but I much preferred to suffer the occasional twinge and keep my wits about me than to fall into a poppy-induced slumber. This turned out to be fortuitous, for while I’d been ordered to remain in bed for the duration of the day—a directive I was content to obey for the moment—I proceeded to receive a parade of visitors, beginning with my brother and sister.
“There’s no cause to fret, Alana,” I assured her. “I’m not in any further danger.”
“That you know of,” Trevor muttered under his breath.
I glared at him where he stood at the end of the bed, his eyebrows raised in challenge.
“Perhaps you should bow out of the rest of this investigation.”
My gaze swung to my sister where she sat nervously pleating the coverlet.
“After all, you are over six months along. Before you know it, you’ll be entering your confinement.” She swiveled to look over her shoulder at her husband. “And didn’t the duchess say suspicion has fallen on Lord Helmswick’s valet? So the matter is nearly resolved anyway.”
“Nearly resolved?” I replied with a forced laugh, struggling to restrain my mounting frustration. “Well, yes, only if you like a convenient scapegoat. And only if the body proves to be Helmswick.”
That the duchess was sharing these mere speculations as fact infuriated me, especially when we’d asked her not to. Most of the family had been opposed to the idea that Helmswick could be the victim, but as soon as suspicions had been pointed in the direction of the valet, they were perfectly content to accept it. Well, they couldn’t have it both ways. And I wasn’t about to let a valet take the blame if someone else was the guilty party, no matter how lofty their title or connections.
“Regardless.” She pressed a hand gently to my sling. “Maybe . . . maybe you should give up these inquests for a time.”
I shook my head in perplexity, searching her anxious gaze—the bright lapis lazuli of her eyes so like the shade of my own. “Where is this coming from? I merely slipped on the stairs. It could have happened anywhere.” I darted a glance at Gage, who shook his head minutely, telling me he had said nothing about the possibility I might have been pushed. We had decided it would be best not to share such a detail, even with my family, for they would only worry.
“Perhaps.” Alana plucked at a loose string of green thread on her skirts. “But you must recognize that such pursuits are highly fraught, and patently reckless for a woman in your condition.”
I scowled at my sister, anger bubbling in my veins.
“Surely you mean to give it up once the child arrives.” She gestured over her shoulder toward where Gage stood, leaning against the bedpost. “Perhaps Gage means to abandon it as well. So what is the difference of a few months?”
For a brief moment, I’d wondered if perhaps my husband had asked my sister to persuade me to step aside from our inquiry work. But one look at the deep furrow between his brows when she suggested he might also quit the field told me otherwise.
“While I appreciate your concern,” I bit out as politely as I was able to under the circumstances, “I don’t believe any of this is your business.”
“Now, Kiera,” Philip protested. “We’re only thinking of you, of the child. What’s best for you both.”
“What you think is best for me. You don’t see me sweeping in to tell you what to do with your time, or how to behave.”
“That’s because the manner in which we choose to occupy ourselves is perfectly natural and quite respectable, while yours is . . .” Alana broke off, biting her lip.
But I refused to let her turn away from what she had been about to say, even though her brow had crinkled in regret.
“Unnatural?” The sharp tone of my voice communicated how furious I was. That had been the accusation lobbed at me time and time again, in shouts and denunciations, in whispers and hisses—by Sir Anthony’s colleagues and the police magistrates, by the newspapers and broadsheets, by the crowds of spectators outside the Bow Street Magistrates’ Office and the members of society clustered in the drawing rooms of Mayfair. Hearing my sister use it so carelessly made something dark twist inside me and set my blood pounding in my veins. I turned my head to the side, unable to continue looking at her.
“I-I misspoke,” she stammered. “I should have used different words.”
Yes, she