Page 49 of A Waltz on the Wild Side (The Wild Wynchesters #6)

As much as Jacob wished he could stay in the rear garden kissing Vivian all day, the family’s other cases also needed him.

He sent Tiglet to the dockyard with Kuni, dispatched Piffle, the crow, to a rooftop in Billingsgate with an urgent message for Graham, and accompanied the voles to the Custom House to assist with Tommy and Philippa’s mission.

None of it truly received his full attention.

Even as he coordinated the polecats and the mongoose, his mind remained with Vivian, and their stolen moments in the garden. She had agreed to let him woo her! Hopefully. Conditionally. Just as soon as he and his siblings rescued her cousin.

Jacob had already been anxious to find Quentin, but now he was even more eager.

Unfortunately, their best leads were proving slow.

Leisterdale possessed several cottages and hunting lodges throughout England.

Although they’d managed to place an informant to watch each location, amassing a team to infiltrate and search each site in person was far from achievable with their current resources.

Complicating matters was the simple fact that Leisterdale needn’t house his hostage on one of his own properties at all.

Restraining an eighteen-year-old in an ordinary inn would not go unnoticed for long, but the marquess had more than enough spare coin to rent rooms or even a whole house for the purpose, using a false name to avoid detection.

If Jacob had managed to hide his pseudonym from the entire world for years on end, Leisterdale would have no problem paying rent through a third party until Parliament voted against suffrage.

Therefore, they were prioritizing targets.

Leisterdale had to communicate with whichever lackey was holding Quentin captive.

Informants followed the marquess, his employees, and his associates.

Intercepted messages and listened to conversations at his club.

Searched Leisterdale’s financial records and business dealings.

Jacob had no doubt there was bound to be a breakthrough very soon. And when that happened, he intended to be ready. Not only to save his client’s cousin, but also to woo Vivian.

He released the last of the ospreys, then leaned his shoulders against the side of the barn. He pulled out the two stacks of calling cards Vivian had commissioned for him.

J ACOB W YNCHESTER, A NIMAL T RAINER

That was self-evident. He had not advertised his services outside of the family because there was barely enough time to manage his rescues and the upkeep and training and the family’s many missions. Calling cards were a sweet idea, but he wouldn’t be needing them.

He slid the first stack back into his pocket and turned his gaze to the other.

J ACOB W YNCHESTER, P OET

Well… that one was certainly less self-evident.

Outside of the family and Jacob’s poetry group, the only people who knew he’d even attempted to string a few words together were the publishers who had repeatedly declined to work with him over the past decade.

He continued to send an inquiry once or twice a year in his own name, but all that ever generated was more kindling for the fire.

When he’d invented Sir Gareth Jallow, Jacob hadn’t expected much to come of it.

Landing the first publisher he queried had been an ironic surprise.

Even then, he’d expected a printing of a few hundred copies, most of which would languish unsold.

After which, even a fake “Sir” wouldn’t be offered a second contract.

Jacob had planned to purchase five copies of his own pseudonymous poetry collection and gift them to his then-unwed siblings at Christmastide. He’d regale them with the humorous tale of how he’d done everything possible to get published but found no future in it.

Marjorie would have immediately forged a duplicate book with Jacob’s name instead of Jallow’s.

Elizabeth would have wasted no time unsheathing her sword to knight Jacob properly so that the pseudonym wasn’t a complete lie.

Chloe would have hugged him and said she viscerally understood what it was like to put yourself out there again and again, only to be overlooked.

Tommy would have offered him a conciliatory pie.

Graham would have been the only one who attempted to read any of the poems.

None of that had happened.

Instead of the fizzle Jacob had been expecting, Sir Gareth shot to instant fame.

A second, larger printing later that year.

Months later, a third. Weeks later, a fourth.

By Christmastide, his siblings already owned copies of Jallow’s book, and the opportunity for a haha-look-at-this-silly-thing-I-did unveiling was no longer possible.

The longer he waited, the less likely he could ever come clean.

It was a lie all of London believed. Then a lie all of England believed.

A lie so big it felt like it was happening to someone else.

Perhaps separating himself from his nom de plume was Jacob’s way of coping with the unexpected consequences of what had seemed like an insignificant deception.

He wasn’t a famous writer. Sir Gareth Jallow was.

Except the calling cards in his hands read, Jacob Wynchester, Poet .

He wondered what Vivian expected him to do about it. In his shoes, she probably would send out ten poems a day to every single publisher in Britain until they published her bloody poetry or committed her to an asylum.

Every so often, Jacob sent fresh work in his own name to Jallow’s publisher, who didn’t read a word of it. Jacob knew this to be true, because the same poems in his solicitation later appeared in Jallow’s subsequent anthology, and no one at the publishing house so much as raised an eyebrow.

Maybe written queries were the wrong approach. His publisher had been begging to meet Sir Gareth for years. Mr. Pagett wouldn’t be expecting Jacob of course, but they’d exchanged so many letters over the years, Jacob felt like he knew his publisher. Mr. Pagett seemed a friendly sort.

Perhaps all Jacob needed to do to stand out was to step up and meet with him in person. Face his fears.

He glanced at his pocket watch. Two hours until Zeus, the mastiff, and Hippogriff, the goshawk, would be needed for Elizabeth and Stephen’s newest mission.

Technically enough time to walk the two and a half miles each way to meet with Pagett, if the publisher were available and Jacob were granted prompt access.

A wait was more likely. If he was going to go, he needed swifter transportation.

Before he could talk himself out of it, Jacob saddled Sheepshanks and set off. Upon arrival, he tied his horse at the closest available iron post, then strode up to the publisher’s huge front doors.

Belatedly, Jacob realized he might have given a better first impression if he’d dressed in his dinner-soirée best. But it was three o’clock in the afternoon on Fleet Street, not the twilit ballrooms of Almack’s.

His clean buckskins, tan waistcoat, and trim blue coat tailored to his form would have been more impressive if he’d remembered to take off his leather apron.

He tossed the apron behind a bush before he knocked on the door.

A white lad with blond hair and tortoiseshell spectacles swung open the door with a welcoming smile… that faded upon sight of Jacob.

“We’re not buying anything,” said the lad.

“I’m not selling anything.”

“We’re not hiring new employees, either.”

“I’m not applying for a post. I’m here to see Mr. Pagett. Can you take me to him, please?”

“He’s not receiving at the moment.”

“You didn’t ask him.”

“I’m authorized to use my good judgment.” The lad began to close the door.

Jacob blocked it with his boot. “Please. My name is—”

“Mr. Pagett is too busy to entertain presumptuous strangers. Now, if you’ll kindly step aside?”

Jacob did not step aside. A bolt of stubbornness stiffened his spine. “I’m not a stranger. You don’t even know my name. I receive holiday greetings every year from Mr. and Mrs. Pagett, full of anecdotes about their daughter’s new poodle and their—”

The lad laughed harshly. “As Mr. Pagett’s apprentice, I handle his correspondence myself. I am certain he has sent no such thing to the likes of you. Now, if you’ll allow me to return to my post—”

Footsteps rushed up from behind Jacob, heralding a virago in a raffish green bonnet.

“If you were at all competent in your post, you would have recognized that you were in the presence of a great writer, perhaps the finest poet England has ever known—”

“ Vivian ?” Jacob blurted out in surprise and horror. “What the devil are you doing here?”

She winced. “I—”

Taking advantage of the momentary distraction, the lad shoved Jacob’s chest, pushing him off balance. The apprentice slammed the door shut in both their faces, leaving Jacob and Vivian abandoned on the exterior step.

“He put his hands on you,” she spluttered. “He pushed you! I saw it!”

Jacob ground his teeth and wished he’d fallen into a bottomless hole.

As if it weren’t mortifying enough to be disrespected by his own publisher, Vivian had witnessed the entire encounter.

Including the humiliating moment the most successful poet in Britain had been pushed around by a snot-nosed lad, as though Jacob were a mangy stray nosing around for scraps.

There was fail spectacularly , and then there was… this .

“What the devil,” he repeated through clenched teeth, “are you doing here?”

She held up a sheaf of parchment. “I ran out of paper whilst enumerating my production suggestions for the manager of the Olympic Theatre. As I was exiting that stationer’s shop”—she pointed over her shoulder—“I glimpsed you here.”

He closed his eyes.

“I fully confess I should not have eavesdropped,” she said quickly. “I just… It occurred to me that you might be using the new calling cards for the first time, and I didn’t want to miss the moment.”

“We didn’t get that far,” Jacob said dryly.

“Did you tell him you were Sir Gareth Jallow?”

He held up the calling cards. “I’m not Jallow, remember?”

“That’s right. You deserve to make it as yourself.” She twined her fingers with his. “Why don’t you duck around the corner for a moment? That way, you can deny any knowledge of how some publisher’s young assistant was beaten into a whimpering mess by a woman.”

Jacob let out an angry breath and felt a fragment of his embarrassment vanish with it.

To Vivian’s eyes, he hadn’t been summarily humiliated by a lad almost half his age.

In her eyes, Jacob was a hero. A brave warrior daring to show his face where it was not wanted.

Unafraid to face his fears, to confront the obstacles in his path.

But he didn’t want to be the loser who tried and failed.

He wanted to be the hero worthy of capturing her heart.