Page 119 of Love Beneath the Guillotine
“Well, no. I feel terrible I haven’t been here all afternoon. Are you going to hurt him?”
“I don’t think much of anything will hurt him right now, but if we don’t get this fever down, he’s not going to wake again. Ever.” Guillotin was all business, trying to save Henry, but how those words hurt. How they clung to the walls and the air and every breath in Léon’s lungs.
Léon threw himself into a chair, linking fingers together, leaning on them pensively. He watched the man’s well-practised movements as he got a jar from his bag. A big one. He placed it down by Henry’s side and began undoing the fresh bandage on his arm. It slipped free without a groan or a breath of pain from Henry’s lips.
Guillotin brought a metal tray under Henry’s arm, then he cleaned the wound. Not the slightest ruffle of Henry’s beautiful brow.
Then a slither of reflected light caught Léon’s eye. He focused on the jar. It was alive and moving. It was creeping and foul. “What are you going to do?” he whispered.
Guillotin followed the focus of his eyes. “Leeches,” he said softly. “We need to try to suck the infection out.”
Léon shuddered with revulsion. “That can’t be right. That’s…”
“I’ll apply them to the wound, the source of the illness. And if they can suck the bacteria out?—”
“Bacteria?” Léon grasped at the word, as though understanding it might help him discover a cure.
Guillotin went about screwing the lid off the jar, explaining, “There are very, very, really incredibly small creatures living in the wound. They’ve spread to his blood, they’re attacking him from the inside.”
“That’s preposterous,” Léon said.
“That’s science,” Guillotin drawled. “Not easy to convince the medical establishment of it, but it’s not a new theory.”
“But—”
“Regardless,” he cut Léon off, “this is all we can do. Leeches are a tried-and-true method for curing infections. And for the fever… I will need to drain his blood. A lot of it.”
Léon stood, giddy, stalking across the room with the backs of his fingers at his lips.
“I think it would be wise for you to leave.”
“And go where?” Léon yelled. “What if he wakes? What if I’m not here, if no one’s here, and he finds those things?—”
Guillotin’s hands pressed into his shoulders to silence him. “He won’t wake. Léon, I am sorry, but unless he can fight the infection, this is it. This is the last thing I can try. He’sdehydrated, and he cannot last much longer with a fever this high. Unless he wakes up soon, drinks, and unless these leeches work…” He cast sad eyes over Henry’s unmoving body. “I will call you back in time to say goodbye.”
Léon let out a deep and empty breath, as though his interior had been crushed. He was too broken to cry, too lost to voice any argument, for whatever good it might have done. He only looked at Henry, so close to death, his one and only love in his short and brutal life, the most precious thing he had ever touched, about to be ripped away. Ripped away because he took a bullet for him. Because he was protecting Léon. And had Léon trusted him more from the start, been paying attention, bothered to understand him sooner…
“Try to put on a brave face,” Guillotin said. “There’s a very slim chance. And there’s no point worrying the ladies over nothing. Especially Catherine.”
It was the terrifying reminder Léon needed. Souveraine and Émile couldn’t be in the house when he told her. They needed to be streets away, maybe even further.
“All right,” said Léon, swallowing down his grief. “You’ll call me?—”
“If he opens his eyes, for even a second, you’ll be the first to know.”
52
THE END OF AN AFFAIR
Léon moved quietly down the stairs, trying to avoid notice. Every breath caught sharply in his throat, and his lungs felt like they might explode. He went to the kitchen, dimly lit by a single candle, the food he’d bought with Henry’s money and such good intentions sitting there on the bench, mocking him.
It would never pass his lips.
He was certain of it.
He gripped the bench, his eyes clouding.
“Léon?”
