Loving Lily (Fair Cyprians of London 6)

“Oh, ma’am, yer…yer awake. Oh, ma’am…” She wrung her hands, stepping forwards, then back, as if she didn’t know what to do.

Lily stared about her, trying to make sense of the feelings that she was struggling to discard: the heaviness and fear. Such conflicting emotions juxtaposed with the familiarity of her surroundings—the iron bed with its pink satin eiderdown, the walls covered in pictures of dancing nymphs.

And the floral wallpaper. So ordinary. So benign.

“What happened?” she whispered, steeling herself for the answer. Grace’s expression and the wave of sensation that had engulfed Lily—with its residue still lingering—were answer enough.

She had sunk back into her old ways.

The black fog had, once again, sucked her into its maw.

And now Grace had witnessed her shame. She sat up, a terrifying thought assailing her. No, she could not think of it. Of anyone else having witnessed her in the grip of her attack of…

Of insanity?

With a moan, she put her hands over her face and sank back into the pillow.

“Yer was afeared, somethin’ terrible,” Grace whispered, dipping a flannel into a bowl of warm water, and gently dabbing at Lily’s face.

“I vaguely remember.” Lily did not move. Her limbs felt leaden, and her mind was making a slumberous journey towards understanding. Sucking in a breath, she added, “But I’m fine, now. It won’t happen again.”

Until the next time.

Yes, she knew how it would go. These attacks that enveloped her with no warning at all could happen day upon day, or she may remain unafflicted for weeks.

But they were back.

Tears of despair spilled from her eyes and dampened the pillow.

For two years, incarcerated within the maison—the Lunatic Asylum, she must not forget what it really was—she had been unaffected. Perhaps the cruel medications they’d imposed upon her really had worked, though she’d railed against them at the time as being torturous, not restorative.

She’d been strapped to the bed; the soles of her feet had been whipped to ‘beat out the devil’. She’d been forced to drink foul concoctions.

Yes, she’d railed against all this at the time.

But at least she’d been well. The terrifying waves of insanity that had plagued her in the year before she’d been incarcerated had been held at bay.

In the two months since she’d been abducted from the maison, she’d remained in good physical and mental health.

But now the disease had come back to haunt her.

She truly was insane.

Struggling up, she managed a wan smile for Grace. “Thank you for looking after me,” she said. “I’m sorry if I frightened you.”

“Oh, yer did that, ma’am. Yer ‘fought the walls was breathin’ an’ the flowers was devils.”

Wincing, Lily glanced down at her hand, wrinkling her brow to see the bandage on her left hand.

In answer to her confusion, Grace explained, “Yer cut yerself on the broken decanter, ma’am, when yer threw the lamp at Mr McTavish’s ’ead…if yer recall.”

“No!” It was too much. Sobbing, Lily sank back into the pillows. It took a while for her to gain sufficient strength to even open her eyes and ask Grace, “Is he injured?”

“Not ’is person, no, ma’am.”

It was little wonder that the poor maid looked as uncomfortable as she did, hovering in the doorway. Lily was a mad woman. Not only had her actions confirmed it, but perhaps the rumours of her past had caught up with her.

“I…don’t know what came over me, Grace,” she whispered. “I’m sure it won’t happen again.”