Chapter Sixteen

Jess was taking delicate bites of egg and smiling at everything Mrs. Thornbury said when Derek stumbled into the breakfast room the next morning. In addition to the flop of hair across his forehead, there was now a spray of it sticking up from the back of his head. His spectacles only emphasized the tiredness of his eyes. The clothes he wore yesterday still hung on his body, though a bit more wrinkled, and the faint odor of burned tallow clung to him.

Jeffreys, who’d already eaten and was now seeing to the horses, should have gone to Derek’s room and used his bed. Obviously it had been empty all night.

Mrs. Thornbury simply clicked her tongue and shook her head before asking the maid to bring coffee. “How many candles?”

“Only two,” he answered, running his hands over his face.

“I’ll make sure the maid goes up today to clean the scorch marks from the wall and desk.”

Derek frowned. “I’ve learned how to trim a candlewick, Mother. The smoke left a streak on the wall, of course, but that couldn’t be helped.”

“Unless you’d gone to bed like a sensible person,” Jess said, so low that no one would hear her except possibly Derek, who had taken the seat beside her at the breakfast table.

Derek frowned at her, indicating he had, indeed, heard her little comment. His only answer, though, was to take a bite of toast.

Lewis joined them a few minutes later, making a few teasing comments about Derek’s appearance. When the younger brother didn’t respond, the elder soon fell into conversation with their mother.

Eventually Jess couldn’t stay at the table any longer without drawing suspicion. She’d hoped Mrs. Thornbury and her eldest son would go about their day and leave Jess to talk to Derek while he ate. If she were a believer in luck, she’d think hers had long run out.

“I believe I’d like to take a turn in your lovely garden before cooping myself up in a carriage all day,” Jess said with a sweet smile, trying to look and act like her friend Daphne. Even before the woman had become a marchioness she’d been . . . nice. It was a simple word, but the reality was far more difficult.

Jess had only been attempting it for a few hours and found the business wearying. Disguises that required her to be a bit harder than she was were much easier. That, or complete and total mutton brains. She rather enjoyed those as well. A simple, graceful, nice girl, however, the kind who was welcomed in most of the genteel world, was the most trying of all identities.

As she escaped to the garden, she subtly lifted a hand to massage cheeks that were sore from all the soft smiling she’d done over breakfast. The door opened behind her, and Jess sighed silently before putting the mask back in place. She turned to see Derek shuffling out toward her and relaxed. “What did you learn last night?”

He rolled his shoulders and rubbed his neck.

Jess laughed. “Aside from the fact that sleeping in a chair at a desk is never going to end well.”

“I learned that lesson a long time ago,” Derek answered. “I just choose to ignore it on a regular basis.”

“Do you know where we’re going?”

He nodded. “Not far, to start. We’re going to Oxford. There’s a book in their collection.”

“More books?” Jess shook her head. “Derek, we need paintings, not books.”

“It’s a book of paintings, or at least the engravings of paintings. When I was reading back through the descriptions of the collection of paintings by The Six, I remembered seeing one in this book. Another of their paintings also hangs in the Ashmolean.”

That she could work with. The possibility of finding not just one but two paintings before the day was out gave Jess a bit of hope she’d been loath to admit was lacking. “What do we need to do to get into the Ashmolean?”

Derek’s eyebrows lifted. “Walk up the stairs? It’s open to the public. Always has been. My grandmother would take me there when I was a boy. What I saw there made me realize how much more to the world there was. Most people never get to see such wonders. Once seen, some of them still don’t make complete sense.”

“For example?”

“There’s a stuffed bird there, very strange looking. Huge long beak, squat legs. A dodo bird, it’s called. Seeing it on display, it’s impossible to tell what it would live like, but then you see the sketches of life on Mauritius, and it makes more sense.”

“To Oxford and the Ashmolean, then,” she said with a sharp nod. His statements made sense to Jess, at least on a certain level, though she didn’t know that she agreed with him. Art was nothing but frustrating. She always wanted to know what wasn’t there, what was about to happen next. Apparently The Six and the queen had felt differently, which was why Jess needed Derek—if only she could keep him focused. “Let’s say our farewells.”

He nodded and turned back to the house. “There aren’t any dodo birds left, you know. They all died when the Dutch settled there. Pictures are all that remain.”

Jess shook her head, but instead of wanting to shove a wad of linen in his mouth as he continued on about birds, she discovered she was amused. At least he was moving toward the carriage, even if he couldn’t stop himself from reciting every obscure fact about the smallest thing that no one in his vicinity even knew about, much less cared for.

They said farewell to his family, all of whom were still watching Jess and Jeffreys as if their descriptions might be needed by the magistrate later, and climbed into the carriage, Derek still discussing the wonders to be seen at the Ashmolean.

Derek loved the scent of books. Paper, ink, leather, and dust created an aroma that always made him feel at home. He could spend hours in this library, wandering the shelves, perusing the books, and learning new information.

He could, but the two people creeping silently behind him would probably threaten to burn the place down.

“Here it is,” Derek said, pulling a large book from the bottom shelf and laying it gently on the table running between the sets of dark wood shelves.

“How do we find it?” Jeffreys asked, reaching for the book.

Derek slid it out of reach and leaned over the tome, turning the pages gently. The picture was in here, he knew, but as page after page of attempts to recreate masterful pieces of art flipped by he could feel the tense anticipation of his companions.

“You could be looking for the painting in the Ashmolean,” he said, hoping to get them to stop looking over his shoulder.

“What good would that do?” Jess asked. “I wouldn’t know it if I saw it, and even if I did, I wouldn’t know what to look for.”

Derek could tell them where to go, but he didn’t know what to look for either, and the reminder that his single purpose on this trip was to provide that direction only added to his apprehension. His heart pounded and his hand trembled as he turned one more page and then stopped, breath halting in his lungs. “I found it.”

Immediately, the other two crowded in next to him. Jeffreys leaned over from the right while Jess pressed in on the left. Her small hand curved over his shoulder, and Derek felt a small pang of excitement that normally only came from viewing a rare painting he’d been dreaming of seeing in person. He cleared his throat and pointed to the book. “I found The Day That Never Was.”

“Is it in the diary?”

Derek pulled his satchel up to the table, careful not to dislodge Jess’s hand while doing so. He liked it there, liked the idea that she was leaning on him, depending on him, even though she could easily have stood on her own. “Yes. Though nothing is listed by name, it’s described well.” He opened the satchel and thumbed through his notes before extracting the page in question. “This isn’t a true rendition, obviously, as it lacks the detail and magic of the real one.”

As fascinated as he was with the works of Fournier and The Six, this was one painting he rather hoped he never saw in person. The block print in the book almost brought him to his knees. The real one would probably rip his heart out. This was the first time his companions were seeing it. How were they remaining unaffected?

Maybe Jess needed him more than he’d thought.

“The diary talks of traveling forward to find the past. I’d have to check on a map, but from the orientation I’m guessing this road goes northeast out of Brookland in Kent.”

Jess glanced at him and then leaned closer to the book. “How can you possibly know this depicts Brookland? It’s just a village.”

“The church.” Derek pointed to the picture, trying to focus on the unique angled structure of the St. Augustine’s Church bell tower and not look at the people. A bridal party walked away from a group of funeral mourners. Rosemary branches lay across a fresh grave, and wheat and flower blossoms trailed behind the bride as she walked down the road, head bowed.

Derek pulled out his sketchbook and began drawing the scene.

The details were difficult to see and nearly impossible to capture in a quick sketch, but he was almost certain that what was important was the church. There wasn’t another one like it in the world. The bell tower consisted of three angled tiers, like cones stacked atop one another. The distinct porch and the rough rock walls extended out from there.

Silence pressed in on him as the others looked over his shoulder at the book. He spoke as he drew. “Did you know the sheep that graze on Romney Marsh are bred for meat and wool? Some of the best long-staple wool comes from there.”

Two heads turned slowly in his direction.

“It’s also a known smuggler’s landing,” Jess said. “What has that to do with anything?”

“The church. Brookland is in the Romney Marsh.” Derek pointed at the picture, where a few sheep straggled along in the retreating wedding party. “There’s sheep in the picture.”

“Does that tell us what it means?” Jeffreys asked.

Derek looked up at their faces, but they only stared blankly at the book. Couldn’t they see the story in front of them? The bride burying her groom instead of marrying him? Walking away because she was still alive? It fit the story Jess had told of a queen fighting for the revival of a lost country so well that Derek could only stare in awe at the skill and imagery.

They didn’t appear to share his fascination.

“I don’t think so.” Derek cleared his throat. “I think the sheep are just part of the painting. My guess would be they’re there to help establish the location. The painting is a point and a direction like The Grace of Oceans Breaking.” He paused. “I think.”

It was the best guess he had. The theory worked so far, anyway.

Jess stood up and looked around the library. “Is there a book of maps in this place?”

“I brought Ryland’s map of England along. It’s in the carriage. We can use that copy to keep track along the way if this theory proves correct,” Jeffreys said.

“We might as well look at the other painting on our way back to the carriage, then.” Jess moved toward the door, her skirts not even making a swishing sound as she walked.

Derek quickly replaced the book on the shelf before rushing to move ahead of her. They’d seen no one when he’d slipped them in the back of the library, but that didn’t mean the passages had remained empty. He wasn’t going to breathe easy until he knew he wasn’t going to have to explain the presence of unauthorized visitors.

The freedom of sunshine put a bit more spring in his step as they walked the short distance to the Ashmoleon. Clearly he was not meant for a life of whatever it was Jess had done on a regular basis.

“Which one is this?” Jess asked as they stood before the painting a short time later.

“A Work Completed.” Derek had been viewing this painting since he was a little boy, would have said he could sketch it from memory except that he could recall nothing about it that seemed to match the significance of the other two. Even as he pulled out his sketchbook to record the scene, he didn’t see how they all fit together.

There was nothing identifiable in the field of piled-up hay. A farmer sat on one of the piles, while a woman poured water into his cup.

Other than the sensation that one could reach into the painting and feel the water, there was nothing particularly striking about the picture. Still, he sketched.

Back at the carriage, Jeffreys pulled the book of maps from his trunk and joined them inside. Using their knees as a table, they opened the book.

Jess pulled ribbons from her leather satchel. She laid a yellow one across the bottom of England. “That would essentially be the direction Queen Jessamine was looking in Ryland’s painting.”

Derek took a blue ribbon from her and placed it where he’d thought the painting from the book indicated.

“They don’t meet,” Jess said with a frown. “How are we supposed to know where those haystacks are?”

“I don’t think the haystacks matter,” Derek said, pulling out his notes. “Not all of the paintings are written about the same way. There are four others, perhaps more, that mention traveling or departure in addition to The Grace of Oceans Breaking and The Day That Never Was. There are a few more that talk about the past and the future, which makes sense given the story.”

“You’re saying some of the paintings are a false lead?”

“I think so.” He pulled more notes out and spread them across the map. “I noticed last night that some of the writings were more, well, poetic, for lack of a better term. I think those are the important ones.”

“So we don’t need to find them all?” Jeffreys asked.

“No.”

The papers trembled a bit as Jess’s legs shifted and shook the book. “What you’re saying is that we can actually do this. There may actually be time to connect the diary to the paintings and find the coronation bowl.”

Until that moment, with the vulnerability he’d glimpsed in William’s drawing room making another appearance, Derek hadn’t realized she’d had doubts. He’d thought she never considered failure. “Yes,” he said, firming his voice with a confidence he wasn’t sure he felt. “If we can see the paintings, we can solve the map.”

“They aren’t all going to be this easy,” Jeffreys said.

“Then we’d better get started.” Jess nodded to Derek’s scattered notes. “Who has the paintings we need to see?”