“Won’t be a moment, miss,” the orderly said to Henrietta just a little too loudly, in a clear attempt to draw her attention away from the rhythmic shrieking. “The doctor’s like as not out in the garden. Won’t be a tick.”

“There are gardens in the back?” Henrietta asked in surprise. The shrieker put her all into one final cry and then went still, whether at her own volition or at someone else’s being entirely unclear.

“Yes, miss.” The orderly smiled, displaying several missing teeth. Charlotte wondered if they had been missing before, or gone missing due to his work at the mad hospital. “So the inmates can exercise, like. The ones as ain’t too wild, that is.”

“What happens to those?” Henrietta asked, looking repelled and fascinated at the same time.

The orderly’s eyes went up to the barred windows above. “We keeps them safe, miss, don’t you worry.”

“I’m sure you do,” said Henrietta reassuringly, and widened her eyes in horror at Charlotte behind the orderly’s back.

“Righty-ho! There’s the doctor now!” With evident relief, the orderly pointed at two men coming around the side of the building. “There’s your Dr. Simmons, miss, and I ’ope ’e can be of ’elp to you and yer poor sister.”

“Oh, it’s not for her, precisely.” Henrietta was hedging, while Charlotte gave an excellent impression of being quite as mad as the orderly clearly thought her by staring for all the she was worth at the pair of men approaching them along the length of the building.

One was the other orderly. He was of no interest to Charlotte. The other was clearly the doctor. His coat was black, but plainly cut and neatly buttoned across the chest with a double row of buttons over a plain white stock, simply tied. Rather than a wig, he wore his own graying hair pulled back and tied into a queue, making no effort to conceal the receding of the hairline over either temple. His stockings were immaculate.

In short, he was a distinguished-looking man, not at all what one would expect from a mad-doctor. And he bore absolutely no resemblance to the man Charlotte had seen in the King’s bedchamber that morning.

“That,” whispered Charlotte to Henrietta, “is not Dr. Simmons.”

Chapter Seventeen

Henrietta looked at Charlotte as though she suspected her of being a little mad after all. “That is what the orderly just called him.”

Charlotte did her best to speak without moving her lips. The result was not an entire success. “That isn’t what I meant. That is not the man I saw in the King’s bedchamber.”

“You mean . . .”

Charlotte wished she knew what she meant. “I don’t know. There must be some mistake.” Abandoning Henrietta, she ventured towards the approaching men. Raising a hand, she called out, “Dr. Simmons?”

He certainly appeared to be under the delusion that he was Dr. Simmons.

“Yes?” he asked slightly impatiently. “I am informed that you wish to speak with me.”

It would be tempting to believe that it was a delusion, that he was a patient whose madness had taken on the form of impersonating his own doctor. But too many details militated against that theory. Even if the orderlies hadn’t deferred to him, his clothes were too expensive and too neatly kept to belong to one of the patients. His expression, while irritable, was eminently rational.

Who wouldn’t be a bit annoyed at being dragged from his work to attend a pair of flighty young ladies? He was probably afraid they were there for an afternoon’s diversion, touring the cells of the insane for sport, as they did in Bedlam, where, for a penny, anyone could enter to gawk and jeer. Charlotte had heard visitors were even permitted to bring long sticks with which to poke at the inmates. From the way the orderlies had ranged themselves on either side of the door, it was clear that such behavior was not allowed at St. Luke’s.

But if he was Dr. Simmons, who was the man back at the Palace?

On an impulse, Charlotte batted her eyelashes at him and said in a fluttery sort of voice, “I had hoped I might trouble you for a consultation. It is my grandmother, you see. I fear she may be . . .”

“No longer possessed of all her proper faculties?” the doctor finished helpfully.

“I fear so,” said Charlotte sadly. “She has taken to having herself carried around her own home on a gilded palanquin, striking out at any who dare approach her with a sort of scepter.”

Next to her, Henrietta’s bonnet brim quivered.

“I see,” said the doctor briskly. “In essence, your grandmother suffers from violent delusions.”

Henrietta stuffed her hands against her mouth to contain a fit of coughing that escaped around her gloved fingers in a series of explosive snorts. The doctor took a discreet step back.

Charlotte followed him, winding her bonnet string coyly around one finger and doing her best to look adoringly daft. But not too daft. She didn’t want to find herself in hot vinegar up to her ankles “I have heard that in such cases,” she said breathlessly, “where the subject is prone to violence, that a form of restraining waistcoat might applied.”

“Ah,” said the doctor. “You mean the straight waistcoat. I highly recommend it as a means of convincing the patient that violent behavior will not be tolerated.”

“What do you think of vinegar treatments? I’ve heard wonderful things of vinegar treatments as a means of moving the humors. And blistering. In multiple places.”

“Each of those may be efficacious in its proper application. The blistering, in particular, often does wonders to drive away delirium. Of course, I should need to see the patient before recommending a course of treatment.”

“That would be delightful, Dr. Simmons!” Charlotte clapped her hands together in a very ecstasy of delight. “I shouldn’t like to take you away from your other patrons, though, if you were engaged elsewhere.”

“That shouldn’t be a problem, Miss — ”

Charlotte began backing away towards the carriage. She hoped he didn’t know enough about the peerage to recognize the crest on the side. “Oh, thank you! I really must be getting back. We don’t like to leave Grandmama for too long. She starts throwing things,” Charlotte confided in a stage whisper. “Coming, Dulcinea?”

“Dulcinea?” demanded Henrietta as they collapsed breathless back in the carriage.

“I had madness on the mind,” said Charlotte apologetically. “So Dulcinea seemed to fit.”

“I suppose I should be grateful that you didn’t make me Ophelia!” Henrietta impatiently yanked at the ribbons of her bonnet and tossed it carelessly onto the seat beside her. “Now will you tell me what that was all about?”

“I think,” said Charlotte thoughtfully, “we can safely say that Dr. Simmons has not been retained by the Prince of Wales. If he had been, he wouldn’t have been nearly so eager to treat my poor, dear Grandmama.”

“And the straight waistcoat and all that?”

“Currently in use on the King.”

“Oh,” said Henrietta, sobering.

“If this Dr. Simmons is to be believed, everything being done to the King is medically sound.”

“It still sounds like torture to me,” said Henrietta, with a shudder.

“And to me,” admitted Charlotte. “Especially having seen it.”

A somber silence fell over the inside of the carriage as the two friends contemplated the plight of their King.

When Henrietta finally spoke, she voiced what they were both thinking. “If this Dr. Simmons isn’t treating the King, who is? There couldn’t be two Dr. Simmons, could there?”

That would be by far the simplest explanation, but it also seemed the least probable. “Not at St. Luke’s Hospital for Lunatics, I shouldn’t think. The doctor treating the King specifically mentioned returning to his patients at St. Luke’s.”

“Perhaps your Dr. Simmons got the name of the hospital wrong?”

“What doctor mistakes his own hospital?”

“Hmm. Good point.” Henrietta lapsed again into silence.

Staring out the window, Charlotte struggled to recall that uncomfortable interlude scrunched up against the side of the cabinet, scrounging for any clue that might unravel the bizarre tangle. What was she going to tell the Queen? Her simple assignment had suddenly become very, very complicated.

Outside, the early winter dusk was already falling. Charlotte could see her own face reflected in ghostly double in the windowpane. She frowned, and her shadow self frowned back at her.

A seemingly insignificant detail niggled at the back of Charlotte’s mind. “Colonel McMahon said that it was Sir Francis Medmenham who had recommended Simmons.”

“The real Simmons, or the false one?”

“I don’t know,” said Charlotte. “He might have recommended the real one, never knowing an imposter would interpose himself. Or he might have put forward the false candidate for purposes of his own.”

“What cause would Medmenham have for inserting an imposter into the King’s household?”

“He is a member of the Prince’s party,” said Charlotte slowly, “and should the King go mad, he might benefit immensely from it.”

“You’re not implying — ”

A bizarre sort of picture was beginning to form. Charlotte wasn’t sure if it was the true one, but it did make its own sort of sense. “If the King goes mad for long enough, the Prince will advance another Regency bill. And if he becomes Regent — ”

“Medmenham will have his pick of plum positions,” Henrietta finished for her. “If it’s power that he’s after.”

“I can’t really see Sir Francis necessarily serving in an official capacity, can you? He’s no Charles James Fox. But it might be enough for him to be the silent power behind the throne. He would like lording it over a Prince Regent, wouldn’t he?”