is the waterstone.”

“That must be what Nicolas claims will prove he’s the true king,” Ryland said. “He’s been ripping apart the palace, hoping to find something that hasn’t been there in a hundred years.” He glanced in Derek’s direction. “Sorry. One hundred fifty-six.”

Jess shook her head. “We’d always assumed the heart of Verbonne was the young prince. We had no idea it was the coronation bowl. I always thought that was tucked away in the secret vault.”

“What is the waterstone?” Derek asked.

“A large opal said to have been pulled from the mouth of the spring that Evrart stood by when he claimed the land.”

Derek frowned. “That’s not where people find opals.”

Jess shrugged. “I don’t think legends much care about that. The old law stated that the king must be anointed by water that has rolled over the waterstone, and any party of royal lineage that is in possession of the bowl at the time of coronation becomes the rightful king.”