Page 11 of A Waltz on the Wild Side (The Wild Wynchesters #6)

The next morning, Jacob broke his fast early.

Marjorie and Adrian had spent hours making copies of Quentin’s likeness.

Jacob was needed on no fewer than five different missions, but he managed to stage one of Graham’s dwindling informants at every address Miss Henry had provided, armed with a portrait of Quentin and instructions to report back every detail they witnessed.

Philippa’s book club was busy writing to every church, hospital, gaol, and gentlemen’s club in a hundred-mile radius.

Chloe loaned them her husband’s seal to frank the letters, because no administration would ignore an inquiry from the Duke of Faircliffe.

Given that no one on his team had a spare moment to breathe, Jacob had the case as much in control as possible.

With Miss Henry, on the other hand, Jacob was at sixes and sevens. He would love to be the victorious warrior of the tale, riding in like a shining knight atop his faithful stallion—or, more likely, prancing in sideways atop Sheepshanks, the trick circus horse he’d rescued a few years ago.

Not because he intended to marry, no matter how much his matchmaking siblings might conspire with Cupid. But because he longed for someone to think of Mr. Jacob Wynchester as a hero, rather than a forgotten footnote lost at the bottom of a page.

In this case, dramatic heroics were unlikely to be necessary.

The simplest solution was usually the correct one.

Wherever Quentin was, he had meant to go there.

With luck, he would return home on his own and they could return their focus to the more pressing cases.

There were injuries and embezzlement and a housing crisis. The list went on.

Jacob missed lunch and grabbed a pie from a street vendor for supper.

He almost skipped his Wednesday evening poetry meeting as well, but with his brain so overworked and he and his animals being pulled in so many different directions, it was a relief to sit in the shadows of the parlor’s rear wall for an hour.

At least there, he knew what was expected of him: little to nothing.

Nonetheless, after half an hour of silence, he couldn’t stand to listen to his colleagues prattle on any longer.

The published ones, lording their status over the unpublished.

The aspiring neophytes, convinced they would be discovered any day to possess even greater talent than the great Sir Gareth Jallow.

At this, Jacob shot to his feet and headed for the door.

“Where are you going?” cried the friends who enjoyed his company. “We need your insights. We’re all learning together.”

“Where the devil do you think you’re going?” said the poets who barely tolerated his presence. “You won’t make it without us.”

“He’s jealous,” pronounced one of the worst braggarts. “We have talent, and he’ll never amount to anything.”

“No one’s jealous of you clowns,” snapped one of Jacob’s allies. “And we all envy Jallow. One cannot compete with England’s national treasure.”

Lips pressed tight, Jacob climbed into his waiting carriage and left without looking back. Maybe he would return to the Dreamers Guild poetry group once the number of open cases lightened. And then again, maybe he wouldn’t.

For the record, he was not the least bit jealous of Sir Gareth Jallow.

Jacob was the national treasure.

Jacob was Jallow.

When the carriage arrived home, Jacob headed straight to the barn rather than cross through the house and greet his siblings. There was too much work to be done to risk any distractions. And for all he knew, the house was empty anyway. He wasn’t the only one who needed to be six places at once.

As he pushed open the barn door, he nearly tripped over a large trembling ball of fur.

“Dionysus, you snuck out again?” He crouched to inspect the Highland tiger. “You know your sutures won’t heal properly if you insist upon—”

Shite. There were matted patches of blood in the feline’s fur. Bits of ruptured thread peeked out from the hairs.

“Come on,” he murmured as he scooped up the heavy cat. Jacob carried Dionysus through the barn toward the medical station at the back. He placed the growling feline on a low wooden table, cleaned the wounds, and sighed. “You’re going to need three new sutures.”

Dionysus hated sutures.

Jacob did not blame him. He kept the wildcat calm by continuing to talk in a low, soothing voice.

On the other side of the barn, the door flung open with a bang.

He recognized Miss Henry’s voice at once. “Where the devil have you been? I’ve been searching for you for hours—”

“Close the door,” Jacob commanded. “And keep yourself on the outside. I’ve many animals in this barn. The wounded wildcat on this table is unpredictable.”

Miss Henry shut the door—after stepping fully inside. “I believe I’m owed—”

“ Out ,” Jacob repeated. “You are trespassing on private property and liable to be the next creature requiring sutures if you do not take yourself to safety at once.”

As if to punctuate this threat, the Highland tiger gave another warning growl.

“I’m not going anywhere until you explain yourself. You promised to keep me abreast of all news, and it’s gone twenty-four hours without a peep. Either the all-powerful Wynchesters have accomplished nothing, or else you don’t respect me enough to share information—”

Jacob cursed beneath his breath. All his work calming down Dionysus was now undone, because he’d been forced to raise his voice in anger at their client.

“Almost there,” Jacob murmured to the wildcat as he snipped another thread. “You’re all right now. No need to attack our guest. She’ll be going soon.”

“Is that what you think? I’m not going anywhere. Not until you tell me why Quentin has been missing for another full night and another full day and none of you can be bothered to inform me what is going on—”

At the sound of her raising voice, Dionysus growled louder. Sharp claws protruded from the wildcat’s trembling paws.

Jaw clenched tight, Jacob trapped the wildcat with his arms—for now, at least—and looked over his shoulder to glower at his overstepping client.

She was breathtakingly beautiful, damn her. The clinging day dress of cerulean muslin. That touchably soft skin. Even her disgruntled expression was unfathomably fetching. Her arms were hidden beneath a long-sleeved spencer and her hair mostly covered by a straw-colored bonnet with blue accents.

He wanted to untie the ribbon and toss the bonnet aside. Then unfasten the four buttons keeping the short spencer closed tight around her bodice. Then—

No . None of that. He wanted her to go away. Before things got any worse.

“Miss Henry,” he ground out, “if you would please wait inside the house—”

She snorted in derision. “I have no intention to keep waiting—”

At the aggressive sound of her rising volume, the Highland tiger sprang free from Jacob’s arms. With a loud hiss, the wildcat launched himself at the interloper in order to protect his human from feral Miss Henry.

“No!” Jacob scrambled after him.

Miss Henry smiled and sank to her knees, arms out.

Jacob sprinted toward her. “Get up! Get out! He doesn’t want you to pet him, he wants to kill you!”

The wildcat opened his jaw wide and sank his fangs into Miss Henry’s delicate wrist. When she jerked her arm free, Dionysus turned his claws to her exposed bodice and belly.

Jacob braced himself for screaming as he disentangled the wildcat from Miss Henry and pulled Dionysus back into his arms to calm the injured animal.

Miss Henry chuckled and rose to her feet. “That was quite a welcome.”

His heart was still pounding. “Why aren’t you sobbing? Do you need sutures?”

She pulled back the cuff of her spencer. “Lined with leather,” she explained. “I was never in danger.”

“But your chest and stomach!”

“Protected by a reinforced corset. A thin layer of chain mail with whalebone reinforcements. I didn’t feel a thing.”

Good God, Elizabeth was going to love this madwoman.

“How did you know you were going to need all that?”

“I didn’t. It’s a habit I picked up after Quentin starting bringing wild animals home. I don’t know if you’ve ever tried to domesticate a polecat. Ours was quite resistant to the idea.”

He stared at her. “You wear polecat-armor beneath your clothes when you pay house calls?”

“I have to do something . My cousin faints at the sight of blood.” She held out a hand toward Dionysus. “May I try again?”

“If he bites you, I won’t stop him,” Jacob muttered. “You’ve been warned.”

She touched her fingertips lightly down the back of the wildcat’s neck.

Dionysus leaped from Jacob’s arms in protest and streaked back to his special carpet in the rear of the barn.

“Oh, well.” Miss Henry sighed. “I tend to take a bit of time to grow on people.”

Jacob had no doubt. He pulled her hand into his to inspect her wrist. There were indeed tiny holes in the outer sleeve from Dionysus’s fangs, but the interior leather was perfectly intact.

“Satisfied?” Miss Henry said archly. “Or will you need to inspect the chain mail at my bosom next?”

Just for that impertinence, Jacob did not let go of her hand.

He stroked the tips of his fingers against the smooth brown skin, proving her to be every bit as warm and soft as he’d imagined.

The pad of his thumb rubbed lightly against the pulse point at her wrist, which fluttered then sped faster than before.

Very interesting. Miss Henry might pretend to be cold and unaffected, but she was anything but. He now knew the truth.

She snatched her hand out of his and shoved both her wrists behind her back.

“Well?” she demanded. “What do you have to say for yourself?”

Jacob blinked at her. He’d forgotten the question.

“My missing cousin,” she burst out impatiently. “Which of us did you forget altogether, him or me?”

Right. She’d demanded to know what Jacob had accomplished. His second-by-second whereabouts were none of her business, but all the same, he couldn’t stifle a pang of guilt at having escaped to his poetry meeting, if only for half the hour.

Miss Henry read his expression at once. “You weren’t even working on it?”

“We have loads of cases,” he began.

“—and that’s why Quentin has fallen through the cracks?”

“That’s not fair or true,” he protested. “Our entire team has been working tirelessly to find your cousin. We even receive hourly updates from—”

“You do?” she interrupted breathlessly. Her eyes shone with hope as she pressed her hands to her chest. “What is the latest word?”

Jacob not only didn’t know the latest word, he didn’t know any of the words. He’d been on the move all day long and had returned straight to the barn without even trying to catch up with any of his siblings.

“You don’t even know,” Miss Henry said dully, the light in her eyes fading.

“Your family receives ‘hourly updates’ about my missing cousin, and you don’t bother to read them?

Wow, such great and powerful Wynchesters you lot turned out to be.

I knew trusting you was a mistake. I told Quentin I’d never seen a more self-aggrandizing family, drunk on their own reputation and about as genuine as—”

Fury spread through Jacob’s veins. She had no idea what it was like to be a Wynchester.

“Perhaps you should try keeping your opinions to yourself until somebody asks for them,” he shot back.

She took a startled step backward, her lips twisting with self-deprecation. “That’s the last thing Quentin said to me. Perhaps you’re both right. Very well, I’ll see myself out.”

With that, she strode from the barn, slamming the door behind her.