Madness Page 3

  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.

  “Antony, this way. We need to get out of here,” Gabrielle called to her cousin.

  He shook his head grimly. “But they’ve locked the gates.”

  “I guessed. Come on. Bathroom. We haven’t much time.”

  The man’s hands gently glided over her breasts once more to grasp her around the shoulders. She shivered with desire and leaned into the contact for a moment.

  He now sat up and prepared to stand. He tested his legs, bracing against her and the wall, and said, “I think I can do this. Just hold my arm steady.”

  She had to take some of his weight, but she could see he was doing his best to be heroic for her sake, and gripped the wall to straighten to his full height. Then he shook his head, blinked, and squared his shoulders.

  "I'm ready. You and the doctor follow as close as you can."

  "But I can help—"

  He scooped up her unconscious sister as though she were a tiny child. Then he motioned with his head. They moved down the corridor jerkily, his limbs uncoordinated after his seizure.

  Gabrielle saw he still seemed dazed, but was determined. He hurried on as fast as he could while the tall man barged through the inmates tussling. They parted like the Red Sea almost as soon as they saw who it was, filling Gabrielle with wonder.

  She thanked God for bringing her this helper at their time of need, and hurried after him, while Antony brought up the rear, clutching the discarded chair legs at the ready.

  At the end of the corridor was a large bathing chamber with various shelves containing linens. They were placed high up around the room in such a way that an ordinary person would have to use a step ladder to reach them. There were two patients fighting, and two swiving in the corner.

  There was a huge tub in the centre of the room, and a number of smaller ones, as well as a large wooden cabinet.

  “You get the futterers, I’ll get the fighters,” the tall man said to Antony.

  In an instant he had placed her prone sister down gently well inside the door and grabbed the two boxers by the scruffs of their necks.

  Antony prodded the bonking man’s backside with one boot. “Hey, clear off mate, it’s our turn to use the room.”

  With a stymied blink the couple got up and scurried out. As soon as they were gone the two men barricaded the door with the large cabinet.

  The stranger planted himself against it and slid down onto his haunches wearily, his glazed look back once again.

  Antony bent Lucinda’s knees and began to examine her.

  The golden gaze rested on Antony’s face, saw the doctor’s eyes widen.

  Damn. The poor girl.

  Their gazes met and Antony gave a barely perceptible shake of his head which he hoped the panting Gabrielle hadn’t caught.

  “We’re safe for the moment. Do what you have to do. If someone wants to get in here badly enough, they will no matter what. I’ll try to hold them off as long as I can, but it may not be long if I have another fit,” he said quietly.

  “You’ve just had a grande mal seizure. I need to look at you--”

  He shook his head. “You need to look at er, Lucinda, is it, before she loses the baby. I’m not dying. The worst that will happen to me is I’ll fall asleep, or be confused. I’m also going to start going into withdrawal in a few hours when I no longer have enough opiates in my system. You need to help her now. So don't worry about me. Just do it.”

  Antony nodded curtly, and flung open his bag.

  Gabrielle stared at their companion for a few moments, then ran over to get some linens and anything else she could find to help with her sister.

  “I’m Gabrielle,” she said quietly as she worked with her cousin. “How do you know so much about medicine?”

  “I’m Simon. I don’t know all that much, but I’ve had a couple of good friends over the years who were doctors, and of course I’ve learnt about my own disease.”

  “But what about the opiates?”

  “They use them to keep me quiet, control me. I keep trying to stop them, but they put it in the food. If it’s a choice between starving and taking the drug, the drug wins every time. I just have to make sure I don’t wolf down the food and overdose myself. And I can’t hide anything in the cell. They search it almost every day. I can chuck it out the window, down into the back alley behind the hospital, but sooner or later, I have to eat, or die. And I won't give them the satisfaction.”

  “I don’t understand,” Antony said as they worked. “Who on earth would-”

  “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-” His breath caught in his throat and he began to cringe and tremble.

  “Damn it to hell. Not another seizure. Cripes, Gabrielle get the spoon.”

  She stared at Simon, wondering again what she was missing about this strangely sane madman. She threw herself onto his chest as he flailed weakly and got a stinging slap on the cheek for her pains. But his eyes were tightly shut, his teeth gritted, and he was thrashing about as if…

  Warding off blows, pain.

  “I’m here. You’re all right. Nothing’s going to happen to you. I’m Gabrielle, and I’d like to be your friend, to help you if you’ll let me.”

  “Can’t. If they think you know anything, they’ll kill you,” he said between gritted teeth, his voice barely audible.

  She was surprised to get such a coherent reply. She didn’t know that much about epilepsy, but the seizures were usually all-consuming. “There must be something I can-”

  “You need to leave me now, Gabrielle. Leave.”

  “We can’t. We’re trapped in here. The riot, remember?”

  In the ensuing silence they could all hear the screams, shrieks and cries echoing throughout the common ward. A loud crash against the door told them it was only a matter of time before the door b
urst in if the inmates didn’t calm down soon.

  The man continued to shake and tremble.

  “Tell me your name. Tell me about your family, your childhood,” she said desperately.

  “Simon. I can’t remember anything else. Every time I try I get this searing pain, and then it all goes black. And I can’t recall anything, not my seizures, what I was doing before I passed out. Please, don’t ask me any questions like that. I need to stay with you. Stay sane and coherent. They’ll kill us all if they come through that door.