To Love the Brooding Baron

TWENTY-FOUR

TWENTY-FOUR

Henry navigated his horse through the busy streets of Southwark just south of the Thames. The ride hadn’t been overly long, but it was warm, with a heavy dampness in the air that added to the perspiration dripping down the back of his neck.

A letter from Dr. Stafford had arrived that morning, asking him to come to the new Bedlam, where Sarah had been transferred earlier in the week. At long last, the time had come to determine his and his sister’s fate.

The moment the new hospital came into view, Henry waited for that impending feeling of dread. The fear had nearly choked him the last time he went to Guy’s Hospital, but this time something was different. His heart still knocked an unsettling rhythm, but now he wasn’t a man driven by just hope; he was also a man driven by love.

He loved Arabella.

He’d experienced glimpses of what a life with her would be like, and he wanted that life. He wanted the same happiness for his sister.

Directing his horse down the gravel drive toward the front iron gate of Bedlam, Henry slowed his pace. The same two haunting statues from the old Bedlam, one of a man writhing in chains and the other man lying in a relaxed state, had been placed on square pillars on either side of the gate.

Despite his resolve for hope, a chill skittered down his spine. Of all the wretched things to have survived that place ...

Behind the iron gate and surrounding wall, the grand Portland stone building stood three stories high with windows running along the entire length. It was a far cry nicer, and much larger, than its predecessor, with roofs and walls that didn’t look as if they might topple over in the next gale. He only hoped it was more than a pretense for how it looked on the inside.

Dismounting, Henry tossed a coin to the stableboy who’d run up to collect his horse. The lad snatched it out of the air and beamed when he saw it was more than a simple farthing.

Henry reached out and tousled the boy’s unruly hair, freeing several bits of straw from the dark strands. “See that he gets fresh water.” He nodded to his horse. “And there will be another coin in it for you when I return.”

The boy’s smile widened as he vigorously nodded. Taking the reins from Henry, he turned to leave with the horse but stopped short and stared at something behind Henry.

Looking over his shoulder, Henry followed the boy’s gaze. A man on a horse had stopped in the center of the busy gravel drive, forcing others to go around him. He was staring at Henry and the boy, and then he briefly glanced at the building before he kicked his horse and rode away.

“Does that happen often?” Henry asked. Something about the way the man watched them unsettled him.

“Aye, seen it a few times. Some folks do love a gawk. But nobody ever sees nothin’. The only times I ever do is when they’re walkin’ in the front gardens.” The boy pointed a bony finger over the solid wall Henry still needed to cross to get to the hospital.

“Gardens?” Henry asked, deciding to disregard the incident. He’d more pressing concerns than a random rider who was looking for something to see.

“Aye, airing grounds I thinks they calls ’em. Big, open lawn with lots of trees.”

Henry was relieved to hear the new hospital governors and doctors were seeing to the patients’ privacy and care. It was a far cry from the governors at old Bedlam, who sold tickets so spectators could tour the patients like animals in cages.

Thanking the boy, Henry climbed the few stone steps to the iron gate and crossed into the courtyard that led to the front doors of the new Bedlam.

Once inside, he was greeted by a nurse and, once again, admitted simply by giving his name. This time, however, there were no doors or locks, but a single corridor that led to a private study at the front of the hospital. The nurse asked him to wait there while she went in search of the doctor.

Taking in the room, Henry determined rather quickly that Dr. Stafford was nothing like his grandmother. The old matron seemed to take enjoyment in overwhelming her guests with decoration, while Dr. Stafford would underwhelm them. There was only one painting on the wall, and a single shelf of books stood on the opposite wall near a window. A desk and chair sat near the center of the room, with two more chairs facing it. The window brought in the majority of the light, and a single candle, almost burned down to the nub, sat atop a stack of papers and old ledgers with cracked and stained leather bindings.

Knowing he wouldn’t be able to sit in a chair and wait, Henry moved to the window. He stared out into an expansive lawn enclosed by a wall and rows of trees. It had to be one of the airing grounds the boy had mentioned, though it was currently empty of any patients. He wished he could’ve found Sarah out walking; it would’ve helped free him of the memory of her being nothing but a shell of herself.

He didn’t know how long he stood there, but eventually he heard the doorknob turn, and Dr. Stafford walked in.

“Forgive me; I was held up with a patient,” Dr. Stafford said, shutting the door behind him. “Shall we sit?”

“I would rather stand,” Henry replied. He moved to the chairs in front of the desk and gripped the back of one to try to stop his hands from shaking.

Heaven for once help him, this visit needed to go better than the last. He’d had a taste of what a future with Arabella would be like, and he didn’t want to lose it. He doubted he’d ever get enough.

“As you wish,” Dr. Stafford said, his eyes looking toward Henry’s hand.

Henry silently cursed; the man was far too observant.

Or your control is slipping, the voice inside his head whispered.

Henry moved his hands behind his back. No matter what happened, he needed to remain in control.

Dr. Stafford moved to stand behind his desk and pulled out two old ledgers from beneath the stack of papers. “I imagine you want to get straight to the point?”

“How is my sister?” Henry asked.

“She is settling in,” he replied. “The airing grounds have been good for her.”

Henry nodded. “They are a good addition.”

“Thank you,” Dr. Stafford replied. “They are one of many things I am hoping to see changed.”

“Many things?” Henry asked, curious.

Dr. Stafford didn’t immediately reply. Instead, he studied Henry, as if contemplating whether to trust him with something.

“What I am about to tell you,” he began, sliding the ledgers across the desk toward Henry, “can go no further than this room.”

Henry nodded, not wanting to hold on to another secret, while also knowing he had no choice.

“When I told you I had been called away by the Crown, what do you think it was for?” he asked.

“To help treat the king,” Henry replied.

Dr. Stafford slowly shook his head, his eyes watching Henry carefully. “I was not. I was reporting to the Home Office.”

“The Home Office?” Henry repeated. As a member of Parliament, he’d had some briefings with the group whose purpose it was to keep law and order by investigating conspiracies or rebellions. But he’d never heard about any investigations involving Bedlam.

Dr. Stafford nodded.

“What are you investigating?” Henry asked.

“Corruption.”

Henry shook his head, not understanding. The corruption had been stopped when Parliament removed the old governors and negotiated the building of the new Bedlam.

“You should see this,” Dr. Stafford said, opening one of the two ledgers and pointing to a spot on one of the pages. “It’s a record of patients admitted and discharged.”

Henry walked closer to the desk and leaned over the stained and ink-spattered page. He saw his sister’s name written in one of the rows, next to the date she was admitted. It matched the day his aunt told him his sister had been taken away. He hadn’t even been given the chance to say goodbye.

Instead of a discharge date was the word “Incurable.”

He swallowed against the lump in his throat, and he tried to remember Arabella’s voice, telling him to have hope.

“I already know all this,” Henry said.

“That is not what I am trying to show you.” He slid the ledger closer to Henry. “Do you see this small symbol here?” He pointed to a spot after the word “Incurable” that Henry had mistaken as a splatter of ink.

Looking closer, Henry recognized the distinct outline of a spade, like the one found on a gaming card.

“What does it mean? Is it found anywhere else?” Henry asked, scanning the rest of the names for the symbol. There were none on that page, but after flipping through a few pages, he found two more. One of the surnames he recognized as a prominent family from the aristocracy, though the other he didn’t.

“For some time now, I have suspected that members of British nobility have been paying corrupt governors and doctors to lock away their unwanted relatives.” Dr. Stafford crossed his arms over his chest. “Regardless of whether they truly have an incurable condition.”

Henry’s gut clenched, and he shook his head while bile rose in his throat. The spade on a gaming card represented nobility. He grabbed the ledger and checked the two patients’ discharge dates. Both read “Incurable.”

If this was true, that would mean that his aunt—

He couldn’t finish the thought.

No, she couldn’t be capable of something so vile. She lived her entire life for her family.

Not your family, the voice whispered.

Henry was going to be sick.

“Do you have the ledger with my mother’s information?” Henry asked, needing to see everything that had been kept from him for so long.

Dr. Stafford retrieved a much older and much more haggard ledger, opening to a premarked page. “This is the day you were told she was admitted?”

Henry checked the date and nodded. He was haunted by that date just as much as he was haunted by the day of his father’s death and the day his uncle was murdered.

Scanning the surnames, he ran his finger all the way to the bottom of the page, but “Northcott” wasn’t on the list. He looked to Dr. Stafford, his stomach twisting into another unsettling knot. What was going on?

There was no mistaking his mother was mad. He’d been inside the house the night she’d murdered his uncle. He’d heard his mother’s sickening laughter and his aunt’s screams. His mother had to be inside that book.

“Your mother was French?” Dr. Stafford asked.

Henry nodded.

“Do you know her parents’ surname?”

It took Henry a moment to remember; he hadn’t heard it since he was a boy. “Dubois,” he finally answered. He checked the surnames again and found it low on the page.

“V. Dubois,” Henry whispered aloud. Vivian Dubois.

His aunt must’ve stripped the Northcott name from his mother. He checked the date of her death, and it matched what his aunt had told him. He’d been sixteen and had struggled with the shame that he shouldn’t—and didn’t—cry for his dead mother.

“How would my sister come to have the spade?” Henry asked. If his aunt had the ability to make arrangements for his mother, she must’ve been able to arrange Sarah’s diagnosis. Though why his aunt would want to be rid of Sarah, he didn’t know.

“I suspect your aunt met the right people in order to both avoid a public trial and have your mother committed.”

Henry wished he could deny his aunt’s involvement in such a scheme, but recent events had opened his eyes to her manipulative ways. But why would she lock Sarah away?

“Was my sister truly mad when she was admitted?” Henry asked.

“I cannot answer that. I did not come to know her until years later,” Dr. Stafford replied. “But what I can say is that I believe your sister was not left unaffected from what happened during her childhood.”

“What do you mean?” Henry asked, his shoulders tense. He needed to understand for his sister and himself. Could this be the answer he was looking for? Could he be cured of the voice inside his head?

“I mean that, much like our soldiers who are coming home affected by the war, your sister—and even yourself—did not leave childhood unscathed.”

“My childhood was nothing like a war,” Henry replied, not understanding. His father’s gambling and his mother’s hysterics couldn’t be compared to the atrocities of war.

“No, not exactly. But you both experienced sudden and sometimes violent changes to your lives, as well as a lot of deaths, one of them quite horrific. I have treated patients afflicted from less traumatic situations.”

Henry took a shaky breath, and the tension in his shoulders clawed its way up his neck. He should tell Dr. Stafford about the voice. The very thought twisted into a sickening knot inside his stomach. If the doctor believed there was hope for Sarah, there had to be hope for him. But could he trust him?

“I need to see my sister,” Henry said. If he could actually see the hope Dr. Stafford had in Sarah, then Henry could trust him.

“Of course,” Dr. Stafford said, but he didn’t move to the door. “There is one more thing I must tell you about your mother.”

“What is it?” Henry asked, his head beginning to hurt.

“There is no other proof of her ever having been inside the old Bedlam. I never found a doctor’s note or a nurse’s log. Nothing. All I have is the record of the day she was committed and the day of her death.”

“Could the records have been lost due to the dilapidated condition of the old hospital?” The knot in Henry’s stomach grew.

“It is possible,” Dr. Stafford replied. “But I find that highly suspicious. Your sister was only admitted six months later, and I was able to find information on her.” He paused and took a deep breath. “If you want my opinion, it is as if someone wanted your mother completely scrubbed from existence.”

Henry’s mind flashed to his family’s portrait that had been taken down and then to how his aunt had been fighting for him to leave the past alone.

She was trying to hide all of this. But there had to be more.

“I will send for your sister,” Dr. Stafford said, snapping Henry from his thoughts.

Henry nodded, his temples pounding from the mess of it all.

Dr. Stafford stepped from the room, though Henry could hear him speaking about Sarah to a nurse just outside the door. Henry finally took a seat, propping his elbows on his knees and leaning forward until his head rested in his hands. What he wouldn’t give to hear Arabella’s soothing voice, to feel her comforting touch.

He heard the door open, and Dr. Stafford stepped back into the room. Henry slowly sat up, his legs unsteady.

“I know this is jarring,” the doctor said with a gentle tone that Henry found almost grating. The last thing he wanted was pity. “But—”

His words were cut off by the shrieking voice that had been torturing Henry inside his home for the past week. His aunt had somehow found him.

One might think she had someone following you, the voice whispered.

The rider from earlier. Of course. He cursed himself for continuing to underestimate his aunt.

“Is he in here? Henry?” his aunt’s voice demanded, her footsteps hurried and clacking against the polished marble floor.

The door to Dr. Stafford’s study burst open, and his aunt stormed inside. “I demand you stop this at once,” she said, pointing a finger at Henry. Her entire body shook with her rage, and her eyes burned like the devil’s flame.

“Or what?” Henry snapped. His nerves hummed to the point that his hands were visibly shaking, and he had to work for every heaving breath. He was losing control.

“Lady Northcott, if you would give us a moment,” Dr. Stafford said, holding his hands up and slowly moving between them. His tone was calm, but there was alarm in the doctor’s eyes.

Henry clenched his fists, his short nails stabbing into his palms as he tried to regain control.

“No,” his aunt snapped. “I will not leave. Not until—”

Her words were cut off as Sarah rushed through the door, her eyes quickly taking in the occupants of the room.

“What is going on?” Nurse Maggie asked in alarm as she followed after Sarah.

“You!” his aunt screeched with hatred.

Sarah let out a vicious scream of her own, and they lunged for one another, landing in a heap of flailing skirts and arms, yelling and scratching.

Henry moved to separate them, but Dr. Stafford and Nurse Maggie were faster and pulled Sarah off his aunt.

Henry knelt by his aunt. She lay on her back on the floor, her hair almost completely ripped free of its pins. Three distinct red marks ran down one of her cheeks.

She clutched his arm, terrified. “Do you see what I tried to protect this family from?” she ground out through gritted teeth. “Now do you see?”

Henry was completely numb. His sister had just attacked his aunt. That wasn’t the hope he’d been looking for. None of this was.

“Take me home,” his aunt demanded, her eyes glaring.

Henry glanced over his shoulder and found Dr. Stafford with his arms wrapped protectively around Sarah, who was shaking and crying. Nurse Maggie was at her side, running her hands through her hair, whispering something into her ear.

“Take your aunt home,” Dr. Stafford said, though Henry wanted to go to his sister.

But the doctor was right. He needed to deal with his aunt first, and then he’d decide what was to be done about his and Sarah’s futures.