Chapter 24

Bonnie Brock straightened from his slouch. “Tell me what?”

I kept my eyes trained on Maggie, watching as her shoulders hunched and she tried to shrink into the eyelet curtains behind her. When she didn’t answer, I took that as my cue, moving a step closer to the frightened, uncertain young woman, but staying far enough away that Gage wouldn’t protest the proximity. “Maggie is the informant. Though I strongly suspect she didn’t do it to hurt you,” I hastened to add.

Maggie’s gaze darted between me and her brother before finally settling on Brock as obviously the greater threat.

“Nay. That canna be true,” he denied, the muscles in his arms rippling with restrained anger. “My sister wouldna betray me.”

“I don’t think she intended to betray you,” I said, still speaking in a quiet, even voice. “I think she thought she was confiding in someone she could trust.”

Her wide green eyes flicked to mine and held.

“Isn’t that right?”

She slowly nodded.

At this first tentative admission of her guilt, Bonnie Brock exploded away from the sideboard, but fortunately the round table was positioned between them. “How could ye do this to me?” he demanded to know as Maggie cowered against the wall. I edged a step closer to her even as Gage moved to intercept Brock should he try to come nearer. “Our secrets. Our past. Ye ken why I kept it quiet. Why I dinna tell anyone.” His face twisted with dark emotions. “My ain sister!” He whirled away with a snarl of disgust and fury, struggling to absorb this act of perfidy. “Did ye help to write that book, too?”

“Nay,” Maggie gasped, speaking for the first time as tears streamed down her cheeks. “Nay, o’ course I didna.”

“There’s no o’ course aboot it.”

She flinched at the harsh words but continued. “I had no idea they’d be used in a book. I had no idea he would ever . . .”

Betray her. Those were the words she seemed to choke on, her own pain shimmering in her eyes.

“You’re speaking of Mr. Heron,” I deduced. “That’s the man who betrayed you?”

“Heron?” Bonnie Brock repeated before she could speak. “Ye mean Rookwood’s silver-headed assistant? Why, I’ll kill him.”

“No!” Maggie cried as he turned to charge toward the door, but Gage held up his hands, stopping him.

“Get oot o’ my way, Gage.”

My breath caught at the dangerous glitter in his eyes and the way his hand hovered inside his loose greatcoat, where I knew he concealed weapons.

But Gage was not so easily intimidated. “Not until you hear what your sister has to say. Heron isn’t going anywhere,” he rationalized. “So listen to her first and then decide whether he deserves to die.”

Maggie stiffened, and even I was taken aback by this cool statement, but then I realized what my husband was doing. He was bartering with Bonnie Brock, knowing it would be easier to convince him to back down by suggesting he delay his intentions instead of abandon them.

When he looked as if he still might argue, Gage tempered his stance. “She’s your sister. At least give her the chance to explain.” His gaze darted briefly to mine, perhaps recognizing that was more than he’d given me upon discovering that Henry was his half brother.

Bonnie Brock grunted, turning back to face his sister. “Then talk. Tell me why ye betrayed me.”

But the manner in which he was ferociously scowling at her, impatiently waiting for her to speak, was of no use. Maggie would never be able to get her words out around her trembling sobs. So I pivoted, partially blocking her brother from her sight. “Tell me, Maggie,” I coaxed. “Tell me what happened.”

She sniffed, swiping her hand under her nose, and reminding me of how young she still was. I passed her my handkerchief, waiting while she dabbed at her nose and the wetness on her cheeks, seeming at a loss for where to begin.

“When did you meet Mr. Heron?”

“Last summer. He . . . he was eatin’ on a bench in the Trinity Hospital Physic Gardens. I like to walk there.” She shrugged one shoulder self-consciously. “It’s no’ so busy as other places in the city. It was blustery that day and my bonnet blew off. He ran after it to catch it for me.”

It was a familiar enough story. A chance meeting. A kindly gesture. The rest I could guess.

“And so you struck up a conversation and then continued to meet there.”

“Aye, but at first ’twas merely be chance. I mean . . .” She flushed and lowered her gaze. “I looked for him, but ’twasn’t planned.”

“And then it was.”

She nodded. Her gaze slid over my shoulder as if to see how her brother was taking this news before returning to mine. “At first, Daniel didna ken who I was. I mean, he didna ken I was Brock’s sister. And when he did, he got upset. Accused me o’ lyin’ to him.” Her brow furrowed. “But then he apologized. Said ’twasn’t my fault who my brother was. He seemed to think Brock was some sort o’ monster, and that was even worse.” Her eyes dropped to where she was worrying my handkerchief between her hands. “So I . . . I started to tell him things, aboot my life, aboot our past. He was a good listener.” A tear slid from her eye. “I didna ken he would tell anyone.” Her voice lowered to a whisper. “I thought I could trust him.”

“Then Heron didn’t write the book?”

She shook her head. “Nay. Said he was tricked into tellin’ Mugdock all he ken. That he thought he was helpin’ me and Brock. And when he found oot the truth, ’twas too late.”

I didn’t see how that could be, but I wasn’t going to question Heron’s motivations to Maggie. Not when it was clear from the soft look in her eyes when she spoke about him and the way she used his given name that she was in love with him.

I glanced at her brother to see if he was softening, but his jaw was clamped as tight as ever, his eyes as hard as flint.

“It’s lonely being Bonnie Brock’s sister, isn’t it?”

Out of the corner of my eye, I could see his angry gaze shift to me, but I had a point to make, so I kept my attention squarely on Maggie.

She sniffed again and then nodded.

“I imagine you’re surrounded by people nearly all the time, what with his men guarding over you, and yet none of them are really your friends. And when you do meet someone, you have to wonder why they’re befriending you. Whether it’s because of Brock or because of you.”

“Aye. A lot o’ the lasses who’ve pretended to like me in the past were only after Brock’s attention.”

“But Mr. Heron was different.”

“He didna even ken who I was, but he still liked me.” Her voice conveyed that this was almost a wondrous thing.

“So he says,” her brother grumbled beneath his breath.

I turned to glower at him, for he was missing the reason for this confession.

“Did Mr. Heron tell you who he was tricked into telling?” I asked, harking back to an earlier statement.

She lifted her hands in a futile gesture. “I asked, but he said it was safer if I didna ken.”

Bonne Brock made a noise between a harrumph and a growl, and I couldn’t say I disagreed with him. It sounded like Heron had been protecting himself more than he’d been protecting Maggie.

But now that we knew how Mugdock had learned about Bonnie Brock’s past, I wanted to know why Bonnie Brock had chosen to conceal an important piece of information from us, lest he think his sister was the only person who had lied by omission.

“Gage and I have been puzzling and puzzling, trying to figure out why on earth the author of The King of Grassmarket chose such an odd surname. Mugdock.” I tapped my chin, pretending to ruminate on the answer. “It’s not exactly common.”

Maggie glanced at her brother ruefully, though his face remained stoic.

“But then last night we learned of the existence of a Mugdock Castle. One where curiously your mother was born. And yet you didn’t see fit to tell us?” I snapped the last, enunciating harshly.

But Bonnie Brock was unmoved by guilt, his scowl remaining as black as ever. “Aye. And what’s that to do with anythin’?”

I glanced at Gage to see if he shared my exasperation. “Obviously it was chosen to rub salt into the wound, for the man has a vendetta against you. The question is, why? Why strike out at you through that book? Why try to damage your reputation among the populace of Edinburgh? Why use your mother’s birthplace as his pen name?”

Brock’s gaze dipped to the table as if actually giving these questions some consideration.

“What is his goal? What does he gain?” I persisted.

But neither Brock nor Maggie—who watched him silently, following his lead—offered any answers.

“Brock, who is your father?” I demanded to know. “Does the Lennox family have anything to do with this?”

He looked up at me then, scrutinizing me as if I were the one under interrogation and not him. “Are ye thinkin’ that printer named Lennox is involved?”

I wanted to bite my tongue for offering him any piece of information, particularly when I knew he was bound to thrash the person and ask questions later.

“Oh, aye. I ken you’ve been to his shop more than once.”

Of course he had.

“We don’t know what to think,” Gage groused, answering for me. “Lennox worked for Rookwood. He printed The King of Grassmarket. But the name Lennox also keeps cropping up in relation to your mother. Rumor has it your father was her cousin, possibly a Lennox. And since you won’t share with us what, if anything, the name Lennox has to do with all of this, we can’t tell for certain whether the printer is pertinent or not. There are, after all, a lot of Scots named Lennox.”

Bonnie Brock’s voice rang with quiet menace. “Then I’ll just have to find oot for ye.”

“No, you won’t,” Gage stated in a tone that would not brook disobedience, and I could practically see Brock’s hackles rise in response. “You will stay away from Lennox and Heron and let us question them. In addition to being Mugdock, one of them could very well be a murderer.”

Maggie gasped in objection to Heron being called such, but Gage ignored her.

“We won’t be able to uncover the truth, recover the sequel, and clear your name if you go about pummeling people, or worse, killing them. You have to stay out of this. For now,” he added in appeasement.

Regrettably, we had no way of forcing him to listen, and the stubborn clamp of his jaw told me he was already planning on confronting both men. My anger, which I’d kept tamped down through so much of this ordeal, suddenly reared its head.

“Fiend seize it,” I snapped, borrowing Gage’s favorite curse. “You bloody blackguard! Do you know what you’ve put me through? Do you think I enjoy being winked at and observed slyly from the side, as if I’ve done something wrong? This is your fault.” I stabbed my finger at Brock, advancing on him. “If you hadn’t abducted me from the theater, or insinuated yourself into our lives, or provoked yet another person into wanting revenge against you, I wouldn’t be in this predicament.” Gage reached out to restrain me before I got too close, and I stamped my foot in emphasis. “And I am not going to allow my child to be born into the world with people believing I cuckolded my husband simply because you can’t be made to see reason. So for once in your life, listen to directions and stay out of it. So we can fix this mess you’ve gotten us into.”

I glared up at Bonnie Brock, making sure he understood how serious I was. But far from being chastened or intimidated, he actually smiled.

“No’ just a bloodthirsty wench, you’re also a hellcat,” he quipped, his gaze roaming over my face. “Best get your wife away from me, Gage, or I really will kiss her.”

“Try it and I’ll scratch your eyes out,” I hissed as Gage pulled me farther away.

“That’s enough, Kincaid,” Gage reproached. “She’s right. You’ve been a selfish wretch through all of this. The least you can do is help instead of hinder us.”

I turned away, unable to stomach the sight of him after he’d treated me so shockingly, and with no remorse.

“So be it,” he grumbled a few moments later. “I’ll stay away for a day or two. But after that, I’ll make no promises.”

“Two,” Gage demanded, knowing full well that Brock would grant us the smallest concession possible.

“Aye, two.”

I looked to the side at Maggie, still unwilling to face her brother. “Perhaps you should stay here tonight,” I suggested, not wanting him to take his anger and frustration out on her. I didn’t care if such an implication insulted Brock.

“Noo, see here. I’ve never laid a hand on my sister,” he protested.

I ignored his bluster, keeping my gaze locked with Maggie’s.

“He’s right. He’s never hurt me,” she replied, though her cowering posture seemed to belie her words. Perhaps he had never struck her, but clearly she was frightened and intimidated by him.

“The offer still stands,” I told her.

Her eyes flitted from me to her brother and back, and I could sense her hesitation.

And this, above everything else, seemed to have the power to subdue Brock. Although I wasn’t looking at him, I could sense the shift in his temperament, for it altered the atmosphere of the room. It was as if a piper had released the mouthpiece on his bagpipe, and suddenly the instrument had begun to deflate of all its air.

I peered over my shoulder, finding his eyes locked on his sister, stark with pain. I wanted to look away, for it seemed like something I shouldn’t witness. It was too intimate, too personal, and the sight of such vulnerability—especially coming from Bonnie Brock—tore at something inside me. Yet I continued to watch as he leaned across the table toward her.

“You ken I would never let harm come to ye, Magpie. No’ willingly.” He spread his hands in supplication. “Why, I woulda given my left and right arm if it woulda prevented Sore John from misusin’ ye like he did. And the bairn . . .” His voice ached at the word, and Maggie’s eyes flooded with tears. “If I coulda saved your bairn for ye, ye ken I woulda done anythin’. Anythin’.”

I felt Gage’s hand press warm against my back, not having noticed he’d moved closer. It was only when I looked up at him, seeing him through a wash of tears, that I realized I was also quietly weeping.

Brock’s brow furrowed. “So, aye, I may be angry wi’ ye noo for what you’ve done.” He lowered his hands to his sides. “But I’ll no’ raise my hand to ye.” His lip curled upward at one corner in self-deprecation. “Just maybe my voice.”

The corners of Maggie’s lips lifted in a watery smile.

“And I’m sorry I ever made ye think I would.”

I swiped at the wetness on my cheeks, and Gage passed me his handkerchief, for Maggie still had mine.

Brock held out his hand to her, even though his posture was uncertain. “Will ye come home wi’ me, lass? Wherever home may be tonight.”

Maggie sniffed and nodded, taking several steps to meet her brother halfway around the table. When she was near enough, he pulled her into his side and dropped a kiss on the matted hair of her forehead, murmuring something I could not hear but which seemed to settle her. Then he led her from the room toward the French doors, opening them to the chill night air. But not before directing a look of firm determination at me and Gage. One which seemed to say, Resolve this.

Thus, as soon as the doors closed behind them, I said to Gage. “Promise or no promise. We’d better visit Mr. Heron at first light.”

---

•   •   •

Knock again,” I told Gage. “He has to be here.”

This time my husband banged on the door, using more force than the times before. “Mr. Heron,” he called into the wood. “It’s important we speak with you. We’re not going away until we do.”

I turned as a door farther along the corridor opened and a woman peered out through the crack, clearly wondering who was making such a racket at this hour.

Gage scowled when Heron’s door remained shut.

“Do you think Bonnie Brock got to him first?” I whispered, tugging my fur collar higher around my chin. Had we made a mistake trusting him? Maybe we should have come at midnight.

Gage shook his head, pounding once more. “Mr. Heron, we aren’t the only ones who wish to speak to you, but I promise we’re the nicest.”

This at last seemed to achieve results, for I heard something scrape across the floor within and then a lock being turned. The door inched open to reveal one of Heron’s dark eyes. “What do you want?” he hissed in fright.

Gage pushed on the door, forcing Heron backward in astonishment, and then muscled his way inside. “Good morning, Mr. Heron.” He ushered me inside, past a ladder-back chair that I wondered whether Heron had propped beneath the latch. “I do believe you will prefer to have this discussion in your parlor rather than in your doorway where all of your neighbors can hear.” Once I had glided past, he closed the door firmly and positioned himself in front of it.

Not that I anticipated Heron trying to make an escape. Not when he was still dressed in his nightclothes with a dark brown cotton banyan draped over top. A nightcap even covered his prematurely silver-white tresses; however, when he caught the direction of my gaze he removed it.

“I’ve told ye everythin’ I ken,” he protested.

“Really?” Gage asked in a leading voice, one whose lightness seemed to confound Heron.

So much so that he actually answered in a question. “Aye?”

Gage tilted his head, studying the man before he continued. “Do you recall that we told you we met Miss Maggie Kincaid on the road outside your home the last time we called?”

He blinked and then forced a laugh. “Oh, aye. But I’m sure many people traverse the North Back o’ the Canongate. ’Tis well trod.”

“Yes, but more pointedly, she emerged from the lane leading to your door.”

He shrugged. “More than a dozen sets o’ rooms lead off the same lane. She mighta visited any one o’ ’em.” His words were nonchalant, but the manner in which he was wringing the life out of his hat certainly was not.

“She might have,” Gage conceded. “But we’ve already spoken to Miss Kincaid.”

“You have?”

He nodded, and Heron’s eyes widened with dismay.

“She told us everything,” I said, growing tired of Heron’s stunned silence and Gage toying with him. I’d been unable to sleep much the night before from nerves, and now that the opportunity to speak with Heron was before us, I refused to waste any more time beating around the bush. I cut him off with a slice of my hand as he began to utter another nonsensical question in response. “About your meeting in the Physic Gardens, and her confiding in you about her and her brother’s past, and your telling the information to someone else.” I narrowed my eyes. “Or did you sell it?”

“Nay! Nay, I dinna sell it.”

“Then whom did you tell? And why?”

He lifted his hand to his head, scraping his fingers through his hair and then tugging on it.

“You betrayed her, you know?” I added, grinding the ax in further. “She trusted you.”

“I ken. I ken.” He sank down in a chair and cradled his head in his hands. “She says she’s forgiven me, but I dinna ken if I’ll ever forgive myself. Or if God will.”

“Or if Bonnie Brock will,” I replied, perhaps a trifle mean-spiritedly. But I didn’t come here to listen to him wallow in self-pity. That got us nowhere.

He sat upright in alarm. “Does he ken?”

“Yes. So out with it, before he comes to extract the answer from you himself.”

Heron shrank backward.

“Whom did you tell? And why?” I repeated more stridently.

His eyes darted between me and Gage, who now stood beyond my shoulder, his arms crossed over his chest, allowing me to take the lead. “Mr. Lennox. Our printer.”

I shared a speaking look with Gage, for he had been the name at the top of both of our lists of suspects.

“He . . . he told me he’d seen me wi’ Maggie. That he ken who she was. And then he invited me to have a drink.”

I frowned, not understanding where this was leading.

“He asked if he could take me into his confidence. Said he believed that Maggie was his cousin. Her brother, too. Through their mother. Said the family had been searchin’ for ’em because there was an inheritance owed to ’em. But given Kincaid’s reputation, he needed to be certain.” He gestured with his hand. “Many o’ the Kincaids are descended from the ancient Earls o’ Lennox.”

This was a piece of information I had not been aware of, but it helped fill in the larger picture.

“So it seemed feasible that they could be related. Lennox has always claimed his ancestors were more than tradesmen.”

“So you told him what you knew,” I surmised. “What Maggie had told you in confidence.”

“Aye. Wi’ the help o’ a few too many glasses o’ whisky.” His head hung in shame. “I dinna realize how much I’d actually told him until he brought The King o’ Grassmarket to Mr. Rookwood. When I read it, I wanted to put a pistol to my head.”

I scowled. “Spare us the dramatics. Did you confront Lennox?”

“Sure, I did. But he just laughed in my face. Told me there was nothin’ I could do aboot it wi’oot tellin’ the world, the lass I loved, and her blackguard o’ a brother what I’d done. That my only choice was to keep my gob shut.” He sighed. “So I did.”

“But Maggie figured it out anyway.”

“Aye. Confronted me.” He pressed a hand to his heart. “Told me she hated me. But after I told her why I’d done it, she said she understood.” He shook his head. “I dinna ken how she was able to—”

“The day Rookwood died,” I interrupted before he could dither on, taking us on another melodramatic tangent. “When you couldn’t account for all of the time you spent on errands. That’s because you met with Maggie that day, isn’t it?”

He flushed. “Aye.”

“And the sequel? Was that a surprise?”

“Aye, it was. When Rookwood showed it to me, I was gobsmacked. And furious. But o’ course I couldna tell him why. It’s filled wi’ nothin’ but lies. I told Rookwood no’ to publish it, and he told me he’d already decided no’ to.” His brow lowered thunderously. “But Lennox wouldna take no for an answer. Threatened him even.” He pounded his fist down onto his open palm like a gavel. “So I decided to threaten him in return. That’s why I really went to see him on the afternoon Mr. Rookwood was killed.” His shoulders deflated. “But he wasna there.”

My head reared back and I turned to Gage.

“Did you say he wasn’t there?” he repeated.

“Aye,” Heron replied. “His foreman didna ken when he’d return, so I left.”

Lennox had misled us. He’d told us that Mr. Heron had stopped by to deliver a pamphlet for Mr. Rookwood, but he hadn’t actually said he’d seen him. He’d been deliberately vague. Which made me wonder if there was anything else he’d misled us about.