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

doing everything I can to make sure this baby is born safely, and that includes following Dr. Fenwick’s orders. The stronger I am when the time comes, the better chance I have. That seems logical.”

“Yes, I can see that.” She released my hand, searching for her handkerchief in her beaded reticule. “I simply wish you would stay home while you do it.”

“Why? Because of the cholera morbus?”

She blinked at me blankly for a second. “Well, yes, partly.”

But I could tell the risk of cholera had not been on her mind at all. In any case, I’d never heard of anyone taking such drastic precautions as keeping to their own home to avoid the disease, especially not here in New Town. The residents of this part of the city were merely told not to venture into the more squalid areas of Old Town. As for the public notices posted throughout Edinburgh, they touted such recommendations as eating wholesome meals regularly, abstaining from alcohol, keeping one’s home and person clean, and avoiding unnecessary exposure to cold and wet. All sound suggestions, but nearly impossible to implement for the city’s poorest residents, whose living conditions were dreadful and whose income was too paltry to afford more than meager fare. As for limiting their consumption of spirits, it was often the only way they could warm themselves.

“Then, why else?” I pressed.

She scowled. “Must I state it baldly for you?”

“Because of the book? But I thought you were in support of our efforts to uncover the author’s real name?”

“Of course I am. But must you leave the house to do so?” She pushed to her feet. “Why must you always make a spectacle of yourself?”

My head reared back in shock. “I don’t make a spectacle of myself.”

“You do, whether you intend to or not.” She took several agitated steps toward the door before turning to add, “Kiera, I have stood by you for twenty-six years. I supported your painting portraits even when others said it was unladylike.” Her voice grew tight. “I sheltered and championed you after Sir Anthony all but destroyed you as well as your reputation. I . . . I even encouraged your macabre interest and involvement in Gage’s inquiries. Initially.” Her gaze dipped to my abdomen, stabbing in intensity. “But you are about to become a mother, and it is time for you to grow up and accept life as it is. If not for your sake, then at least for your child’s.”

With this, she whirled about and strode from the room, leaving me too astonished to even attempt a response. I stared unseeing at the wall across the room as anger built inside me, raising a flush in my cheeks and a searing heat in my blood. But just as swiftly as it flared, it snuffed itself out, leaving me with a raw ache and a deep well of bewilderment and sadness. I had always looked to Alana for approval, trusting in her unfailing love and support. To hear now that she so sharply disapproved of me, of the person I’d become, cut me to the bone.

•   •   •

We were to attend a ball that evening at Lady Edmonstone’s, celebrating Miss Imogen Drummond’s debut into Edinburgh society, but when Gage returned home, he found me not in our bedchamber, where I should have already begun dressing, but instead in my art studio. Normally this meant he would have discovered me absorbed in painting, my hair untidily tucked beneath a scarf, and my hands and apron flecked with paint. But about a month past, I’d unhappily realized that I’d grown too ungainly to be able to continue painting. The fumes associated with my art—which had never bothered me much before—had also begun to make me ill. So I’d been forced to temporarily halt my artistic efforts. Fortunately, I could still draw with charcoal and had filled several sketchbooks with different renderings. But I missed the feel of my specially weighted paintbrushes between my fingers and the glide of the bristles across the canvas as the image I was attempting to capture sprang to life in oil and pigments.

That evening Gage did not find me sketching, but rather perched on my stool, staring at the half-dozen easels which propped up my partially completed portraits, each one still draped in sailcloth to protect them. I wasn’t entirely certain how or why I had ended up in my studio, except perhaps because my art had always been my solace, my comfort. My constant when the world around me shifted.

“Kiera?” Gage murmured, pulling me from my thoughts.

I turned to look at him as he advanced hesitantly into the room, surveying its dusty contents, including the special set of shelves he had built for me the year before to store all of my supplies. In fact, I could smell sawdust clinging to his coat now, amid the scents of bay rum and his horse, telling me that one of the places he’d visited that afternoon had been the woodshop he occasionally used at a friend’s estate a few miles to the north. This was his third trip there in as many weeks, and I knew he was constructing something, likely for the baby, but I didn’t want to ruin his surprise.

“What did Dr. Fenwick say? Is the baby well?” Though he spoke calmly, I could see the strain tightening his jaw.

“Yes. Yes, the baby and I are perfectly healthy.”

He exhaled a relieved breath, and I stood to wrap my arm around his waist.

“I didn’t mean to worry you.”

He smiled down at me before pulling me closer. “Then why are you up here, in a brown study?”

“How do you know I wasn’t composing a painting in my mind?” I countered. I’d told him before that half the work was done in cognitive preparation before I ever set brush to canvas.

He reached out to clasp my chin between his thumb and forefinger. “Because you could do so in a much more comfortable setting.”

“Perhaps the lingering odors of linseed oil and turpentine inspire