PRAISE FOR THE LADY DARBY MYSTERIES
“[A] history mystery in fine Victorian style! Anna Lee Huber’s spirited debut mixes classic country house mystery with a liberal dash of historical romance.”
—New York Times bestselling author Julia Spencer-Fleming
“Riveting. . . . Huber deftly weaves together an original premise, an enigmatic heroine, and a compelling Highland setting.”
—New York Times bestselling author Deanna Raybourn
“[A] fascinating heroine. . . . A thoroughly enjoyable read!”
—National bestselling author Victoria Thompson
“Reads like a cross between a gothic novel and a mystery with a decidedly unusual heroine.”
—Kirkus Reviews
“Includes all the ingredients of a romantic suspense novel, starting with a proud and independent heroine. . . . Strong and lively characters as well as believable family dynamics, however, elevate this above stock genre fare.”
—Publishers Weekly
“[A] clever heroine with a shocking past and a talent for detection.”
—National bestselling author Carol K. Carr
“[Huber] designs her heroine as a woman who straddles the line between eighteenth-century behavior and twenty-first-century independence.”
—New York Journal of Books
“[A] must read. . . . One of those rare books that will both shock and please readers.”
—Fresh Fiction
“One of the best historical mysteries that I have read this year.”
—Cozy Mystery Book Reviews
Titles by Anna Lee Huber
The Anatomist’s Wife
Mortal Arts
A Grave Matter
A Study in Death
A Pressing Engagement
(an enovella)
As Death Draws Near
An Artless Demise
A Stroke of Malice
A Wicked Conceit
BERKLEY PRIME CRIME
Published by Berkley
An imprint of Penguin Random House LLC
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Copyright © 2021 by Anna Aycock
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BERKLEY and the BERKLEY & B colophon are registered trademarks and BERKLEY PRIME CRIME is a trademark of Penguin Random House LLC.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Huber, Anna Lee, author.
Title: A wicked conceit / Anna Lee Huber.
Description: First edition. | New York: Berkley Prime Crime, 2021. | Series: Lady Darby mysteries
Identifiers: LCCN 2020050723 (print) | LCCN 2020050724 (ebook) | ISBN 9780593198445 (trade paperback) | ISBN 9780593198452 (ebook)
Subjects: GSAFD: Mystery fiction.
Classification: LCC PS3608.U238 W53 2021 (print) | LCC PS3608.U238 (ebook) | DDC 813/.6—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020050723
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020050724
First Edition: April 2021
Cover art by Larry Rostant
Cover design by Emily Osborne
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
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This book is dedicated to the medical workers of the COVID-19 pandemic and all previous pandemics: the physicians, surgeons, nurses, respiratory therapists, speech and language pathologists, technicians, researchers, scientists, janitors, midwives, apothecaries, and more, who risk their lives, stepping into the unknown—into the front line of the battle—to save lives and search for effective treatments and a cure.
Thank you.
Contents
Cover
Praise for the Lady Darby Mysteries
Titles by Anna Lee Huber
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
A Brief Note About Pandemics
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Historical Note
Acknowledgments
About the Author
A Brief Note about Pandemics
When I first began writing the Lady Darby Mysteries back in 2010, and decided to set the first book in August 1830, I always hoped the series would last long enough for the characters to reach the year 1832. But while I was aware that my characters would eventually have to wrangle with the cholera pandemic that struck Britain beginning in late 1831, I had no idea I would be writing about it while experiencing a new pandemic in our time.
That being said, the methods used for controlling a pandemic and treating a disease like cholera in 1832 were very different from those we now use in 2020. Our science and medical knowledge have progressed immensely in the 188 years since then, and so readers should be aware that the methods and thinking described in this book will not resemble what we have experienced during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Prologue
Be sure to taste your words before you spit them out.
—Scottish proverb
February 1, 1832
Edinburgh, Scotland
I blamed it on the salmon mousse. That, and my preoccupation with the stilted conversation around my sister’s dinner table that evening. If my stomach hadn’t been struggling to digest all the rich food I’d ingested and my mind hadn’t been turning over my uneasy reconciliation with my sister, I felt certain I would have noticed the man before he stepped out of the shadows.
My husband, Sebastian Gage, pulled me to a halt, for the man clearly wasn’t a servant employed by the town house from whose stairwell he had emerged. The night was too cold, and the likelihood of someone wandering by too slim for him to be a thief waiting for some hapless victim to stroll through this part of New Town. Most of New Town’s inhabitants would have been huddled inside their carriages to travel to and from their evening entertainments.
Gage and I had decided to walk because our home on Albyn Place was less than five minutes by foot from my sister’s in Charlotte Square. Not only did using our equipage for such a short journey seem more of a fuss than was necessary, but at seven months heavy with child, I welcomed the chill of a brief evening stroll, and the benefits to my constitution, especially after a large meal.
I clutched my ermine-trimmed claret pelisse tighter around me, my arm unconsciously coming to rest over my rounded stomach in protection. Even when the man rounded the railing which separated the stairwell leading downward from the
