Read The Deepest Night for Free Online

doorway, talking all the while.
    “ … that you made it here in all haste. It will please the duke mightily. He’s been adamant that he speak with you—that is, with the young lady—as soon as possible. We’ve been utterly unable to reason with him about it.”
    “I see,” said Westcliffe faintly.
    Richardson Home on the inside was nothing whatsoever like a real home. We were walking down a corridor lined with sulphur-glass sconces, passing no parlors, no drawing rooms, only closed doors, most inset with small, barred windows. The reek of pomade had become overwhelmed with that of bleach and morphine and sour human waste.
    Faces popped into view from behind the bars. Hands reaching up, fingers clawing, palms slapping at the doors. Voices keening, moaning—one man actually barking—all the prisoners feeding on the noise, an awful chorus of desperation bouncing against the barren walls.
    Westcliffe’s feet began to drag. Her skin had blanched, but I … 
    Oh, I had seen all this before. I had lived this before.
    I bit down hard on the inside of my cheek, tasting blood. There was a sound building up inside me, a hot hopeless pressure inside my throat, but I wasn’t going to moan back to these people. I wasn’t.
    A woman’s hand with dirty, chipped fingernails poked out from a window as my head went by. I ducked out of the way just in time, leaving her fingers to scratch at empty air.
    “Jeannie,” the woman shrieked, now her cheek pressed against the bars, one rolling eye. “At last! Come visit! Jeannie, Jeannie, where have you been all this while? Come visit your mother!”
    “Pay them no mind,” the doctor called from over his shoulder. “Pitiable, of course, but one does grow accustomed to the everyday sights and sounds of their sickness. They’ll quiet after we pass. Er—avoid the cell windows, please. Some of the younger children have a fair reach.”
    “Children,” repeated Westcliffe, still faint, but the good doctor had heard her.
    “Oh, yes,” he enthused. “At Richardson we utilize the most modern medicines and methods for every manner of patient. Weakness of the mind acknowledges no boundaries of age, and I’m pleased to say that neither do we. All who are in need are welcome here.”
    For the right price, I finished silently for him.
    Moor Gate, asylum of the indigent, hadn’t used nearly this much bleach.
    And that wasn’t the only difference, I soon saw. When the doctor unlocked the door to the duke’s cell, I had to stop in place and stare.
    Here, then, was the home part of Richardson Home. Here was the gracious space, the luxurious surroundings, a peer of the realm would expect. There were rugs and tables and chairs, a writing desk, a silk folding screen, and a hulking canopied bed done up in royal blue damask. There were even windows set up high along two walls, letting in the sun past the bars, something I’d never glimpsed once in my year spent in the bowels of Moor Gate.
    A fireplace held a crackling fire—no chill in here—and Reginald, Armand’s father, was seated before it in a smoking jacket with a blanket over his lap and a cup of something in his hands.
    His Grace took in the three of us at his door with an air of mild astonishment. Then he set the cup aside and rose to his feet.
    “Look, my lord,” said the doctor in a chipper tone. “Only look and see who has come to call on you.”
    “Yes,” said the duke. “How kind.”
    Mrs. Westcliffe slid an uncertain step toward him. “Your Grace.”
    “Irene.” A brief smile lifted his lips. For a heartbreaking instant he looked so like his handsome son. “Lovely to see you.”
    She sank into her curtsy, and I copied it. Reginald’s gaze jumped to mine.
    “Miss Jones. I am glad you’ve come.”
    I couldn’t think of a polite response to that— Blimey, I’m not! —so I only nodded.
    “Timothy,” said the duke, sounding abruptly like his old, imperious self, “we’ll need tea. Some of those scones with