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

“No,” I replied in bafflement, and then turned to gaze across the room at Alana, who stood near the hearth conversing with Morven’s husband. Why hadn’t she ever told me? Or had she simply expected me to know?

“Your sister used to write a great deal of poetry. She was quite good, too,” Morven remarked.

I met her gaze, realizing this was what she and Charlotte had hinted at in my conversations with them, even if no one had spoken outright. “Why did she stop?” I asked, though I suspected I already knew the answer.

Morven shrugged one shoulder, as if it were self-explanatory. “She married and then Malcolm was born.”

I set the picture down carefully on the table as a dawning realization filled me, followed by a swift flash of anger. This was why Alana was so insistent that I give up my inquiry work. This was why she was determined I follow the rules of decorum. Because she had.

But why had she done so? Why had she stopped writing poetry? Surely she could have continued to do so even after she had children. Unless Philip forbade it.

I lifted my gaze to study my brother-in-law, who was bent over explaining something to a pouting Philipa. No, I didn’t believe that. Philip might be traditional in many senses, but he would never have forbidden Alana from doing something she loved, something so harmless.

Alana must have elected to do so herself, ever the perfect countess and politician’s wife.

I kept my gaze on the table before me, struggling to understand. No, there must be more to the matter than that. After all, Alana had always supported my art—she still did—and poetry was not so very different. There must be something else to account for her ferocity toward me in continuing my investigations. Something beyond her concerns for my safety. Something to explain her frustration and fury at my flouting society’s dictates, at my persistence in intruding into what most saw as the rightful domain of men.

I pressed a hand to the amethyst fabric draped over my rounded abdomen. It was contemplations like these that, at times, made me wish the child inside me was a boy. But swiftly upon the heels of that thought would come another, the desire to have the chance to raise a daughter who knew she didn’t have to submit to such ridiculous standards. That she could be strong, courageous, intelligent, talented, ambitious, and still a faithful, devoted wife and mother, if she so chose.

Lifting my gaze to the wall where a portrait of our parents I had painted after their death hung, I wondered for perhaps the hundredth time how our mother would have counseled us. Would she have urged Alana to do what she’d done? Or would she have encouraged her the way Alana had encouraged me when I was younger, before I’d become great with child?

The truth was, I would never know. I would never have the chance to experience that. So perhaps I needed to stop asking the wrong question. Perhaps it no longer mattered what our mother would have said. Perhaps it only mattered what I would decide to say instead.

•   •   •

You’re awfully quiet.”

I looked up from my contemplation of the carriage seat across from us to look into Gage’s concerned face. “I’m just thinking about Lennox and our impending conversation with Mr. Heron,” I replied. An answer which wasn’t entirely honest, for I was also thinking about the contractions that had returned. For a time during the party they had ceased, making me suspect that once again they were merely false labor pains. But now—some three or four hours later—they were back. They were still some distance apart, and I wasn’t truly in pain, so there was no reason to be alarmed. Particularly as a woman’s first childbirth often took half a day or longer. Alana had labored for nearly twelve hours with Malcolm, and Morven for fourteen with her first child.

If that was what was happening. After all, by no means were the contractions regular, and they had stopped and started. So perhaps this was just another form of false labor.

Either way, I’d decided that if they continued as they were, I would wait to tell Gage until after Lennox was taken into custody. Otherwise he would rush me home to pace the floors, anxious to hear what was happening. In any case, we had just a few more questions for Mr. Heron before we reported everything we’d learned to Sergeant Maclean and allowed him to handle the interrogation and arrest.

“Yes, but you were also quiet at Jamie’s party,” Gage remarked, plainly suspecting I wasn’t telling him all. “Did Morven say something upsetting?”

So he’d noted my conversation with her over Jamie’s pressed-flower picture. But now was not the time to delve into my strained relationship with my sister, and I told him so. “Ask me later.”

His gaze searched mine as if uncertain whether this was some sort of test he was about to fail if he didn’t immediately press for answers.

I smiled. “Truly. We’re almost to Mr. Heron’s, and I don’t want to become preoccupied.”

“You mean, any more than you already are?” he teased.

“Believe me, I’ll be focused once we’re standing before him.”

And I was. Even though Heron seemed more unsettled by our appearance—if such a thing was possible—than he had been before.

“I-I’ve told ye everythin’ I ken,” he stammered, waving his hands as if he might be able to shoo us from the room simply by flapping them.

“You may think you have,” Gage replied in an even tone. “But we just have a few more questions we need answered. Lennox’s sequel. You said Rookwood rejected it because it was filled with lies and half-truths. But what lies specifically?”

“Y-you want to ken what lies it told?” he asked in confusion.

“Yes. For instance, did it mention anything more about Kincaid’s father, or his father’s family?”

Heron’s head reared back slightly and he blinked. “Well, aye. He alleged that Kincaid stole from and blackmailed his own