same could be said about the theaters to a certain extent. Although at least they employed people from the social classes Bonnie Brock seemed to champion. But the theater manager kept his head down, making it difficult for me to deduce what he might be thinking.
“Not deriving any benefit?” one of the other actors protested. “He’s the hero of the city, lauded on every corner.”
“Not by everyone,” Gage replied around a bite of fish, swallowing before he continued. “The police are now more determined than ever to apprehend him for making them look foolish. And rival gangs are intent on seeing that their own crimes are blamed on him. In short, he now has a very large target on him. Even larger than before.”
I had seen the same reports in some of the newspapers that the actor was referring to. Claims that Bonnie Brock was strutting about Grassmarket and Cowgate like a conquering hero, but nothing could be further from the truth. He was hiding, skulking, shifting from place to place. I imagined he felt safest among those citizens who had always protected him, but the police knew that and were not above trying to leverage that to their advantage.
“Then who is this Mugdock character?” Lady Bearsden demanded to know from her seat at the head of the table. “Not someone I’ve ever met.”
“We believe it’s an alias, a nom de plume,” Gage explained.
“Ah, yes. That does make sense.” She tapped her chin. “But why Mugdock? It’s not a very illustrious name.”
“Perhaps he was trying to identify in some way with something,” Mrs. Siddons suggested.
“Or he simply picked it out of a book or off a map,” Mr. Aldridge said.
That had been my theory, but I hadn’t yet been able to find it.
“Hmmm,” Lady Bearsden hummed, speculating aloud in her musical voice. “Well, there is a Mugdock Castle, over in Dunbartonshire or somewhere.” She gestured vaguely with her fork in that direction. “Not far from my estate.”
“There is?” I asked in surprise.
“Yes. Most of it’s a heap. My Lumpy mentioned it to me once. Some childhood memory involving his cousins. I can’t quite recall now.” Which only meant that it hadn’t interested her, otherwise she would have all the details locked away in her brain. She took a sip of her wine, seeming to swirl it around in her mouth as she thought. An odd mannerism which seemed to help dislodge whatever she was trying to recall, for her next words proved remarkable. “Come to think of it, I seem to recall May Kincaid being born there.”
I stilled with my glass halfway to my lips. “You mean Bonnie Brock’s mother?”
Gage’s gaze met mine down the table, wondering the same thing I had. Why hadn’t Bonnie Brock mentioned this?
“Yes, I think that’s right. Her father was a third brother of a third brother, or some such connection, so he and his family lived in one of the less prestigious properties owned by his uncle.” Because true gentlemen were not supposed to work for a living or undertake any employment save the military or the church. “She was a beautiful woman,” Lady Bearsden continued to muse. “Which only caused her heartache. For she became involved with one of her second or third cousins—a married man—and it ruined her. Her parents cast her out, so her lover set her up in a cottage somewhere as his chère-amie, for what else was she to do. And then he abandoned her. It was after that she first made her way to Edinburgh, with Bonnie Brock naught but a babe in arms.”
“She couldn’t have had an easy time of it establishing herself with a child, even as a cyprian,” Mrs. Siddons remarked.
“No, indeed. But she was very beautiful and charming. And fortunately so was her son.”
Bonnie Brock. Bonnie, bonnie Brock.
I wondered for the first time whether that nickname had not come from an incident during his time in jail but from his mother. After all, it had always struck me as an odd choice in a sobriquet for the head of a criminal gang. But from a mother, that made much more sense.
This insight caused a resounding sense of rightness within me, as well as an unbearable ache. He might have transformed the moniker into a term of deceptive menace, but it had begun as a loving epithet from mother to son.
Mrs. Siddons shook her head sadly, laying her fork down. “Then this cousin is Bonnie Brock’s father?”
I perked up at this question.
“Most likely,” Lady Bearsden