Page 7 of A Waltz on the Wild Side (The Wild Wynchesters #6)

Viv did her best not to panic.

At eighteen years of age, Quentin was an adult man, whether she liked to admit it or not. He could not be expected to plan his life around the whims of his twenty-eight-year-old spinster cousin.

Nonetheless, if he had spent the night with one of his friends, the least he could have done was let her know he would not be coming home. He knew she would have supper on the stove and playing cards ready on the table, watching the clock as she awaited his return.

Quentin wasn’t that cruel. Was he?

They’d also never argued like they had the previous morning. Some hurtful things had been said, on both sides. She would have thought their bond was strong enough to weather worse than that. But if so, then where was he?

“Deep breaths,” Viv commanded herself aloud, her voice unrecognizably high and shaky. “Think it through.”

It was inevitable that at some point her baby cousin was going to grow up. He’d have activities and interests other than the orphan spinster who had been his nursemaid, guardian, and confidante since he was eight years old.

She supposed him being out past dawn was the natural progression of a boy becoming a man and stretching his wings. At some point, Quentin would stay out all night for other reasons. Clubs, drink, women. He would soon fall in love and wish to marry, and thus need Viv to find somewhere else to stay.

Was that the answer? He’d spent the night with a secret paramour? Someone whose existence he had not yet divulged, because of the catastrophic effect it would have on Viv’s own future?

She hoped that wasn’t the case and despised herself for it. Maybe Quentin was right. She was holding him back, because it was better for her if he didn’t grow up. A serious character flaw, if she’d ever seen one.

Her advice column paid a pittance, and she was contractually prohibited from performing as Ask Vivian outside of the newspaper.

The best she’d been able to negotiate was for the paper to offer a guaranteed private response in exchange for a small fee, half of which was shared with Viv.

She was popular enough now that almost every letter earned an extra half-penny.

It was better than nothing, but still far from enough. To afford rooms of her own, she needed theater managers to take her and her work seriously.

Or you need a partner , she could hear her mother say. A husband .

Out of the question. Viv could not consider courtship until she’d made something of herself on her own. Before opening a door to potential suitors, she had to prove herself first. Her future husband would discover his wife to be competent, and self-sufficient, and successful.

Viv never wanted to feel disadvantaged—or enslaved—ever again.

Nor could she stand feeling this alone.

For Quentin to live a long, happy life had been her sole priority from the moment her toes touched British soil. She might have had a different career by now if she’d spent half as much time pursuing her own dreams as she did ensuring that all of Quentin’s came true.

He’d been acting oddly the past few days.

She’d suspected him of hiding something from her on more than one occasion.

But even if she entertained the notion of love at first sight, when would Quentin have met this mystery woman?

While he was out performing ill-advised acts of skullduggery with chalk in his hair?

Maybe, she was forced to admit. The fact that his secret society needed false names and disguises for their missions necessarily implied that there was a client to please.

Perhaps a pretty one Quentin’s age, who had long prayed to be rescued by a strapping young lad with the high spirit of a pony and the fashion sense of a rag bin.

“Blast it all, where are you?” she asked the empty house.

What would Quentin do? What would he want her to do? The answer to both questions was the same: call in the Wynchesters.

Pfft. That was a low she would never bring herself to. She could not be manipulated in such a way. Viv hurried to the sideboard and extracted the journal she’d been keeping about Quentin since he was small.

It had begun as a practical repository of knowledge. Favorite foods, and which ones made him sneeze. Dates of illnesses, along with associated symptoms, and which remedies actually worked.

As he grew, so did her notes. Funny things he said, recurring nightmares, friends, obsessions, hobbies, education, activities, places frequented. He would be embarrassed to know just how thoroughly she had chronicled his life.

But this fat little book was going to help her find him.

After feeding Rufus and checking on Sally one last time, Viv wedged a small green leaf in the crack of the front door. Upon her return, she would know at once if Quentin had made it back before her.

She started with the likeliest sources of information: the members of his secret society. The lads ranged in age from sixteen to four-and-twenty. Though they winkingly refused to admit any such secret club existed, they each spoke highly and enthusiastically about Quentin.

He was a wonderful chap, a right honorable fellow, steadfast and friendly, always up for anything.

“Like what, precisely?” she asked. “Where was he last night? Where is he today?”

The bubbly responses dried up instantly, each secret society member after the other staring at her with the same bafflement. Quentin was missing? Was she certain? Where did he go?

It was enough to make her lose her mind. Halfway down her list, she remembered the odd name Quentin had mentioned before storming out.

This time, the responses were cagier. Newt? Never heard of him. But if Quentin were with such a person, they guaranteed he was off doing normal, non-illegal activities. No disguises or capers or seditious acts. And definitely nothing risky or dangerous.

She might have been desperate enough to believe them, if they’d managed to look her in the eye while making these claims. And if the assurances weren’t identical, down to the word.

They all advised her to go home and stop worrying, and genuinely seemed to believe there was no cause for concern.

Despite their assurances, Viv’s anxiety ratcheted higher with each failed interview. If Quentin were fine, he would have communicated with her by now. Something was wrong. She knew it.

Viv would stop worrying when she found him.

After there were no more friends to interview, she resorted to acquaintances, then prior haunts.

Each stop was less enlightening than the last. When she found herself knocking on the door of the barber who’d helped pull one of Quentin’s milk teeth after an infection nine years ago, Viv finally conceded defeat.

Despite how thoroughly she’d thought she had chronicled his life, neither her brain nor her book were leading her to Quentin.

At home, the little leaf was right where she’d left it.

Full-on panic set in.

Annoyed or not, Quentin wouldn’t do this to her. Viv’s affectionate puppy of a cousin was either horribly injured, or in mortal danger… or dead.

The worst part was, she wasn’t overreacting. She’d seen firsthand the lethal consequences to rule-breaking and good intentions.

Life on the Demerara sugar plantation had been a living hell. Of course all of the enslaved residents wanted to rise up against their supposed masters and fight for independence. They also knew exactly what would happen if a momentary flicker of defiance accidentally flashed across their face.

Viv’s mother knew the rules and believed breaking them was a risk worth dying for. At eleven years old, Viv hadn’t truly comprehended that such an unthinkable outcome could really come to pass.

Until it did.

Her brave, desperate mother was hopeful until the very end.

She whispered, schemed, planned. A coordinated uprising in three weeks at dawn.

Yes, the aristocratic landowners and the cruel overseers who controlled their plantations had guns, but there were dozens of slaves and only a handful of guards.

Rifles must be reloaded between shots, which meant they couldn’t all die.

Some lucky percentage would get away. Escape to much-deserved freedom.

They never got the chance to try.

The head overseer caught wind of the wrong whisper. He didn’t ask questions. He dragged Viv’s mother by the hair into a clearing in the sugar field and shot her in front of everyone.

Viv couldn’t even say goodbye. One minute, she was working at her mother’s side, humming a favorite song in harmony… and the next minute, her mother’s blood was splattered over her clothes.

They didn’t even let her clean up. Back to work, all of you, lest you wish to be next to die.

Part of her did want to. Eleven years old, no mother or any hope for a better future. If things went “well,” she’d have blistered feet and bleeding hands for decades to come. Mother was right. It was no sort of life to live.

As Viv grew older, the desire for revenge increased within her.

Along with an unquenchable yearning for freedom.

She kept hoping that one of the adults might pick up her mother’s thread, but no one wished to be made an example of.

Mother’s death had been quick, but the overseer promised the next one would not be.

Weeks of slow, merciless torture for as long as the rule-breaker’s body still gasped for breath.

When Viv turned eighteen, she was willing to chance it. She’d been born into a life of hell and could not continue. If they all worked together, if they were very, very careful, this time the rebellion—

Was likewise cut off at the source. Viv was tied to a tree to be publicly tortured until she named her co-conspirators.

There was no sense confessing. Her captors would kill her regardless.

The only thing to gain was a marginally quicker death—assuming they could be trusted to show mercy.

Viv knew better than to trust her “betters.”

If the summons to Lord Ayleswick’s English residence had arrived even a few days later, Viv would not be out of her mind today with worry about Quentin.

She’d be in an unmarked grave, just like her mother. That was what happened when the unprivileged dared to break rules.

From that day forth she swore never to lose another family member to the careless whims of those in power ever again, no matter what sacrifices that might entail. When she became Quentin’s guardian, she vowed to his dying mother to protect her orphaned cousin at all costs.

And if she couldn’t do it on her own, it was time for reinforcements.

Bow Street it was.

She donned her best dress, taking extra special care with her hair. Not out of vanity but because if she wished for an authority figure to take her seriously, she needed every possible advantage.

It didn’t help.

The first Bow Street Runner she’d ever seen in her life shut the door in her face before she’d even finished giving her name.

Viv banged on the door with both fists until it reopened, this time revealing two gentlemen. One was the same ill-tempered white man as before. The second at least looked at her with curiosity rather than contempt.

By their posture and expressions, she deduced that the second man held seniority, a situation the first was none too happy about.

Given the conspicuous finery of the rude investigator’s clothes and the whiff of cheap gin clinging to his person, the first Runner was not dealing well with his wish to appear more important than he was.

The more successful man holding the door open, however, had paper cuts on his ink-stained fingers.

His clothes were wrinkled in such a way that indicated long hours behind a desk, and the soles of his shoes were worn thin from constant movement investigating his cases.

This was a man who made progress. Exactly what was needed.

“I need your help,” Viv said in a rush.

“Of course,” said the more pleasant of the two men. “I am Basil Newbury, and this is my colleague John Yarrow. What is your name?”

Thank God. “Vivian Henry.”

“And what appears to be the matter?”

“My cousin Quentin. He’s missing. It’s been two days—”

“How old is he?” Yarrow interrupted.

“Eighteen, but—”

“So, no longer under your thumb, eh? Lads do what lads do. There’s no case here.”

“He knows I worry,” she blurted out. “If he were able to, he would have sent word.”

“Not if he’s a runaway,” said Yarrow. “Maybe he’s done having words with you.”

This stung, having hit a little too close.

“He’s not a runaway,” Viv gritted out. “I’m the indigent, and he’s the one with trust money. Why would he run away from that?”

“Aha,” said Yarrow. “It’s not your cousin you’re after, but his pocketbook.”

Viv gave up on him and turned to Newbury. “Quentin is a good lad, but impulsive. Anything could have happened to him.”

“Is he an English citizen?”

“Why wouldn’t he—” Oh. Her accent. “Yes, he’s an English citizen.”

“You cannot be taking this seriously,” said Yarrow. “ Look at her. We’re wasting our time.”

“Look at me?” Viv repeated, her limbs and voice shaking. “What about my appearance wastes your time? That I’m poor? That I’m a woman? That I’m Black? That I’m an immigrant?”

Yarrow made a careless, palms-up gesture as though to say, You said it, not me .

Newbury looked chagrined. “My apologies, miss. It pains me not to be able to help, but we investigate crimes, and there’s no evidence of one. Good luck, and good day.”

This time, when the door closed in her face, Viv knew it was final.

No one here would help.

Much as it galled her, if professional investigators charged with protecting the public would not help… Viv would have to resort to the un professionals. The rule-flouting, law-breaking, self-appointed Robin Hoods of the lower classes.

The Wynchesters.