A Wicked Conceit by Anna Huber (best young adult book series txt) 📗

“Then who is this Mugdock character?” Lady Bearsden demanded to know from her seat at the head of the table. “Not someone I’ve ever met.”

“We believe it’s an alias, a nom de plume,” Gage explained.

“Ah, yes. That does make sense.” She tapped her chin. “But why Mugdock? It’s not a very illustrious name.”

“Perhaps he was trying to identify in some way with something,” Mrs. Siddons suggested.

“Or he simply picked it out of a book or off a map,” Mr. Aldridge said.

That had been my theory, but I hadn’t yet been able to find it.

“Hmmm,” Lady Bearsden hummed, speculating aloud in her musical voice. “Well, there is a Mugdock Castle, over in Dunbartonshire or somewhere.” She gestured vaguely with her fork in that direction. “Not far from my estate.”

“There is?” I asked in surprise.

“Yes. Most of it’s a heap. My Lumpy mentioned it to me once. Some childhood memory involving his cousins. I can’t quite recall now.” Which only meant that it hadn’t interested her, otherwise she would have all the details locked away in her brain. She took a sip of her wine, seeming to swirl it around in her mouth as she thought. An odd mannerism which seemed to help dislodge whatever she was trying to recall, for her next words proved remarkable. “Come to think of it, I seem to recall May Kincaid being born there.”

I stilled with my glass halfway to my lips. “You mean Bonnie Brock’s mother?”

Gage’s gaze met mine down the table, wondering the same thing I had. Why hadn’t Bonnie Brock mentioned this?

“Yes, I think that’s right. Her father was a third brother of a third brother, or some such connection, so he and his family lived in one of the less prestigious properties owned by his uncle.” Because true gentlemen were not supposed to work for a living or undertake any employment save the military or the church. “She was a beautiful woman,” Lady Bearsden continued to muse. “Which only caused her heartache. For she became involved with one of her second or third cousins—a married man—and it ruined her. Her parents cast her out, so her lover set her up in a cottage somewhere as his chère-amie, for what else was she to do. And then he abandoned her. It was after that she first made her way to Edinburgh, with Bonnie Brock naught but a babe in arms.”

“She couldn’t have had an easy time of it establishing herself with a child, even as a cyprian,” Mrs. Siddons remarked.

“No, indeed. But she was very beautiful and charming. And fortunately so was her son.”

Bonnie Brock. Bonnie, bonnie Brock.

I wondered for the first time whether that nickname had not come from an incident during his time in jail but from his mother. After all, it had always struck me as an odd choice in a sobriquet for the head of a criminal gang. But from a mother, that made much more sense.

This insight caused a resounding sense of rightness within me, as well as an unbearable ache. He might have transformed the moniker into a term of deceptive menace, but it had begun as a loving epithet from mother to son.

Mrs. Siddons shook her head sadly, laying her fork down. “Then this cousin is Bonnie Brock’s father?”

I perked up at this question.

“Most likely,” Lady Bearsden replied as her glass of wine was refilled.

“Do you know who he is?” I asked.

“Well, the trouble is there are a number of possibilities, and the family has remained rather closemouthed about the entire affair. But the cousin was certainly older than her, and he was already wed, so he couldn’t be forced to do the honorable thing and marry her, which narrows down the possibilities. Perhaps Graham of Strathblane or the Duke of Montrose.” She rattled off a few more names, but none of them meant anything to me. A duke would certainly have the prestige which seemed to be indicated, but from what I recalled of Montrose, he wouldn’t have taken a great deal of interest in a young cousin in Dunbartonshire, no matter how beautiful she was.

Either way, Bonnie Brock certainly had some explaining to do.

•   •   •

After rolling over in bed for approximately the tenth time—a not inconsiderable effort when one was heavy with child—I accepted that sleep was determined to elude me. The rich meal combined with the aches in my own body—particularly my hips, which clasping a pillow between my thighs didn’t even ease—and the weight of my thoughts all contrived against me. So I slid as gracefully from the bed as I could while being roughly the size of a gray seal, donned my warmest dressing gown, and crept from the room.

I wasn’t surprised when my steps led me unconsciously to my studio at the top of the house. Pulling aside the drapes, I allowed moonlight to spill over the shrouded easels, their forms almost spectral in the hallowed light. Given the contents underneath, it wasn’t difficult to imagine them taking on a life of their own, as I tried so ardently to imbue life into my portraits.

I hesitated a moment, breathing the chill night air tinged with the lingering scents of linseed oil, turpentine, and gesso deep into my lungs. Then I reached out to carefully remove the covers from each of the canvases, exposing them to the light. They were at various stages of completion, each unique in their composition. Two were commissioned portraits, one a rough sketch of a portrait of myself and our as yet unborn child that I hoped to give Gage for his birthday in late July, and the last three were paintings for my proposed exhibit of the Faces of Ireland.

It was to these last three that I turned, not so much examining my brushstrokes as my intentions behind them. I had been touched by the plight of the Irish people, and the hatred and discrimination the largely Catholic population received at