Uncle Jarvis sighed as if he were disappointed in her. “Really, my dear, this is all your own fault. You must see that. Naturally I predicted you’d balk at a match with Godfrey—indeed, that was why I chose him—but I confess it never occurred to me you’d react so violently, orpublicly. But as I said, you’ve made it all quite easy for me.”
The thick press of bile burned Lucy’s throat as Uncle Jarvis revealed the depths to which he’d sunk to steal her fortune.
He’d never intended to marry her to Lord Godfrey at all. It had been a ploy to push her to extreme behavior—expose her to the notice and censure of theton, so he’d be justified in declaring her insane. He’d planned to lock her up in a madhouse from the very start, and she…
She’d foolishly played right into his hands.
Uncle Jarvis gave a mournful shake of his head. “I explained to Dr. Willis the care I took to find you an advantageous match, only to be faced with your flagrant disobedience. Really, Lucinda. What sane young lady balks at becoming a countess?”
Panic rushed through Lucy, making her dizzy. “Plenty of sane young ladies would balk at becoming Lord Godfrey’s countess!”
Uncle Jarvis went on as if she hadn’t spoken. “But what really alarmed me, as I explained to Dr. Willis, is your unnatural fixation on Mr. Ramsey. I told him I was afraid it would lead you to do something rash, and you see, I was right. To leave your uncle’s kind protection and throw yourself on the mercy of a rake like Ramsey!” Another shake of the head. “Wantonness in a female is a sure sign of madness.”
Lucy collapsed against the seat, her chest tightening at mention of Ciaran’s name. What must he have thought when he returned to the inn and found her gone? Would he suspect her uncle had snatched her away, or would he think she’d left on her own? What if she were locked away forever, and never saw him again? He’d think she’d left him, abandoned him.
Despair washed over Lucy, but she faced her uncle with her chin raised. “He’ll come after me. He’ll find out what you’ve done, and he’ll follow us.”
“Oh, I hope not. He has a bit of a temper, that one. I wouldn’t want to be on the receiving end of it. That’s why I took care no one should know anything about my plans. Not your aunt, and not Eloisa. Certainly not Mr. Ramsey. They’ll be distressed when they find you gone, of course, but they won’t have the first idea where to look for you.”
She couldn’t breathe. Her lungs were folding, collapsing. The darkness of the carriage pressed in on her, and her fists opened and closed helplessly. She darted a glance at the carriage door. If she could get it open before Uncle Jarvis knew what she was about, she could—
“That’s not a wise choice, Lucinda.” Uncle Jarvis clamped a hand down on her arm with a mirthless laugh. “Even if you land in one piece, where do you suppose you’d go? Now, be a good girl and stay where you are. We’re here.”
Lucy hadn’t noticed the carriage had slowed. She pressed her face to the glass as the coachman made a turn, and her heart rushed into her throat. They were driving up a long, tree-lined road, at the end of which loomed a massive, gray stone building. A trio of arches graced the ground floor entryway, atop which stood a columned portico. Two giant wings were attached to the main building, with endless rows of windows looking onto the drive below.
Lucy shrank into a corner of the carriage, as far away from that forbidding place as she could get, but it did her no good. As soon as they stopped her uncle seized her arm and pulled her out of the carriage and onto the drive.
“Now, my dear niece. You can come along quietly, or I can have Bexley here take your other arm, and we’ll drag you inside.” Uncle Jarvis nodded at the coachman, who stared down at Lucy, his face utterly expressionless.
Lucy was painfully aware it would only make her look more of a lunatic if she forced them to drag her. She opened her mouth to say she’d go quietly when her gaze fell on the brown bottle lying on its side on Uncle Jarvis’s seat. Desperation cleared the haze in her mind, and in its wake rose an idea, sharp and blindingly clear.
If she kicked up a fuss, they might decide to dose her again to keep her quiet. Once they did…well, even madwomen succumbed to laudanum, didn’t they? All she need do then was stage a strategic collapse, and they wouldn’t expect much more trouble from her. After all, how much havoc could one unconscious madwoman raise?
Except it wasn’t laudanum, and she wouldn’t be unconscious. On the contrary, she was beginning to feel quite alert, indeed.
Her mind made up, Lucy launched into a fit that would have put the maddest Bedlamite to shame. There was a great deal of screaming, kicking, and squirming on her part, and scrambling and cursing on Bexley’s and Uncle Jarvis’s. Bexley leapt from the box into the carriage, fetched the brown bottle, and held her down while her uncle forced her to swallow such a deep draught Lucy suspected it might have killed her had it truly been laudanum.
She didn’t waste any time afterward, but fell into a such a determined swoon her uncle was forced to carry her up the stairs to the entrance of Oakwood Asylum.
Through a narrow slit in her eyelids Lucy saw a gentleman waiting for them there. Dr. Willis—or so she assumed him to be—cast her a pitying look, and instructed several large, raw-knuckled nurses to take her to an upstairs chamber while he consulted with her uncle.
Quicker than a breath, Lucy was half-dragged, half-carried up three flights of stairs and deposited on a bed in the corner of a chilly, sparsely furnished room. The nurses didn’t linger, but left her there alone. She flinched at the metallic click of the lock, but as soon as their footsteps faded she scrambled up from the bed and darted toward the window.
The locked door didn’t trouble her. She could free herself easily enough with one of the dozens of hairpins in her hair.
The vast emptiness outside the window was another matter.
She could see a good distance from her vantage point, but not a light glimmered in the pressing darkness. The good people of Kent must prefer to keep those afflicted with madness at a distance, because the Oakwood Asylum was as remote a place as Lucy had ever encountered. She’d been groggy still when they passed through Maidstone, but she calculated it must be five or more miles away.
She could pick the lock on the bedchamber door, sneak down the corridors, and gain the entryway, but once she escaped into the night, where could she go? She wasn’t such a fool as to think her uncle would take her sudden absence lightly. She wouldn’t get far before he came after her and dragged her back here, and it would prove far more difficult to escape a second time.
No, if she were going to flee, she had to make certain she’d get away.
And get away she would, no matter what it took. Lucy bit her lip, the last of her panic dissipating as she considered and then discarded various escape scenarios.
There was a thick line of trees on either side of the drive. They’d hide her well enough until she was out of sight of the asylum, but which direction should she take when she reached the end of the drive? If she did manage to make it to Maidstone, what then? She hadn’t a single shilling in her pockets, or even a cloak to—
What in the world?
