4

T here was a baby in the Planning Parlor.

Elizabeth went on full defense to stay clear, but the little devil's sparkling angel-blue gaze tracked her every move like the barrels of a pair of pistols.

"Dorian adores you!" exclaimed Chloe in delight.

"Keep it away from me," warned Elizabeth.

The rest of their siblings poured into the sound-dampened, second-floor room, their feet moving quickly across the black slate floor with its chalk remnants of maps and their plans for all of the other justice-seeking missions currently underway. Early morning sunshine streamed through narrow openings in the tall curtains.

For now, the Wynchester crew ignored the huge walnut-and-burl table with its myriad secret compartments in the center of the other half of the room. Instead, they settled in a large crescent of sofas and armchairs before an unlit fireplace.

"Let's get started," said Tommy, a cosmetics case in her lap, and a single bush of side-whiskers protruding from one of her cheeks. "I have to infiltrate a Cheapside tavern in less than two hours."

"And I must leave for St. James in forty-five minutes," said Kuni, a dagger in each hand.

The rest of the siblings chimed in with all the places they had to be and the tasks they had to perform before the day was through.

"Wait," said Chloe. "Lawrence isn't here yet."

"We can't wait for the duke," Graham told her, with a glance at his pocket watch. "I hereby call this meeting to order."

The door to the Planning Parlor swung open.

"Lawrence!" Chloe plopped the baby onto Elizabeth's lap. "Hold my son for me. I'll be back in a moment."

She ran to greet her husband before Elizabeth could object.

" Help ," Elizabeth gulped. The chubby infant sagged forward and drooled on her stomach. "Somebody, help me."

Her family did not hear her. Their singular focus was intent on Graham.

"I was able to track down the lawyer who drafted the countess's will," he began. "Miss Oak was right. Due to the fire, he no longer has a copy of any item."

"But he corroborated its contents," added Jacob, with a four-foot snake draped about his shoulders like a winter scarf.

Faircliffe finally stopped nuzzling his wife. "A lawyer's memory is not the same as a physical document. Agreeing with Miss Oak isn't something that would hold up in court."

"Get over here," said Elizabeth. "Rescue me from your baby."

"Then we have to go to Dorset," said Tommy. "And search the castle from top to bottom until we find the original will and testament."

Marjorie frowned. "If the earl won't open his door to his aunt, he won't be an accommodating host to us."

"There are inns and hostelries," Adrian pointed out. "We can rent rooms nearby and pay as many calls as it takes to convince Densmore to do the right thing."

"I can't go," Chloe said with regret.

"You can come and collect your hell-spawn." Elizabeth poked at the baby's soft belly with her finger.

Dorian burped and chortled toothlessly. A white dribble of glistening milk appeared at the corner of his pink lips.

"Kuni and I can't go, either," said Graham. "We're handling the O'Sullivan affair."

"Philippa and I barely have time to don and doff disguises between missions," said Tommy. "If I don't finish applying my side-whiskers soon—"

"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 baby to the 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. "I whack ." 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."

Truth be told, it wasn't the prospect of employing her as-yet-untried skills of diplomacy that worried her. Although Elizabeth had never attempted a calm, rational negotiation, she had read countless tomes on the art of warfare, all of which explained the ways in which logic and persuasion were as important as maintaining a sharp blade. Though she liked to pretend there was nothing rattling in her head besides swordplay, on the days she couldn't rise from bed, she often rehearsed the logistics of imaginary confrontations and peace treaties in her mind.

It was the not-always-able-to-rise-from-bed part that made her hesitant to undertake a mission without sufficient reinforcements.

If something went wrong—like, for example, her body , whose signature move was to rebel against her at the worst possible moments—Elizabeth would not have the luxury of nine other Wynchesters at her side to support her and pick up the charge.

She would be totally on her own.

"You can say no," Philippa said gently. "We'll find another way."

Elizabeth scoffed, far too determined to mask any lack of confidence and avoid showing weakness rather than actually voicing her fears. She would never let down her family. They believed in her. So did Miss Oak. Wherever a client needed Elizabeth, she would go. No matter how much panic boiled up inside.

"Maybe the mission will be a two-for-one," she said with forced cheerfulness. "I can poke holes in the Earl of Densmore and that strutting peacock Richard Reddington."

"We've been over this," Jacob reminded her. "No murdering. You can't run a fake general through with a real sword without ironclad justification."

Graham glanced up from his case notes. "Didn't you say Reddington's money comes from the slave trade? Ironclad justification."

"There we have it." Jacob plucked the baby from Elizabeth's lap and gestured toward her sword. "Run Reddington through as many times as you please. I'll loan you a few raptors to pick the bones clean."

"Recover the will and testament first," Tommy said quickly. "And then you can unleash Beth the Berserker."

"Done." Elizabeth smiled happily. Perhaps this trip would be fun after all.