The tenderness tugged at her heart, igniting a flame of hope that she knew she should probably snuff out. Butthiswas what she wanted: a husband who longed to be near her, who longed to hold her and care for her and love her.
“What does this mean for us?” Anna whispered, still struggling to catch her breath. “Is this all there is?”
Jeremy chuckled hoarsely at her side, his arms holding her that little bit tighter. “If ye want it, wife of mine, then there’s more. Much more.” He paused, clearing his throat as if something was stuck. “I do not know if that’s what ye want tonight, but if ye do… I’m only too happy to… oblige. I just need some… water.”
He slowly withdrew his warm embrace and sat up, settling on the edge of the bed for a moment. An odd, whistling sound escaped from his mouth as he took a breath, and he pounded on his chest and cleared his throat again.
As he pushed off from the bed, he seemed to sway unsteadily.
“Jeremy?” Anna sat up quickly. “Are you well?”
“I… don’t know,” he wheezed in reply, as he staggered toward the side table where a jug of water sat. “I don’t feel… so good.”
All of a sudden, as his hand reached for the jug of water, his legs buckled. The sickening thud when he hit the floor would haunt Anna for the rest of her life.
CHAPTER 27
“Jeremy?” Anna gasped as she leapt out of bed and ran to him, dropping to her knees beside him. “Jeremy? Jeremy, what’s wrong?”
She rolled him onto his back, her heart in her throat as she searched his purple, panicked face. His eyes were bulging and bloodshot, his mouth desperately trying to draw air into his lungs, though his chest barely moved. All the while, that whistling sound shredded Anna’s nerves.
He cannot breathe. Oh, Lord, he cannot breathe!
“Where does it hurt? Are you in pain? Tell me what is wrong!” she urged, resisting the frantic impulse to shake him.
His hand clawed at his chest, right where she had only just listened to his heart beating. She had heard nothing strange, but then she was no physician; perhaps, she had missed something.
“Is it your heart?” she implored.
He gave the faintest nod.
Did I do this to him?
He had been breathing rather hard toward the end. Had that put some untold pressure on his heart and lungs, causing an apoplexy? She knew just enough from the physician who had tended to her father in the last months of his life. Her father had suffered an apoplexy after turning the soil in his garden and had never been the same after. What if Jeremy had suffered the same affliction due to his exertions?
“A… doctor,” Jeremy rasped, patting his heart.
“Of course. Of course. Do not move; I shall be right back.” Anna jumped up and ran from the room, struck with the sudden feeling of sprinting through time, back to the night that she found Robert dead in his bed.
Indeed, she was so focused on saving her new husband that she forgot she wasn’t wearing anything. It didn’t matter. She would have hurtled naked through the very center of London if it meant getting assistance to Jeremy quicker.
“Help!” she all but screamed, her own heart threatening to explode in terror. “Help, someone! Please!”
Katherine burst out of her nearby bedchamber in a disheveled state, as if she had been resting or changing. “Your Grace? What’s the matter?” She hurried to her friend and took hold of Anna’s arms, steadying her. “Are you hurt?”
“Jeremy,” Anna gasped, tears stinging her eyes. “He… collapsed. I think it is his heart, but he cannot breathe. He needs a physician and… I do not know what to do. How do I help him, Katherine? What do I do? I cannot lose him! Please, Katherine, tell me what to do?”
Katherine’s gaze flitted to the wide-open door of Anna’s chambers. “Go back to him, Your Grace, and put your robe on. I will send a footman for the physician, and we’ll wait for him to arrive. We’ll keep His Grace calm, and all will be well.”
“But… he cannot breathe,” Anna whispered, the tears beading on her eyelashes.
“There are things we can try until the physician comes,” Katherine replied. “Go on. You hurry back to him. I won’t be a moment.”
On shaky legs and so overcome with fear that she wasn’t sure she would make it, Anna stumbled back the way she had come. She paused to catch her breath at the doorway, her heart lurching all over again as she saw Jeremy lying on the floor, right where she had left him.
For some reason, she had hoped he might be better, the awful moment passing as quickly as it had arrived.
His whistling breaths pierced right through her, his agonized moans making her want to crumble where she stood. She couldn’t do this again. She couldn’t sit beside him and watch the life drain out of him, as she had dutifully done with her father. She couldn’t lose someone else that she loved.
