A Wicked Conceit by Anna Huber (e novels to read TXT) 📕

still cannot guarantee the safety of those he cares for. Which leads him to give up the woman he loves—Lady Dalby—believing his rival for her affections will be better able to protect her.

It was very affecting, and I couldn’t help but wonder if it was made all the more so by the fact it might be true. Everything but the romance between him and Lady Dalby, that was. For while Bonnie Brock held me in some sort of affection, not for one second did I think he considered me his soul mate, as the play would have us believe. Incontrovertibly, in my case, that honor belonged to Gage alone.

“The playwright was also astute enough to leave out most of Bonnie Brock’s history of body snatching, recognizing how unpopular such crimes are,” Gage continued, unaware of my thoughts. “Especially in this city,” he added under his breath, clearly thinking of Burke and Hare, the notorious murderers who had sold no less than sixteen bodies to the local anatomists for dissection. That we had once been attacked in Grassmarket by a mob holding similar suspicions about me because of the scandal surrounding my late first husband must have also entered his thoughts.

Sir Anthony Darby had been one of Britain’s most renowned anatomists, as well as sergeant surgeon to the king. When we had wed, he was in the process of writing a definitive anatomy textbook for medical students. What neither my family nor I had known until it was too late was that he had married me almost solely for my talent as a portrait artist. He’d forced me to produce detailed illustrations of his dissections for his book so he wouldn’t have to share the credit or the royalties from its sales. Like all men of his field—who were perpetually in want of fresh cadavers—he had been forced to do business with body snatchers. A fact which had made the discovery of my involvement as a gentlewoman with his macabre work even more shocking and scandalous.

“The playwright also avoided falling into that quagmire of corruption the author implied Bonnie Brock was involved in,” I said, passing Gage my cup.

“In truth, I wasn’t certain how the Theatre Royal would handle that. I expected the minor theaters and penny gaffs to leave it out. No need to muddy the water about who their hero is. But the New Town audience is not as enamored of Kincaid as the rest of Edinburgh. More tea?” he asked, gesturing with my cup.

I shook my head. “I’m just glad the play left out that ridiculous drivel about Lady Dalby and Mr. Gale taking bribes.” I exhaled in frustration. “Though I wish it had also left out that ridiculous drivel about a relationship between Lady Dalby and Bonnie Brock.”

“Yes,” Gage replied tightly. He had leaned forward to place our cups on the tea tray and continued to fidget with the dishes there, keeping his face averted from mine so that I couldn’t read his expression. He couldn’t be happy about all of the play’s romantic insinuations, and the more lurid claims in the book had infuriated him. But he seemed determined not to discuss them.

I knew he didn’t blame me, just as I knew he hadn’t questioned my faithfulness for even a second. But that didn’t mean he wasn’t struggling with the repercussions.

I reached out toward him, but before I could speak, he determinedly turned the subject.

“One thing is crystal clear. The author of the book is an amateur. Oh, Nathan Mugdock, whoever he is, can formulate a paragraph well enough, but he doesn’t possess the insight or ability to spin his words into a cohesive story.”

I sank back, considering what he’d said. “You’re right. Even the best nonfiction books are able to do that, not merely recite a list of facts or events.” I looked up at him. “Then we’ve been going about this all wrong. We’re not looking for a professional writer but someone inexperienced.” I sighed in weary frustration. “Which makes the matter that much harder.”

Chapter 3

Gage touched my hand in commiseration. “To be fair, your idea to compare the writing in The King of Grassmarket to that of known authors had merit.”

It had also had the added benefit of keeping me safe at home and away from the more cholera-ridden areas of Edinburgh while he ventured out to make inquiries, but I had agreed to such a scheme willingly, so I could hardly complain now.

“I hadn’t thought to analyze the structure.”

Neither had I, and with all the hours I’d spent poring over other texts and novels, it was something which should have occurred to me sooner. Of course, I’d been examining sentence structure and phrasing, not character arcs and themes. “What’s done is done,” I conceded with as much grace as I could muster. “Now we can hope your efforts have borne fruit.”

“And sooner rather than later,” he agreed, his gaze dipping to my rounded abdomen. A tender light entered his eyes. “It would be nice to have all this resolved before the birth of our child.”

I couldn’t argue with that. A gentle smile curled my mouth. One which flattened at his next words.

“Did I tell you I received a letter from my father earlier today?”

The warmth spreading through me abruptly turned to cold. Lord Gage and I didn’t have the most congenial of relationships, and while we had seemed to find a new common ground before my and Gage’s departure from London in December, my subsequent discoveries at Sunlaws Castle had changed that. “Did he?”

But rather than darkening as I’d anticipated, my husband’s brow seemed to lighten. “As you know, I expected a tirade,” he told me. “But he was remarkably understanding about the allusion to us in the book.”

I blinked in shock. “He was?” A shock I could be excused for feeling, given the amount of contempt my father-in-law had heaped over me in