“I’ll go,” said Adrian. “I love convincing people of things. It might be my single greatest talent.”
“Second-greatest,” Marjorie said with a rosy blush. “Unfortunately, you and I are promised to finish the restoration project for the Laurent case. And the first public showing for our newest crop of art students is on Saturday.”
Elizabeth glared at the baby in her lap. Chloe had given birth shortly before Christmastide, which had kept her and the Duke of Faircliffe from joining the rest of the family on a holiday to Balcovia. Which meant this round ball of drool was now six months old.
Dorian fell forward, his still-bald head planting facedown in her lap.
“Oof,” she said loudly. “This creature attacked me. Someone pass me a dagger. Self-defense is a perfectly reasonable reaction when under enemy fire.”
No one looked her way.
“I could go,” Jacob offered. “All you’ll need to do in my absence is mind the hawks and raptors, collect rats to feed the snakes, ensure that the Highland tiger—”
“None of us are doing any of that,” said Tommy. “No one but you can enter that barn and exit with their life.”
Slowly, everyone turned to Elizabeth.
She paused in the act of trying to push the floppy, flailing baby back into a seated position. Dorian laughed as if he were having the time of his life. Elizabeth was ready to end her own.
“I’ll feed the tigers,” she said quickly. “I’ll feed this babytothe tigers.”
“Protect my baby with your life!” Chloe called out from across the room.
“It’s a Highland tiger,” Jacob assured her. “Too small to eat a baby.”
“What if it shares the juiciest pieces with the snakes and raptors?” Elizabeth muttered under her breath. “This could be a team effort.”
“You’ll have to go to Dorset,” said Graham.
“Elizabeth?” Marjorie said in disbelief. “She’s better with children than she is at persuasion, and she just offered to feed a baby to a tiger.”
“Rude,” said Elizabeth. “Also true.”
“Aren’t you currently in the middle of a mission?” asked Philippa.
“Besides the one where I subtly divest myself of this baby?”
“She’s not,” said Graham. “Elizabeth finished her open cases yesterday, with the Bunyan recovery.”
“And we’re thinking of sending her… alone?” asked Tommy carefully.
“I’m never alone!” Elizabeth reached for her sword stick and almost dropped the baby. She had to wrap her arm protectively about the hell-beast in order to brandish her sheathed sword. “I always have a blade or two with me.”
Marjorie cleared her throat. “Does anyone else think sending Elizabeth to gently persuade a haughty earl is like sending Attila the Hun to negotiate a peaceful ceasefire?”
“Attila the Hun is a personal hero,” Elizabeth said contentedly. “I will make him proud.”
The baby gummed a wet spot into the flesh of Elizabeth’s upper arm.
“You might be able to do it,” Kuni mused. “For a woman whose bedchamber could double as an armory, wheedling a simple piece of paper ought to be an easy task.”
“I don’t wheedle,” said Elizabeth. “Iwhack.” She demonstrated with several wild swipes of her sword stick.
The baby giggled and reached his pudgy hands toward the sword handle.
“You must play the diplomat,” Graham warned her. “And if that doesn’t work, you must use charm to manipulate him into handing over his late mother’s will.”
“I can be diplomatic and charming,” she assured him. “I never murder people without justifiable provocation.”
