Page 2 of A Waltz on the Wild Side (The Wild Wynchesters #6)
He had never known a world without the infamous family.
Their portentous group adoption had taken place four years before his birth.
By the time her young cousin had learned to read, their daring exploits were already in every scandal paper.
He never questioned their fame, or what they did with it, because he’d never known anything different.
Viv knew. And like it or not, she’d keep trying to make him see.
“Your wild Wynchesters may never suffer consequences, but it doesn’t work like that for you and me. Their successes don’t mitigate our barriers. You may think they’re heroes, but what I see are smug, rich brats who believe laws apply to everyone but them.”
Quentin let out a groan. “That’s how they help their clients. You write plays for a living, don’t you? Haven’t you ever heard of Robin Hood?”
Viv did not in fact write plays for a living. Despite his frustration with her, Quentin was being very charitable with that characterization. Viv wrote a thousand words without fail, every single day, but had yet to sell a single script.
“All I’m saying…” She took a deep breath and stopped herself from making the situation worse.
From the time her younger cousin was a child, she’d been his companion, then his guardian. Though he did not yet have his majority, Quentin was grown now. She had better start treating him like it, if he was to learn how to be his own man.
Even if old habits were hard to break, and past nightmares impossible to shake.
As an olive branch, she jabbed a soapy finger at the newspaper. “Just read me the important bits.”
His posture relaxed. “Your column?”
“No, I already know what I wrote. What’s on the front page?”
He scanned the lines while she scrubbed. “The voices agitating for voting reform have dwindled to nothing. Even the group of ladies over in Bath who think all women should have the vote have ceased making noise.”
“Can you blame them?” she asked. “The Peterloo Massacre was just a few months ago. After their own government sent armed soldiers to attack peaceful protesters hoping for voting reform, it’s more dangerous than ever to stick your neck out unnecessarily.”
He turned a page. “Do you think it’ll ever happen?”
“Hard to say. Thirty years ago in Sierra Leone all heads of household voted—even unmarried African women, like me. That’s a British colony. Why not here?”
“Because England doesn’t even give all men the right to vote.” Quentin snorted at something in the paper. “Just obnoxious aristocrats, like these buffoons.”
“Which ones are the buffoons today?”
“The Marquess of Leisterdale and his heir, the Earl of Uppington. It seems they settled everyone’s tabs at their club last night and are now the favorites of the ton.
The pair were out celebrating Uppington’s recent return from spending several months overseeing their Caribbean holdings.
Leisterdale is quoted as saying, ‘Owning a sugar plantation is like having access to an endless pot of gold.’”
“Is that right?” Viv’s stomach twisted. She knew exactly what it was like to be a Black woman tethered to some white aristocrat’s sugar plantation. “Where in the Caribbean?”
“Demerara. Where you were kept.” His fingers shook, rattling the paper. “These men weren’t the ones who…”
Viv’s hands stilled in the dishwater. “No.”
“Did… my mother…” He swallowed audibly.
Viv closed her eyes and fought the tidal wave of memories. “Not with them.”
Quentin was quiet for a long moment, then cleared his throat. “It says here, the marquess’s heir—Lord Uppington—has been boasting that he keeps the highest-paid mistress in London.”
“How does he know, if he just got here? Are other lords required to submit their receipts to him?”
“He’s had her on the line for years, apparently. Mistresses count on gifts as much as wages, and since Uppington is gone so often, he can’t be showering her with jewelry, so he pays her an exorbitant stipend instead.”
“I’ll wager the mistresses he keeps in Demerara don’t see a bloody penny,” Viv muttered.
Quentin glanced up sharply. “What?”
“Nothing. Keep reading. I’m almost done washing up.”
“The rest of the news is boring. Some lady snubbed some lord at Almack’s. The Prince Regent is remodeling one of his palaces yet again. And… oh, this is interesting. A politician in the House of Commons was burgled last night.”
“Why is that so interesting? What did they steal?”
“He refuses to say, which is intriguing enough. But apparently, the robbery involved balloons, shepherd’s pie, and a whooper swan. What in the world is a whooper swan?”
Viv stopped cleaning dishes. She turned around slowly, wiping her hands on her apron. “ Anas cygnus , as described by famed zoologist Carl Linnaeus in his 1758 tome on natural systems. You’re certain the robbery utilized those specific items? Balloons, shepherd’s pie, whooper swan?”
“Mad, isn’t it? Who would even come up with something like that?”
Viv would have. And did. Last week she’d finished a comedic play in which the malefactors stole an ancient scroll in just that manner. But it hadn’t fully been her idea.
Instead of the usual domestic concerns, one of the more preposterous letters sent to her daily ask-me-anything advice column had enquired how to steal a treasure map from an aristocratic Mayfair town house.
Viv never responded to such ludicrous queries, but she did use their absurd contents as fodder for future manuscripts.
Well, bollocks. Now theater managers would think she’d copied the idea from the real-life case, rather than believe her imagination had come up with these twists on its own.
Except… had she?
“Gah.” Viv slumped her hips against the wet sink. “Now I’ll never be able to sell that play.”
Sometimes unique ideas seemed to float in the air, occurring to multiple people at once. However, these unlikely crimes were too similar to be a coincidence.
Perhaps she and the thief had both been inspired by the same source material. Or perhaps what had happened was—
“You wrote about a robbery?” Her cousin reached for Viv’s notebook on the table.
“Quentin, no!” She tried to snatch her journal out of the way, but she was too late. A perfect blackberry-preserves-stained thumbprint now marred the bookmarked page she had been revising. “How many times do I have to ask you to wash your hands before touching my things?”
“Sorry,” he said sheepishly. Quentin rose from his chair and trudged over to the sink, where the wet bar of soap shot from his hands and nearly whacked Viv in the eye.
She caught it with her left hand seconds before impact and handed it back in silence.
When his hands were clean, Quentin consulted his pocket watch. “I must hurry. The club is waiting on me. Don’t worry, I already collected the new advice column responses from the table. Anything else you need me to post for you whilst I’m out?”
“That’ll do.” She glanced toward tall stacks containing copies of the play she’d finished the month before. “I have to pen the perfect letters to accompany my latest script.”
“You’re absolutely brilliant, cousin.” Quentin seemed his sunny self again. Perhaps her overactive imagination had exaggerated the earlier tension. “Someone will recognize your genius soon.”
“I certainly hope so,” she muttered, dipping her hands back beneath the sudsy water. “I’m getting tired of—ow!”
His eyes went wild with panic. “What? What happened?”
“Nothing.” She held up her finger, upon which a single bright red bubble of blood protruded. “Nicked myself on the paring knife.”
Quentin’s eyes went glassy and his knees buckled.
Viv wiped the blood on her apron and dashed forward just in time to catch him. “You haven’t changed a bit. What kind of would-be Wynchester faints at the sight of blood?”
“Can’t let anything happen to you,” he mumbled. “Don’t scare me.”
“I’m fit as a fiddle,” she assured him as she settled him back on his feet. “Have fun, and don’t break any laws. The Wynchesters may live outside of society’s rules, but people like us cannot. Please be safe. And come back home in time for dinner.”
“Wouldn’t miss it.” Quentin kissed her cheek. “I’m beating you at cards afterward.”
She snorted. “That would be an improbable twist, wouldn’t it.”