A Wicked Conceit (Lady Darby Mysteries #9) - Anna Lee Huber Page 0,137

how.

Gripping the amethyst in my hand, I touched Gage’s leg in reassurance before rising to my feet. While the others conversed, I crossed the room toward the mirror near our hearth, affixing the pendant around my neck again.

“That’s Mother’s pendant,” Alana said softly, coming up behind me. I glanced over my shoulder toward the others to discover that she’d passed baby Emma to Charlotte.

“Yes. McQueen’s men took it,” I answered, forced to explain.

She nodded slowly. “And Bonnie Brock Kincaid retrieved it for you.”

“I don’t know,” I hedged, and then sighed. “But yes, probably.”

“You lead a complicated life.” She straightened the neckline of my naval blue gown. “But I suppose it’s good to have friends in high and low places.”

“I’m sure you view all of this as confirmation that you were right,” I challenged in a low voice, determined to have it out with her now if she thought Emma’s birth or our abduction had changed my mind about assisting with any investigations in the future.

“Actually, no.”

I turned to her in genuine surprise.

“Don’t mistake me. I still worry about you. I still hate the way the other ladies gossip. But I also know you don’t go chasing down every murderer or thief, willy-nilly.” She grabbed hold of my hands. “So I’ll simply have to trust your judgment on this.”

Though grateful for her change of heart, I knew this hadn’t come about on its own. “How did you . . .”

“Lady Hollingsworth called on me,” she explained, already anticipating my question.

“I see,” I replied, though I didn’t. Philip’s Aunt Jane was arrogant, controlling, and a stickler for propriety. She also disapproved of me—albeit a shade less since I’d wed Gage—and often went out of her way to find fault with Alana. She was not an easy person to converse with, even in the best of circumstances, and these were not those. I would have expected her patented blend of vitriol to make matters worse for me.

“She was asking after you and baby Emma, but what she was really after was gossip about your ordeal.”

“Naturally.”

Alana’s lips curled into a commiserating smile. “I expected her to bemoan your lack of decorum, as she always does. But . . . instead she focused all of her contempt on Mr. Lennox. Or rather, Lord Badenoch, as he should be called.”

“Does she know him?”

“Apparently, a few years ago he attempted to court her daughter, Caroline, just as she was making her debut. She even welcomed it. That is, until her eldest son, James, uncovered that Badenoch was a fortune hunter. That he’d been brought to point non plus, with only his name to recommend him.” She dipped her head closer. “But it wasn’t only that. She claims he had the prettiest manners, but even so, she noticed disturbing tendencies in him, though she wouldn’t elaborate what precisely that meant. That she feared he might follow in his libertine father’s footsteps. But she never suspected he would go so far as murder. She decried his shocking behavior and said she could only be glad that you and Gage had exposed him for what he really was.”

As refreshing as it was to hear Lady Hollingsworth praising instead of berating me for once, I didn’t take it too much to heart. It sounded to me like her pride was smarting from allowing the man to court her only daughter, and she saw his crimes as confirmation of her intuition. But I kept my tongue behind my teeth, for if somehow her words had convinced Alana to stop chiding me, then I would be glad of them.

But Alana wasn’t finished. “It made me think of what you told me the other day.” She fidgeted with the lace along her sleeve. “How you said you were only trying to make the world safer, fairer, more just. And I realized, how can I object to that?” She arched her eyebrows imperiously. “So long as you’re not being a ninnyhammer.”

“You do say the sweetest things,” I muttered wryly.

“When I try.” Her answering smile was somewhat brittle, and her eyes filled with tears. She blinked them away. “I couldn’t do what you do, Kiera,” she confessed in a broken voice. “I couldn’t stomach the sight of murder, or untangle the clues, or confront the danger of it all. And do so while ignoring the censure of society.” Her gaze dropped. “And seeing how brave and determined you are has forced me to confront my own shortcomings. How I’ve bowed to convention my entire life .