Celeste Bradley - [The Liar's Club 05]

by The Rogue

  The study was not well lit. Only a single candle on the mantel lit Lord Maywell’s face as he stared into the glowing coals. “Not well done of you, Jane girl,” he said, his voice a growl. “Not well done at all.”

  “Uncle, I—”

  “Silence!” He turned to her, his features a half-mask of light and shadow. “You’ve said quite enough.”

  Then Jane saw with horror that Uncle Harold held in his hand the long, detailed letter she had posted to Mother this morning.

  Oh, God help me. Jane bit her lips. She would plead nerves, she decided. She’d been overwrought by—by homesickness. Or she’d had a nightmare and been carried away by her fears—

  All entirely silly reasons. She only hoped her uncle still thought her merely a silly girl. Then she saw it—that icy edge of heartlessness that only she seemed to notice—and her belly turned to stone.

  She was going to die.

  “Silly girl,” her uncle said easily. “Silly, overwrought, thoughtless girl. To weave such a fiction about your own dear family. Why, you must be as mad as your mother, mustn’t you?”

  His words confused Jane for a moment. She’d thought she was about to be gutted like a fish. She’d thought he would want to destroy anyone who discovered his treasonous activities.

  Then his meaning sank in and Jane realized what he meant to do.

  “No,” she breathed, her voice choked by bone-deep fear.

  “Oh, yes.” Lord Maywell took a seat behind his desk. With a flourish, he took a pen from the inkstand and dipped it into one of the wells. “A stroke of the pen by your oldest male relative will have you safely tucked away in Bedlam by morning—at least when accompanied by a sizable bribe.”

  Bedlam—the madhouse. Jane could not breathe. Mother had never received the last letter. As far as Mother was concerned, Jane would simply have disappeared. Mother would never look for her in Bedlam.

  Uncle Harold shook his head sadly. “A bribe that I shall have to pay for from your very own accounts, of course. ’Tis only to be expected that I should pay for your care from your inheritance. Money and madness—those are your legacies, my dear.” He signed the paper, each scratch of the pen abrading Jane’s nerves further.

  Then he leaned back and wove his blunt fingers together over his girth. “We took you and treated you as one of our own daughters,” he said piously, although the dark flicker she saw in his eyes might have been guilt. “I only hope I’ve acted quickly enough to prevent your infected mind from contaminating my own dear girls.”

  Jane slid one foot sideways. She wasn’t too far from the door and she was fairly sure she could make it out of the room before her uncle could manage his bulk around the desk. If she could beg shelter from a boardinghouse long enough to send word to—

  “If you run,” Uncle Harold said sadly. “If you run and scream and carry on, it will only strengthen my case that you have become deranged.”

  He was right. She didn’t care. She turned and dashed to the door. Her hand was on the knob when heavy footsteps behind her ended with her being snatched back from freedom with both arms wrenched behind her.

  Two of her uncle’s burly footmen held her pinned between them. She hadn’t seen them, so closely had she concentrated on her uncle’s eerie performance. She fought them, as hopeless as it was. All she needed was for one hand to slip, for one second of a lessened grip—

  They stood stolid and silent, letting her fight herself to exhaustion like a badly tamed horse. Finally, she sank to her knees, sickened by her own weakness, terrified beyond her own control.

  She was not going to die. She was only going to wish she was dead.

  Lord Maywell stood from behind his desk, where he’d watched her struggles with regretful eyes. She wanted to scream at his hypocrisy. The packet of commitment papers was neatly sealed with a large waxen M. “All settled now, my dear?” His tone was everything kindly. His false affection made her want to vomit.

  She wondered wearily if doing so would in any way deter her guards. Looking up at the crude, grim features of the footmen, she rather doubted it.

  Lord Maywell opened the door and woefully waved them through it. “I’ve a man outside who will take her to Moorfields,” he told the men. He handed them the commitment papers. “Give him this and tell him to consider himself permanently engaged.”

  Jane could scarcely keep her feet beneath her as the two men hurried her out of the house and into the darkening dusk where the same unmarked, unlit, closed carriage awaited. She considered letting them drag her, but as it was she felt as though her arms were nearly wrenched from their sockets.

  She needed to stay fit and watchful. From what her uncle had said, only one man would accompany her to the asylum. Her chances were better against one, better yet if they left her unbound. Her only goal now was to appear as weak and unthreatening as possible.

  The footmen tossed her carelessly into the waiting carriage, sending her tumbling onto her seat like a sack of potatoes. No sooner had Jane fought off her own tumbled skirts and fallen hair than she was sent sideways again by the horses’ sudden departure.

  Hands grasped her in the darkness, pulling her against a hard male form. Jane cried out and struggled anew, despite her vow to appear helpless.

  “Shh, Janet. Be still.”

  Joy leapt through her at the sound of Ethan’s voice. “I am saved! Oh, Ethan, you clever darling!” She turned in his arms to plant ill-aimed kisses on his face, laughing damply with relief through tears of fear.

  He hesitated, then he pushed her gently back to her seat. “I can’t imagine what makes you say that,” he said slowly.

  In the confining darkness of the carriage, Jane felt a thrill of renewed fear. No, it couldn’t be—not Ethan too? Her heart aching, Jane pressed herself back against the velvet cushions, her eyes straining to see him in the dimness.

  “You are not saving me?”

  He shifted. “Not at the moment . . . no.”

  “But his lordship means to put me in the asylum!”

  He cleared his throat. “It is not my place to interfere in a family matter. I’m sure your uncle—well, I’m sure he knows what he’s doing.”

  “But I’m not mad!” she cried.

  In an instant, his palm covered her mouth, unerring in the darkness. “You’ll not convince anyone by screeching like a fishwife.”

  Jane closed her eyes against the fear that surged within her. Ethan would never do this if he knew. All she needed to do was tell him the truth—but he would not listen to a madwoman. He was quite correct. No one would.

  So she drew a deep breath through her nose, and then another.

  “That’s good,” Ethan said soothingly. “It will all go better if you stay calm.”

  The cool sympathy in his voice cut through her. Ethan never talked to her that way. He provoked her, he teased her, he even frankly insulted her—but he never spoke to her like a simpleton.

  The cruel injustice was too much for her for a moment. A single hot tear fled from beneath her lids and trailed down her cheek to his hand. He snatched his hand away as if she’d scalded him.

  Jane opened her eyes, blinking back the other tears that threatened. She could not spare the time to cry. If things did not go well, she could look forward to many long days of incarceration in which to indulge in tears. If things did go well, she’d have no reason to cry.

  Please, God, let things go well!

  Across from Jane, Ethan pressed his own back into the cushions, pushing himself as far from Jane and her tears as he could. He could not give in to his compassion for her. There was more at stake here than one rather odd young woman.

  Unthinking, he rubbed his hand where that single tear had burned him. Jane was a sensible sort—usually. The thought of her crying made him feel terrible for what he was about to do.

  “I don’t want to go.” Her whisper floated across the space—the infinite and insurmountable chasm—between them.

  Ethan shut down the ache caused
by the quiet fear in her voice. “No one imagines you do. Yet I do believe it is for the best.”

  Jane’s heart sank as she finally saw the resolve behind his light tone. Ethan wasn’t just doing as her uncle told him—he was acting from his own conviction. There was no persuading a man when he’d taken that stand.

  “God save me from a man who believes he is ‘doing the right thing,’ ” she said, weary desperate laughter seeping into her voice. “You win, Ethan. I’ll go to Bedlam without a fight.”

  “I’ll hold you to your word,” he replied cautiously. She seemed resigned, however, for she merely leaned her forehead against the window frame and gazed blindly into the night.

  At least she was not weeping. Silence settled into the carriage, making the sounds of the clopping hooves and squeaking chassis all the louder. Ethan fingered the papers in his pocket. Now didn’t seem to be the time to tell her that the entire matter had been his idea.

  Bethlehem Hospital was a hospital, after all. A nice, safe place for Jane to wait out of danger while Ethan finished his mission. It was a good plan, and much preferable to Lord Maywell’s half-formed ideas of murder.

  Lord Maywell was doomed, he had no doubt of that. All Ethan needed was a bit more time to worm his way further into the man’s trust. When all was done and the dust cleared, there would be plenty of time to retrieve Jane.

  Jane’s outrageous accusations—all right, they were only too true, but bloody ill-timed!—could have botched the entire matter. Ethan’s own intervention with the Bedlam idea was the reason why Jane wasn’t dead or dying at this moment. Maywell would not stop at murder, Ethan would wager his house on that.

  No. He firmed his intentions with the conviction that Bedlam was a hospital. A safe place, out of Maywell’s hands and out of danger.

  Jane would keep just fine there.

  Bethlehem Hospital for the Mentally Disturbed was the thing of myth in the city of London. There had been a “Bedlam” of one sort or another for hundreds of years, from the days when insanity was considered part and portion of holiness.

  Different locations, progressively larger and more modern buildings, yet all still operated upon the methods of the cautionary tale of old. “Be thou sound and be thou chaste, or thou shalt end thy days in Bedlam.”

  Jane knew what manner of place Bedlam was, even if Ethan did not. She knew that, as in days of old, the insane were considered living words of warning and, as such, were put on public display.

  And perhaps, for a few, the mad provided some semblance of warning. Perhaps a few sensitive souls left Bedlam and saw their lives in a new light—lives that could be changed and improved for the betterment of all.

  Jane knew all about madhouses. Her own mother had nearly died in one, after all.

  Dark memories and choking fear wrapped tightly about her throat, making it cruelly difficult to breathe.

  When the carriage drew near to the hospital, Ethan turned to Jane for one last attempt to draw her out of her misery.

  When the carriage pulled up to the front gates of the asylum, Ethan immediately began to have second thoughts. The place was grim in the darkness with its entrance lighted only by a few sputtering lamps.

  “Oh, look,” Jane said faintly, incipient hysteria in her voice. “I’m home.”

  Ethan rubbed his hand across the back of his neck to still an uneasy chill. Well, likely any place would look unimpressive in the dark like this. They probably didn’t get too many new patients in the middle of the night.

  The gatekeeper didn’t seem very surprised to see them, however. “State yer business,” he said, without much seeming to care what that business was.

  Ethan leaned out the window. “Lady Jane Pennington is being brought for treatment.”

  The gatekeeper blinked. “Treatment, is it? That’s a new one.” He shook his head. “Well, then, you’d best go on in.”

  The gate creaked open with ominous groans and the carriage rattled on through. As they approached the entrance, Ethan eyed the building worriedly. The more he saw, the less he liked it.

  A uniformed couple came to stand on the front steps to greet them as the carriage rolled to a stop. Ethan stepped out first, then handed Jane down gently. The driver moved the carriage forward out of the way.

  “Is that the patient?” The woman attendant stepped up.

  By way of explanation, Ethan handed the nurse the packet of papers that Lord Maywell had given him. The doorway stood open, letting a reassuring wash of golden light over them all as they stood on the drive. He breathed a little easier. This didn’t seem so bad.

  The two attendants nodded over the papers, then took Jane by both arms to lead her away.

  It was too soon. Ethan held up a hand. “Wait—hold on!”

  The two attendants did not stop hustling Jane swiftly away. Jane was only able to cast one panicked glance at him over her shoulder before they’d whisked her away through the great double doors.

  Behind him, the carriage had parked and the driver jumped down. For a moment, silence fell. The horses held their feet still on the gravel, and the carriage gave up on its many creaks and protests.

  In that silence, Ethan finally heard it. A sound like the faraway sea. With horror, he began to realize what it was.

  From behind the thick imposing walls of Bedlam came the faint ongoing symphony of insanity. Male roars, female screams, the endless rattle and bang of iron to iron.

  Ethan had been to the Royal Menagerie once as a boy. He remembered it well, for he’d been much disturbed by the hopelessness of its inhabitants. While his family had milled through the walks, seemingly unperturbed by the sights and smells, a sound had started up. Perhaps it had begun in the cage of the lion—or perhaps one of the monkeys began to screech—but in the end, it seemed every animal trapped there had added its cries to the cacophony. It had swelled around Ethan until he could feel it vibrate his very bones and teeth.

  Until now, it had been the most terrible sound he’d ever heard.

  He had to see . . .

  He took the grand entry staircase two steps at a time. There was an anteroom first, where two leering sculptures of madness guarded the great double doors. Ethan passed them by with no more than a glance. With both hands, he hit the latches of the great oak doors at a run, flinging them open in his rush.

  The noise hit him like a hot wave. His crashing entrance only spurred the madness higher, until the screeches and howls echoed off the great arched ceiling two stories above.

  His eyes wide, his breath coming up short, Ethan gazed upon hell on earth. Cages lined the gallery where he stood, cages of women in limp gray gowns and straggling hair. Some stood at the front bars, reaching toward him with dirty hands as they cried out unintelligible pleas. Others lay inert, perhaps sleeping, although they gazed eyes open at nothing at all.

  Down the gallery, past an iron gate, Ethan saw brawnier hands reaching out. That was where the loudest roars came from—the caged men.

  The smell hit Ethan then and he recoiled, his hand covering his mouth and nose as he backed away from the combined filth of two hundred unwashed bodies. With shaking hands, quite unable to draw another stinking breath, Ethan pulled the heavy double doors closed with a slam.

  He leaned against them for a moment, sucking in a breath of relatively clean air.

  The mob voice came directly through the heavy oak, vibrating through his hands, scraping his every nerve raw.

  He could never leave Jane here.

  “Jane!” He ran back into the anteroom, looking wildly around for some clue to where the two attendants had taken her. “Jane!”

  A burly guard in the Bethlehem Hospital colors came into the anteroom through a small unobtrusive door. Ethan bolted for it, but the guard blocked him.

  “Sorry, sir. The visitin’ hours be tomorrow durin’ daylight.”

  Ethan ignored him, mindlessly shoving at the heavy fellow, trying desperately to get through. “Jane!”

  Angered, the big man pushed
him back. “Tomorrow! Ye can get in tomorrow!”

  “I have to get her out of here!”

  “It said in them papers that you’re just deliverin’. It said that no matter your objections, the lady is to be kept until his lordship says otherwise.”

  The guard crossed his arms over his chest. “You’ll not be gettin’ anyone out if ye don’t have the papers,” he said menacingly. “Now get on. Ye can see her tomorrow.”

  Frustrated, Ethan backed up a few steps. “I’ll be back for you, Jane!” he called with all his strength. “I’ll be back!”

  Behind him, he heard the din of the menagerie rise to new levels in response. The noise and the fetid air and the guilt made him sick, until he had to stumble back out into the cool, clean night.

  What had he done?

  Chapter Eighteen

  With a push more violent than necessary, the male attendant shoved Jane into one of the cages that lined the upper gallery. She tripped over the trailing hem of the gown she’d been given that was vastly too large for her. The cheap gray flannel tore at the waist with a weak ripping sound.

  She could not quite fully stand, for the second-gallery cages were somewhat shorter than the first, although they seemed wider. Still, she kept her feet, and clapped one hand over the tear, pressing the fabric close to her body. She’d been through such indignities in the last hour that her small modesty might seem ridiculous, yet still she covered her bare skin from the gaze of the guard.

  He shrugged and shut her cage door with a clang. There was apparently only one key for all the cages, for only a single fat iron key hung from his belt.

  He held it with thick fingers and locked the crude iron padlock with practiced ease. The sound of the click made Jane flinch, but she said nothing. By now she knew that no pleadings or promises would sway either the male attendant or the nurse assigned to see to Jane.

  Only when his heavy footsteps had faded along with the light of his lantern did Jane allow her knees to weaken. She ached from her struggles against both her uncle’s footmen and the Bedlam attendants. She wrapped both arms about her knees and pressed her forehead down upon them, willing the noise to stop, willing herself deaf to the mad riot around her.