I placed my hand on his shoulder, his broad muscles tense under my fingers. “I am not a child, Evan. I can look after myself. You are not the protector of my soul.”

He looked back at me, his expression holding a strange kind of fierceness. “But I am, if you will let me. I am, as you are of mine.”

I stared at him, a sudden ache in my throat. He was right; we were, indeed, the guardians of each other’s souls.

“Then we go together,” I said, meeting his fierceness. Our eyes locked in that promise. Or perhaps it was a vow.

He gave a nod. “Together.”

We took the last step into the chamber, our hands clasped.

I had, to some degree, become accustomed to the sight of the obscene furniture and frescoes and could focus beyond them on the room at large. The roof was higher than usual in a cellar, and an antechamber, separated by a half-drawn red velvet curtain, was visible to our right. To our left, a side table had been set against the wall with three matching silver candlesticks upon it, the wax candles burned to nubs. An ornately painted blue wardrobe stood against the wall, and a little farther along, a rather handsome longcase clock.

“There is blood on those,” Evan said, holding up a candle to illuminate a bunch of birch rods upright in a stand next to the flogging frame. He studied the floor around the contraption. “Here too. Probably not a flogging for pleasure,” he added grimly.

Flogging of any sort was not my idea of pleasure, but then, I had heard a great number of men and women enjoyed the practice. So much so that it was called “the English perversion” on the Continent.

I released his hand and walked over to the wardrobe. It was large and in the Italian style, the wood painted bright blue with flowers and vines decorating the two doors and the top edge. Very pretty, if you liked that sort of thing. I opened the doors. One half was shelves—stacked with cloths—the other a wider space that held no shelves, but tall birch rods propped in the corner.

“I am glad to report they are not going to run out of birch,” I said. Dark humor for a dark place.

Evan, who was studying the rack contraption, gave a grim huff of laughter.

I closed the doors and turned my attention to the clock. The mahogany case was inlaid with gold, and its maker’s name—J. Barwise of London—was written upon the face. A very good maker and a rather incongruous addition to such a chamber. “It would seem one needs to know the time when one is being flogged,” I said. This time I got no answering laugh. I turned to see if he had heard me.