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

“Through a team of barristers, but I apprehend what you’re saying,” Gage said. “In doing so, he’s disclosing his identity to not just one individual but, between the barristers’ staff and the courts, at least half a dozen people or more. Is he willing to risk that?”

“That reminds me,” I said, rolling the button of my cloak between my fingers as I sifted through my thoughts. “Rookwood told us that, at first, Mugdock balked at his insistence that he alter my and Gage’s names in the book, but later he relented, even if he only modified them by one letter. But if he was so adamant about keeping them, why didn’t he simply approach another publisher?”

Gage tilted his head in consideration. “Maybe he did. Maybe they weren’t interested, or they all insisted he change our names.”

“Or he didna want to expose his identity to anyone else,” Bonnie Brock interjected, circling us back to his previous comment.

“Then I suppose he chose Rookwood for a reason,” I said. There was nothing astonishing in that. We had done our research and knew that Thomas W. Rookwood was an established, well-respected publisher. Even so, he had been publishing fewer books with each passing year, and there was some speculation he would soon retire and sell his assets to another publisher. I wondered what would happen to those assets now.

I studied Bonnie Brock quizzically, wondering just how much he knew, and how much he would share with us. “Did your source tell you who found Rookwood?”

“Aye, that assistant o’ his. Said he left to run errands sometime after midday and when he returned this evenin’ he found his employer dead.”

“That must have been a shock. So they presume the murder took place sometime within that space of time.” Hopefully they would have a surgeon examine the body to further pinpoint the time of death, and witnesses would step forward to narrow down the window, but for now the possibilities were rather broad.

But Bonnie Brock wasn’t finished. “He claimed he found the window wedged open wi’ a bronze bird statue and muddy footprints across the floor.”

My head reared back at this statement. “You mean . . .” I glanced at Gage, whose expression had turned grim. “Like from the book?”

He arched a single eyebrow in confirmation.

The fact that the bronze bird statue and muddy footprints neatly echoed one murderous scene from The King of Grassmarket could not go unremarked upon. Not when the book’s publisher had been the man murdered, and the book’s protagonist was certain to be the chief suspect.

“That cannot be a coincidence,” I murmured.

“No,” Gage conceded. “Not unless Kincaid has taken to carrying bronze bird statues around with him and leaving them like a fool at every murder he commits.”

Rather than glare at him as I’d expected, Bonnie Brock’s lips actually quirked at this wry bit of humor.

“Then someone staged that scene,” I surmised. “To point the finger at you.”

“Or the book,” Gage reminded us. “After all, there has been plenty written in the newspapers about how harmful and corrupting that book and the subsequent plays are, and now the outcry is only going to grow louder.”

“But would one of those people really go so far as to commit a murder to make their point?”

Bonnie Brock shrugged. “I’ve seen reformers and officials do much worse.”

What he meant by this, and what precisely he considered worse than murder, I didn’t know, and I wasn’t going to ask.

“Then we’re looking for someone who not only had a reason to kill Rookwood but also holds a vendetta against you,” I summarized. “For I didn’t see a bronze bird statue conveniently sitting on a shelf in Rookwood’s office when we visited yesterday morning.”

“Did you ever figure out who your informant is?” Gage asked. “Who revealed what they knew about your past to the author?”

Bonnie Brock turned his face to the side, showing us his profile, and much of that was hidden by his fall of tawny hair as it slid forward. “Nay,” he bit out in a hard voice. “I’ve accepted it’s no’ either o’ you, and I’m convinced it’s no’ Locke or Stump, or Maggie for that matter. So perhaps one o’ my other men, someone who discovered more than he shoulda. Or someone from a rival gang who somehow put together all the pieces. I didna ken. No’ yet.”

“Maybe the information came by bits and pieces from several sources,” I suggested, wondering if this would soften the blow of betrayal he felt or make it worse. “They could have even been unwittingly given. Too much drinking and blathering one night at the White Hart or some other pub.”

“What about a mistress? I daresay you’ve had a number of those.”

I stiffened in surprise that Gage should be the one to make such a suggestion, even creditable as it was.

Bonnie Brock took no pains to hide his amusement. “I dinna ken what you do in bed wi’ a lass, but I dinna do much talkin’, least o’ all aboot my past.”

I scowled at the implication and was about to defend my husband when he spoke up.

“Yes, well, that’s a pity for you, then.”

I turned to my husband, warmed by his words.

“Ah, weel, maybe when you’re basket-makin’ ’tis different,” Bonnie Brock retorted, but I was not going to allow his vulgar euphemism for making love with the intention of procreation rile me. All the same, I was more than ready to be quit of him for the evening, and thus relieved when our carriage drew to a stop outside our town house.

“You’ll understand when I say that I prefer that you not be seen exiting our carriage, and ask that you remain inside until it pulls around to the mews,” Gage stated firmly as he reached across me for the door handle.

“Aye, Stump and Locke are already waitin’ there for me.”

Gage glanced back at Bonnie Brock at this statement, perhaps relieved the criminal wasn’t putting up a fight. I was simply grateful he could