“Yes, yes, I understand your recommendation.” Then he paused, the words choking him. “If it comes to it, will you be the one to do the amputations?”
The man’s eyes bulged out in shock. “I should say not! That is…” He sniffed as he looked to the surgeon. “That is more properly something for a surgeon.”
Which is why Kimberly had asked for him. “Thank you, Dr. Morton. Pray do see to my mother’s nerves now.”
The man knew he was dismissed, and so he bowed and left, moving with pompous care. Max turned his attention to Mr. Torres.
“What will be the signs if we wait too long?”
“The fever will be very bad. Red streaks climbing upward from bad blood. The rest will look very similar to what you see now.”
Max nodded, his expression grim. “I’ll stay with her. She has no one in this land except me, and I will not abandon her.”
“Very well, my lord. I will return before nightfall to see if she has turned a corner in either direction.”
“Thank you—” he began, but Kim touched his hand. It was a loud gesture for her since she rarely touched people. Her caresses were almost exclusively reserved for dogs.
“The odds are not good, Max,” she said. “You need to prepare yourself.”
“I know,” he said grimly. “Go home. There’s no need for you to stay.”
She flashed him a wan smile. “Actually, I need to return to my cousin. She is doing a similar vigil tonight.”
He frowned. “The black mastiff?”
She nodded.
“I’m sorry, Kim. This has been a hard day for you.” He knew Kimberly loved that dog almost as much as her cousin did.
“It’s his time,” she said, her gaze going to the bedroom door. She didn’t have to say the words for him to know what she meant. She thought that he should allow Miss Wong to pass on as well. Life for a foreign woman with no feet was no life at all.
Unfortunately, he agreed, which made him feel sick.
He raised her hand to his mouth, giving her the most formal and devoted of kisses. “Thank you, Lady Kimberly,” he said.
She tapped his arm before he released her. “It’s not so awful being Ophelia, you know. Not when you are acting so kind to a complete stranger.”
“I am not Hamlet,” he grumbled. “Christopher, however—”
“I’m off!” his friend interrupted. “Prinny will want to know all the details and I have yet to shave.” Then with a rakishgrin, he headed for the stairs. Max would have thought him completely unaffected by the day’s events, but he saw the man glance to the other bedroom door. Glance, flinch, then hunch away.
Chris wasn’t nearly as sanguine as he appeared.
“Good luck,” Kimberly said, drawing his attention back to her.
“Thank you,” he said. Then he turned to the darkened bedroom. Was he really sitting vigil next to a foreign woman?
Apparently so. He prayed vehemently that this was not a death watch.
Chapter Nine
Yihui lay ona fiery cloud of softness. The cushions were suffocating, the blanket too light and yet too heavy at once. Where was she?
She turned her head and saw a man watching her.
“Baba?” she croaked, thinking it was her father. He had looked at her that way the morning he’d sold her to the Wong patriarch. But this was not the floor of her brother’s bedroom, neither was she on the straw pallet that made up her bed.
“Yihui? Would you like some water?”
