Page 40 of A Waltz on the Wild Side (The Wild Wynchesters #6)
She did not respond aloud but leaned back into his chest and allowed him to embrace her for the remainder of the journey.
When they arrived at the Wynchester home, the others were disappointed but unsurprised to learn a bigot like Leisterdale had raised a son like Uppington.
“I’ll run him through with a sword,” said Elizabeth.
“ We’ll go,” Faircliffe said firmly, exchanging a glance with his wife.
“You’re his father’s political enemy,” Stephen reminded him. “Why would he speak to you?”
“Because I’m a duke,” Faircliffe replied.
Chloe handed her sleeping baby to Kuni and took Faircliffe’s hand. “We’ll intercept him as soon as he returns home and need no longer posture in front of his friends. We’ll return posthaste.”
Jacob wished he could take Vivian’s hand. Kiss her, hold her, comfort her. But what she really needed was the safe return of her cousin. And a modicum of respect from the world around them.
Graham rushed through the door moments after Chloe and Faircliffe had left.
“Do you have Lord S’s identity?” Vivian asked breathlessly.
He shook his head. “Newt doesn’t know it. The club has apparently been trying to identify lords who abuse their power to squelch protests ever since the Peterloo Massacre. ‘Lord S’ stands for ‘suffrage.’”
Marjorie handed him a tall stack of missives. “These were delivered while you were gone.”
Graham scanned their contents eagerly, then sighed. “The messenger you two saw doesn’t work for Leisterdale, nor matches anyone employed at any lord’s London residence.”
“Maybe he was in disguise,” said Tommy.
“Or not related at all,” said Philippa. “Not sending one of his own footmen to deliver the blackmail message doesn’t prove Leisterdale’s innocence. It does mean our enemy is clever enough not to leave a line of obvious clues leading back to his door.”
Adrian nodded. “Blackmailing Olivebury to vote a certain way, abducting ‘Horace Wynchester’ to keep us from investigating…”
“What do you think?” Tommy asked Vivian. “How would you write it?”
“You don’t want to know how I’d edit this ending,” she said darkly.
“ I want to know,” said Elizabeth. “I adore the sight of our enemies’ blood.”
Vivian sighed. “I just want to see Quentin again. Alive.”
Jacob wished he could hug her. Or pull her cousin’s precise location out of a hat. The truth was, an unsettling percentage of their open cases at the moment were going exactly like this: nowhere.
Back when they used to only have one case at a time, justice was served swiftly. But with more fame came more clients, and with more clients came more conundrums: Taking on everyone’s problems meant having time for no one’s. But how could they turn any of their deserving clients away?
Vivian trudged in silence to the chair he’d come to think of as hers at the siblings’ worktable. She shoved aside her growing pile of unread Ask Vivian correspondence, and sharpened a fresh quill.
“Time to pen the bait?” he asked.
She nodded grimly. “A worm for a worm.”
Jacob wished he could help. A glance at his pocket watch indicated a bit of time remained before his next mission. He remembered he hadn’t yet put Vivian’s jumbled plays back in order. This was his chance to start.
At first, it was like matching up the pieces of a puzzle. He liked to begin with the edge pieces. If the last line of dialogue at the bottom of a page said “I wish to—” then he knew the first word on the following page ought to be a verb. I wish to go , I wish to unmask , I wish to rescue .
Once all the verbs were matched, he moved on to the next likely phrases, then the next, until only the trickiest matches were left: pages that began or ended with a complete sentence, thus leaving no obvious clue as to their mate.
Fortunately by then, there were few loose sheets left, and the remaining scripts were quickly complete.
He could’ve completed his task in half the time, if scanning for a stray verb hadn’t turned into reading the rest of the sentence.
Which then required knowing the other characters’ sharp or witty comeback, leading to page after page being read compulsively.
Out of order or not, Vivian’s writing was engaging and highly entertaining.
It was a true miscarriage of justice not to have these plays performed for the public at large. It was a moral imperative to help.
Until Graham’s extended network of spies and informants turned up a new lead to follow, there wasn’t much Jacob could do to find Vivian’s kidnapped cousin.
But although he could not fully save the day at this precise moment, he could at least attempt to distract her from the spiral of panic, and perhaps even tempt a smile back to her lips. Or another kiss.
He drew a fresh plume and a clean sheet of parchment from the communal supplies in the center of the table and began drafting his own anonymous letter to his favorite advice column. Who would know better how best to woo a woman like Vivian than Vivian herself?
Once finished, Jacob folded the paper and sealed it with wax.
He’d copy the publisher’s address from the newspaper when Vivian wasn’t there to see his interest in her column and divine what he was up to.
It might take weeks for her to respond. That was all right with Jacob.
He was eager, but not in a rush. Some of the best things took time.
Before either of them could consider a proper courtship, multiple issues needed to be resolved. The first was to bring home Quentin. The second was to help Vivian achieve her potential as a playwright.
Of the two tasks, the latter was the most straightforward and already in the works. He’d sent off several notes as Sir Gareth Jallow and was waiting to see who would jump first.
Vivian was a phenomenal playwright. She just needed someone to believe in her. Jacob believed in her. And he would not rest until everyone else realized what they’d been overlooking.
Whether she would have any time to spare for Jacob once she was rich and famous and her cousin was home safe and sound… well.
That was when he would need to heed Ask Vivian’s advice.
After his mission, Jacob returned the weasels to the barn and rejoined his siblings seconds before Chloe and Faircliffe burst back into the sitting room.
Well, Chloe did the bursting—Faircliffe was more of an “impassive expression and proper posture” sort of duke. Nonetheless, he strode quickly to keep pace with his wife.
Vivian leapt to his feet. “You weren’t gone long at all. Did Uppington refuse to speak to you, too?”
“He practically knocked his own retinue asunder to make room for us.” Chloe rolled her eyes. “Then lowered his voice to ensure no one overheard our actual words.”
“The earl actually divulged something useful?” Vivian asked in surprise.
Chloe made a face. “Uppington heavily implied that the Marquess of Leisterdale would do anything to maintain his privileges.”
“Which isn’t exactly news,” Faircliffe put in. “Leisterdale stands atop his bench an hour a day in Parliament, crowing about the need to conserve power within the aristocracy. His speeches about nobility’s innate superiority have appeared in political pamphlets for years.”
“It is a popular sentiment amongst the upper classes,” Jacob pointed out.
Chloe sighed. “Uppington said he fears the marquess may take drastic measures. His exact words were, ‘Who knows what lengths my father would go to if he thought he would get away with it?’”
“Lords get away with everything,” Vivian said. “They should all be in prison. Present duke excluded.”
“I appreciate the clemency,” murmured Faircliffe. “I hope to always be worthy of it.”
“Unfortunately,” Chloe continued, “‘my father is a ruthless man’ is not as helpful as ‘here’s evidence my father committed this specific crime.’ Parliament is full of ruthless men who would take drastic measures if they believed they could get away with it.”
“And then what?” Vivian asked. “Where is justice? Even if we pull Quentin out of Leisterdale’s attic in front of two hundred witnesses, no consequences at all will happen to a peer of the realm.”
Elizabeth drew her sword. “I’ll happen to him.”
“You’d better not,” Vivian warned her. “A marquess can claim ‘privilege of peerage’ to escape prosecution, but an untitled woman cannot claim any rights at all.”
“First things first,” said Jacob. “We find evidence, we rescue Quentin, and then we plot appropriate revenge against the guilty party.”
“All right, then.” Vivian lifted the advice column letter she’d been writing. “Let’s hope the shark takes the bait.”