A Wicked Conceit (Lady Darby Mysteries #9) - Anna Lee Huber Page 0,96
saw you with Bonnie Brock Kincaid earlier this week.”
I arched my eyebrows in surprise, considering the possibility that we were seen while we conversed in my garden, but I quickly dismissed it. Not only was it raining too hard for anyone to have spied us from the neighboring town houses, but Bonnie Brock had stayed inside the stable, out of sight of prying eyes. “Now, that’s balderdash.”
But once again she wasn’t listening. “Is that why Gage is so angry? Is that why you fought?”
I glared at her, as her leap to such an offensive conclusion succeeded in enraging me when none of her previous words had.
She leaned toward me. “You have to stay away from him, Kiera. For the sake of your reputation and your marriage . . .”
“Alana, stop!”
The crack of my voice seemed to grab her attention when nothing else had. She stared back at me in startlement, but I knew it wouldn’t last long.
“Do you know how incredibly insulting you’re being? Do you honestly think my husband isn’t aware of every altercation I might happen to have with Bonnie Brock before, during, and after they occur? Do you honestly think he’s threatened by him? Or that he has the least need to even fear my involvement with him?” I tossed down my napkin. “Why are you berating me about nonsensical gossip?” I asked, recalling Charlotte’s counsel.
She inhaled a deep breath before diving into her typical recriminations. “Your reputation . . .”
“No, no,” I cut her off. “Not that. You say it’s about my reputation, about your reputation, about conforming to society, but why must I do that? Why personally must I do that?” I scrutinized her snapping lapis lazuli eyes and the clamped line of her mouth. “Did you?”
“Of course I did . . .”
“And what did you give up to do so?”
I hadn’t recognized how important this question was until it was out of my mouth. It passed my lips with a feeling of rightness and seemed to hit Alana square in the chest, almost rocking her back on her heels with the impact. I watched her absorb the words, feeling much of my own anger drain away.
I’d never considered whether my sister had given something up when she’d married Philip and become a mother, as most women did because they were expected to. I’d been a self-absorbed seventeen-year-old when they wed and when Malcolm was born nine months later, thinking of little but my art. Morven had known my sister far better at that age than I had. Perhaps that was why my cousin had also understood Alana’s reaction better than I had.
“Alana,” I prodded more gently.
Her head took on that stubborn tilt I knew so well. “I’m simply trying to help,” she retorted crisply, pushing to her feet. “I don’t see why you always have to be so selfish and do things the difficult way, but so be it.”
However, I could see through her attacks now. There was some deeper reason behind her insistence that I cease my involvement with murderous inquiries and conform. Some deeper reason than her fear for my safety. And it was something she didn’t want to share with me, perhaps because then she would have to acknowledge it herself.
I watched her storm from the room before turning to gaze out the French doors at the garden. In truth, I’d always thought marriage to Philip—whom she’d been in love with since the age of twelve—and motherhood were all she’d ever wanted. It troubled me to think I might not be aware of another side of Alana, that she might have hidden it from me.
I tapped the side of my cup with my fingernail, wondering if our brother, Trevor, knew. As the middle child and a boy, he had often been privy to things that I, as the youngest, had not. If I wrote to him about it, I wondered whether he would share what he knew, if anything.
I’d just resolved to do so when a movement in the garden captured my attention. The door to the stables opened, and the lad who helped care for our horses came trotting down the garden path. However, it was the man I saw standing in the doorway behind him that truly piqued my interest, for he knew he wasn’t supposed to be there. In any case, I knew he wasn’t going to be turned away without speaking to me, so I rose from my chair and climbed the stairs to the library-cum-study.