Chapter Thirty-Nine

Derek took a month to collect his belongings and finish his report for William. When he felt that putting it off any longer would be insulting, he returned to London and to Montgomery House.

“We’ve had a room set up for you. Miranda’s sister said it had good light for painting,” Ryland said after Derek was shown into the study.

“I’m afraid I’m going to have a slight delay before starting work for you, Your Grace.” Derek shifted his weight but tried to stand tall and confident.

Ryland raised an eyebrow in inquiry.

“I did a lot of thinking while trying to tell my family what I’ve been doing.”

“I can imagine how well that went,” Ryland said with a slight laugh.

Derek had to admit there’d been a great bit of scoffing, particularly from his older brother. “Yes, well, it helped me come to a conclusion.” Derek took a deep breath. “I don’t want my life to be a tragedy.”

Ryland stared at him for a few moments. “I’m sure that statement makes sense on some level, but I don’t see it.”

More than one painting had been born of sorrow and loss. Derek had spent a lifetime studying them and admiring them, even going so far as to revere them. Living such a story was far less pleasant than looking at it on a gallery wall. The duke wasn’t likely to understand that. But the nice thing about his life as opposed to a piece of art was that Derek still had the ability to change it.

“I need to make a trip across the Channel,” Derek said, instead of trying to explain his thoughts.

“You might want to wait on that,” Ryland said, holding up a piece of paper. “Apparently Jess sent me something and meant to arrive before it, but her timing was a bit off and she’s going to be a day or two late.”

Derek’s throat went dry. Had Ryland been in communication with Jess this whole month? Had she married the man her brother wanted her to? Was she happy? “She’s coming here?”

“So it would seem. Why she would send something instead of bringing it herself is somewhat baffling.”

“Oh.” Derek shifted his weight. He’d been so set to leave here and go to the docks, discover the fastest way he could travel to Verbonne. Jess was one step ahead of him, though. He should probably get used to that if he wanted to keep her in his life. “When does that say she’ll get here?”

He flipped the letter over. “It doesn’t say, though the delivery is supposed to arrive today or tomorrow, so likely a day or so after. There’s also a drawing on here. I’m not sure if it’s supposed to be a duck or a horse.”

Derek leaned over the desk. “Are you sure it isn’t a flower?”

“I’m not sure she didn’t hand the quill to a toddler. You’re the art expert.” Ryland tossed the paper down on the desk. “Your bags have been taken up to your room if you want to go freshen up.”

“I told them to leave them at the door,” Derek said. “How would they know I’m now staying?”

Ryland pointed at the study door. “It’s open. I’ve only expressly forbidden eavesdropping near the bedchambers, my private parlor, or when I’m in a room with the door closed.”

Sure enough, a maid popped into the study. “Your room is ready, Mr. Thornbury. Would you like me to show you?”

A few hours later, as they were sitting down to dinner, the echo of the brass knocker on the door could be heard throughout the public rooms of the house.

Ryland frowned. “It would seem Jess’s delivery is a bit insistent.”

Derek abandoned his plate to make his way to the front hall, curiosity overtaking his manners.

The last thing he expected to see when the butler opened the door was King Nicolas.

“Who is that?” Ryland asked, coming up to stand beside Derek.

Before Derek could answer, the king made to push past the butler, pointing an angry finger at Derek and preparing to yell.

Until he had the air knocked out of him as the butler flipped him onto his back. “I didn’t say you could enter, sir.”

The two guards who had been standing behind the king rushed inside, only to find two maids pointing pistols in their direction.

Ryland crossed the hall and waited for King Nicolas to catch his breath and climb to his feet.

“I am the king of Verbonne,” he said angrily.

“And I’m an English duke,” Ryland said dryly. “Should we test who really has more power right now? Given that you’re standing in my home, I’d think twice before you answer.”

Miranda looked over the scene and sighed. “Jess sends the absolute worst gifts.”

This was what happened when Jess tried to make a plan instead of just barreling through one item at a time.

Still, she wouldn’t trade the past month. It had been necessary. As much as she knew she didn’t want to live in Verbonne, she also knew she wanted it to thrive. She loved it, in a way, and it had needed a month of her time. That was all that had been needed to put a few plans in motion to keep her brother in check while he realized the world wasn’t at war anymore.

One of those measures had been breaking his former greatest enemy out of a rather poorly guarded dungeon and taking him on a tour of the country.

Bucanan was now fully prepared and equipped to be Verbonne’s ambassador to England. Or at least their advocate. She wasn’t entirely sure how citizenship worked in a newly established country, or whether Verbonne would be diplomatically recognized. Still, if the country was going to survive on its own, it needed an ally as powerful as England.

Since England would benefit as well, it shouldn’t be that hard to convince them. As long as she could convince Nicolas without Ryland killing her.

How long had he been here? A day? Two?

Was he even still here, or had Ryland thrown him out? Nicolas was a king, after all. That would gain him a bit of respect, wouldn’t it?

She knocked on the door to Ryland’s London home. Depending on who answered and how mad they were, there were several things she could say.

Every thought she had in her head disappeared when Derek opened the door.

He was grinning at her. His hair had grown and now flopped across his forehead again. His spectacles were a bit crooked, with a smudge high up on one lens, and Jess was convinced that never had a man looked better. Well, objectively speaking, there were several better-looking men, but she preferred seeing this one.

“You’ve really done it now, haven’t you?” he asked.

“Probably,” Jess answered, her lips forming a grin of her own.

Derek pushed the door open and granted Jess and Richard entrance. Once they were standing in the hall, Derek looked back and forth between the two of them. “You aren’t pretending to be married to him, are you?”

“No.” Jess lifted her chin in triumph. “I’ve a proper lady’s maid now.”

Richard snorted. “I don’t think hauling a scullery maid out of the kitchens counts as proper.”

“Sounds like a proper lady’s maid for a cook,” Derek said.

This time Richard laughed outright. “She said the same thing.”

“Must make it true,” Jess said. “I’m assuming my troublesome brother is here?”

“Yes.”

Jess bit her lip. “What has he said?”

“Nothing much. He said he came to talk to you—not a duke and certainly not a professor.”

Jess frowned. “But you aren’t a professor.”

“I don’t think he cares.”

“Well, he needs to learn to.” Jess crossed her arms over her chest. “People matter. I’ve been trying to tell him that all month.”

“He said he hasn’t seen you in a month.”

“He hasn’t. I’ve been sending him letters.” She stopped and looked up at Derek. “I thought about writing you letters, too, but I hate writing and I knew I’d never send them. I wanted to see you when I told you I loved you.”

Richard coughed. “Is there a drawing room? Parlor? Maybe I should just step back out onto the street?”

“Drawing room is through that door. The good brandy is in the lower part of the Chinese cabinet behind the vase of purple feathers,” Jess said, waving her arm to one side of the hall. Knowing how Ryland’s house worked, she pitched her voice a little louder. “If someone hasn’t already told Ryland I’m here, please do so, and have my brother come to the drawing room as well.”

And through it all Derek grinned. “Am I allowed to say I love you, too, now?”

Jess heaved a sigh of relief. “That would be greatly appreciated, yes.”

Derek took her hand in his, sending that familiar and now welcome warmth running up her arm. “I love you.” He squeezed her fingers. “Now can we please unravel whatever you’ve done so we can have a proper conversation about what that means?”

“I don’t know what you’re mad about,” Jess said, letting her brother realize the full force of her abundant confidence. The man looked a little bit lost in the face of it.

“You disrupted the entire country,” the king growled.

Jess sighed. “I did no such thing.”

Although she rather had. As the entire story was revealed, Derek had tried not to laugh. Ryland had no such restraint, until his wife bobbled her teacup and spilled a bit on his leg. Jess had turned the new little country on its ear, and Nicolas had been forced to accept it or admit that his own sister had undermined his rule and his guards couldn’t find her.

“You swear to me that you never left Verbonne’s borders?” Nicolas asked.

Jess rolled her eyes. “What would be the point of that? Richard needed to get to know Verbonne through something other than stories. For that matter, you and I needed to do the same. That’s why I sent you the letters.”

“You sent me taunts,” Nicolas growled.

“And it made you travel the country and meet your people. They were very appreciative of that, by the way.”

Derek marveled at Jess’s ingenuity. Wherever she’d gone, she’d sent Nicolas a letter. He would chase after her, but instead of finding her, he’d be surrounded by his subjects, forced to play diplomatically nice and live up to the stories Jess had told about him just before he’d arrived.

“Yes, yes, I talked to everyone. I would ask them if they’d seen you. They said they had and then proceeded to show me their businesses and families instead of telling me where you’d gone. One old lady tried to teach me to knit.”

Jess leaned toward Derek. They were already sitting scandalously close on the drawing room sofa, but he didn’t push her away. “That reminds me. I made you a scarf.”

Derek sputtered a laugh into his hand. Never again would his life be dull. The boys who had teased him in school, the men he’d known since, none of them would ever believe that the perfect woman for him would be anything like Jess. He wouldn’t have believed it either.

Thank goodness God thought bigger than he did.

“You have to admit,” Jess said to her brother, “you know Verbonne better than you did before.”

Nicolas grunted and folded his arms over his chest.

“As entertaining as this is,” Ryland said, “why send him here?”

She motioned toward Richard. “To meet his new English ambassador. It seemed safer to do it here.”

Nicolas frowned. “He cannot be our ambassador. He is not Verbonnian.”

“His cousin is being tried as an English traitor,” Ryland chipped in. “He may want to change nationalities.”

“You need England,” Jess said. “Your plan to place the people under military rule and fairly well force them into slavery is wrong and foolish and the fastest way for Verbonne to end up right back where it was—at the mercy of whoever feels like overpowering her.”

“How did you know about that?”

Jess waved a hand about. “I speak French, Spanish, Italian, Russian, German, Dutch, and enough Chinese to probably get myself through a town without getting killed.”

“Honestly,” Ryland said, “you’re better off not saying anything in her hearing you don’t want understood. I’m fairly confident she could spend a month with my daughter and become fluent in child-speak. In fact, please do. I’ll pay you to interpret.”

Derek had spent a bit of time with the little one. He had thought it was because the child wasn’t his that he couldn’t understand her. He hoped Jess’s language skills would extend to their children, whenever they had them.

The idea of having children with Jess had him pulling her a bit closer on the sofa.

“What language I speak is not the point,” Jess said. “It’s time to make friends, gain allies, and focus on rebuilding your people. Verbonne doesn’t need bigger borders or a stronger army. England just defeated the army that defeated the army that took over Verbonne in the first place. Just make friends with the Prince Regent so they come running to save you next time.”

Ryland winced. “It doesn’t work that way.”

“Essentially it does,” Jess said, “and you know it.”

Nicolas and Richard stared at each other across the room for a very long time. Even Derek was growing uncomfortable.

“Do you think we should leave them to talk it out?” he asked Jess.

“Yes.” She stood abruptly and moved toward the door. “Whatever they do now is up to them. I fell in love with Verbonne and her people. I’ll be happy to help however I can, but I also love England. I have a home and family here.” Her eyes met Derek’s. “My future is here.”

“Well, I wouldn’t mind traveling.” Derek grinned. “There’s a great deal of art to see.”

Ryland shook his head and moved to the door as he looked to Richard and Nicolas. “Don’t kill each other. I’m putting my butler at the door.”

Nicolas groaned.

As Jess and Derek followed Ryland, Nicolas called out, “Just one question. What in the world did you draw at the bottom of the letters?”

Jess frowned. “It was supposed to be a person.”

Derek threw his arm around her. “I think in the future I’ll do the drawing while you do the talking.”

“Sounds like a plan to me.”