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

have with Bonnie Brock before, during, and after they occur? Do you honestly think he’s threatened by him? Or that he has the least need to even fear my involvement with him?” I tossed down my napkin. “Why are you berating me about nonsensical gossip?” I asked, recalling Charlotte’s counsel.

She inhaled a deep breath before diving into her typical recriminations. “Your reputation . . .”

“No, no,” I cut her off. “Not that. You say it’s about my reputation, about your reputation, about conforming to society, but why must I do that? Why personally must I do that?” I scrutinized her snapping lapis lazuli eyes and the clamped line of her mouth. “Did you?”

“Of course I did . . .”

“And what did you give up to do so?”

I hadn’t recognized how important this question was until it was out of my mouth. It passed my lips with a feeling of rightness and seemed to hit Alana square in the chest, almost rocking her back on her heels with the impact. I watched her absorb the words, feeling much of my own anger drain away.

I’d never considered whether my sister had given something up when she’d married Philip and become a mother, as most women did because they were expected to. I’d been a self-absorbed seventeen-year-old when they wed and when Malcolm was born nine months later, thinking of little but my art. Morven had known my sister far better at that age than I had. Perhaps that was why my cousin had also understood Alana’s reaction better than I had.

“Alana,” I prodded more gently.

Her head took on that stubborn tilt I knew so well. “I’m simply trying to help,” she retorted crisply, pushing to her feet. “I don’t see why you always have to be so selfish and do things the difficult way, but so be it.”

However, I could see through her attacks now. There was some deeper reason behind her insistence that I cease my involvement with murderous inquiries and conform. Some deeper reason than her fear for my safety. And it was something she didn’t want to share with me, perhaps because then she would have to acknowledge it herself.

I watched her storm from the room before turning to gaze out the French doors at the garden. In truth, I’d always thought marriage to Philip—whom she’d been in love with since the age of twelve—and motherhood were all she’d ever wanted. It troubled me to think I might not be aware of another side of Alana, that she might have hidden it from me.

I tapped the side of my cup with my fingernail, wondering if our brother, Trevor, knew. As the middle child and a boy, he had often been privy to things that I, as the youngest, had not. If I wrote to him about it, I wondered whether he would share what he knew, if anything.

I’d just resolved to do so when a movement in the garden captured my attention. The door to the stables opened, and the lad who helped care for our horses came trotting down the garden path. However, it was the man I saw standing in the doorway behind him that truly piqued my interest, for he knew he wasn’t supposed to be there. In any case, I knew he wasn’t going to be turned away without speaking to me, so I rose from my chair and climbed the stairs to the library-cum-study.

I found Gage bent over his desk, scribbling a note in his nearly illegible scrawl. He glanced up and then lowered his head again to his task. “Did you want something?”

“Always,” I replied softly.

His hand halted abruptly, the only indication he’d heard me before he resumed writing.

I inhaled a deep breath that trembled slightly as I stifled my more tender emotions. “But for the moment, it appears we have a visitor.”

When I didn’t elaborate, Gage looked up. I arched my eyebrows toward the window overlooking the garden, and he glanced toward it in confusion before turning back to me.

When comprehension dawned, his head snapped back around so that he glared at the window. “In the stables again?”

“Yes,” I replied. “I saw him out the French doors in the morning room, and I’m anticipating a request for our presence from Jeffers in . . . ah, now,” I finished as our butler paused in the doorway.

“Kincaid is in the garden?” Gage snapped.

If Jeffers was surprised by our already being aware of this, he didn’t show it. “Yes, sir. He requested an audience with Mrs. Gage.”

My lips quirked, having no doubt this phrasing had been chosen by Jeffers and not Bonnie Brock. An audience, indeed.

Gage’s scowl darkened. “Fetch our . . .” He broke off at the sight of my forest green cloak and his dark greatcoat already draped over Jeffers’s arm. “Yes, thank you.”

Once we were appropriately attired against the chill, Gage led me back to the morning room and pushed open the French doors before he offered me his arm to guide me down the steps of the terrace into the garden proper. Sullen, gray clouds scuttled across the sky, blocking much of the sun, while now and then a stray sunbeam pierced through. I would have made light of the downturn in weather after two sunny days without Bonnie Brock’s presence, simply to ease the tension, but I decided Gage didn’t need any more ammunition to use against him.

The stable door swung inward as we approached, revealing Bonnie Brock standing in the shadows. At first glance he appeared as irritable as Gage and spoiling for a fight. But on closer analysis, the muddled swirl of emotions reflected in the depths of his eyes told me it wasn’t simply anger he was feeling, but something more akin to fear.

“Why are you here?” Gage demanded. “I thought I made it clear . . .”

I pressed a hand to his chest, halting his words before speaking to Brock. “What is it? What’s happened?”

“Maggie.” He took a step closer. “Have ye seen her?”

I shook my head in surprise. “Why? Is she missing?”

He swallowed. “Aye. When I woke this morning,