"If I may be so bold-"
"Are you ever anything else?" he interrupted.
"-did you perhaps imbibe one too many, Cousin."
"Imbibe?" Prince was ready to throttle him.
Arnald knelt down on one knee. "Your brandy snifter-" he said, picking up the base of the glass. He held it out in an open palm. "Broken."
Dumbfounded, Prince repeated, "Broken?" He contemplated the smashed glass for a moment. His head did not seem to be pounding from the inside out. In fact, the last liquor he remembered feasting on was the small bit just before bed the night before. He leaned forward, elbows on his knees, head in his hands. Something odd was going on. Instinct, whispered that his mother and her mysterious friend, Faustine, were, if not the entire cause, then certainly had some inkling behind the strange goings-on. He was sure of it. But what? "Call someone to clear up this mess. We have information to uncover. And I believe I know just where to begin."
"Should we not be strategizing your kidnapping? The betrothal ball is but a few days, hence."
He responded to Arnald's sarcasm with a touch of his own. "Or mayhap a lynching," he muttered.