A Wicked Conceit, Anna Huber [best e book reader txt] 📗

men are scoundrels.” I knew from experience that this was no way to begin a relationship, looking for the same faults in one man as another.

“Am I doin’ that?” she asked meekly.

“Maybe,” I replied, hesitant to dismiss her concerns completely. “But Bree, it’s obvious you haven’t been happy.”

She lowered her head as if in shame.

“That doesn’t mean that anyone is to blame. But you can’t tell me that, in general, you’ve been more contented, more joyful in the past few months than you were before. In fact, at times I’ve never seen you more miserable and discomposed. Love should make your life better, not worse.”

Her expression registered the truth of this statement.

“Whether your discontent has been caused by your suspicions, or whether there are deeper issues of mistrust and incompatibility, I can’t say. But you have most definitely been out of sorts.”

She lowered her arms, considering my words. “You’re right. But what should I do?” Her brown eyes glittered with uncertainty.

“To begin with, talk to Anderley. Calmly,” I emphasized. “And be more forthcoming with him about why you feel the way you do. Then decide together. As of now, things haven’t grown so contentious between you that if you agreed to it, you couldn’t simply return to being just friends. It might be awkward at first, but I’m sure things would improve with time.”

She swallowed. “I will.”

I smiled in encouragement, hoping I was right. For if things had grown more contentious than I suspected, then matters might be more difficult not only for them but for our entire household.

•   •   •

The leaden skies continued the next morning—an inauspicious start to wee Jamie’s birthday. But given the excitement and terror surrounding his birth a year before, I would choose the gray weather over that any time.

As seemed to be my custom of late, I was running behind schedule. Having already donned my claret pelisse and hat, I’d just bustled into the entry hall where Gage was waiting when there was a knock at the door. Sliding my hands into my tan kid leather gloves, I glanced to Gage in question as Jeffers moved forward to answer the door. He shook his head, as bewildered as I until a familiar face appeared beyond our butler’s shoulder.

“Knighton,” Gage exclaimed as Jeffers allowed his friend into the entry. “Good to see you, old chum. But tell me you didn’t travel all the way into Edinburgh just to see me.”

“I had business in town, and when I learned you’d paid me a call yesterday, I decided I would return the courtesy.” Mr. Knighton clasped my proffered hand, bowing over it as his emerald green eyes twinkled down at me. “Mrs. Gage, you are looking as lovely as ever.” He glanced at our traveling attire. “But apparently I’ve caught you as you are leaving.”

“Yes, to a gathering for my nephew’s first birthday,” I replied.

He smiled. “Then I must not keep you.”

“But I do have a somewhat urgent question to ask you,” Gage told him. “Will you ride with us?”

“Of course. I’ll instruct my carriage to follow.”

We hurried from the town house and were soon ensconced in the comfortable confines of our carriage and setting off on the short distance to Charlotte Square.

“Now, what is this urgent question?” Mr. Knighton prompted.

Gage adjusted the angle of his hat. “Bear with me, as I may have to work my way around to it. Am I correct in recalling that your mother was a Lennox?”

“Yes.”

“We’ve been given to understand that the Kincaids and Lennoxes often marry. Is that true?”

His brow quirked quizzically. “Yes, again. They share neighboring lands, so it’s to be expected.”

“Then are you familiar with May Kincaid?”

He began to shake his head, but at Gage’s next words he stopped.

“Bonnie Brock Kincaid’s mother.”

His eyes sparked with interest. “I’ve heard tell of her. But what specifically are you wanting to know?”

Gage glanced at me and I spoke. “There are rumors that Bonnie Brock’s father may have been a Lennox. A cousin who was already wed when he trifled with Miss Kincaid.”

Mr. Knighton turned to peer out the window at the Georgian façades lining the street, but I could tell from his sudden reticence that he knew something. “I heard a tale from one of my cousins when I was a lad. Though, to hear a Lennox tell it, May Kincaid wasn’t so innocent in the affair,” he remarked ruefully.

Of course they would say so.

“Did your cousin name Miss Kincaid’s lover?” Gage pressed.

“The Wolf of Badenoch. At least, that was the sobriquet my cousin used. I’m not certain how widely he was called that. But from the tales I heard about him, it wasn’t difficult to deduce why it became his nickname. Though not as notorious as the late fourteenth-century Wolf of Badenoch, he was still undoubtedly a hellion.”

Notorious was right. The earlier Wolf of Badenoch referred to Alexander Stewart, the Earl of Buchan, the third surviving son of King Robert II of Scotland. He’d earned the nickname because of his cruelty and malice throughout his lifetime. He’d burned, sacked, and looted parts of the Highlands when out of temper for one slight or another, including the royal burgh of Elgin and its cathedral. That legends said his death occurred when he’d played chess with the devil and lost was really no surprise.

I frowned in puzzlement. The book and play had both included allusions to lions, not wolves, being part of Bonnie Brock’s father’s identity, as in the lion-headed walking stick he carried. An allusion that had seemed fitting given Bonnie Brock’s hair. His thick tawny tresses often seemed akin to a lion’s mane. But perhaps the author had recognized this and sought to exploit it. After all, Maggie let slip a year ago that her brother looked nothing like his father. I had recalled this and just as easily forgotten it, buying into the easier illusion.

If Bonnie Brock’s father was the nineteenth-century Wolf of Badenoch, that might explain how Mugdock had been inspired to make use of such a ploy. It