A Pursuit of Home by Kristi Ann Hunter

Author:Kristi Ann Hunter
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi, pdf
Tags: Historical Fiction;Christian fiction;Love stories;FIC042030;FIC042040;FIC027070
ISBN: 9781493420933
Publisher: Baker Publishing Group
Published: 2019-08-27T16:00:00+00:00

There was something wrong at Greenwood Park. Derek sensed it the moment the housekeeper granted them entrance, but it took touring three full rooms for him to grasp why. It was so obvious that he had to blame the distraction that was Jess in order to keep from feeling like an idiot.

All the art was French.

All of it.

It wasn’t that it was bad art, but the distinction was an oddity in an English home, particularly after the lengthy war the country had just gone through. Charles Le Brun, Antoine Watteau, and Georges de La Tour adorned the walls, while sculptures by Antoine Coysevox, Claude Michel, and Jean-Baptiste Lemoyne stood in corners and on bookshelves and tables. This was not a random coincidence. It was a carefully curated collection.

A collection that, given the overall feel of neglect to the house itself, should have been parted with in order to enrich the family coffers a bit.

“Something’s wrong,” he whispered to Jess, who had slipped her hand from his arm after they’d passed through the first room.

She simply nodded and asked the housekeeper about the rug.

Derek tensed even more. She never asked about the rugs, never asked about anything, but from the moment they’d crossed the threshold, Jess’s touring persona had been different.

She simpered.

There wasn’t another word for it. If he’d encountered her this way at their first meeting, he’d have been thoroughly convinced that she hadn’t a single coherent thought in her head. She chose ridiculous things to admire and asked questions a child who had grown up in any sort of quality home could answer.

If someone were looking for a crafty, intelligent spy, the housekeeper would swear there hadn’t been one at her house. It wasn’t a bad disguise, but Jess was taking the idea to an extreme. She was a walking caricature.

In the portrait gallery, the art began to look more standard. Portraits by renowned sixteenth-century English artists began the line, followed by a succession of other recognizable styles.

As they approached the modern paintings, though, the detailed realism of the British Rococo gave way to the softer lines of the style’s French originators. Yet another sign that the home’s decor was certainly not an accident and that the owner had likely not been pleased with the recent defeat of Napoleon.

The last portrait in the line was of a man with a high forehead, a thin scar, and a thick, curly black beard.

Jess’s incessant prattle stumbled into silence for a moment, and he could feel the tension emanating from her across the small space she was maintaining between them. He reached out a hand to . . . to . . . what? Comfort her? Calm her? Assure her that he was with her?

When his hand landed on the back of her spencer jacket, he didn’t feel the warmth of her body through the fabric. He felt four hard ridges. What were those? He shifted his hand a bit. They were long and smooth, one end rounded more than the other. They almost felt like .

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