A Wicked Conceit

air with the smell of sweet breads and puff pastries. In the week since our return, I had already become well acquainted with the owners, Monsieur and Madame Lejeune, for I could not seem to pass their shop without stopping inside for a macaron, a profiterole, or a mattentaart. Even now, after eating too much salmon mousse and roast pheasant at dinner, my mouth still watered as we hurried past.
As we turned the corner, I risked a glance behind us, and finding that neither Bonnie Brock nor his lieutenants seemed to have followed us, I breathed a sigh of relief. The lamp outside the door of our town house was lit in anticipation of our return, a halo forming around it in the mist. Gage hastened us across the street toward the welcome sight. But I could not move as swiftly as him in my condition, and when I clutched my left side, feeling a stitch, he checked his pace.
“Well, I hadn’t expected that,” I murmured, breaking the tense silence once I’d caught my breath.
“Perhaps we should have.”
I looked up to find his brow furrowed in frustration, part of which I knew was directed at himself for not anticipating such an action on Bonnie Brock’s part.
“Maybe,” I conceded as we leapt over the foul ooze at the edge of the gutter. “After all, we know how secretive he is about his past. But really, how could he think we were the authors, or the informants, when the book contains such foul insinuations about us?”
“He’s very angry. And that anger is making him lash out blindly and perhaps recklessly.” He pulled us to a stop beneath a streetlamp just steps from our door, turning me to look at him. “Kiera, I don’t want you speaking with him alone.”
“You don’t have to tell me. Not that I trusted him before, but I certainly don’t trust him now.” I nodded back in the direction we’d come. “Not after that confrontation.”
Though I strove to deny it, I still felt shaken from the encounter. I’d witnessed Bonnie Brock’s temper in the past, but never like this. Never with the complete absence of any of his usual sense of humor. Never when I wasn’t certain of his control. In the past, his actions and emotions had always been measured and deliberate. This time, he’d seemed one false word or one false move from snapping. And the glimmer of leniency, of even the indulgence he’d seemed to extend toward me, had all but vanished.
Gage’s pale blue eyes softened with understanding. He wrapped his arm around my waist, guiding me toward the door as I leaned my head against his shoulder. “One thing is for sure. He’s not going to rest until he discovers who betrayed him.” He turned his head to stare beyond the brim of my bonnet as we climbed the steps. “I just hope for their sake it was worth it, because men like Kincaid believe justice is dispensed by the end of a knife, not the word of the court.”
Given the results of our last inquiry, it was difficult to argue that Bonnie Brock was entirely wrong. That being said, I wasn’t about to abandon the rule of law. “Then maybe we should be trying to find who betrayed him before he does. After all, we have a bone to pick with the author as well.”
Gage’s reply was interrupted by the opening of our town house door. Our butler, Jeffers, stood on the other side, waiting to greet us and take our outer garments. It wasn’t until we’d both changed out of our evening attire, with the assistance of our maid and valet, and we were settled in bed that he could answer.
“Perhaps you’re right,” he said, pulling the cornflower blue and ivory counterpane over his legs. However, his voice was cautious. “But we’ll need to do so without Kincaid finding out.”
I arched my toes toward the warmth generated by the heated bricks swaddled in cloth and tucked into the bottom of our bed. “You don’t think he already expects it?”
From the surprised look Gage cast my way, it was obvious he hadn’t considered such a possibility.
My muscles began to relax as the warmth seeped into them, and I sank deeper into the pillows. “He knows we’re inquiry agents. And incurably incapable of leaving a question unanswered.”
“Then you think tonight’s confrontation was about more than just finding out whether we were the snitchers?”
My lips curled at his use of street slang.
“That he hopes we’ll begin an inquiry?”
I shrugged. “It makes sense.” It also might explain why the altercation had been so menacing, lacking any of his usual wit and finesse. Maybe he’d sought to manipulate us into helping him, even unwittingly, with his ferocity.
It was possible I was deluding myself with such thoughts, but I found myself comforted by them nonetheless. I didn’t want to believe that Bonnie Brock would harm me or mortally injure Gage. I didn’t want to believe that the scrap of fondness for the criminal which had taken root inside me went unreciprocated.
Gage crossed his arms over his chest, grudging respect twisting his lips as he called the crafty rogue a rather unsavory name.
“I’ll take that as a yes?” I asked, smothering a smile at his rancor.
He huffed a sigh. “Yes. But mainly because we might be the only ones who can save the fool from the end of Kincaid’s blade.”
I hoped we were equal to the task. Otherwise, we might find ourselves pitted with the law directly against Bonnie Brock Kincaid, and I was confident we wouldn’t like those consequences.

Chapter 1
Seven weeks later
Normally a visit to the Theatre Royal was a pleasure, particularly when my brother-in-law, the Earl of Cromarty, granted us the use of his private box. Gage and I could settle into the seats deeper inside with our hands clasped together and enjoy the play, shielded from some of the