Page 51

I’d paused at the edge of the pavement, waiting for a large, speeding mail coach to pass before I crossed the street, when a hand suddenly planted itself between my shoulder blades and thrust me out onto the cobblestones.

I stumbled, nearly falling to my knees on the uneven surface.

At the same time, I was conscious of the horses bearing down on me.

I could hear the shouts of those behind me and the shrieks of the steeds as the coachman must have pulled on their reins.

Everything seemed to move like quicksand as I frantically attempted to reverse my course, to scramble out of the horses’ path.

I swore I could feel their hot breath upon my face as I braced for impact.

Then a body slammed into mine, once again from behind. But this time it propelled me up onto the pavement and directly into the mass of people standing there gawking. We landed with a thud, and the air was driven from me by the person landing atop me.

For a moment, I could do nothing but struggle to draw breath.

Then the sights and sounds of a dozen people gazing down at me, all talking at once, crashed into me.

Gage was the closest, his body being the one that had knocked the breath out of me.

But considering the fact he’d saved my life I could forgive him for that.

I blinked up at him as he peppered me with questions between scolds. “Kiera, are you hurt? Can you speak? What were you thinking? Tell me what hurts. Why did you take off like that? Did you trip?”

Several of the people standing over us were offering their own opinions as to what happened, varying from intoxication to broken mortar to madness. I ignored them all, allowing Gage to help me into a seated position.

“I…I didn’t trip,” I finally managed to gasp. “Someone…pushed me.”

Gage frowned in concern. “You’re certain?”

Even now, I could feel the firm hand at the center of my back. “Yes!”

“Did anyone see anythin’?” a deep burr demanded behind me, and I realized Sergeant Maclean was also there. “Who was standin’ behind her ladyship?”

The rate of the bystanders’ speculation increased at the mention of my title, and I inwardly winced.

We were only a short distance from the Grassmarket, where Burke and Hare had once plied their murderous trade.

And where I had nearly been ripped to shreds by an angry mob aware of my macabre reputation from the work I’d done with my late anatomist husband.

It wouldn’t take these people long to figure out just which lady I was.

“I saw a tall lad run off that way just after she fell,” one woman claimed, pointing east into a warren of streets and closes.

Others agreed, but when Maclean asked for a description, they all differed, bickering among themselves as to who was correct.

Then a man suggested he’d seen an older gentleman abscond to the south, but the woman next to him argued that he was only middle-aged.

Though I could follow only about half of what was being said, so thick were their accents or so scrambled was my brain.

Amid the chaos, Gage helped me to my feet, dusting me off and adjusting my aventurine merino skirts. “Does anything hurt? Can you walk?”

My hip ached as I took a few tentative steps forward, but I didn’t think I’d suffered anything serious. “I’m well enough,” I assured him, cringing as I noticed the unmentionable substance on my sleeve.

Gage did his best to clean it off with his handkerchief, helping me to our carriage, which Joe had drawn up nearby. After settling me inside, he paused to confer with Maclean. In spite of my rattled composure, I noticed they were both using more congenial voices. I supposed that was something.

By the time my husband clambered into the carriage beside me, I’d closed my eyes. I heard him rap on the ceiling to signal Joe to drive on and a few moments later draw breath to speak.

“It was your and Maclean’s fault,” I bit out before he could resume reproving me for setting off on my own.

When he didn’t speak, I opened my eyes to find his lips pressed tightly together as if he was holding in an outburst.

“You were butting horns like a couple of rams. In the middle of the street,” I emphasized.

He glared at me a moment longer and then abruptly deflated. “You’re right.”

“Why were you being so fractious? I realize you’ve been at loose ends lately. That it’s important to you to solve this inquiry. But your leaps from one theory to another, pouncing at them with all the subtlety of a…a…an American buffalo are illogical.”

He flinched. “That bad?”

However, I could not find the humor in the situation, closing my eyes again with a huff.

Gage’s hands stole into mine. “I know, Kiera. You’re right.” He squeezed my fingers, coaxing me to look at him. “I have been rather too keen and erratic.” His gaze dipped. “I suppose I feel I have something to prove.”

I frowned. “But, darling, you’ve already successfully unraveled dozens if not hundreds of inquiries. What on earth could you need to prove?”

He ignored this question, peering down at me with wild eyes. “Had I known someone would intend you harm, that my words would drive you straight into danger, I would have nailed my own lips shut.”

“Sebastian, what nonsense,” I said not unkindly, extracting one of my hands to lift it to his face.

“Of course you couldn’t have known. Had I known, I would never have stridden off on my own.

” I arched my chin toward the box seat outside the carriage where our coachman sat.

“I would have simply climbed into the carriage and ordered Joe to drive off.”

“Why didn’t you?”

“I didn’t think of it,” I grumbled, shifting in my seat as the ache in my hip twinged. “But back to this other nonsense you spouted.” I glared at him, letting him know I refused to be diverted again. “Why do you have something to prove?”

He flushed, and his pale blue eyes clouded with some sort of memory, but when I arched my eyebrows to encourage him, he turned away, tossing his hat into the opposite seat. “You’re right. It’s nonsense.”

But it clearly wasn’t. Not when his body was as rigid as a pole and his gaze would no longer meet mine.

I thought back over the last few months, recalling his growing restlessness, his determined efforts to be useful.

He’d taken on inquiries he normally would have referred to others and sought out answers to questions about his various properties that he usually would have left to his various staff.

He’d even prepared canvases for me despite the fact the gesso mixture I used was highly noxious.

I’d noticed he’d not volunteered to do that again.

But clearly there was something I’d missed.

“Sebastian,” I began gently. “Why are you an inquiry agent?”

He turned to me in surprise. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, why do you undertake inquiries, particularly when they’re not personal to you?

” I wasn’t certain it was something I’d ever asked him before.

I knew his mother’s murder had a profound effect on him, especially since her slow poisoning had happened right under his nose as a child.

And I knew his father’s decision to become a gentleman inquiry agent had put him on the road to his current occupation.

But I didn’t think I’d ever spoken to him about it.

I’d merely assumed I knew the reasons why.

“You’re a wealthy gentleman who could spend your days in leisure, but you don’t. Why?”

His brow furrowed. “You think I should?”

I glared at him in mild reproof. “I’m not asking you what I think. I’m asking why you do it.”

The lines at the corners of his eyes told me he was still confused, but he considered the matter, fumbling at first over his words.

“I suppose it’s because I like unraveling the enigma, and bringing murderers to justice, and attaining answers for those whose loved ones have been wronged.

” His brow lowered, and his tone deepened with earnestness.

“I…I like knowing I’ve been helpful to others.

That I’ve done something worthwhile.” His lips twisted.

“That I haven’t just passively allowed things to happen or taken up space as a pampered aristocrat good for nothing but his money. ”

I began to understand, for I heard the voice of someone from his past in those remarks. Someone whose spiteful words I’d not realized had sunk so deep.

“So you do it because it makes you useful?” I clarified.

“Yes,” he agreed, as if glad I’d put it in succinct terms.

“Because if you’re not useful, then why would anyone love you?”

When he blanched and it felt as if all the air had been drawn from the carriage, I knew I’d plucked at the heart of his fear. As painful as the words were to utter, as awful as it was to watch how they transformed my beloved’s face, I had to continue.

“You were useful to your mother, comforting and cheering her through her long years of illness. You became useful to your father when you joined him as an inquiry agent, taking on some of his investigations.” Though some semblance of self-preservation had remained when he’d fled London rather than wed the young lady his father had chosen for him, which would only have dragged him even deeper into the snare of approbation.

I inhaled a ragged breath, persisting. “You proved useful to your relatives at Langstone Manor when we uncovered the truth of what was going on there two years ago. And you showed yourself to be useful to Rika and her brothers as you fought alongside them in the Greeks’ struggle for independence.

That is, until you refused to take part in the massacre at Tripolitsa.

Then she cast you aside and revealed her true colors.

That her affection was conditional on your usefulness. ”

I hated speaking of Rika, of thinking of how Gage had once loved her and sought to marry her.

But I would invoke her specter if necessary—and considering he’d just quoted her words from nearly twelve years ago, it was necessary—in order to help him grapple with this lie he was telling himself.

For she was the one who had accused him of passively allowing things to happen and taking up space as a pampered aristocrat good for nothing but his money.

She was the one who had put that into his head.

However, the worst was yet to be spoken.

“And you are without a doubt useful to me. Helping me prove my innocence of murder. Saving me from drowning and stabbing and being crushed to death. Salvaging my reputation. Giving me your protection. Always having to be the hero—for everyone—not just me.”

Gage’s expression was stark, the plains of his face haggard.

Unable to bear it any longer, I yanked the gloves from my hands, determined to have nothing between his skin and mine as I cradled his jaw.

“But while I appreciate all of that…” I shook my head, my voice falling to just above a whisper “…it’s not why I love you. ”

His eyes ached with unspoken doubt.

“I love you because you’re you. And that love isn’t contingent on you being useful.” I pressed my forehead to his. “I’m sure it was the same for your mother and even your father, though in the past he’s been abominable at showing it.”

The corners of his lips quirked at my feeble attempt at a jest, though pain and uncertainty still clouded his gaze when I lifted my head so that I could see him.

“All your friends and family—they don’t love you because they need you.

” I brushed my thumbs over his jawline, feeling the rasp of stubble just beginning to grow.

“I don’t know when you started believing that was true, but it’s not.

They simply love you .” I put all my heart into my next words. “As do I.”

He pulled me to him, pressing his lips to mine, though they soon slid along my cheek as he buried his face in my shoulder. His muscles remained rigid for a few moments longer before finally relaxing as he gave a long sigh.

“These inquiries we conduct,” I said into his hair. “They do not make you worthy. You already are. And you don’t need to prove anything to anyone ,” I added vehemently, gripping the back of his neck with my hand and urging him to look at me. “You do not always have to be the hero. Understood?”

This time when he kissed me, his mouth did not slide away. This time when the kiss deepened, I felt the connection that had always been between us strengthen and intensify, a bulwark against the rest of the world, whatever it wreaked.