Just for that impertinence, Jacob did not let go of her hand. He stroked the tips of his fingers against the smooth brown skin, proving her to be every bit as warm and soft as he’d imagined. The pad of his thumb rubbed lightly against the pulse point at her wrist, which fluttered then sped faster than before.
Very interesting. Miss Henry might pretend to be cold and unaffected, but she was anything but. He now knew the truth.
She snatched her hand out of his and shoved both her wrists behind her back.
“Well?” she demanded. “What do you have to say for yourself?”
Jacob blinked at her. He’d forgotten the question.
“My missing cousin,” she burst out impatiently. “Which of us didyou forget altogether, him or me?”
Right. She’d demanded to know what Jacob had accomplished. His second-by-second whereabouts were none of her business, but all the same, he couldn’t stifle a pang of guilt at having escaped to his poetry meeting, if only for half the hour.
Miss Henry read his expression at once. “You weren’t evenworkingon it?”
“We have loads of cases,” he began.
“—and that’s why Quentin has fallen through the cracks?”
“That’s not fair or true,” he protested. “Our entire team has been working tirelessly to find your cousin. We even receive hourly updates from—”
“You do?” she interrupted breathlessly. Her eyes shone with hope as she pressed her hands to her chest. “What is the latest word?”
Jacob not only didn’t know the latest word, he didn’t knowanyof the words. He’d been on the move all day long and had returned straight to the barn without even trying to catch up with any of his siblings.
“You don’t even know,” Miss Henry said dully, the light in her eyes fading. “Your family receives ‘hourly updates’ about my missing cousin, and you don’t bother to read them? Wow, such great and powerful Wynchesters you lot turned out to be. I knew trusting you was a mistake. ItoldQuentin I’d never seen a more self-aggrandizing family, drunk on their own reputation and about as genuine as—”
Fury spread through Jacob’s veins. She hadnoidea what it was like to be a Wynchester.
“Perhapsyoushould try keeping your opinions to yourself until somebody asks for them,” he shot back.
She took a startled step backward, her lips twisting with self-deprecation. “That’s the last thing Quentin said to me. Perhaps you’re both right. Very well, I’ll see myself out.”
With that, she strode from the barn, slamming the door behindher.
9
The next morning, Jacob’s conscience awoke him well before dawn. He hadn’t acquitted himself well in the barn with Miss Henry. She’d come to him a wounded wildcat, just like Dionysus. In response, Jacob had barked at her instead of easing her pain.
The worst part was that she hadn’t been wrong.
Jacobhadpromised to keep her abreast of any developments… and then failed to do so. That he’d been busy all day with countless other cases was the reason, but not an excuse. He was lead investigator on this one. If he wasn’t going to follow through on a thread, it was his responsibility to delegate the task to someone who would.
The problem was, the team had run out of people to delegate tasksto. Everyone had been assigned more than they were capable of achieving, from the siblings themselves to Philippa’s book club to Graham’s network of spies and informants.
They’d had no business taking on yet another case to begin with. Yet what was the alternative? Miss Henry had already tried everything. She’d done the exact street work the Wynchesters themselves would have done, and she’d taken her concerns to the authorities, who had laughed in her face. If Jacob’s family had spurned her, too, she would have had nowhere else to turn.
Which… was how she was feeling right now. Disrespected. Unimportant. Abandoned.
Jacob scrubbed his face with his hands. If Quentin still hadn’tcome home, then Jacob owed Miss Henry an apology as well as a thorough explanation. Evenifher cousin was back home.
He bathed quickly and headed down to the breakfast table. Several of his sisters were already there when he arrived.
“Did you see Olivebury was robbed the other day?” Tommy asked as she reached for fresh toast.
“Olivebury, the speaker of the House of Commons?”
“Not the speaker, but one of the most important voices. A lot of members vote however he does.”
