Page 16 of A Waltz on the Wild Side (The Wild Wynchesters #6)

Jacob and Miss Henry stepped into the siblings’ sitting room side by side.

Although there were now a dozen members of the Wynchester family, only two were currently present, both hard at work at the long table: Tommy, adding details to her latest cartography, and Marjorie, making copies of who-knows-what for her current mission.

The plush cushions of the relaxing armchairs and sofas on the other side of the room were empty, save for Tickletums, the hedgehog, napping against an embroidered pillow.

Marjorie looked up as they entered. Her eyes sparkled. “Miss Henry! A pleasure to see you… and Jacob are getting on so splendidly.”

Jacob glared at his sister. Miss Henry’s iron fingers were still locked on to his arm, as though she fully believed that if she weren’t latched on to him like a barnacle, he would forget about her and her cousin altogether.

It wasn’t a romantic embrace. He was a means to an end.

“What are you working on?” Miss Henry asked.

He tensed. This was a trick question. She wasn’t curious about their other cases.

The only answer that would be acceptable to her was if every single Wynchester had foregone food and sleep altogether in order to devote twenty-four hours a day to finding the cousin who increasingly looked as though he was missing on purpose, and did not wish to be found.

“What aren’t we working on?” Tommy answered with a groan. Which, in the scheme of things, was not only true but also a reply difficult to find fault with, even for prickly Miss Henry. “A hundred cases at once, plus one that doesn’t even have a client—”

“Olivebury’s robbery?” Jacob stepped forward. This would be the perfect segue into the latest Quentin development. The only Quentin development.

Miss Henry’s free hand tightened on the satchel she’d retrieved from her quarters before they’d left her home. Best guess of its contents: wooden stakes with which to stab the Wynchesters through the heart if they failed to find her cousin before midnight.

“What did I do with the map I drew of Olivebury’s street?” Tommy stood over the table to rifle through stacks of parchment. “If we can put an infiltration team together—”

“ We don’t have to break in,” Jacob reminded her. “The thief already did.”

“It might help to walk through how it was done.” Tommy plucked a map from the pile with a flourish. “The account in the paper was woefully scarce on details. We all know where to find pies, but can you acquire a whooper swan for me?”

“We’re not going to re-create the robbery,” he repeated in exasperation.

“Only because we don’t know how!” Tommy shook out her map. “How did the thief even come up with a plan so unlikely?”

Miss Henry’s grip on his arm threatened to shatter his bones, though it now felt less like anger and more like embarrassment and worry. Almost as though she were holding on to Jacob for strength.

“The swan sounded believable when I wrote it,” she muttered. “I thought it added a certain comic flair.”

Tommy and Marjorie stared at her.

“ What? ” came twin voices from the entranceway.

Jacob pulled Miss Henry aside to allow Graham and Kuni to enter the room.

“You may recall Miss Henry is a playwright,” Jacob began. “What might surprise you to learn…”

Quickly, he ran through the essentials, from Miss Henry’s alternate identity as Ask Vivian, to the letters from the morally questionable advice-seeker, to the burglary play he had inspired.

“You wrote an instruction manual?” Tommy looked thrilled. “Can I read it?”

“She doesn’t have it anymore,” he reminded her. “Quentin sent it to the burglar.”

“We don’t know that he…” Miss Henry began, then trailed off unhappily. The delivery of her play into the wrong hands might not have been deliberate, but there was no other explanation. “I admit, none of this appears to be a positive development.”

Tommy glanced down at her endless stacks of maps. “Sometimes it feels like we haven’t had a positive development in months.”

“I don’t know about that.” Marjorie’s calculating gaze snapped to Kuni and Graham. “Someone might have good news, if they wished to share it.”

Kuni shot her a sharp glance. “Are you using your colors on us?”

Marjorie fluttered her eyelashes. “Did I err?”

Kuni and Graham exchanged soft smiles, then clasped hands.

“I knew it!” squealed Marjorie.

Tommy elbowed her. “Let them say it.”

Graham admitted, “There might be one ray of sunshine.”

“We’re going to have a baby!” blurted Kuni, grinning ear to ear.

Jacob was the first to hug them, followed by Marjorie and Tommy.

“Does Chloe know?” he asked.

Kuni shook her head. “We weren’t planning to tell anyone for another few weeks. Not until I start to show.”

Marjorie bounced in place. “Chloe’s going to lose her mind . Just think, a cousin for Dory! We really are starting a new generation of Wynchesters.”

“Unfortunately,” said Graham with a wry expression, “it’ll be a while before they can lend us a hand.”

“If they want to,” Kuni said quickly. “Our children can be anything they choose.”

Miss Henry was being surprisingly silent. Either she was vibrating with impatience at this latest distraction from her case, or else she was plotting how to turn the Wynchesters into victims of an unfortunate Kraken accident in her next play.

Or both.

“We’ll celebrate as soon as you’re ready,” Jacob told Graham and Kuni with a smile. He gestured toward Miss Henry. “As for Quentin’s disappearance and the Olivebury robbery—”

“Which are now the same case,” added Marjorie.

Tommy straddled her seat to face their client. “Do you memorize your plays?”

Miss Henry blinked. “Why would I?”

With anyone else, Jacob would assume that response meant no , but with Miss Henry, he leapt to no such conclusion.

“If what you need is a copy of the text, I shall give it to you.” Miss Henry pulled a stack of papers tied with twine from her satchel.

“You have a spare copy of the missing script?” Jacob asked in surprise.

“I have a spare copy of all my plays.”

“But you couldn’t find it with the others—”

“I can only keep one copy of each script on that sideboard, or I’ll run out of space for the outgoing correspondence Quentin takes to post. You saw the wardrobe in my bedchamber. That’s where I keep my duplicate manuscripts.”

Marjorie’s face snapped to Jacob with open delight. “You were in her bedchamber ?”

“No,” he said firmly. “I entered Quentin’s private quarters to search for clues.”

“But my door was open, too, so he looked inside,” said Miss Henry.

Marjorie grinned at Tommy, who winked back.

Jacob prayed for strength.

“Couldn’t you have sent the play home with Jacob?” Kuni asked in confusion. “There was no reason for you to come all this way unnecessarily.”

“Oh, it’s necessary,” answered Miss Henry. “I’m your new shadow. I have never before left an important task up to someone else to perform, and I see I should not break that streak now. Not when Quentin’s life may be on the line.”

Graham connected the dots at once. “If they can’t pin the robbery on us, your cousin is the likeliest scapegoat.”

“If he is a scapegoat,” Tommy murmured. “It sounds like one possibility is that he willfully—”

Jacob cleared his throat. “Perhaps we should adjourn to the Planning Parlor?”

“What’s a Planning Parlor?” asked Miss Henry.

“Something private. Just for Wynchesters,” answered Tommy. She shot a knowing look at Marjorie, who grinned.

“Except for clients who later become Wynchesters,” Marjorie agreed. “Of course you’re welcome. Philippa and Adrian might already be in there.”

Tickletums waddled up to nudge Jacob’s boot. He scooped the hedgehog against his chest and cupped a hand around him protectively.

“Does he bite?” Miss Henry asked in surprise.

“You might,” he muttered.

His siblings gazed at them both with open fascination.

“I tried to befriend your cat,” Miss Henry protested.

“Tiglet?” asked Tommy.

“Dionysus,” Jacob said grimly.

Marjorie gasped. “Dionysus doesn’t like people. Except for Jacob. Did he growl at you?”

“They both did,” Miss Henry said with a shrug. “Dionysus attempted to claw open my ribs and bite off my hand. When that didn’t work, he ran away. That’s how most of my interactions with strangers tend to go.”

“What did Jacob do?” Marjorie asked.

Jacob and Miss Henry stared at each other, both remembering precisely what he had done. He’d taken his client’s hand in his, stroked the soft skin, and discovered her unsteady, racing pulse.

If they were alone, he’d be tempted to do it again. He wanted to explore every inch of her warm skin, not just her hand and the pulse point at her wrist. He wanted to taste her skin with his tongue and use his hands to—

“We argued,” said Miss Henry without meeting his eyes.

Yes. He should focus on the ways they didn’t mesh. And keep his mind on the case.

Marjorie gave a knowing grin.

It means nothing , he warned her in sign language. As soon as we find her cousin and clear his name, our new client will be gone from our lives for good .

His sister smirked, then turned to dash from the sitting room and race up the stairs. The others were right on her heels. Leaving Jacob… alone with Miss Henry. Subtle.

Nonetheless, he offered her his free arm.

“I know how to walk,” she snapped, and stalked to the stairs without aid of chivalry.

Maybe he should make chain mail for himself and Tickletums. Jacob cuddled his tiny hedgehog closer to his chest for safety. He wondered if her satchel contained a change of clothing.

Now that she’d been invited into their inner sanctum, Miss Henry might not plan on leaving.