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“I’d let her escape, if I were a guard,” he drawled. “If she was very, very good.”

More hoots.

Lucy didn’t flinch from the sallies of coarse language and the hot laughter that followed. But sweat beaded on her brow as she stared at the half-dozen male faces tipped toward her, male faces that seemed to make up a single male face, all red-rimmed eyes and gaping maw.

Lunatics. Jephson ran a madhouse. Dear God, Effie had been locked away.

“Where—” Lucy began, but something caught in her throat and she had to start again. “Where is it?” She tried to block out the other men, to stop seeing the monster they made when she allowed their faces to merge. “Where’s the asylum?”

“You want to go back?” Purcell laid his index finger on the ball of his nose, so his lips touched the gold band of the ring. “Well, it’s a harsh world out here, unless you’ve a man to look after you.”

His tongue brushed the metal as he spoke. The wave of revulsion cresting inside her nearly carried her fist forward. It would feel good, splitting his lip with his own ring. But she had her knuckles to consider, her fingers. They were worth more than that fleeting satisfaction.

Purcell took a swig of beer, eyes tracking a massive woman as she made her way to the bar. She was like a ship with a figurehead: broad beamed but tapering to an exquisitely modeled head crowned with heavy locks of butter yellow pulled loosely back to fall between her shoulders. He slammed down his tankard and rose to follow her. With the appearance of this new target, his interest in Lucy had waned completely. But Lucy wasn’t finished with him. She stepped into his path, conjuring her most ogre-like expression, with a walloping dose of Aunt Marian thrown in for good measure. Aunt Marian could turn men to stone.

Purcell didn’t turn to stone, but neither did he plow through her. He stopped, nonplussed.

“You are a little lunatic,” he said. “If it’s Jephson you’re attached to, you’ll have come from the new one, his pride and joy, the Putney Asylum.”

He sneered down at her.

“You’re wrong there.” She didn’t punch, but she stropped her voice with her anger, sharpening every word. “I came from Charlotte Road, and I can tell you none of us are leaving quietly. In fact, we don’t mean to leave at all.”

The audience of men hooted their enjoyment. She ignored them.

“I have friends in high places, Mr. Purcell,” she said loudly, cutting through the George and Dragon’s ambient clamor. His eyes widened, just a fraction. He wasn’t alarmed, but he was listening.

“You think you’re above the law.” She glared into his face. “But you’re a tiny, slimy thing. Go ahead and laugh. I know what’s coming for you and you won’t be laughing then.”

He didn’t laugh. His eyes tracked her as she crossed the room. Not as satisfying as a blow to the nose, but Mrs. Cantrell would be proud.

• • •

Lucy and Kate clambered into a cab at the train station in Putney, Kate giving her skirts a vindictive tug as she settled herself on the seat. Lucy had pounced on her as she arrived home from church, and she’d come away at once, without risking a trip inside to change into her preferred attire.

Lucy was grateful—she couldn’t have borne facing Anthony, not before she knew she had something definitive to tell him—but Kate was clearly regretting the choice. She looked out the window, fiddling with a lopsided hair comb from between the teeth of which artificial curls burst out in a pretty cluster. It was strange to see her in a gown, with the semblance of long tresses.

“Let me do it,” said Lucy, sliding over to her, fixing the comb more solidly in place.

“Ouch,” muttered Kate. She was still turned to the window. As her fingers plucked and smoothed, Lucy gazed out the window too. They weren’t far from London, but it felt like another world. The cab was spinning along the heath, which looked wild, wild and desolate.

And then the asylum came into view.

It had to be the asylum, gray and hulking, up on a hill, the grounds surrounded by a stone wall. How could a building such as this be anyone’s pride and joy?

Joy died here.

The porter in the gatehouse was young, pimpled, and easily dazzled. He couldn’t bring himself to speak to Kate directly, but his eyes kept drifting to her as he addressed Lucy.

“Are you here to see the human dog?” he asked. “He’s not a dog, of course, but he barks like a dog. He’s a main attraction.”

“Main attraction!” Kate was indignant. “Do you mean that people come to gawk at the patients?”

“Only the hard cases,” said the porter to Lucy, glancing at Kate from the corners of his eyes. “Not everything’s worth the trip. Melancholia, for instance, is dull as ditchwater. Lots of staring and sighing. Puts you to sleep.”

Kate snorted, and the porter blushed, lowering his head defensively.

“I thought I’d warn you that the human dog isn’t on the grounds, is all. He’s getting a treatment. I wouldn’t want you to feel disappointed.”