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.
Move! she commanded herself, grabbing her robe and limply pulling it on as she shambled onward to where her husband lay, fighting for each breath.
Mustering all the courage and love she had, she sank to her knees and took Jeremy’s hand. She brought it to her lips and kissed it, her eyes meeting his, her heart aching as she watched him try to smile.
“Do not leave me,” she begged. “Do not dare leave me, or I shall… I shall… I shall allow Sprightly to relieve himself on your grave!”
She thought she heard Jeremy chuckle, but then his eyes rolled back, and his arm went limp. Only the shallow yet steady rise and fall of his chest told her that it was not over yet; he was still fighting to stay with her, even though he was unconscious.
While Anna sat in the chair by her writing desk with a cooling cup of chamomile tea in her hands, untouched, Katherine had been surprisingly busy. The young woman might have been a doctor herself, given the care she took in tending to Jeremy, doing what Anna could not.
The lady’s maid had been in and out several times, bringing strange items with her: some kind of pungent tonic she had fed to Jeremy by spoonful, unusual black cubes she had somehow made him swallow, and a sort of powder she mixed into water to help Jeremy drink.
Anna just stared at the man she had fallen hopelessly in love with, desperately watching for any sign of improvement.
He was still breathing, maybe with more strength than before, but it was hard to tell.
The purplish hue on his face had faded to a blotchy red, and his lips were not as bloodless, but until he woke up, there would be no relief of any kind.
“Will he live?” Anna asked, as Katherine stuffed another pillow under Jeremy’s head.
The skillful maid sat back on her feet and adjusted the blanket that she had draped over Jeremy. “We have done all we can for him, Your Grace. The rest is in the Lord’s hands… and the physician’s, when the man finally gets here.”
“Should I be at the door to greet him?” Anna asked in a faraway voice, feeling utterly detached from her own body and mind.
She would still be naked if it were not for Katherine’s decisive instructions. The maid had helped her into a simple dress while pouring one concoction or another down Jeremy’s throat, showing as much care to her duchess as her duke.
“You should drink that tea for the shock,” Katherine insisted. “I’ll contend with the physician. In truth, I really don’t think you should leave this room at all.”
Anna blinked. “What do you mean?”
“Just… trust me,” Katherine replied, her brow creasing.
With a burst of horror, Anna understood.
They will blame me. They will be convinced that I am a killer.
Even if Jeremy survived this, which she prayed he would, who would believe that she wasn’t responsible?
For one husband to die on their wedding night and the second to suffer an unknown affliction that could yet kill him would reek of suspicion.
“I cannot just sit here and do nothing,” Anna said. “I will go mad if I do not do something to help.”
“All he needs is for you to stay close to him,” Katherine replied. “The physician will arrive when he arrives. There’s no use in you—”
But Anna was already on her feet and heading for the chamber door, surprised to find that it was locked. She glanced back at Katherine with a sad smile, understanding that her friend had locked the door in order to keep her safe from whatever judgment might be waiting outside.
“Your Grace, please,” Katherine urged. “They won’t understand. They won’t listen. I know you haven’t done anything, but that is because I know you. You should stay in here with me, so you can be here when he wakes up.”
It was tempting. All Anna wanted to do was be there when Jeremy woke up, but she couldn’t endure another endless stretch of time just staring down at him, willing him to open his eyes. She needed to make herself useful, for her own sake.
“I will return with the physician,” she told Katherine and walked out.