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

we’d been forced to stroll toward High Street, deeper into Old Town. And while we were not near the area that had seen the greatest outbreak of cholera, I couldn’t banish it from my thoughts. Just as I knew Gage couldn’t either. I felt highly conscious of my breathing and every person who came near me. Most physicians believed it was spread through an influence in the atmosphere, a miasma of bad air, which was more likely to afflict those who had weakened themselves by exposure to certain foods, intemperance, or dissolute behavior. This was why it was believed to linger over certain areas of the city and not others. Cholera morbus seemed to be transmittable without direct personal contact, but that didn’t mean that contact with an afflicted person could not also infect you.

At the corner of High Street, Gage steered us to the left, still keeping me close. We hurried past Carrubbers Close and a couple of pubs before veering left into North Gray’s Close. This passage was even narrower than Carrubbers, and the buildings overhead seemed to lean inward toward one another, almost blocking out the light completely. Nevertheless, we were mostly alone, and the sound of the crowd gathered on North Bridge Street had receded, absorbed by the craggy stone buildings.

With each step I grew more damp and miserable, the umbrella heavy in my hand as I held it high enough to shelter Gage. Normally, he would have carried it, but it would only have hindered his ability to defend us. An act that might still be needed as we inched our way down the hill of slick cobblestone. When finally we reached our carriage parked near the old Physic Gardens behind Trinity Hospital, I was shivering, my limbs stiff with cold.

“Next time we speak with Mr. Heron, I think we should visit him at his rooms instead,” I pronounced as Gage tucked a blanket around me to ward off the chill.

“You’re already sure there will be a next time?”

There was no subtlety in the fact that this was a leading question, and I waited until he stopped fussing with the wool covering and looked up at me to answer. “Aren’t you?”

“Well, yes.” He sat back with a sigh, turning to frown through the curtain of rain at the orphan hospital in the distance. “For one, we forgot to ask him about the sequel.”

I’d also realized this once it was too late to turn back and do anything about it. “Do you think he knows who Nathan Mugdock really is?”

Gage leaned forward to lift the opposite bench and retrieve his travel writing desk. “I don’t know.” He flicked open the brass latch to reveal the smooth mahogany writing surface and slid open the drawer to extract a sheet of paper. He paused, his lips flattening as he mulled over some unsettling thought. “But I do think he knows who killed Rookwood. Or at least he suspects it.”

I didn’t speak as he jotted off a quick request to the men he’d promised Mr. Heron he would send to help him move Rookwood’s things, the scent of ink mixing with wet wool inside the carriage. “Why didn’t you press him on it?” I asked as Gage waved the missive in the air to speed the drying.

“Because he never would have given me a straight answer, and then he would have been on his guard about any future questions I put to him on the topic. As you know, it’s always best to already know the answers to such questions before you ask them. And at the moment, we haven’t the slightest clue as to who the culprit is.” He folded the foolscap and then hollered for Peter, our footman, who was perched at the back of the carriage. Leaning through the doorway, he passed him the letter and then issued instructions on its delivery.

Once that task was completed, he put the lap desk aside and turned to me more fully. “Now, shall I deliver you home, or are you determined to accompany me to the businesses Mr. Heron visited yesterday on Rookwood’s behalf?”

I arched my eyebrows. “Must you ask?”

His mouth curled at the corners. “I figured it couldn’t hurt. Where to first, then?”

The chiming of the bells at nearby Trinity College Church drew my gaze toward New Town. “We’re only a short distance from the Theatre Royal. But will the proprietors be there at this hour?”

“I doubt it.”

“Then let’s visit the printer. This Mr. Lennox may know as much about Rookwood’s business as Mr. Heron, if not more.”

All trace of humor fled from Gage’s expression. “You heard Heron say that Lennox and Company Printers is located at the corner of Cowgate and Blackfriars.”

Which was a block south of High Street, just a short distance from our current location, but it plunged us into a very different world. Cowgate stretched to the west, connecting with Grassmarket, and hosted many of the poorest residents of Edinburgh, packed together in squalid tenements. We would be stepping up to the very edge of the area of the city hardest hit by the cholera morbus. It was only right that we should pause and evaluate the risk.

“I brought the Chantilly veil that matches this capote so I could drape it over my face if needed,” I told him, pulling the delicately folded lace from the pocket of my mantua. “That would offer some extra protection. And I can button my pelerine higher on my throat.” I clasped the small cape-like garment draped over my voluminous mantua together at the neck to illustrate.

Gage carefully considered these suggestions before guardedly adding, “I suppose we aren’t going to encounter a great deal of people gathered around a print shop. And the fumes from the equipment likely overpower any of the bad air that might waft over from the neighboring tenements.” His gaze assessed me once more before he sighed heavily and knocked on the ceiling of the carriage to issue instructions to our coachman.

As the carriage