Page 26 of A Waltz on the Wild Side (The Wild Wynchesters #6)

Together, Viv and Jacob moved her working quarters from her tiny kitchen table to a significantly larger corner of the Wynchesters’ oversize sitting room table, ostensibly to help them with their planning.

The “small” space allotted to her here was bigger than the entire table back home.

She could move her elbows without knocking things off walls, and stretch her legs without banging her feet against her cousin—or taking out poor Rufus.

Who was currently at home, awaiting Viv’s return. Her temporary relocation was only for the middle daylight hours. She spent time every morning and early evening playing with Rufus, as was their routine. He slept curled at the foot of her bed every night.

“You’re sure I can’t bring Rufus here?” she asked.

“No attack badgers allowed,” said Jacob. “It’s a house rule, and a hazard to hedgehogs.”

She made a note in her journal. What had started as one page on Jacob Wynchester had turned into a dozen. There were now pages for every member of his family, as well as the creatures in his barn. Quentin had to accept this evidence as proof of her good-faith effort to get to know them.

Her studiousness certainly wasn’t because Viv was at all fascinated by anyone in this family.

“What?” Jacob asked.

“W-what?” Viv stammered.

“You’re staring at me.”

“I’m not.” She definitely was.

Was it her fault this man looked as thirst-quenching as a cold glass of lemonade on a hot summer’s day?

She could sense his warmth and his masculine scent from yards away.

It was as if every particle in her body became aware of him even before he came into view.

And whenever he was right there before her very eyes, her traitorous fingers longed to pull him to her by the lapel and taste his kisses for herself.

Jacob stood and turned to stride from the room.

Viv pushed to her feet. “Where are you going?”

“To drill Hippogriff on his new tricks. You can watch if you like.”

She hurried to keep up as Jacob headed outside.

Hippogriff was a hawk. Accipiter gentilis , to be exact: a large goshawk with red eyes and black wings and white eyebrows and a black-and-white patterned belly above yellow clawed feet with sharp black talons.

The moment the raptor appeared in the sky, Jacob lifted his leather-gloved forearm up high, signaling for Hippogriff to land on his massive wrist.

Viv was faster. Or perhaps, more persuasive.

Hippogriff swooped down, cutting across the wide blue sky with a speed so swift the air whistled past his wings.

His hurry wasn’t to reunite with Jacob. Hippogriff’s singular focus was Viv.

When Jacob realized the deadly hawk intended to ignore his master’s outstretched arm, he spun around in alarm—

Just in time to see Hippogriff alight on Viv’s reinforced wrist light as a feather, as she fed him a treat with her other hand.

Viv smiled. Cute creature. Docile as a lamb.

“You carry around dead mice in your pockets?” Jacob demanded in disbelief.

She shook her head. “It wasn’t dead until I gave it to him.”

He stared at her. “You are a deeply peculiar woman. I like you much more than I anticipated.”

Her cheeks heated. Possibly because she’d never before been complimented for sacrificing an innocent wood mouse to a bird of prey.

Or possibly because she herself liked Jacob Wynchester significantly more than she’d bargained for.

Hippogriff gulped down the last of his meal and took to the sky.

Jacob didn’t try to stop him.

“Weren’t you going to teach him a new trick?” Viv asked in surprise.

The corners of Jacob’s mouth twitched. “I think you just did.”

She bit her lip. “You’re not upset with me?”

“No.” He took her hands in his. “Do you want me to dislike you?”

“No,” she whispered.

“Good. That would be impossible.” His voice was low, and rich as spiced rum. The toes of their shoes were barely far enough apart for a blade of grass to poke through.

If he tilted his head down an inch or two… If she raised her chin, just a little…

Belatedly, Viv began to suspect she’d brought the mouse along not to tempt Hippogriff, but so that Jacob would look at her exactly as he was doing now.

Don’t do it, she told herself desperately. Don’t you dare kiss this gorgeous specimen of a man. No matter how much you desire him.

She forced herself to turn away before they committed an irreversible mistake. He was wrong for her in every way. This family was dangerous. The sort of role models that would send her cousin to the gallows. She couldn’t throw herself into a Wynchester’s arms now.

And absolutely no kissing, blast it.

In the interest of making good use of her brain, she could aid them in their cases, but nothing more. Definitely no reason to involve hands and lips and tongues. Not until she found Quentin and cleared his name.

“We should find out who the mistress is,” she blurted, as though she’d been thinking about Mr. Olivebury all along.

“We know who the mistress is,” Jacob answered. “Miss Ines Nixon. After you realized the diary entries were initials, Graham had her address in less than an hour.”

“Then we should visit her,” Viv suggested. “Find out what she knows.”

“I did, this morning,” he replied.

Humph. Anticlimactic. Perhaps the Wynchesters didn’t require Viv’s advice-giving skills after all. Their competency rankled.

“Well?” she said, peevish. “Did she seem like she might be working with the villain?”

“Not at all. She was very sweet and utterly perplexed as to why I was there.”

“I’m sure she threw herself into your arms,” Viv said acidly.

“Miss Nixon said she enjoyed her current arrangement, and hoped very much that Mr. Olivebury had no intentions of throwing her over. She didn’t seem to have any notion the portrait had been stolen.”

“What did she say when you told her it was gone?”

“That maybe the wife took it. Miss Nixon is of the opinion that no household keeps secrets from its servants for long. Perhaps the Oliveburys’ housekeeper is ally to her mistress.”

“Or a servant who accidentally found it, took it?” Viv mused. “Or perhaps Miss Nixon is trying to throw us off her trail. What could be better advertising to new clientele than having no less than the leader of the House of Commons at her feet?”

Jacob shook his head. “She could have divulged that connection at any time but has kept silent all these years instead. She seems to truly care for him. And she would very much like the portrait to be found.”

“What about the portrait artist? Now, there’s a chap in a fine position to blackmail.”

“The artist is the mistress’s sister,” Jacob answered dryly. “One who apparently also figures prominently in the stolen portrait, along with…” He pulled out a notebook, hesitated, then shoved it back into his pocket unopened. “Perhaps some details are best left to the imagination.”

No pronouncement could make Viv salivate more. She possessed a prodigiously overactive imagination. It was now her life’s mission to see that painting with her own eyes.

“We can reinterview the Nixon women later if necessary,” he said. “But regardless of political leanings, the portrait artist is unlikely to harm a beloved sister.”

“You can’t be certain,” Viv insisted. “You only have her word.”

Jacob sighed. “You’re right. Happy now? Fine, perhaps the sisters had a row.

Or maybe the housekeeper found the portrait and told the butler who told a chambermaid who told the cook who told a stableboy, and now we have eighty-nine additional suspects.

All of whom could have inadvertently spread the gossip to the wrong person.

Maybe the butcher’s mother’s cobbler’s sister-in-law is the blackmailer and we’ll never solve the case. ”

“It would be a good twist,” Viv muttered.

He was right to be vexed with her. Jacob wanted to solve this case as much as she did, even if their motives were different. Viv wanted Quentin home, and Jacob’s overwhelmed family wanted at least one fewer mystery taking up precious seconds.

“All right,” she said. “I’ll grant you the point. Literally anything might have happened, but our time and resources are finite, so it would be prudent to concentrate on the likeliest solutions.”

“These days, Wynchester resources are worse than finite. They’re nonexistent.”

“I hope that’s not true. Once in a while, you ought to take at least a short break for yourself.” She gestured toward Jacob’s pocket. “Is that your casebook or your poetry journal?”

He narrowed his eyes. “Either way, it’s private.”

At least here, she could offer solid advice!

“Your poetry need not be private,” she told him. “You could do something with your poems. At least try to sell them.”

“I have tried,” he said tightly. “More than you know.”

“Have you considered—”

“Yes. Exhaustively. The only chance my words have of being published is if I were to do so anonymously.”

She scoffed. “Only cowards hide behind anonymity. It is nobler to fail as oneself than to win as someone else.”

He was unmoved. “What do you know about my personal situation?”

“Do you think I’ve never received a rejection before? That’s all I’ve ever been sent, if I receive a response at all. But I won’t let them keep me down. I shall keep popping up, again and again, until someone, somewhere, is forced to behold me.”

“Congratulations,” he drawled. “You’re a perennial weed in want of a scythe.”

“Oh, be honest. Don’t you want to look in the mirror with pride? To feel proud of how far you’ve come?”

He crossed his muscular arms. “I do and I am, every day.”

“Then why do you look so haunted, any time someone asks you to share your talent with the world?”

“Maybe,” he said tersely, “it’s none of your business. When I want your publishing advice, I’ll be certain to ‘Ask Vivian’ in writing.”

She propped her fists on her hips. “I’m sure you don’t think I am your equal in any form—”

He arched his brows. “Is this about my poetry or about you?”

“Everything we experience is about ourselves in some way. We can’t help but see the world through our own eyes. Just because you’ve never known a single sleepless night—”

“You don’t know the first thing about me. You can try to size me up in one glance as you please, but all you know is what you see. It’s dangerous to fill in the blanks with unfounded conjecture.”

“Oh, yes, good sir, please explain danger to me. I am but an impoverished unmarried immigrant Black woman currently living all alone in a not particularly affluent part of town. I love lying awake at night, jumping at every sound. Obviously I don’t know the first thing about danger, what with all my privilege.

” She jabbed a finger at his chest. “What sob story do you think you’ve suffered? ”

He stepped back. “Of all the insufferable, presumptuous—”

“Am I presuming? You’ve seen my home, and how I live. Now we’re standing here in yours. Can you really look around at all your servants and comforts, and tell me with a straight face—”

“I didn’t always live in this house!” His brown eyes flashed. “I didn’t always have a house at all. You know nothing about me, Miss Henry. Perhaps we should keep it that way.”

He spun on his heel and marched toward his barn.

Miss Henry. Not Vivian anymore.

She hurried after him in dismay. “Jacob—”

“No,” he said without turning around. “I’ve had more than enough of your opinions for one day. Go and meddle in someone else’s life.”

She stopped walking, stung.

He didn’t slow.

Viv had no one to blame but herself.