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She paused, regarding him seriously. ‘Not too mad today, thank you very much.’
Robert felt as though he’d been transported to another world. He had no idea how to talk to this young woman. She didn’t seem mad, at least not at first glance, but he wasn’t exactly an expert.
‘Are you going to hurt me?’ she asked as if enquiring about the weather.
Robert looked at her carefully. Underneath her uninterested demeanour he realised she was scared. Petrified, even.
‘I promise I’m not going to hurt you,’ he said sincerely.
She relaxed a little. ‘Have you brought any food?’ she asked.
Robert wondered how she’d gone from violence to food so quickly. His confusion must have shown on his face.
‘When people come in it’s either to hurt me or bring me food,’ she said calmly.
Robert Fleetwood, hardened soldier and celebrated war hero, felt his heart go out to this scared young woman. In that instant he vowed silently to help her. Even if she wasn’t the Louisa Turnhill he was looking for, he would make sure she was properly looked after, somewhere a long way from Lewisham Asylum.
‘Will you tell me how you came to be here, Louisa?’ Robert asked.
She stood, the chain attached to her wrist jangling as she moved. He saw she was thin—a year of asylum food didn’t seem to provide much nourishment. Her hair was long and straggly, falling most of the way down her back. There were bruises on the pale skin of her arms and dark circles under her eyes. She was in a poor state, but despite all of this Robert saw the spirit burning in her eyes as she watched him look over her. In her time at the asylum they hadn’t broken her.
She came and sat on the bed next to him, making sure there was as much distance as possible between them.
‘There’s no point,’ she said, turning her face towards him, ‘you wouldn’t believe me anyway.’
It was said with such certainty that Robert knew he had to hear her story. He wondered if she was deluded, whether she would tell him a different tale if he came back tomorrow.
‘I might,’ he said simply.
‘If you stay here overnight, there’s lots of screaming,’ Louisa said. ‘And moaning and shouting. Do you know the most common thing people shout?’
He shook his head.
‘They shout “I’m not mad”—’ she paused ‘—or “I shouldn’t be here”, which is much the same thing.’
Robert couldn’t imagine spending a single night in this hellish place, let alone over four hundred as she must have done.
‘Everyone says it,’ she said with a small smile on her face. ‘But I actually mean it.’
‘You shouldn’t be here?’
‘I’m not mad,’ she said, ‘or at least I wasn’t when they put me in here.’
He didn’t know how to respond. He’d expected howling and writhing, he’d been prepared for that—this cool, detached statement of sanity he didn’t know how to react to.
‘I probably am a little bit mad now. Anyone would be after a few months in this place.’
She looked at him and Robert got the sensation she was assessing him, weighing up whether he was worth revealing more to.
‘I said you wouldn’t believe me.’
‘What happened?’ Robert asked simply, not trusting himself to say more. He got the feeling this strange young woman was very astute—she’d know if he lied to her.
‘You actually want to know?’
‘I want to know.’
‘I had an evil guardian,’ she said, then giggled. ‘Your face is a picture.’
Robert hadn’t realised he’d moved a muscle.
‘My evil guardian locked me up here after I refused to marry him. Lecherous old sod.’
Sometimes she sounded so normal, so sane, but Robert knew there were some lunatics like that. So caught up in their fantasy world they could make others believe it was true.
‘He wanted the money my parents had left to me. When I wouldn’t give it to him through marriage, he bribed a doctor to certify I was insane and dumped me here. I should imagine he’s worked his way through most of the money by now. Not that it’s any use to me in here.’
Robert knew he shouldn’t believe her. He knew he was probably being manipulated, conned into believing her fantasy, but the disbelief in his mind was giving away to horrified realisation.
He’d received a letter eight weeks ago, a confession of sorts. It had been sent the day before his great-uncle had died. In the letter his great-uncle confessed to committing a grave sin and asked Robert to put it right. The only other information the old man had supplied was Louisa’s name.
Surely this wasn’t the sin his great-uncle had talked of. Robbing a young woman of her fortune was one thing, but to rob her of her freedom and label her as insane was worse than murder.
He cursed the man again for not providing more details of his crime.
‘And who was your guardian?’ he asked, trying to make his tone casual even though he was holding his breath in anticipation of her answer.
‘Thomas Craven,’ she said. ‘The name I curse last thing every night and first thing every morning.’
Robert felt the foundations of his world rock. This young woman must have been the ward of his great-uncle, Thomas Craven, otherwise there was no way she could have given him the right name.
When Yates had tracked Louisa down to the asylum, Robert hadn’t known what to expect. He’d wondered if his great-uncle had somehow played a part in this young woman’s descent into madness, maybe by robbing her of her innocence, an event she hadn’t been able to recover from, and for which his great-uncle had rightly blamed himself. No part of him had been prepared for the possibility she’d been wrongly imprisoned for over a year.
‘It’s all right,’ she said, patting him on the hand in a sisterly gesture, ‘you don’t have to believe me.’
Robert stood and paced to the other side of the tiny room, trying to buy himself time to figure out what he believed.
‘I want to take you away from here, Louisa,’ he said eventually. ‘I want to take you somewhere safe whilst I figure out exactly what’s happened.’
Her eyes narrowed suspiciously. Robert surmised she hadn’t had much reason to trust people in the last few years. She wrapped her arms around her body protectively and started to hunch into herself.
‘I promise I won’t hurt you,’ Robert said, kneeling down in front of her and gently taking her hand. ‘I won’t let anyone hurt you ever again.’
She flinched as his skin touched hers, not pulling her hand away, but cowering a little as if she expected him to hit her.
‘Do they beat you here?’ he asked, suddenly catching sight of the bruises on her arms for a second time.
She laughed in disbelief. ‘Of course.’
Robert felt the rage building inside him, rage he thought he’d managed to control for so long. He didn’t know if this young woman was mad or the victim of a very heinous deception, but either way she didn’t deserve to be beaten. She shouldn’t be chained to the wall, frightened of every person who entered her dismal cell. She deserved more than that, every human did.
‘Trust me,’ he said quietly.
Louisa regarded him for almost a minute in silence, staring into his eyes, and Robert felt as though she’d studied his soul. Eventually she gave a small, almost imperceptible nod.
Robert rose to his feet, strode the couple of paces to the door and thumped hard on the wood with his fist.
He waited until he could hear footsteps approaching, then thumped again.
The female warden unlocked the door and stood aside for him to come out.
‘Get me Symes,’ he commanded. ‘And give me the keys to unlock this poor girl’s manacles.’
The warden just stared at him.
‘I said give me your keys,’ he growled in a voice that brooked no argument.
Wordlessly the warden handed over a key, unthreading it from the bunch.
‘Go get Symes,’ he repeated. ‘I’m taking Miss Turnhill away from here.’
‘Very Arthurian,’ Louisa murmured as he unlocked the manacle from around her wrist.
He looked at her, puzzled.
‘My knight in shining armour.’ He saw the smile on her face and humour in her eyes and wondered how anyone could keep from utter despair after spending such a long time in the asylum.
‘What’s going on?’ Symes asked as he blustered in. ‘Lock her back up immediately.’
‘I’m taking Miss Turnhill with me,’ Robert said, ‘and we’re never coming back.’ It was a bit of a dramatic statement, but the whole scene seemed a little farcical to him.
‘You can’t do that,’ Symes said.
‘I’m her legal guardian now, I can choose to do whatever I like. And I choose to take Miss Turnhill away from this dreadful place and into my care.’
With that Robert took Louisa’s hand and tucked it into the crook of his arm. She took a couple of steps forward and stumbled. Robert realised she wasn’t used to walking far and, adding to that the excitement of escape, he wasn’t surprised she was a little overcome. Wanting to make their exit as quickly as possible, he bent his head to Louisa’s ear and dropped his voice so only she could hear.
‘I’m going to carry you,’ he said.
‘You most certainly are not.’
Robert blinked twice in quick succession. Most young ladies wouldn’t give up the chance of being swept into a man’s arms whatever the circumstances.
‘I was dragged into this hellhole, but I will walk out on my own two feet.’
Chapter Two (#ulink_2981172d-bfa1-5292-8d03-b7ba090abaa3)
Louisa stumbled, but only once. She righted herself, held her head high and walked out of Lewisham Asylum for the last time. They could threaten to poke out her eyes and hang her by the neck, but nothing would make her enter that vile place ever again.
‘Where to now?’ she asked, eyeing her saviour with a grin on her face.
He looked down at her with concern. Louisa supposed she probably did look a little mad, dressed in the grey sack of the madhouse, squinting into the sun and grinning like a lunatic. She didn’t care. She was free.
‘My home, perhaps?’ Robert suggested.
She pulled a face. ‘But there’s so much to do. Over a year of things to catch up on. I was thinking a stroll in the park.’
She watched as he tried to hide the horror on his face. She grinned again and waited as it dawned on him that she was teasing.
‘Your home would be lovely,’ she said quietly.
She’d always found it hard to be serious, her natural temperament was carefree and joyous. Even when her parents had died she’d tried to see the positive side to life. In the years she’d dodged her guardian’s unwanted advances she’d almost forgotten how to smile. Then he’d dumped her in the asylum and she’d vowed she would be true to herself, no matter what hardships followed.
Gently Robert helped her up into his carriage. He followed her inside and banged on the roof, signalling for the driver to depart. Louisa watched as the facade of the asylum faded into the distance, then felt her body start to shake. She couldn’t believe she was actually out of that place. She was free. She didn’t know what life held for her now, but surely nothing could be worse than the eight long years with her guardian or the one in the madhouse.
She couldn’t stop the shaking, she felt overwhelmed. She felt the tears start to pour from her eyes and run down her cheeks.
‘It’s all right,’ Robert said soothingly. ‘You’re safe now.’
He moved from his position on the opposite side of the carriage to sit next to her. Gently he took her in his arms and held her. Louisa felt herself stiffen. She wasn’t used to human contact, at least not of the friendly kind. No one had hugged her since her parents had died. Slowly she allowed herself to relax into his arms, soothed by the soft sound of his voice.
‘You’re safe now,’ he repeated over and over again, and for a few moments Louisa allowed herself to believe it.
She wondered what was driving this man. She’d had to trust him in the asylum, she’d have trusted anyone who’d given her the chance to escape, but now she was free she could always try to make her own way. She watched as the carriage slowed slightly and wondered if she would hurt herself too much if she jumped. Being alone in London was a scary thought, but at least she wouldn’t be locked in anywhere. For all she knew this man might be taking her somewhere worse than the asylum.
It was possible, but the rational part of Louisa knew to dismiss the thought. She might not know his motivations, but Louisa’s instincts were that he was a good man. Maybe she would stick with him for a little while, just until she could make plans to be on her own.
Self-consciously Louisa wiped the last few tears from her cheeks and sat upright. As she wriggled free from Robert’s arms she felt strangely bereft. She’d been on her own so long that just that little bit of human contact had been world changing.
‘So what’s the plan?’ Louisa asked. ‘Sell me into slavery? Banish me to work in a travelling fair?’
He was too easy to poke fun at, that was the problem. Robert Fleetwood was a serious man, too serious for a man of his age. She wondered if he’d been in the war. He had a scar running down his left temple that looked as though it had been inflicted by a sword. She supposed it could have been from a duel, but he looked like a soldier. He had that upright bearing, serious mien and a haunted, faraway look in his eyes that suggested he’d left a bit of his soul on the battlefield.
‘You joke a lot,’ he said seriously.
‘I find when you’re incarcerated as a lunatic it helps if you can enjoy the funnier things in life. It does get rather dull otherwise.’
Robert shook his head. ‘It’s not that,’ he said. ‘You use it as your protection.’
Louisa felt stripped, naked. It was as though he’d looked inside her very being and found each and every one of her weaknesses. And he’d only known her for an hour.
‘I meant what I said back there, Louisa,’ he said seriously. ‘I’m not going to hurt you and I won’t let anyone else hurt you either.’
She allowed herself to hope, to dream. It was everything she’d ever wished for during her darkest hours at the asylum. A protector, a rescuer, someone who actually cared about her, but Louisa knew it was too good to be true. Life wasn’t the stuff of fairy tales, she’d found that out long ago. She might have dreamed about a protector, someone to rescue her, but she’d known she wouldn’t ever rely on anyone but herself again. Other people could hurt her, let her down. Even a knight in shining armour was too good to be true. No, Louisa had promised herself she would only ever depend on herself again, no matter how tempting the dream of someone to look after her had been.
‘Why are you helping me?’ she asked. It hadn’t mattered before, but now she was free she needed to know.
Robert sighed, a small crease appearing between his eyebrows as he frowned. Louisa wondered what he looked like when he laughed. Handsome, she supposed, not that he wasn’t handsome when he was serious, but a smile would change his face to make him irresistible to the ladies. Real ladies, not lunatic paupers like her.
