Secrets of the Heart (13 page)

Devlin turned to the prisoner. “Do you want us to stay and help? I will try if you will let me.”

Wiggins sat on his cot, motionless. He stared at Devlin and then at the floor.

“You must tell me what you want me to do, or we must leave. Do you want me to stay?”

Wiggins did not move. He did not speak. Devlin was certain he’d already escaped into some part of his mind where he felt safe.

“You’re wasting your time,” Sullivan said and turned to leave. “You can see he’s in no mood to cooperate. So be it. I’ve done my job.”

Wiggins looked up from the floor then, but not at Sullivan. He looked straight at Devlin, raised his long, bleeding arm, and pointed at him. “You… stay.”

Devlin didn’t know how he was going to treat this giant of a man who could easily kill him, but he knew he had to try. “I’ll stay.”

“Dr. Langford, will you stay?” Devlin asked.

Langford nodded his agreement.

Devlin continued, “Melton, I want you to go to the apothecary. Mr. Sullivan will show you the way. Get everything we might need to stitch up Mr. Wiggins’s injuries, including a table that will hold his weight. Then bring it all back here and leave it outside the door. I don’t want anyone else inside the cell.”

Melton nodded, looking relieved, and left with Sullivan.

After the door closed, Devlin again spoke to Wiggins. “Mr. Wiggins, my name is Grayson.” He pointed to Langford. “This is Dr. Langford from the hospital in York. He is my instructor. I want him to help with the treatment of your wounds. Will you agree to it?”

Wiggins stood up and carefully studied the two of them. His troubled gaze landed on Devlin, and he nodded.

Devlin looked up at the very intimidating man he had just agreed to treat.
Heaven help me
, he prayed.

“When we get the medical supplies, I will give you something to put you to sleep. That way you won’t feel the pain.”

“No!” Wiggins stepped forward and gripped the bars.

Devlin thought it would take very little effort for the giant to bend the bars back and escape his prison.

“All right,” Devlin said, trying to soothe the man’s nerves. “We’ll do it your way, but it will hurt like the dickens.”

Devlin jumped at the knock on the door. His nerves were ready to snap. Opening the door, he saw four men carrying a huge table that barely fit in the narrow corridor. The table would hold Wiggins’s weight.

Melton handed him a black medical bag. “I think you’ll find everything you need in here. How do you propose not getting yourself killed?” he whispered to Devlin.

“I have no idea.”

“Good luck.”

Devlin looked at Sullivan. “You will have to leave this door unlocked. We won’t be able to get the table in the cell. He’ll have to come out.”

“I will post another guard at the entrance.” Sullivan looked as though he was about to say something else, then changed his mind.

“We need the key to his cell, Sullivan,” Devlin said, holding out his hand.

Sullivan dug in his pocket and handed Devlin the key. “Wiggins could kill both you and Langford. What makes you think he won’t?”

“Because the man’s in pain. He’s not an animal.”

Sullivan shrugged his shoulders, turned, and walked away, followed by Melton, who cast a glance over his shoulder as if he feared this would be the last time he saw them alive.

Devlin turned to face their patient. “Mr. Wiggins,” Devlin said, pretending to be quite in control of his feelings, “I am going to unlock this door. You must come out and get on the table in the hallway. Do you understand?”

Wiggins grunted in response.

Devlin felt the hairs on his neck rise when he unlocked the cell door. Wiggins rose like a giant sea monster and shuffled toward them. He pushed past Devlin and Langford.

Devlin did not know what to expect. He followed Wiggins, who went straight to the table and sat upon it. Langford stayed close to Devlin.

“You will need to remove your shirt, Mr. Wiggins,” Devlin instructed. “Do you need assistance?”

Wiggins looked down at him from his perch on the table and simply ripped the shredded garment from his body.

Devlin studied the fresh wounds. It appeared a knife with a jagged edge had inflicted the deep cuts. “Who did this?”

Wiggins said nothing.

Devlin opened the medical bag, looked inside, and rummaged around. He pulled out a bottle of laudanum. “I would like to use this, Mr. Wiggins. It will make you more comfortable, and we can do a thorough job without you feeling too much pain from the suturing.”

Wiggins growled and slapped the bottle out of his hand. It shattered on the hard floor, all hope of pain relief shattered with it.

“We’d better do as the man says, Grayson.” Langford reached into the bag and pulled out a cloth holding several instruments. He unwrapped it and revealed the medical tools necessary to treat and suture the deep gashes.

“Of course,” Devlin said, wondering how the man would ever sit still for the number of stitches it would take to sew him up. Devlin took a deep breath. “Let’s get started.”

Together Langford and Devlin cleaned Wiggins’s injuries. He sat tall and rigid and did not flinch. As Devlin worked his way around his patient, he stopped dead when he reached his patient’s back.

“Dr. Langford, take a look at this. Old wounds. It appears as though someone has whipped the skin off him more than once.”

“Mr. Wiggins,” Langford asked, “who did this to you?”

Wiggins shrugged.

Devlin glanced at Langford, and the two exchanged a look of concern. They continued cleaning the wounds and prepared to stitch. “This is going to hurt,” Devlin said.

It took two hours with both of them stitching, and Wiggins never complained. He grunted a few times but showed no other sign of distress. How did the man do it? It wasn’t human. Devlin tied off the last stitch. “You are repaired to the best of our ability, Mr. Wiggins. How do you feel? You must be exhausted.”

Wiggins only grunted, his tortured body evidence that he’d endured worse than this. He had somehow learned to hide his pain. He returned to the cell naked from the waist up and lay down on the cot.

They reentered the women’s quarters on the way out and were slammed into the wall by two guards wrestling with a young woman.

“Get the chains on her. We’ll teach you not to run away, you little witch!” The guards clamped manacles over her wrists and ankles.

“Stop. Stop it!” Devlin rushed to the girl’s side. “This is no way to treat a human being.”

Langford and Melton restrained the guards.

“What’s she done that’s so awful?” Devlin shouted.

“She’s the one who killed her father, Dr. Grayson. Her name is Amanda, and she escaped recently. She won’t be doing that again. We’ll make certain she’s very secure this day and every day afterward. The only reason she didn’t go to the gallows was because she was found to be insane.”

“And why was she declared insane?” Melton asked, still restraining the guard.

“She said the voices told her to kill him, Mr. Melton, specifically the voices of her brothers. Not what I would call normal.” Sullivan’s lips twisted into a bizarre grin.

“Perhaps her brothers
did
urge her to kill her father. Perhaps they’re to blame as well.”

“Hardly, sir. They were nowhere near the farm where she killed her father at the time. They were drunk and sleeping it off in town.”

Devlin watched the woman with gray hair come to the girl and kneel on the floor where the girl curled into a ball with the chains cutting into her flesh. The old woman cooed and patted Amanda’s shoulder and whispered in her ear. The girl rocked on the floor and seemed to withdraw into herself.

“Does she continue to speak to her brothers when they aren’t present?” he asked, curious.

“Amanda never speaks. She has never said one word. She’ll yell and scream and grunt, but she never talks.”

Devlin turned to Sullivan, who then asked, “Is there anything you can do?”

“We can give her some laudanum. It will make her more comfortable and then you can remove the chains, Sullivan.”

Sullivan nodded. “Give her the laudanum, but the chains remain. She’s a runaway.”

Devlin wondered what had caused the girl to commit such an atrocity. “Do you know why she killed her father?”

Sullivan shrugged his shoulders. “Who knows? The court decided that, not me.” Sullivan looked perturbed, as though he thought Devlin was accusing him of some wrongdoing.

The three men left the asylum in silence and made their way back to York. Devlin mentally reviewed the horrific events of the morning. He was certain of only one thing. He was never going back.

C
HAPTER 8

The best mirror is an old friend.

—G
EORGE
H
ERBERT

S
TAYING AT THE
Gilling town house overnight had the exact effect on her friend that Madeline had feared, for Hally indeed spent the morning trailing about the house and sighing. The two-story stone structure simply smothered Hally with memories from the past. Over a light lunch of cucumber sandwiches and tea, Madeline decided not to allow Hally to mope her day away.

Madeline set her teacup down with a determined clank against the saucer. They would go shopping this afternoon. Shopping cured a variety of ills as nothing else could, and since their trip had been so rudely interrupted yesterday, they had not found the diversion they had sought.

“What are you plotting now?” Hally forced a smile. “I can always tell when you’re plotting. You purse your lips and tap your fingers on the table.”

“No, I don’t.” She quit tapping her fingers. “And I’m not plotting. I’m thinking.”

Hally reached for her friend’s hand. “You were right about this place. I thought I’d conquered all the ghosts. I barely slept, and I haven’t been myself all morning.”

Madeline squeezed Hally’s hand. “It’s no wonder after yesterday. How’s your head?”

“I’m fine, really. How are you?”

“Confused.” She reached for a biscuit and smothered it in honey.

“Confused about what?”

“Everything.” Madeline tried to block out the wretched conversation that had occurred between her and her mother. “I so wanted us to enjoy shopping yesterday, but the accident ruined everything. I needed your company and a distraction.”

The corners of Hally’s mouth twitched. “I believe you were distracted. But in a different way than you’d anticipated.”

Seeing Ravensmoore after the collision with the farmer’s wagon had proved more than a bit disconcerting. She couldn’t seem to get away from the man.

“Maddie? You’re blushing. Are you well?”

“I’m most well.” Madeline forced all thoughts of the man from her mind. “But I would like to finish our shopping excursion today. Do you think you can manage?”

“Perhaps.”

“Good. I will send a messenger out to Richfield. Donavan and Agnes can assist us about town since we’ve no carriage at the moment.”

“I knew you were plotting.”

Madeline and Hally chatted amiably as their carriage made its way through the busy cobblestone streets of York. Donavan, Richfield’s head groom, easily maneuvered the horses through the crowds. A smile tugged at Madeline’s lips when she noticed that Agnes appeared to be admiring the groom’s driving abilities.

The skies were clear, and the sun made a valiant effort to shine its warm April rays upon them. A light breeze kissed her cheek, and Madeline breathed in the sweetly scented spring air. Her arm felt infinitely better today. She hoped that the sling would soon be unnecessary.

York provided an array of shops, and Madeline wanted to visit several of them. While the shops didn’t come close to what London had to offer, she enjoyed them just the same.

“I will do the shopping for the household,” Agnes said, studying the long list she’d brought with her, “while you and Countess Gilling visit the shops.”

“Very well, Agnes,” Madeline said. “We’ll meet you at your sister’s home. Donavan will accompany you and then return for us.”