Laura Martin - Secrets Behind Locked Doors

‘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 that 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.

‘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.

AUTHOR NOTE

Ever since I can remember I have been fascinated by the workings of the mind: what makes one person thrive whilst another will be made to withdraw. One thing that has particularly intrigued me is how society’s perception of mental illness has changed over time. This is demonstrated perfectly by our treatment of those suffering from mental illness. Hundreds of years ago such people were shunned by society and cast out of their communities. In the Regency period common practice was to lock away anyone with unexplainable behaviour and pretend they didn’t exist. This led to an increase in the number of unregulated and unlicenced institutions where the unfortunate inmates received no rehabilitation or medical care, worsening their conditions. Stories abound about unfortunate individuals discarded in asylums by their relatives who, despite having no reason to lock them up, wished to gain from their disappearance.

Another psychological theme runs through this book. For centuries men have fought in wars which have left mental as well as physical scars. The symptoms of shell-shock, or post-traumatic stress disorder, have only recently been recognised as a consequence of the strains that battle places upon the psyche. However, the soldiers of the Napoleonic wars would have been subject to many of the same stresses as soldiers of today. SECRETS BEHIND LOCKED DOORS explores how such mental scars can be a barrier between the sufferer and the wider world. In writing a character with some features of PTSD I hoped to portray how the disorder can impact on every aspect of life—including love.

Secrets Behind Locked Doors

Laura Martin

www.millsandboon.co.uk

LAURA MARTINwrites historical romances with an adventurous undercurrent. When not writing she spends her time working as a doctor in Cambridgeshire, where she lives with her husband. In her spare moments Laura loves to lose herself in a book, and has been known to read cover to cover in a single day when the story is particularly gripping. She also loves to travel—especially visiting historical sites and far-flung shores.

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For Dad, for all the inspiration and encouragement. And for Luke. I couldn’t do it without you.

Contents

Cover

Introduction

Author Note

Title Page

About the Author

Dedication

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Chapter Thirty

Chapter Thirty-One

Chapter Thirty-Two

Epilogue

Extract

Copyright

Chapter One

Robert fought the urge to turn around and flee. He wasn’t a man who had ever run from anything. Six years he’d fought in the army and he’d never backed down from a fight, but right now his courage was deserting him.

‘Ready, sir?’ asked Yates, his agent, apparently oblivious to his discomfort.

Robert nodded, raised his hand and knocked on the imposing front door.

The stench hit him as soon as he walked inside. It was a mixture of sweat and cabbage and something else he didn’t even want to guess at. He wondered how the staff coped with it, the smell permeating their clothes and lingering as they returned home to their families. At least they could return home though, he supposed. Some of the inmates wouldn’t ever leave the confines of the Lewisham Asylum; they’d spend long years cooped up in the dreary rooms with only their screams for company.

‘Lord Fleetwood—’ a grubby little man hurried out to greet them ‘—it is such an honour to meet you. I’m Symes, the humble proprietor of this establishment.’

Robert nodded silently in greeting. He wanted to get his business here sorted as quickly as possible and escape. Already he was feeling despair, the same sensation the patients must have felt as they were dragged out of the sunlight one last time.

‘I said to your man there must be a mistake,’ Symes said as he led Robert into his office. ‘None of our patients are gently born, we haven’t got any ladies here.’

Robert very much hoped so, but in the ten years Yates had worked for him he hadn’t known the man to be wrong.

‘You have a patient listed as Louisa Turnhill?’ Robert asked.

Symes flicked through the ledger in front of him, his short, pudgy fingers crinkling the paper.

‘Louisa Turnhill, aged nineteen. Came to us just over a year ago.’

Over a year in this place. Robert couldn’t even begin to imagine it.

‘What’s wrong with her?’ Robert asked bluntly.

Symes squirmed a little in his seat, but dutifully read out the entry next to her name. ‘Melancholy and mania. Violent outbursts. Hallucinations.’

‘And what is her treatment?’

Symes looked at the two men in front of him blankly.

‘Treatment?’ he asked.

‘Yes, what are you doing to make her better?’ Robert had a sneaking suspicion he knew the answer to this question, but he persisted anyway. ‘How do you propose to cure her?’

‘Oh, there is no cure, Lord Fleetwood,’ he said, baring his yellow teeth in an uncomfortable smile. ‘We don’t deal in cures here, just room and board and a place for the wretched to stay out of the way of the rest of the world.’

Robert knew he’d never been in a more depressing place. Nearly one hundred poor souls locked in grim little cells with no hope of a cure and for many of them no hope of release.

‘Tell me,’ he said reluctantly, ‘how is Miss Turnhill presently?’

Symes shrugged. ‘I oversee the asylum, I don’t visit the inmates. You can see for yourself.’

He stood and stuck his head out into the corridor, motioning for a middle-aged woman to come into the room.

‘Show this gentleman to Room Sixty-Eight,’ he ordered.