Free A Madness So Discreet by Mindy McGinnis Page B

phrase.”
    Grace bit down on her lip to stop the flow of words, finding it difficult to cut them off now that they had begun.
    â€œYou’re unhappy with me, I see,” Thornhollow mused. “It can’t be helped. For the sake of our working relationship it would be best if you didn’t dislike me, but I won’t take unnecessary steps to ensure your goodwill, either. We’ll be clear about that with each other from the outset. If you’d like I can return you to your cell with nothing to show for this misadventure other than a bit of scarring.”
    Grace felt her teeth grinding together, stopping the vowels and consonants that she wanted to spew at him. For a moment she remembered the meaty give of Heedson’s hand under her dinner fork, but she cut the thought cleanly from her head as if wielding a scalpel of her own. “No, Doctor,” she said. “You don’t need my goodwill for us to work together, as I don’t need your friendship to facilitate my escape.”
    Thornhollow clapped his hands together. “Good. Onward, then. Are you steady enough on your feet? Wobbling a bit is perfectly fine, but if you fall I can’t be expected to catch you. It won’t do to scramble your brains in the end, would it?”
    â€œNo, Doctor,” Grace said, rising despite the black swell that threatened her vision. “I can stand perfectly fine.”
    â€œExcellent.” He reached into his valise for a flask, the smell of alcohol overtaking the lesser scent of roses in the room as he splashed his shirtfront with it before taking a pull. He ran his fingers through his hair, yanking the red locks in all directions. “And now, Grace, if you would please poke me in both eyes.”
    â€œI’m sorry?”
    â€œNo need to apologize, you haven’t done it yet,” he said as he snapped his kit shut. “Now come here and have a go at me. If you need me to antagonize you a bit first, I can certainly do so.”
    Grace thought of Mrs. Clay. “I don’t believe that will be necessary,” she said, stepping toward him as he matter-of-factly held his own lids open.
    â€œNo gouging. I simply need you to—CHRIST!” He wheeled away from her, hands up to his face. “Well done, well done,” he muttered, still covering his eyes with one hand as he leaned against the table. “I’ll be asking you to do worse things than that shortly, so it certainly bodes well that you’re willing.”
    Grace rubbed her hands against her skirts to rid the feeling of his eyes from the tips of her fingers. “Are we ready, then?”
    â€œI believe so.” Thornhollow pinched the bridge of his nose. “Do I look quite disreputable?”
    Grace looked him over, from his red-rimmed eyes to his disheveled hair. “Quite.”
    â€œVery well. You’ve no doubt made a study of my patients as they exited this room. The better you can make yourself like them in the coming minutes, the easier a time we’ll have of it.”
    Grace nodded, stamping down the rise of apprehension in her stomach.
    â€œThink of the door of your own cell shutting,” he said, when hesaw the tremor of her hands. “Put your thoughts and feelings away for the moment and bar them in.”
    â€œI’m long familiar with shutting out the world, Doctor,” Grace said. It was not her cell she thought of, though, which had ironically offered its own type of protection, but the sound of familiar footsteps in the middle of the night, followed by her doorknob turning.
    The click she heard in her mind was as audible as if it were in the room with her, and Grace let her emotions leave her in a rush, all cares exiting with her exhalation, not to return until she allowed them. Even her outer appearance changed, though she hardly knew it, and the doctor watched, fascinated, as her eyes glazed over, her muscles became torpid. She slouched as if her soul