A Wicked Conceit

Not tonight.
He stubbed out the candle on his bedside table, and I waited for the familiar weight of his body to slide beneath the covers. When it didn’t come, I found myself straining to hear any sound of his movement, but he seemed to still be standing at the side of the bed, perhaps staring at me. It made the breath I was already struggling to keep deep and even hitch inside my lungs.
“I know you’re awake, you know.” Amusement softened his voice. “Otherwise you’d be snoring.”
“I do not snore,” I retorted.
He chuckled, perhaps at my so easily revealing my ruse. “Normally, no. But for the past few weeks you have.”
“That’s the fault of the baby.”
“Likely,” he conceded, sliding under the covers. “Is it also the fault of the baby that you decided to pretend to be asleep?”
I frowned. “I’m tired, that’s all.”
“I see. So you’re not angry with me for visiting the vaults?”
Turned away as I was, I couldn’t see his face in the faint moonlight filtering through our bedroom drapes, but I could tell he was goading me to roll over. “Of course not. I understand it was Sergeant Maclean’s decision to take you there.” I adjusted the pillow clasped between my knees to ease the pressure on my hips. “I was startled because you’d never told me before, that’s all.”
“Well, it’s not precisely a pleasant confession, and the topic never arose.”
I suppressed a snort of derision because I was certain I’d asked where they had searched for Bonnie Brock that cold night in January of the previous year, the perfect opening for him to have mentioned the vaults. In any case, it hardly mattered now. Though I soon wished I’d raised the issue when next he spoke.
“Then you must be avoiding talking about my father and his letter?”
My muscles stiffened, and I wanted to curse, for Gage had surely noticed, having shifted closer to me in the bed. “I thought we’d finished that discussion.”
“Kiera, something is clearly bothering you,” he demurred, his long body curling around mine as he combed back the loose tendrils of hair clinging to the side of my neck with his fingers. “I know Father hasn’t always been kind, that he’s unfairly held you responsible for the scandals in your past, but he seems to have recognized his folly. Not that he’ll ever apologize for it. But at least he’s no longer ready to believe the worst.”
“I’m not worried that your father blames me,” I snapped, desperate to stop him from talking about his father. “Or rather, I suppose I was. A little,” I amended. “But I’m not anymore.”
“Then . . . what is it?”
I struggled to find my words, torn between telling him a lie and the truth. But neither would spring to my lips. And the arm he had draped around my chest suddenly felt less like a comforting anchor and more like a weight holding me down. It tightened around me, and for a moment I worried I couldn’t breathe.
“You know I don’t blame you, don’t you? For Bonnie Brock. For the book. For people being foolish enough to believe such nonsense. For any of it.”
“Yes,” I replied, though I was less certain than I sounded.
I felt the baby move, perhaps sensing my agitation, and reached down to press my hand over the place where his or her tiny hand or foot was punching or kicking.
“Then . . . do you blame me?” his voice rasped.
The unspoken pain behind those words clutched at my heart, momentarily obliterating every other concern. “Oh, Sebastian,” I murmured as I awkwardly rolled over to face him. There was nothing graceful about turning from one side to the other when you were heavy with child. I cupped his jaw in my hand, feeling the scrape of bristles, and pulled his face closer to mine. “No, Sebastian, I don’t blame you. How could I? Neither of us could have seen this coming.”
“Maybe.” His eyes ached with earnestness. “But it is part of my duty to protect you . . .”
“From an unseen, unimagined foe?” I challenged.
“From everything.”
I gripped his jaw firmer, pulling his mouth closer to mine so that all he could see were my own eyes gazing back at him in the darkness. “Rubbish. Stop talking nonsense.” I brushed my nose along his in a caress. “You protect me perfectly well, and you know it. Any better and I would kick against the traces.”
I felt rather than saw the corners of his mouth quirk upward in a reluctant grin. I pressed my lips to his, pouring all my love into that single kiss before pulling back so that I could gaze directly into his eyes again. “There is no blame here. Not for any of this.”
His hand clasped the back of my head, pulling my lips back to his, and I had no desire to resist. Not when his kisses had always had the power to overwhelm me, and he couldn’t ask me questions with his mouth otherwise occupied.
•   •   •
I was surprised to discover that the offices of Thomas W. Rookwood, Publisher, stood just off North Bridge Street, across from the City Markets and but a short distance from the Theatre Royal. It was a tidy little building sandwiched between a linen draper and a counting house. Not grand by any means but certainly respectable.
The black lacquer of our carriage gleamed in the morning sun as Gage helped me descend to the street. Once safely on the ground, I turned to survey our surroundings while Gage issued instructions to our coachman. Church bells chimed the hour in the distance while carriages clattered past us in the street. Despite the cholera still plaguing parts of the city, the markets bustled with customers. After all, people still needed to eat and purchase other supplies.
Stalls brimmed with everything from potatoes and parsnips to baskets and leatherwork. The scents of stone and sun-baked earth swirled with the brine of the seawater sloshing about in the oyster cart parked to one side of the entrance. Oysters being a cheap