A perfect one-two punch. Graham would rescue the lions and the tiger, too, with that argument.
“All right,” he said. “But I want to be home at a reasonable hour for supper.”
Jacob grinned. “Then grab your tools. I’ve already called for a carriage and fresh horses.”
In less than an hour, they were at the Tower of London. The menagerie closed at sunset, which meant the gates should shut at any moment.
As soon as the last family left, the guard locked the iron gate and retreated from sight. Graham and Jacob waited another quarter hour, though caution was likely unnecessary.
For gatekeepers of public attractions such as these, the duty period ended after the last visitor left each day. Staff enjoyed room and board on a different section of the property, and wasted no time heading to the refectory for a hot meal and a few pints of ale. A sole guard remained to walk the grounds. The interior corridors would be empty until morning.
Nonetheless, the brothers had no intention of entering where they might be seen. There was a long stretch of wall left unguarded between the menagerie gates and the Jewel House. Graham scaled it easily, then tossed a rope down to haul up his brother.
“Tell me more about your supper plans,” Jacob said. “Do they involve a certain Balcovian warrioress?”
Graham had made the mistake of confiding Elizabeth’s ungifted intelligence journal scheme in the carriage, and that Graham was still searching for a way to woo Kunigunde openly.
“If I’m lucky, I’ll eventually have that romantic dinner,” he answered. “I don’t suppose you’d pen a few lines of poetry for me to sweeten the offer?”
Jacob looked horrified. “Never pass someone else’s words off as your own. I am fully on Kunigunde’s side in this matter. Besides, you’re already writing her a poem.”
Graham stuffed the rope back in his satchel. “I am?”
“You are if you take Elizabeth’s advice. What else would you call an album crafted with such care? It’s poetry inyourwords. You never loan your journals out of the family. You’re giving your jealously guarded intelligence toherking. That’s practically a lover’s-eye locket with a curl of your hair inside.”
“But she wouldn’t know I was doing it,” Graham reminded him.
Jacob snorted. “Do you think all poetry finds itself into the hands of its inspiration?”
“A fair point,” Graham said. “I guess it would be a poetry album of sorts, then. But I’m not doing it. Kunigunde’s king would judge her—”
He flung out an arm to halt his brother and pulled him into a shadowy recess of the stone wall.
Soft footsteps were coming in their direction.
“I thought you said all the interior guards go for an ale in the staff refectory after visiting hours conclude,” Jacob whispered.
Graham elbowed him in the ribs to be silent.
This corridor should be empty until morning. But of course, even the most meticulous reconnaissance could only track the way thingsnormallywere. Anything could happen. And now an out-of-place guard was going to pass within inches of them.
Perhaps the Jewel House visitors had lingered after sunset. Perhaps the black panther had escaped entirely on his own. Perhaps—
A woman stepped into view. “What areyoudoing here?”
“Kunigunde?” Graham said in disbelief.
19
Kuni stared at Graham in wonder. There in the alcove, he looked unspeakably dashing in a soft gray coat that molded to his muscles, accented by a silk waistcoat as blue as a Balcovian sky. Oh, his brother was there, too, and almost as handsome, but it was Graham who had consumed Kuni’s every thought whenever she didn’t have Marjorie or Elizabeth to distract her—and even sometimes when she did. Ever since Kuni had let him pin her to the grass in the garden instead of breaking free.
Graham had that effect on her. He made her feel like she was the center of his attention. Like there was nowhere he’d rather be, nothing he wished she was doing, other than sharing her breath with him. As though having her near him was enough. LikeKuniwas enough.
He made her want to stay right where she was. On her back. In his arms.
Then there was that moment, right before he left. The moment when she was certain he had been about to kiss her.
The interrupted kiss had hung between them ever since, stretching from Islington all the way to Manchester. Taut and invisible, binding her to him no matter how hard she tried to shake free.
