Page 53 of A Waltz on the Wild Side (The Wild Wynchesters #6)

Viv spun toward the corridor leading to the Wynchesters’ front door. With luck, the carriage was ready and waiting.

“We can’t all show up at once like a big mob,” Philippa warned.

“Why the devil not?” Chloe demanded. “That’s where Uppington is keeping Vivian’s cousin hostage, and likely where he planned to take my son!”

“What pretext should we use?” asked Adrian.

“No pretext.” Elizabeth gripped the handle of her sword stick. “We burn the place to the ground.”

“After we remove Quentin safely,” Jacob said firmly.

“Maybe we should go as a riotous mob,” Stephen said slowly. “The confusion could help. Whoever answers our knock won’t be expecting to find a duke, a duchess, a baby, a Balcovian warrioress, a sword-wielding berserker, a Demeraran playwright, an acrobat, five hundred wild ferrets—”

“We take your point,” said Chloe. “Let’s do it.”

“Riotous mobs are dangerous places to be,” Philippa reminded them all. “After Peterloo, we’ll be lucky if we make it up to the door en masse before authorities descend upon us to cut us down.”

“Authorities!” exclaimed Tommy. “Exactly what we need. I’ll meet you in the carriage!”

She sprinted from the room before anyone could ask questions.

“We’re about to break all the rules we can think of,” Jacob warned Viv in a soft murmur. “And probably several laws. Are you all right with this?”

Her hands shook, but her voice was steady. “To get my cousin back safely, I’ll break anything I have to.”

Within minutes, they were piling into a trio of carriages. Chloe would stay inside the third one with her baby while the others undertook the rescue mission.

“How did your stable hands ready the coaches so quickly?” Viv asked Jacob in surprise.

“I’ve had them stay ready since the kidnapping attempt on Dorian,” he explained. “I wanted to ensure we would be prepared for anything at a moment’s notice.”

“I’m coming,” called Tommy. “Wait for me!”

She raced across the lawn toward the carriages dressed in a natty uniform of blue trousers, blue tailcoat with brass buttons, black hat, brown side whiskers, white cravat and gloves, and the signature ruby waistcoat of the Bow Street Horse Patrol.

“Isn’t the Horse Patrol meant to prevent highway robbery?” asked Elizabeth.

“This knave stole Vivian’s cousin,” Tommy replied as she launched herself into the coach. “We intend to put a stop to it.”

When the trio of carriages pulled up on South Street where Miss Yates lived, the horses barely had time to slow before the Wynchester family began spilling out of their coaches like dice from a cup.

They indeed looked like a colorful mob straight out of the pages of one of Viv’s plays. Instead of painting them as the villains, however, this time Viv couldn’t be more pleased to have them on her side. She was proud to be amongst them.

From the first moment, they’d welcomed her with open arms and without hesitation.

Perhaps that itself had contributed to her unease.

Viv was so accustomed to being ignored or ridiculed or punished that she perceived kindness as a sly trick meant to lower her habitual defenses so that the inevitable blow could strike harder.

She admired the Wynchesters’ big hearts and indefatigable teamwork in the pursuit of justice. They knew the world was unfairly tilted in their favor, so they used their wealth and privilege to lift up others however they could. No matter what it cost them.

Her feet bolted across the pavement, along with ten other pairs of boots and the paws of a gigantic mastiff, who had been given some of Quentin’s old clothes to sniff.

Overhead flapped the three-foot wingspans of a dozen screeching hawks, each diving intermittently as though ready to carry Uppington away and drop him into the sea.

Tommy dashed ahead of the pack to bang upon the door.

Elizabeth drew her sword. Twin daggers appeared in Kuni’s fists. Viv retrieved her tarantula from her reticule and placed it on her shoulder.

The door opened the barest of cracks.

“Horse Patrol,” chirped Tommy, and kicked in the door.

Zeus bounded in first, knocking aside whomever guarded the entrance, and likely toppling tables and chairs as he skated through the house.

The rest of the Wynchesters poured in right behind, with Viv on the front lines.

“Quentin!” She shouted until her voice grew hoarse. “Quentin!”

“You cannot barge into a private residence,” stammered Miss Yates, whose countenance had gone deathly pale at the sight of them.

They were in the right spot. They just had to find him.

Viv and the other Wynchesters spread out. While most searched for Quentin, a few Wynchesters peeked beneath cushions and behind furniture for signs of the scandalous Olivebury painting in order to put a stop to the parliamentary vote manipulation altogether.

“Found it!” crowed Stephen, emerging from a side room with a rolled canvas waving in his hand.

Elizabeth pumped her sword in the air.

At the moment, Viv was more concerned about locating her cousin. He had to be here. And please God, unharmed.

Zeus clattered into the kitchen and gave a mighty woof so loud it shook the walls.

Viv came running.

A cook and a maid stood with their spines flush against tall shelves of pots and spices. Both of their panicked, guilty gazes looked everywhere except at the pantry in the corner.

“Don’t you dare run off,” Viv growled. She took the tarantula from her shoulder and set it on the floor. “Watch them, Sally.”

The maids shrieked and clutched each other.

Viv spun to the pantry and tried the door handle.

Locked .

“Quentin!” she screamed, her throat tight and raw. “Quentin, can you hear me?”

A muffled groan was barely audible on the other side.

“Out of the way,” Kuni commanded.

“Quentin, get back!” Viv called, fully expecting Kuni to break down the door with one kick.

Instead, Kuni slid a hatpin and the tip of her dagger into the keyhole. In seconds, the door sprang open.

Quentin was standing on the other side, his hands tied behind his back and his mouth gagged with a handkerchief.

As his eyes widened with confusion and recognition, Viv raced forward to tug the gag from his mouth. “Are you all right?”

“My whiskers are itchy,” he replied. “I haven’t been able to shave all month. And my hair needs new twists. Wait, are these people… Are you with…”

His whiskers were itchy! Viv let out a choking laugh and threw her arms around him. With her sword, Elizabeth sliced through the rings of rope around his wrists. All of a sudden, after four long weeks, Viv’s baby cousin was finally hugging her back.

“You’re really safe,” she choked out. “I was so afraid…”

“Are these really the Wynchesters?” Quentin whispered without letting go of her.

She nodded.

“Quick,” he hissed frantically. “Shave me. I have to look my best!”

She lifted her disbelieving face from his chest to stare at his patchy, shaggy chin. “Quentin, I am not going to search this house for soap and a razor.”

He glared at her with such adolescent what-good-are-you outrage that Viv knew right then and there her cousin was going to be all right.

“This reunion is sickeningly sweet,” said Elizabeth, “but we should take it on the road.”

Right.

Viv grabbed Quentin’s hand. She hurried him out of the pantry and through the house to the waiting carriages.

Or at least, tried to hurry him. Although he hadn’t been tied to a chair, he’d spent several weeks in a space not much larger than a water closet, and his legs were no longer used to making large strides.

Tommy pulled the door to Miss Yates’s residence shut, then launched herself into Viv’s carriage just as the horses began to move.

Quentin’s eyes bulged at Tommy. “Shouldn’t you have made an arrest?”

“I’m not really the Horse Patrol,” she replied, and peeled off her whiskers.

Quentin squealed in delight. Squealed . Like a happy pig.

“Tommy Wynchester?” he blurted out, slack-jawed.

“Here.” She handed him the whiskers. “You need these more than I do.”

“Yes, that’s Tommy,” Viv confirmed. “And next to me is Jacob.”

Quentin leaned forward, elbows on knees and eyes bright with stars. “Do you really have a kangaroo?”

“I do not,” Jacob said with a chuckle.

Quentin looked like he was going to cry.

“I do have dozens of trained raptors, scores of venomous snakes, several wildcats, and an antbear my brother and I stole from the Tower of London,” Jacob added.

“I knew you would!” Quentin beamed at him, then whispered, “What’s an antbear?”

“I’ll show you,” Jacob promised.

Quentin turned to Viv with his mouth hanging open, as if seeking confirmation that she’d just heard the same three words he had heard.

“He’ll really show you,” she confirmed. “You’ll love it.”

Quentin threw his arms around her and squeezed so tight the air whooshed from her lungs. “I love you , Viv. I knew if anyone could bring the Wynchesters to my aid, it would be my cousin.”

She hugged him back as hard as she could. It was good to have him home—and even better to know that he’d never doubted her. “I missed you so much.”

He released her and grinned into her face. “I bet it killed you to need anyone’s help. Especially the Wynchesters.”

“Vivian helped us, actually,” Jacob corrected him.

Quentin’s eyes widened. “Helped… you?”

“She’s been assisting with clients for weeks,” Tommy confirmed. “We’ve resolved dozens of cases thanks to your cousin’s creative contingency plans.”

Viv had to catch Quentin before he tumbled to the carriage floor. He gazed up at her, slack-jawed and starry-eyed.

“You have been helping the real-life Wynchesters!” he half-whispered, half-shrieked, then seemed to realize he was still inside one of their coaches. “And now I’ve met two of them myself! My friends are never going to believe this.”

“There’s more than two of us,” said Jacob. “You can meet the others back at our house.”

“I’m going to your house?” Quentin looked as though he might swoon.

“You’re a Wynchester, aren’t you?” Tommy said wryly.