Chapter Twenty-Three

“You don’t understand, Vesta.” Honora was expected to appear at Benedick’s town house later that evening to serve as hostess at a small dinner party, so she had received her friend in her boudoir while she completed her toilette.

It wasn’t such an unusual use of the space. Her canopied bed in the corner notwithstanding, the large room was set up for entertaining intimates with plenty of seating and even a table in one corner should a guest wish to play a hand of whist. Vesta, not being interested in cards, was comfortably ensconced on a velvet fainting couch, while Honora continued to brush her own hair before the vanity mirror.

The rough bristles against her scalp were a penance of sorts for the cowardice she had shown at Bedlam. She hadn’t helped poor Mrs. Mounsey, and she hadn’t stayed long enough to find Pierce. She scraped the brush over her head harder.

“I heard him,” Nora said. “I’m certain of it.”

“I’m willing to believe you thought you heard Pierce’s voice,” Vesta allowed, “but you didn’t stop to try to discover where the sound came from.”

“No, and I’ve regretted it every minute since.” At the time, Nora could think of nothing but escaping the scene of poor Mrs. Mounsey’s torment. And the voice she’d heard calling her name had many of the same qualities as her dead husband’s imagined one. She had feared it was only in her mind. Or worse, that hearing him call to her like that meant Pierce was as dead as Lewis. “The voice I heard in Bedlam was so different from Pierce’s normal one.”

“Well, there you have it,” Vesta said. “It couldn’t have been him.”

“But isn’t it likely that he wouldn’t sound like himself after being subjected to torture like Mrs. Mounsey?”

Vesta sat up straight and swung her legs to one side so that her neatly shod feet were planted firmly on the polished hardwood. “Nora, please believe that I want to find Pierce, almost as much as you obviously do. But he is not in Bedlam.”

Nora met her friend’s concerned gaze in the mirror. “We didn’t begin to see all of it.” Even as she said the words, her stomach quaked with that hollowed-out, shaky feeling again. The hospital had horrified her to her marrow. “There are any number of cells in that horrible place where he might be hidden away.”

“He’s not.”

“How can you be so sure?”

“The Duke of Camden has made exhaustive inquiries at Bedlam, and His Grace is satisfied on that point.” Vesta rose and sauntered to the window to look out over the fashionable St. James block. “Trust me, he has resources the likes of which you cannot imagine.”

“I can imagine quite a lot.”

“Not this, my dear. In a way, I’m relieved that we have eliminated the place,” Vesta said. “We must be thankful that wherever Pierce is, it cannot be worse than Bedlam.”

“But not knowing where he is, is likely to make me lunatic enough to land in hospital myself.” He was all she could think of. She’d even tried to beg off when Benedick sent the request for her to come to him, which she’d never done before. He wrote back, saying unless she was physically ill, he expected her presence and full attention. She wondered how she’d manage to pretend interest in Lord Albemarle’s troubles. There was simply no room for anyone else. Pierce filled her completely.

Had it really only been a little over a month since she met him at Albemarle’s soiree? Their first kiss at the opera rushed back to her. It was unlike any kiss she’d ever experienced, more honest, more true. Pierce had marked her then, she realized. She’d never be free of him, though she really ought to make sure he was free of her. Once he was safe, she must steel herself to let him go so he could find someone more worthy than her to love.

Nora laid down the brush and shook her head. “I didn’t accept his proposal, Vesta.”

“Pierce asked you to marry him?” The shock in her voice would have been insulting if not for the fact that Nora agreed with her. There was no reason for a viscount to wed a courtesan when he might reasonably keep her for the right price and then bid her adieu when he tired of her and she was no longer useful. “I must say I’m surprised. Pierce Langdon is a very private man. To allow you into his life as his wife, well, this is a far more daunting commitment on his part than the wedding vows are to most men.”

“Oh, so you know about his ability to hear the thoughts of others, too?”

Vesta blanched beneath her artful makeup. “He may have mentioned something about that particular fancy in passing. No doubt he was shining us on. I gave it no heed.”

“I didn’t either at first, but now I’m convinced it’s true. The man knows me, Vesta. He knows me inside out. And even that didn’t keep him from proposing.” Nora buried her face in her hands. “Do you suppose that’s why he left us at Albion Abbey? What have I done?”

Vesta hurried over and smoothed down Nora’s curls with a surprisingly motherly hand.

“Oh, my dear,” she said to Nora’s reflection in the mirror. “There’s no sense fretting over what you’ve done in the past. All any of us have power over is our present.”

“And what we’ll do in the future,” Nora said pensively.

“Assuredly. Tomorrow will seem brighter. You’ll see.”

Nora took leave to doubt it.

Honora…

She closed her eyes as the memory of his voice shivered over her. This time she knew it wasn’t real, but no matter what the Duke of Camden said, she’d swear on a stack of bibles that reached to the moon that she’d heard Pierce call her name at Bedlam.

She feathered the tip of her finger across her bottom lip. Pierce’s kiss still lingered there.

That night at the opera when their lips had first met, the repertory company had been singing Beethoven’s Fidelio. The story of the faithful wife who pretended to be a lad so she could search for her missing husband in prison scrolled across Nora’s mind.

She could do that.

She could go back to Bedlam, not as Lady Nora, a well-heeled visitor willing to pay for the privilege of gawking at the unfortunates, but as someone who was looking for work of any kind. Once she was in, she’d be able to search for Pierce in a more thorough way. She had to know for certain. She’d go batty if she didn’t. If only she could screw her courage to act.

Her plans spilled out her mouth before she thought better of them.

“Oh, Nora, don’t. It’s reckless in the extreme,” Vesta said. “Please reconsider.”

“No, my mind’s made up.” Speaking her plan aloud cemented it in her mind. Now she had to do something irreversible to put it into motion. She rang the bellpull for Mr. Whittles. When he appeared at her door, she asked him to bring the sharpest pair of scissors in the house.

“Honestly, dear, are you sure you want to pattern your behavior after something you saw at the opera?” Vesta said, twining her beringed fingers in consternation. “Everybody tends to die by the time the last curtain falls in those things, you know.”

Her butler arrived with the shears she’d requested.

“Mr. Whittles, I haven’t time to write a note. Please take a message to Lord Albemarle.”

“Me, my lady?”

“Yes, I don’t want you to send a footman. This is important enough for you to go yourself. Give Lord Albemarle my apologies, and tell his lordship that I am indisposed. I will not be joining him this evening…or any other evening for the next fortnight. Off you go.”

Whittles didn’t voice his disapproval. He was too well trained for that, but his tight-lipped expression spoke volumes. After a quick bow, the butler left.

“Oh, my dear, was that wise?” Vesta said. “We are businesswomen, you and I. You’re likely to upset your patron with that faradiddle. One look at you and anyone can see that you’re not ill.”

“Yes, I am. I’m sick at heart. And I’ll prove it.” Nora lifted a long lock and cut it off close to her scalp before she lost her nerve. Her pinkish skin showed through the dark stubble. There was no going back now. “I’ll cut my hair and pass as a young man, just like Leonore in Fidelio. Everyone dies at the opera, you say. I say, if I don’t find Pierce, I may as well be dead already.”

…

The clack of footsteps outside his cell warned Pierce that someone was coming. He hurriedly replaced the flagstone he’d dislodged from under his chamber pot and returned the stinking vessel to its place.

For the past couple of days, he’d been using the handle of his spoon to scrape out mortar around the stone to reveal a narrow void under the flooring. Once he found Lord Albemarle’s letters to Dr. Falco, he’d need a place to hide them until he could make good his escape. He couldn’t chance tucking them into his pocket. If he were taken to the water chair again, the orderlies who stripped him would find the missives for sure.

All that remained was to win free of his cell. Thanks to being able to eavesdrop on his doctors when they thought he was insensible, he’d been working toward that end. All he had to do was continue to show no “improvement,” and the quack would give up treating him. His doctor seemed near to throwing in the towel.

Pierce scrambled back to the worm-eaten pallet that served as his bed and lay on his side in a fetal position.

“Good morning, Mr. Mycroft,” the doctor said as he and the orderly Dodsworth entered. “How are we feeling today?”

Pierce made a few sounds, taking care that none of them should remotely resemble actual words.

The doctor shook his head and labored over his notebook for a moment. “Remove his hood. Take Mr. Mycroft to the ground floor and release him into the general population.”

“You want I should move him to the west wing, Doc?”

“No, no. Too many changes at once might be unsettling. Return him to this chamber by night for a week. We’ll see how he does. Perhaps he can be moved to a room above ground after that.”

The doctor jotted another line or two while Dodsworth grunted with the effort of getting Pierce on his feet. Pierce saw no need to help him overmuch and went limp as a dishrag.

“Oh, and in case I don’t see Dr. Falco before he makes rounds, please tell him I have ordered all treatment for Mr. Mycroft stopped. This includes the good doctor’s experiments with Myconia Fantasma.”

Dodsworth propped Pierce against the wall. He promptly slid down, settling with his knees under his chin. Dodsworth scratched his head, which sent his resident lice scurrying, and turned back to the doctor. “Dr. Falco won’t like that, nary a bit. He says on account of them mushrooms, Mycroft here was near to what you call a breakthrough.”

“More like a breakdown. Look at him, Dodsworth. The man is a jellyfish with feet. Not that I fault my esteemed colleague. No indeed,” the doctor was quick to add. “Dr. Falco has done his best. No, I blame that interfering Duke of Camden. If he hadn’t demanded we release Lord Westfa—but that’s neither here nor there. For better or worse, our Mr. Mycroft will be with us from now on.”

“Till he leaves in a pine box,” Dodsworth said with a laugh as he jerked Pierce to his feet and frog-marched him out of the cell and up the stairs. He deposited him in the main hall and left Pierce to his own devices among the pitiful flotsam of other inmates who wandered to and fro.

Though he was beyond relieved to be free of the hood and his cell, Pierce kept his eyes downcast for a good ten minutes. For one thing, he was unused to the brightness of the aboveground world. For another, he hoped to effectively disappear from anyone’s notice before he started to move.

Meg Anthony had told him Lord Albemarle’s incriminating letters were in Dr. Falco’s desk in his office on the third floor. She’d even drawn out a crude map of the place so he knew exactly where to go. He retraced the route in his mind. The trick would be to arrive there unnoticed, slip in and snag the letters, then make it out and back down to his basement cell without being stopped or searched. If the doctor kept to his plan not to relocate Pierce to another wing right away, he’d have only a week to find a way over the wall.

All while keeping up the appearance of making no improvement in his mental state.

He was careful to keep his mental shield raised. If he lowered it now, the diseased minds parading past him would engulf him entirely. It was bad enough that he could hear and—merciful God!—smell them.

His time spent floating with Dr. Falco’s mushroom seemed to have left him with heightened senses. He wished the effect had dulled him instead. A whisper was like a shout. The most muted color seemed brilliant. And the other patients. They made him ponder what a wonder the human body was, how fitly joined, how godlike in its strength and beauty. And how foul it became when it was left untended.

Finally, he deemed it safe to rise and join the shuffling throng of other lunatics in aimless wandering for a bit. It helped him unkink his legs to walk farther. For the whole time he’d been at Bedlam his only exercise had been pacing his small cell or being dragged down the dank corridor to the water chair. When he started up a staircase, he was surprised to find he was winded by the time he reached the first landing.

Above him, he heard a pair of angry voices. One put him in the mind of a bull standing at stud, while the other was shriller but no less full of fury.

“Empty all the pots on this level before you skip to the next, boy. Then, mind you, mop the floors. And make sure they’re clean or I’ll make you eat off them.” Dodsworth was the one bellowing orders. Pierce couldn’t make out the other person’s words, but the boy was clearly sassing the big orderly. Then there was a clatter of buckets and mop handles and a loud thump.

Pierce used the distraction to slip around the landing that looked down that corridor but he managed a peek as he did. Dodsworth had laid the lad out. He was prone in a puddle of wash water, scrabbling to rise. Dodsworth laughed and headed back toward the staircase.

“Stay down,” Pierce advised the lad in a whisper as he moved stealthily upward.

And promised himself that he’d find a way to make Dodsworth pay before he left Bedlam. Not for what the orderly had done to him, but for the way he terrorized everyone under him, patients and workers alike, in this horrible place.

Then, as he continued to climb, he found he needed something to bolster his flagging energy, so he said her name, the sweetest word ever to cross his tongue.

“Honora.”

It gave him strength.