“Is this about that book?” Gage replied.
It was the wrong thing to say. Bonnie Brock’s nostrils flared, and Stumps and Locke each took another step toward us, their muscles tensing as if in preparation for doing violence. My breath tightened in my lungs, and I had to resist the impulse to back away, to turn and run.
“Who did ye tell?” Bonnie Brock’s voice crackled like a whip.
Gage stepped in front of me, holding out his arms to ward off both henchmen. “Now, wait one minute! We don’t have anything to do with that book, if that’s what you’re insinuating. Neither of us has told anyone anything about you or your past. Why would we?”
“Why, indeed?” the hardened criminal drawled, not believing us.
Gage lowered his arms, perhaps realizing they would do little to ward off any impending blow. He would be better served to lower his center of gravity and prepare to dodge around their fists to land a punch of his own. Or even better, draw the pistol concealed in his greatcoat pocket.
With that thought, I began to pull the strings of my reticule as unobtrusively as I could. But Bonnie Brock noted the movement, and he knew me too well.
“I wouldna do that, lass.”
My fingers stilled as he stared pointedly at the beaded bag which concealed my Hewson percussion pistol. It had been a year since I’d taken to carrying it.
“The last time ye pointed a gun at me, things didna go the way ye hoped.” His eyebrows arched, reminding me how swiftly he’d disarmed me and backed me against a wall. “And before ye make the mistake o’ thinkin’ the distance between us will spare ye, let me disabuse ye of the notion that any o’ us is unarmed.” He drew aside his greatcoat to reveal his own pistol, and I knew better than to think that was the only weapon he carried. He likely bristled with knives.
I lowered the reticule to my side, inhaling a deep breath to try to settle the quaking in my stomach. Regardless of the assistance he’d given us in our past inquiries, and the tentative friendship that had sprung up between us, Bonnie Brock had also displayed ample evidence of his capability for violence. On more than one occasion he’d made it clear that no matter what had occurred between us in the past, if we crossed or threatened him, or someone he cared about, he would not hesitate to harm or even kill us. There was a reason he succeeded in controlling the largest Edinburgh gang, and despite his Robin Hood–like reputation among the lower classes, it was not because of his compassion.
I had feared that his show of weakness the previous spring when he was poisoned would sour our relationship. It was one of the reasons I’d been so glad Gage and I had departed Edinburgh soon after, giving Bonnie Brock time to regain his strength and salvage his pride. After all, for a man in his position, used to wielding power quickly and sometimes brutally, any sign of weakness could spell death.
But this was different. If he was speaking of the book, then this was an accusation of betrayal. Or perhaps it was all wrapped up together. Either way, if we didn’t make him see reason now, we might not live long enough to have the chance.
Straightening my spine, I met his irate glare. “We don’t have anything to do with that book, Brock,” I stated evenly, reminding him he’d urged me to call him thus the last time we’d spoken, hoping the intimacy it implied would pierce through his haze of fury. “We hadn’t even heard about it until our return to the city a week ago.” My lips pursed, allowing some of my own aggravation to shine through. “If we had, do you honestly think we would have permitted the offensive insinuations the book made about us?”
This seemed to give him pause, but only for a moment. “I dinna ken. Maybe ye were betrayed as well.”
I shook my head at the irrationality of this remark. “Then we would be the first to reveal the author for the fraud he is.”
Not that it would make a bit of difference. Society often chose to believe what it wished, and the more scandalous the better. Bitterness flooded my mouth, for this was something that at least my sister and her husband used to understand. Now, that didn’t appear to be the case.
After a particularly vexing end to our last inquiry and the failure to see real justice done, Gage and I had decided to take a respite from the investigations we often undertook until after the birth of our child, just as Alana and Philip had urged. And yet our return to Edinburgh had still been marred by gossip and speculation. The turn of the new year had seen the publication of the book titled The King of Grassmarket, which alleged to tell the true story of the city’s most infamous rogue, one Bonnie Brock Kincaid. Many might have viewed the book as merely a continuation of the tendency begun some years earlier in publishing to print rather romanticized histories of notorious criminals. These highly fictionalized accounts had shown to be popular, and novels such as Paul Clifford and Eugene Aram had been devoured by a public eager for more.
So it was no surprise that Edinburgh had proven to be fertile ground for the publication of the adventures of one of its most intriguing and perhaps mysterious citizens. After all, few people knew where Bonnie Brock had come from or how he’d seized power to build his gang of criminals and amass his wealth. He had preferred to keep it that way.
But for all its similarities to those other novels, there were two notable differences about The King of Grassmarket. First and foremost being that Bonnie Brock was still alive and at liberty to move about the city and perpetuate further instances of the crimes the book accredited to him. All of the cutthroat heroes in the other books of this style had been either executed or at least tried for and convicted of their crimes and sentenced to transportation. And secondly, that the author had chosen to use a nom de plume, hiding behind a fictional identity which, thus far, no one had been able to strip away.
Clearly Bonnie Brock was intent on doing so. And deathly earnest about it, if the intensity of his threats to us were any indication.
Outrage surged through me at the affront of him believing we would have betrayed his secrets so easily. “Truthfully, we questioned whether you might be the author. After all, infamous or not, your reputation seems to have been enhanced, and what better way to control the narrative of your life.” I narrowed my eyes. “Not to mention the fact that I suspect you find it devilishly funny to watch all of Edinburgh speculate on whether you might be the true father of my child.”
Not only was it insulting for the book to insinuate there had been any sort of relationship between Bonnie Brock and myself—or rather the character Lady Dalby, a thinly veiled allusion to me—but the fact that it purported to question my child’s paternity was both outrageous and completely preposterous. I would never have been unfaithful to Gage. Not to mention the fact that I had last seen Bonnie Brock in early May, while the baby had been conceived in July on Dartmoor in southern England, four hundred fifty miles away. Thus making the rumor impossible.
“I dinna need my reputation enhanced,” he snarled, striding yet another step closer so he was almost level with Gage. “Nor do I want the attention.” He scoffed. “As if bein’ followed aboot by newspapermen and pursued by a flock o’ foolish ladies is beneficial to my business.”