She brushed past Peter and faced the doctor, but her gaze went to Callum. Anger flared in her chest as she stared at his hands tied above his head. “Unbind my husband,” she demanded, her voice full of ire.
The doctor shook his head. “In the note he sent me asking me to come here, he instructed me to bind him if he was unable to tell me to do so once I got here.”
She frowned. “Why?”
“I will not discuss my treatment of your husband’s condition with you without his permission.”
A fine sheen of sweat covered Callum’s entire body, and the scar she’d not been able to clearly see was distinct now. Horror constricted her throat as she looked at the number twenty-seven branded on his shoulder. Bile rose in her throat, and she clutched her belly. “Who did such a thing?”
“Oh, they branded us all at the Asylum of St. Raguel,” Peter said casually, as if discussing what he’d eaten for his noonday meal.
His words shocked her, not only for the blunt way he said them, which left her little choice but to believe him, but because he’d said them in front of Dr. Ayles. She didn’t want the man whispering about Callum around Town. “Peter.” She shook her head at him, but the doctor caught her eye and smiled gently at her.
“I was your husband’s personal physician for years before he disappeared. You’ve no need to concern yourself that I’ll say anything to anyone.”
“Thank you,” she said, exhaling. “I…I don’t know what to think,” she blurted, pressing her fingers to her pounding temples. She looked down at Callum again. She could see his eyes moving rapidly back and forth under his lids as if he was having a nightmare. “Did he tell you where he has been?” she whispered, staring at the number branded into his skin. What agony that must have been.
“He was near incoherent when I arrived, which is to be expected, given his current situation, but between the note and the boy—”
“Peter,” the lad said with a scowl. “And I’m thirteen summers, according to the birthdate Cal gave me.”
Constantine exchanged a look of surprise with the doctor. That Callum had given him? How could it be that the boy did not know his birthday? There was so much to sort through.
“Yes, well.” Dr. Ayles cleared his throat. “Peter told me where they’d been.”
“She already knows,” Peter cut in, irritation underlying his tone. “Cal told her, but she doesn’t want to believe it.”
“Idowant to believe him!” she interjected, biting her lip with the rush of feeling that nearly overcame her. To not believe him would mean she had to accept he was mad, and she refused to do that.
“Have you given him something?” she asked, reaching a trembling hand toward his forehead to brush back a lock of thick, dark hair that had fallen over his right eye. His brow dipped together, and he moaned, stirring slightly but not awakening. She traced her finger in the air just above the scar from the injury that had sent her rushing to Callum’s bedside over a year ago now. It seemed a lifetime ago, at the moment. She didn’t even know how he’d gotten the injury. He’d not volunteered the information, and she’d been so determined to protect her heart from him, that she’d not asked. No indeed! Instead, she’d blurted her marriage offer, and one sennight and little conversation later, they’d been wed. Lilias had tried to tell her the tale after Callum had disappeared, but Constantine had screeched at her friend to stop. She had not wanted to hear tales of whatever wickedness Callum had been involved in that had brought him such harm. She had been in mourning and heartbroken for the hope she’d once had, for the man she’d once loved.
“Did you give him something to make him sleep?” she asked the doctor again, concerned that he was not waking.
“Not to sleep, though that is a side effect. I gave him something to help with the symptoms that will plague him as—”
The doctor paused and pressed his lips together.
Her irritation, though she knew the man was only trying to do as told, simmered. “You can give me all the facts, Dr. Ayles, or I demand you leave now and not come back.” It was a bluff, of course. She’d not stand in the way of Callum being treated to learn what she wanted, but the man did not know that.
When he sighed and scrubbed a hand across his face, she knew she’d won, and she was so relieved that she felt weak.
“I gave him something to help with the symptoms when he starts to crave the opium,” Dr. Ayles said.
“Callum is an opium user?” She could hardly believe he’d do such a foolish thing. She knew many people used it with laudanum, but she’d heard terrible stories about how a person could become enslaved to it.
“Not by choice,” Peter said, scowling at her. “They had to hold him down and shove it down his throat.”
“Who?”
Peter gave her a look as if she’d just asked the world’s most ridiculous question. “The Enforcer and his cronies, of course.”
“Of course!” she said, feeling hysteria rising. “Why?” she asked, her voice dropping barely above a whisper as she tried to grasp the terribleness of what Peter was saying. “Why would the Enforcer do that?”
Peter tapped his head. “They wanted to keep him in a fog because he was trouble. They tried flogging him and beating him, but he kept being trouble. He’s stubborn.”
She began to shake with rage. “Go on,” she said through her anger, needing to hear the rest.
“They chained him up,” Peter continued, “but he persuaded other people to rebel, to try to escape.”
