Jaw taut, Knight nodded. “She’s likely the one behind the ‘accident’.”
“But why would she target me?” Fancy asked.
“Dr. Erlenmeyer says there’s no rhyme or reason to it. The last time Miss Smith escaped, she began stalking a lady she spotted at a milliner’s. She probably saw you when you were out shopping—the doctor and his men said she migrates to Bond Street—and the voices in her head told her you were her next victim.”
“To think, that wretched woman may have been spying on us when we were at Madame Rousseau’s.” Shuddering, Aunt Esther gave Fancy’s hand a pat. “At least this dreadful business is over. It is, isn’t it, Knighton?”
“I believe so,” he said quietly.
The truth struck Fancy. “Then the danger…it had nothing to do with my past?”
“It would seem that the attacks were unrelated to your origins,” Knight confirmed. “You were just a victim of bad luck, attracting the notice of a madwoman.”
She expelled a breath. “I don’t know whether or not to feel relieved.”
“I, for one, am definitely relieved that the threat is over,” Aunt Esther declared. “We will once again be able to circulate in Society without murder and mayhem hanging over our heads.”
“Does that mean we can stop being hermits?” Cecily asked brightly.
“Not until I pay a visit to Dr. Erlenmeyer tomorrow,” Knight said in flat tones. “I will not rest easy until I know that Anna Smith is securely confined and no longer poses a threat to my wife or my family.”
The next morning, Severin travelled to Brookfield Asylum. Fancy had wanted to come, but he had drawn the line at his wife visiting the woman who’d tried to kill her. He refused to expose Fancy to such darkness…and didn’t want her there when he had to confront his demons.
For he was no stranger to madhouses. From the ages of fourteen to twenty, he’d visited hismamanin Bedlam. He knew what to expect and braced himself.
In some ways, Brookfield was superior to Bedlam. Situated on the bucolic outskirts of Highgate, a village just north of London, the asylum was smaller, cleaner, the manicured grounds surrounded by a tall stone wall that managed to look decorative even though its function was to keep the residents in. The main building was flanked by two smaller wings, the elegant architecture marred by the barred windows and padlocked doors. As Severin passed through the front entrance, he heard a pitiful wail that knotted his stomach.
Dr. Erlenmeyer was waiting for him. The daylight revealed the milky translucence of the Austrian doctor’s skin, the tracery of veins beneath. His sandy hair was combed in thin lines over his balding pate, and his pale blue eyes were bloodshot in his narrow face. The hand he extended to shake Severin’s was hairless and smooth.
“Welcome to Brookfield, Your Grace,” Erlenmeyer said. “It was unnecessary, however, for you to make the trip. I assure you that I have Miss Smith well in hand.”
“Nonetheless, I would like to see for myself,” Severin said.
“Follow me, then.”
Erlenmeyer led the way through doors that he unlocked with a key. Inside the ward, rooms sprung from an arterial corridor, each containing two cots rather than the ten or more that had been crammed into the dungeon Severin’smamanhad occupied in Bedlam. Yet both madhouses shared a particular smell: boiled food mingled with caustic lye and urine. The odor of misery seeped from the brick and mortar, the very bones of a prison for the mad.
They arrived at a small, spartan cell. Severin looked at the woman lying on the single cot. The manacle on her ankle kept her chained to the bed. She was wearing a white jacket with ties that bound her arms to her chest; she looked like one of the mummies on display at the British Museum. Her eyes were lifeless, her tongue lolling and saliva trickling out of her mouth.
Severin couldn’t stop the flood of memories: his own mother bound in similar restraints. Her glassy eyes, rambling words, and frothing obscenities. Even worse had been her flashes of lucidity, when suffering had bled over her worn features.
Severin, forgive me. I didn’t mean to hurt you,she’d wept.
Pain raked his insides. He had told her time and again that he’d forgiven her—that he knew she hadn’t meant to attack him. Bleeding in the street, he had begged the constables not to take her away. In the end, he was the one who had failed her. He hadn’t been able to ease her anguish or get her out of Bedlam…until it was too late.
She had died in that hellhole, alone and afraid.
“As you can see, Miss Smith poses no risk,” Erlenmeyer said brusquely.
Concentrate, Severin told himself.
Tamping down the swirling chaos, he asked, “How did she come into your care?”
“After her first attack on an unwitting victim, she was apprehended and found insane,” Erlenmeyer said in precise accents. “As I have experience working with violent patients, it was deemed that she would benefit from my care. My hospital receives funding from generous benefactors to carry out its good works, even for destitute lunatics like Miss Smith.”
“By good works, you mean you keep her chained and drugged,” Severin said.
“We have to keep Miss Smith sedated.” Erlenmeyer drew himself up, his tone defensive. “She is otherwise a danger to herself and others. There is no other way, Your Grace.”
