Paul Gibson sat on the edge of his bed, his head bowed as he rubbed an arnica-enriched ointment into the inflamed stump of his left leg. A single candle flame lit the small chamber with a faint, flickering glow. He could hear a distant watchman crying, “One o’clock on a snowy night and all is well!” But the only other sound came from the snow falling in a rush outside.
The surgeon was a slim, wiry man, thinner than he should be, thanks to an opium addiction he knew was going to kill him if he didn’t master it soon. Once, his hair had been dark. Now it was increasingly threaded with silver, although he was only in his thirties. He’d just spent hours fighting for the lives of two half-drowned, broken men, and yet one of them had died anyway. He was feeling tired and old and useless.
A soft feminine hand touched the small of his back, and despite the glumness of his mood, he found himself smiling.
“You saved one,” said Alexi, who frequently seemed to know what he was thinking better than he knew himself.
“And lost the other.”
“It happens.”
“It shouldn’t.”
She shifted on the bed, rising onto her knees to slip her arms around him and hold him close. He could feel the weight of her breasts through the thin cloth of her night rail, pressing against his back. “The babe I delivered today will not survive forty-eight hours.”
He tipped back his head to rest it against hers. “And that doesn’t bother you?” he asked, somewhat in awe. There was a side to Alexi that mystified him—a hard side that could frighten him even as it attracted him.
“On one level, yes. But the babe’s mother already has three children she can’t feed, and she’s so starved herself that her milk will never come in. Lady Devlin left the woman money, but it won’t last. Perhaps it’s better that the infant die now, quickly, rather than linger to die slowly.” Alexi made an angry noise deep in her throat as passion roughened her voice and accentuated her native French accent. “And then there’s our charming Prince Regent, who has no problem at all finding the funds to drape his mistresses in jewels or rebuild his various palaces year after year.”
Gibson knew a faint blooming of disquiet. She didn’t often discuss such things. But after a year of sharing this woman’s bed and going through the pattern of his days with her, he’d come to realize that she despised the British monarchy nearly as much as she hated Napoléon and his empire—and for the same reason: because at heart she was very much a fervent republican.
And then, because she always seemed to know what he was thinking, she tipped her head to nuzzle his neck. “Don’t worry. I was most demure and respectful when the Prince’s men came to carry away Jane Ambrose’s body.”
“I’m sorry I wasn’t here.”
“It’s just as well you weren’t. You like to think you’re always so prudent and wise. But the truth is, you’ve a stubborn streak yourself.”
Grunting, he set aside the ointment and lurched up to hop over to the basin and wash his hands.
She watched him, her eyes narrowing. And although he was nowhere near as prescient as she, he knew what she was going to say. “Your leg is hurting.”
“The stump? Aye.” He laid on his Irish burr thick and heavy. “Although not nearrrly as much as the foot that ’tisn’t therrre.”
“I could do something about that,” she said.
He gave her a lopsided smile. “With your smoke and mirrors?”
“No smoke. Just mirrors.” When he kept silent, she said, “Why not try it? If it doesn’t work, then you can say, ‘It didn’t work.’ But it might.”
He didn’t answer because they’d been over it all before, and in truth he was as terrified the idea might work as he was afraid it wouldn’t.
Smiling faintly in a way that told him she knew his reasons only too well, she grasped handfuls of her night rail and drew it off over her head.
“You’ll get cold,” he said even as the heat of want surged within him.
She shook back her fiery hair, her neck arching seductively. “Then come keep me warm.”