“She asked us not to help,” Graham reminded her. “And I wouldn’t want Kunigunde to think I was trying to upstage her with her own kingdom.”
“Even at the cost of potentially meeting those royals in person?” She stared at him. “You’re not falling in love, are you?”
“Anything worth doing requires falling first,” he said. “But I am far too nimble to take such a tumble.”
“No falling for me. I will sit right here, drinking punch and gin.”
Graham grinned at her, then bounded up the stairs to his bedchamber. He was tempted to peek into Marjorie’s studio to see if she really was giggling with Kunigunde, but he wanted to look his best first.
He bathed, shaved, and selected fashionable evening attire: a coat of gray superfine and a waistcoat of celestial blue. As soon as his neckcloth was tied to perfection, he hurried upstairs toward his sister’s studio in search of Kunigunde.
Marjorie was alone…and acting strangely. When she saw him approach, she threw a tarp over an easel and ran to close the door until only one blue eye peeked through.
“I’m busy,” she said through the crack.
“Have you seen Kunigunde?” he asked before Marjorie could slam the door in his face.
“Not since breakfast. She finished the grand houses days ago and started surveillance on other locales. No, I haven’t seen the Balcovian royal family’s confidential itinerary. Kunigunde could be anywhere from Piccadilly to Brighton and likely won’t return until well after nightfall. Goodbye.”
The door closed.
Well. That was more information than Graham had previously had, but still disappointing. It did not sound as though tonight was the night for a romantic dinner after all.
He trudged back down the stairs. To be fair, it wasn’t as though Kunigunde should be waiting around for him. He hadn’t even known exactly which day he would return. And hehadknown she would be busy.
But he had too much pent-up energy to relax. Perhaps he would practice his acrobatics. It had been an entire week since the last time he climbed the outside of a building or performed flips on horseback. Such restraint had been torture. Perhaps he could string up one of his high ropes from the house to the barn and—
“There you are!” Jacob caught up with him halfway down the stairs. “Just the man I was looking for. Do you want to go on a rescue mission with me?”
“Yes,” Graham said with feeling, then immediately grew suspicious. “To rescue a ‘who’ or a ‘what’?”
“To rescue little Ralphie,” Jacob answered with far too much innocence.
“And what,” Graham asked politely, “is Ralphie?”
“An…antbear,” Jacob admitted.
Anantbear. It sounded simultaneously very large and very small.
“He’s incarcerated in the Royal Menagerie,” Jacob explained in a rush, “and mistreated even worse than the other animals. Most of the inmates don’t last above a few years, even when normal life expectancy is in the decades. Remember how that monkey died after only six weeks behind bars?”
Graham closed his eyes. “You want to rescue an antbear called Ralphie from the Tower of London.”
At least it was a castle. Perhaps there would be a princess inside in actual need of rescue.
“There’s only one keeper of the menagerie,” Jacob continued. “You know what a clueless, self-absorbed rotter he is. After all the lion maulings, the visitors are meant to stay on the other side of the rail from the animals, but he lets everyone poke through the bars with sticks. He has neither the inclination nor the least idea how to keep an antbear alive, much less healthy.”
“And of course you do.”
Jacob’s eyes shone. “Of course. There are actually multiple different types of antbear. The first is also known as an ‘aard-varken’ or ‘earth-pig’…”
Graham stopped listening.
He’d known before asking that Jacob could present a four-hour speech on the care and feeding of antbears at the drop of a feather. He would have suggested his brother simply take over the post of Keeper of the Royal Menagerie, if it weren’t for Jacob’s aversion to the entire practice.
Graham also knew exactly what his brother was about to say to rope him in.
“…and I know you feel the same as I do about living creatures held captive against their will,” Jacob finished. “I’m going regardless, so it’s up to you if you wish to miss out on the adventure.”
