Why Kings Confess

Chapter 23

Later that afternoon, when none of the older women Gibson typically hired to sit with his most critically ill patients was available for the approaching night, he had Alexandrie Sauvage wrapped in a blanket and carried next door to the inner chamber of his own house.

“You don’t need to do this,” she whispered hoarsely as he tucked his worn quilt around her.

“Yes, I do.”

She was showing hopeful signs of improvement, but her eyes were still dull with fever, her cheeks hollow, her flesh like hot, dry parchment to the touch. She let her lids flutter closed, and he thought she slept. Then she said, “My woman, Karmele, is a good nurse. You could send for her.”

“I will.” He started to move away, then barely bit back a gasp when, without warning, a burning jolt of agony shot up his leg, as brutal and real as if someone had thrust a red-hot poker into the sole of his left foot.

The foot that was no longer there.

She opened her eyes and fixed her gaze on his face. “You’re in pain. Why?”

He shook his head. “I’m fine.” And when he knew from the incredulity of her expression that she didn’t believe him, he said, “I sometimes get pains from my missing foot and leg. It will pass.”

“There is a way-”

“Hush,” he said, smoothing the covers over her. “Go to sleep.”

He didn’t expect her to listen to him, because he was learning that she was not the most cooperative of patients. But to his surprise, she did.

He went to settle in the chair beside the fire and carefully removed his peg leg. It did no good; the pain persisted, so intense now that if his left foot had still been attached to his body, he’d have been tempted to whack it off himself, just to end the agony. But you can’t amputate a limb that isn’t there.

He felt the sweat start on his face, and a fine trembling made his hand shake as he brought up one crooked arm to swipe his sleeve across his forehead. The urge to set his mind free from the pain, to escape into the sweetly hued dreams of laudanum, was damned near overwhelming. He had to grit his teeth, his hands clutching the arms of the chair, his gaze fixed on the fever-racked woman who lay in his bed.

And he found himself wondering if this was why he had brought her here, why he resisted sending for her woman. If he were only fooling himself, convincing himself that he was fighting to save her life when the truth was that by her very presence, she was saving him.