Madness (5 page)

“We’re in charge of this prisoner,” one of them rumbled, pointing at the tall man still shivering against the wall weakly.

Dr. Herriot shot them a lethal look of his own. “There are no
prisoners
here. Only patients. He looks to be fine. This one on the wall, however, is evidently a danger to all concerned, and must be subdued at once. At once, do you hear?”

“You can’t order us--”

“No, I can’t. But if you want to keep your job, you’ll follow Dr. Herriot’s orders. He is after all a very good friend of Alistair Grant the barrister, and the Duke of Ellesmere,” Gabrielle said coolly.

For all they knew, she could have been bluffing, but their posture changed completely. The man's silent comrade gave him the nod, and they went off without another word.

Antony heaved a sigh of relief and turned his attention back to Lucinda. “God, he really savaged her.”

“I know. I tried to stop him, but-”

Then she had noticed her companion sliding down the wall and slumping to the ground behind her.

“Thank God. You’ve come for me. Thank God.”

She stared at him in confusion. “I don’t understand. Come for you? No, you came to help us. But-”

“I’m not mad. I’ve never been mad. They know I know things. They’ve left me here to rot. Couldn’t kill me in case they needed me. Please, I have to-” He clutched his head in agony now, and began to gurgle and choke.

“Antony! What do I do?” she shouted in alarm as her enormous helper lurched forward and fell to the ground trembling.

“Looks like a epileptic fit. Grab a spoon out of my bag and depress his tongue, then just stay with him.”

His whole body began to buck and jolt under her as though charged with electricity, and she could see froth fleck his lips. She dived for the bag and the spoon, and managed to do as Antony had instructed her.

“Are you all right?”

“I’ve got him. I’ve got him,” Gabrielle insisted, waving her cousin away. “See to my sister.”

“Are you sure?”

“Aye. Make sure the baby isn’t harmed. And I want to see about getting her a private room. I don’t care if they are at a premium, or what it costs. Lucinda’s husband is going to pay if it’s the last thing he does.”

His expression was grim. “You know he’s notoriously cheap.”

“True, but also excessively concerned with what people think of him. He’ll pay, or face the prospect of a scandal. With him trying to win himself a name in the House of Lords, I think we can convince him to part with some of my sister’s dowry to provide better than a cot in the common ward.

"My God, they don’t even divide the genders in here. Half of them are swiving, and the other half are abusing themselves right out in public!”

“Or bloody killing each other,” Antony grumbled as a new fight broke out in the corner. Screams could also be heard echoing from the tiled bathroom.

“Where the hell are those attendants?”

“Evidently not wanting to have to wrestle with this beastly chap dangling here.”

“But still, where the hell is everyone?”

“Now, now, language, my dear.”

“Don’t give me that, Antony! I can’t stand it when you become all protective and missish on me.”

“Maybe if you were more missish, I wouldn’t have to be so protective,” he rejoined with a small smile.

She glanced up at him, her expression serious. “I was a self-centred little
belle
until you took me in. Began to teach me. I don’t want to go back to that life. So please stop treating me like I'm made of fluff.”

“I’m only sorry you didn’t come to me sooner. You know myself or Randall would have—”

“I know," she said curtly. "But after everything my brother did to them all, I just couldn’t.”

“But just look at what that man has done to your sister. Even if Lucinda did marry Oxnard of her own free will, it’s a most unsuitable match. He’s had three wives already and he’s scarcely even thirty! You mark my words, there’s more to that than meets the eye.”

“I know that now! The trouble is, he seems so pious and respectable. You would be the first to admit from all you’ve learnt at the clinic that the mortality of women in childbirth is very high. One riding accident, one miscarriage, one death in the childbed…”

“I know, I know. But I can’t help having my suspicions all the same. I mean, we only have his word for it regarding those three deaths, after all.”

“Never mind that now. How is she?” Gabrielle asked.

“Staining at the moment. I need to get her to a proper bed where she can rest. Can you stay here while I try to find help?”

He ducked and threw himself over Lucinda’s prone body as a chair flew into their corner and crashed apart into splinters.

Gabrielle grabbed one leg and flung it to him, then took another to try to protect herself and Lucinda.

Antony caught it with an appalled look, but she insisted, “Take it. Go now. Hurry.”

He opened his mouth to argue, but he was damned either way. Gabrielle was in danger if she stayed. But if he let her run for help, she might get into an even worse predicament. At least she was with the tall dark man, if he came to.

The ward exploded into violence all around him as Antony made his way to the main gate. He knew it was especially bad on the nights of the full moon, but he had never seen the inmates so agitated before.

It was almost as though something were whipping them up into a frenzy. He had to batter his way through to the iron bars at the far end of the ward with the aid of his makeshift weapon, and shouted above the din, “We need some help. Two people are injured.”

“Ain’t got enough people to help us now. We need to stop them killing each other.”

“Then send for some Bow Street Runners. I’m a friend of Alistair Grant the barrister.” He fished a card from his pocket. “Take this to them, tell them I need help. My young female cousins are trapped in here if you won’t open this gate.”

“I don’t bloody dare,” the orderly replied, backing away. “Those loonies will kill us all.”

Chapter Two

When Antony saw that he was trapped on the ward, he raced back to his cousin Gabrielle through the melee of heaving bodies, beating his way through with his makeshift wooden club.

When he finally got back, he found her defending both her sister and her tall strange helper from a huge woman with meaty fists who was insisting she was the Queen of England and had to be obeyed.

She had a huge bench upraised in one hand like a Scottish caber about to be tossed. No matter where she threw it, one or all three of them were going to be seriously injured.

“Your Majesty,” Gabrielle said, dropping a curtsey. “Your courtier awaits with some pressing matters of state.” She pointed at the doctor.

Antony rolled his eyes in despair. He had hoped to sneak up on the woman unawares. But the balance of the bench had shifted. Gabrielle had been sure she was just about to hurl it.

As it tumbled and bounced, she threw herself over the unconscious man’s head, cradling it against her bosom as the heavy weight smacked into her back. She only prayed the spoon she had depressed his tongue with after his strange fit didn’t make him choke as she flattened against him.

The pain seared her, making her already injured ribs jar, so that she gasped and arched her back like a scalded cat. She lay there stunned, and listened while Antony coaxed the woman away from the shattered remnants of the wooden missile.

Even now, days later, Gabrielle blushed heatedly at the recollection of what had happened next.

The fellow under her had stared up at her with wonder, gazing at her breasts like a starving man suddenly presented with the most exquisite banquet.

“
Mon Dieu
! I’ve died and gone to heaven,” he sighed around the spoon, which he now removed from between his teeth.

The towel he had given her to try to cover over her bosom after her gown had been torn had spun round her neck, baring her fully to his ardent admiration.

His hands had come up to shiver over her breasts, peaking them into pink crests of desire with the pads of his thumb. His lips had found the hollow of her throat and begun to caress her bare flesh tenderly.

Gabrielle went on fire at his touch. Pressing her palms against his unclad shoulders, she’d tried to escape the thrilling sensations, but the warm naked flesh thrumming under her fingers had created a whole set of new ones.

She had stroked his rippling muscles, and would have kissed him on the mouth had he not said, “I’m sorry,
cherie
. I’m covered in filth and haven’t seen any tooth powder save once a month for the past five years. Please, for your own sake, don’t.”

She stared at him, completely at a loss. He was the strangest madman she had ever come across.

He groaned now. “I can’t believe I just refused to kiss you. Oh, God, I’m so tired. Please, can you help me?”

“I can try,” she gasped as another pair of inmates began to wrestle not too far from where they lay.

“We need to get out of here,” he insisted.

“I’ve been told they usually lock the gates if there’s trouble in the ward.”

“I know. But your sister is injured and I’m going to fall asleep soon. I always do after one of my seizures. Your gentleman over there is a good man, I’m sure, but I don’t think he’s much use as a pugilist even with that chair leg for a weapon.

"I can try to hold her up if you can try to hold me up. We need to get to the bathrooms. There are linens, supplies in there. We all four of us stand a chance of holding the other off if we try to barricade ourselves in.”

Gabrielle was wide-eyed with terror at this stage. He was asking her to lock herself in with him?

Yet the alternative, as the howling and violence erupted even more feverishly, left her little option but to trust him. He had saved her sister, tried to help her, not harmed her body though she had been so vulnerable He had let her go when she would have done something incredibly foolhardy. She had nearly kissed him!

She twitched the towel back around to cover her breasts, and lifted herself partly off the man and onto her knees with a determined air.