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

to lift his head, let alone rise from his sickbed to ravish me, as she seemed to be implying.

“Rookwood. He wouldn’t tell me Mugdock’s name. But he wanted me to tell him whether any of the things written about you in the sequel were true.”

Why would Rookwood ask her those things? I couldn’t comprehend it. Unless he wanted to rile her. Unless he wanted her to abet him in his goal to keep the manuscript unpublished. If the Earl and Countess of Cromarty filed a suit for libel on my behalf, that would certainly gain the court’s attention and possibly force the revelation of Mugdock’s identity.

However, that was not what suddenly horrified me to my core. For I’d realized who Mugdock’s informant was. There was but one person who had both known about Bonnie Brock’s stay in our home the previous May and witnessed me in the guest room where he was convalescing with my hair down. It was also the person whose betrayal would hurt him the most.

I was sick in my heart at the thought of the pain this was going to cause him. But he had to be told. His betrayer had to be confronted—so we could understand why, so we could discover whom they’d told.

There had to be a good explanation. There simply had to be.

“I need to go,” I declared abruptly, pushing to my feet.

“Where are you going?” Alana asked as I hurried past her.

A sudden impulse made me turn back and throw my arms around her neck. She staggered back a step before regaining her footing and awkwardly returning the embrace. Pressing a swift kiss to her cheek, I took my leave.

I spent the rest of the day in an agony of waiting. Upon my return from Alana’s, I’d penned a brief missive to Bonnie Brock and instructed our footman to pass it to Brock’s henchman currently observing the house. I had no doubt that Brock had purposely arranged for the lackeys now watching us to be men I was already familiar with and for them to remain better visible so there would be no confusion with McQueen’s men. The brawny man in a brown coat had not returned, but I didn’t know whether that was because Bonnie Brock’s men had driven him off or his orders had changed.

However, it would be hours before we could securely meet with him unobserved, and then only if he obeyed my summons. For all my faith that he would come—knowing that I would never have sent for him had it not been important—I also knew that Bonnie Brock was nothing if not contradictory. Increasingly so. Since the publication of The King of Grassmarket, his erratic and volatile moods and behavior had been exacerbated.

Gage was in low spirits when he returned from his hunting expedition with Henry, having not turned up any new information that would be helpful to our inquiry. So when I told him what I’d learned and the meeting I’d arranged, I expected him to berate me. Instead, he received the news equably, I supposed realizing there was really no better option.

Thus, that evening we both found ourselves ensconced in the drawing room, anxiously waiting to learn Bonnie Brock’s response. Or rather, I was anxiously waiting, reading the same page in my book ten times without comprehension and glancing up at every creak and groan of the house to see if Jeffers was approaching. Gage, on the other hand, relaxed in his chair, perusing his own book and drinking from a glass of whisky, seemingly oblivious to any sort of tension in the air.

When the clock on the mantel chimed the hour of ten, I began to fear they weren’t coming, and I would have to try to sleep with this knowledge swirling about inside my brain. But then there was a light rap on the door—one which surprised me, for I had not heard footsteps approaching.

“Yes, Jeffers?” Gage asked as our butler appeared in the doorway.

“Your guests have arrived.”

My heart leapt into my throat.

If our butler had any such opinion on the matter—good or bad—his expression did not reveal it. “I’ve left them in the morning room, as requested.”

“Very good,” Gage replied.

Jeffers bowed and departed, leaving me with Gage.

“Shall we?” he asked.

I smiled tightly and took his proffered arm.

We entered the room as a united front, finding both of them still standing. Bonnie Brock leaned against the sideboard, his arms crossed over his chest. Though he was seemingly at ease, I could sense the tension racketing his frame. While Maggie hovered near the French doors, looking as if she wished she could flee. It was clear she’d deduced why she was here, and I felt a pulse of empathy for her, having found myself in a similar circumstance recently.

“Given the fact that your husband used some rather colorful language to swear I’d never enter your home again, I gather this is verra important,” Bonnie Brock drawled as Gage closed the door, granting us privacy. “Weel, then, I’m all ears.”

I turned to Maggie, her face pale in the candlelight, and spoke gently. “Do you want to tell him or shall I?”

Chapter 24

Bonnie Brock straightened from his slouch. “Tell me what?”

I kept my eyes trained on Maggie, watching as her shoulders hunched and she tried to shrink into the eyelet curtains behind her. When she didn’t answer, I took that as my cue, moving a step closer to the frightened, uncertain young woman, but staying far enough away that Gage wouldn’t protest the proximity. “Maggie is the informant. Though I strongly suspect she didn’t do it to hurt you,” I hastened to add.

Maggie’s gaze darted between me and her brother before finally settling on Brock as obviously the greater threat.

“Nay. That canna be true,” he denied, the muscles in his arms rippling with restrained anger. “My sister wouldna betray me.”

“I don’t think she intended to betray you,” I