toward him? Why did she never come to him and take him in her arms? Why did she never breach this insurmountable distance keeping them apart?
He attempted to call out to her, but his voice did not seem to work. It rasped, swallowed by the vast echoes of the outdoors. She drifted farther from him and he paddled faster, desperate.
But as hard as he pushed and thrashed and fought through the water, his progress seemed to stagnate. He could not move. And Nell continued to paddle in the distance, her ivory arms arcing cleanly through the air, splashing in the water as she swam away.
He tried to call for her again and again, but his voice was eerily silent. He could not seem to yell her name. And Nell grew smaller and smaller, farther out of his reach. Desperation hit him. He tried to swim faster, but the water fought him. Something seemed to catch him from the depths of the water, dragging his head beneath.
He coughed, fought, sputtered for air.
He was drowning.
“Jack?”
A soft voice broke through his terror.
He woke with a clench in his chest, as if invisible hands sought to squeeze all the breath from his lungs. He was panting, his heart pounding. The night was dark around him, and it took a moment for his wits to gather where he was.
Home, at Needham Hall, in his chamber. It had all been a nightmare. Thank Christ.
But he was not alone. There was a presence alongside him, a hand gently stroking his arm in comfort. Nell, he realized.
“I heard you crying out,” she said softly. “Is something wrong?”
“A nightmare,” he said, feeling foolish. “Nothing more. Forgive me for waking you. I am fine.”
In truth, he was not fine. Not really. The dream had shaken him. The sense of having lost Nell was still real, looming. Because after a sennight in furious pursuit of his wife, Jack had to admit that he was failing abysmally in his crusade to win back her heart. Seven days.
That was all he had left.
And it may not be enough.
“You are trembling,” she observed, worry in her voice.
God, so he was. What a pathetic imbecile he was.
He raked a hand through his hair. “What is this? Concern for me?”
He had not meant to sound so bitter.
“Of course I am concerned.” She continued stroking his arm as though he were a feral animal in need of soothing lest he bite. “You gave me quite a fright. I thought you were in pain.”
“I am in pain,” he muttered.
Could she not see? He was heartsick.
“What hurts?” she asked, laying her hand on his brow. “You are not feverish, are you?”
“My heart,” he told her. “My heart is what hurts.”
She removed her hand, and he felt her stiffen beside him. “Jack, please.”
He reached for her hand through the darkness and yanked it to his chest. “Feel it, beating for you. Always for you, and you do not want it.”
His chest was bare, and the heat of her touch seared him like a brand.
She tugged at her hand, trying to escape, but he was not ready to release her. The nightmare had not entirely fled him yet. The soul-crushing belief she was out of reach forever remained. He needed her here. He needed to touch her, to reassure himself he yet had seven days.
“You are making this far more difficult than it has to be,” she said.
He could argue the same about her.
“My nightmare was about you,” he told her. “We were in the lake, and you were swimming away from me. I was trying to swim after you, but you just kept getting farther and farther away. And I was drowning without you, my head under water until I could not breathe.”
“It was a dream, Jack. Nothing more.”
“But that is how the prospect of losing you feels, Nellie,” he admitted. “If I lose you, I will be a drowning man.”
Something about the darkness and the nightmare made honesty easier. He had been telling her he loved her since he had returned. Hell, he had told her in all the letters he had sent from abroad—the letters she had never read. But he had never told her how devastated he would be if he lost her forever.
“Jack.”
There was such sadness in her voice. Determination, too.
“Is forgiving me such an impossibility?” he asked. “Or do you hate me that much?”
“I do not hate you at all,” she whispered.
“You said you did,” Jack reminded her. “More than once.”
“I thought I did, but