That connection. . he could, in this odd state, almost feel it. Touch it, see it. Like a shining rope, stretched out yet strong, it glowed in his consciousness, vital and true, powerful, alive. . living.

Real.

He’d thought he was alone, lying cold, agony-wracked, and silenced in the big bed, but that shining rope. . led somewhere. It was fixed somehow. It anchored him to the world, to life.

Another whisper from beyond shivered through him, beckoning, calling.

But now he’d seen what lived inside him, been dazzled by its beauty, he had to know — needed to know — before he took that last irrevocable step and turned his back on the wonder, on the joy.

On the incomparable beauty of love.

He opened his senses — not touch or sight, but whatever in this state passed for those — and immediately knew where the shining rope ended.

Heather was sitting by his bedside, but she had crossed her arms on the covers and laid her head down. One slim hand was nestled in his lax palm. Her hair was spread fanlike, a golden veil flung across the covers, gilt strands a delicate net across her cheek.

She was sleeping.

His immediate thought was that she couldn’t be comfortable, that he should rise, lift her, and settle her in the bed. .

He paused, thought.

Remembered she’d rejected him.

Remembered that he’d still risked his life — brought himself to this, to the edge of life — in order to save her.

If he lived, he would again.

His love for her was an intrinsic part of him, the strongest, most brilliant, and best part of him. He would no more wrench it, or her, from his heart than he would trade his soul. . he would rather trade his soul than lose love, lose her.

Even if she wasn’t his in the worldly, customary sense.

In every sense that mattered to him, she would always be his to guard, to protect.

To love.

He looked at her, studied her from his new distance, through the strange distortion of the veil.

She’d said she didn’t care if he left. . so why was she there?

Why was she. . he broadened his senses and confirmed that it was only she. . by his bedside, keeping vigil through the lonely night?

He focused on her again, saw, sensed, the tracks of the tears she’d shed.

Knew beyond question that she’d shed them for him.

Knew she cared.

Other words echoed in the distance of his mind; he focused, pulled them forward, remembered. Out by the bull pen, when his life had been draining from him and he’d felt so cold, she’d told him she’d changed her mind — she’d said she intended to marry him. They’d talked of their future life, of all the things they would do, would achieve.

The memories came rushing back.

She loved him.

The wonder of that distracted him. While he savored that new aspect of his shining reality, he floated back up to where he’d earlier been.

Hovering between life and death.

Once again, more insistent this time, he felt the tug, the summons to go. To let go of life and leave the world he knew.

Leave Heather. Leave their love.

He looked again — detached, dispassionate — at his body on the bed. The injuries were serious. Beneath the miasma induced by the herbs and potions they’d fed him, his corporeal self was writhing in agony. If he returned to that body, he would face days of searing agony, weeks of debilitating pain.

He switched his strange senses to Heather. Saw her as she truly was in that moment, vulnerable, lost, and unprotected. And it was her love for him, her acceptance of it, that left her so exposed. So emotionally unshielded.

If he left. . who would hold her, shield her? Care for her, protect her?

Who would love her?

He couldn’t leave. No matter the agony of staying, no matter the price, he couldn’t walk away from her — not if there was any hope of staying, of remaining by her side.

The summons came again, more definite this time. He had to leave or stay — he had to make up his mind.

He didn’t have to search to know what to do. He simply opened his consciousness, and within it said one word. “No.”

And he was back in his body.

And the agony flayed him again.

“He’s burning up.” Heather looked up at Catriona. “What do we do?”

The worried look on Catriona’s face did nothing to quell the fear coursing through her. After him being chilled, his skin cold to the touch through the first night and the next day, this morning, when she’d woken and studied Breckenridge’s face, she’d seen a hint of color creeping into his cheeks. His hand had been warm in hers.

In her innocence and inexperience of serious injury, she’d thought that he was recovering. Talking quietly, telling him of all the things they would do once he got better, she’d waited eagerly for him to wake up.

Instead, a fever had built, and built, until now, in the late afternoon, it had reached the level of a raging conflagration, one that threatened to engulf and devour him from the inside out.

They’d gone from wiping his brow with iced water, to laying ice-water-dampened sheets over him, and constantly changing them, but nothing had worked to even stabilize his temperature.

It continued to climb.

Arms folded, Catriona stared down at him, then, as if she’d come to the conclusion of some inner debate, she nodded curtly. “An ice-bath. We’ve tried everything else to no avail, so it’ll have to be that.” She hesitated, then met Heather’s eyes. “It’s risky with that wound, but if we don’t get his temperature down, we’ll lose him regardless.”

“Now?” was the only reply Heather made.

Catriona gave the orders. Within minutes Henderson arrived with two footmen carrying a large tin bath. Under Catriona’s directions, they set it down on the other side of the room, away from the hearth even though they’d long ago doused the fire.

The first footman carrying two buckets of ice arrived five minutes later.

Algaria returned from the schoolroom and supervised. Richard came with Henderson and two other men. They stood ready to lift Breckenridge from the bed to the bath.

Catriona told them, “We’ll need to lower him in, then lift him out again.”

They fashioned a makeshift sling from a sheet. When Algaria deemed the ice slurry in the bath ready, the men shifted Breckenridge onto the sheet, lifted him in it, and lowered him into the bath.

Arms tightly folded, Heather watched, and shivered.

The instant the men stepped back, letting Breckenridge sink into the ice-and-water mix, she stepped to one side of the bath, went to her knees, and took one of his hands in hers.

On the other side of the bath, Catriona hovered close, watching. After a few minutes, Heather realized Catriona was watching Breckenridge’s lips.

The instant they started to pale, Catriona said, “Out. Now.”

Heather stepped back, and the men stepped in.

They lifted Breckenridge out, then laid him down, wrapped in the ice-cold sheet on a pallet of towels on the floor. Catriona and Algaria worked swiftly to replace his bandages with dry ones.

They had to dunk him twice more before midnight.

After the clocks throughout the manor tolled that hour, with Breckenridge once more lying on the bed covered only by the damp sheet, Heather sat on the chair by his side, his hand again in hers, and watched him sleep.

On the other side of the bed, seated in a rocker with a warm shawl wrapped about her, Catriona kept watch, too.

In the quiet, in the silence, Heather finally found courage to voice the question that had hovered in her mind all day. “Why hasn’t he woken?”

Catriona, her gaze on Breckenridge, too, rocked, then softly said, “I think it’s because of the amount of blood he lost. Not enough to kill, but enough to. . make him hibernate might be nearest the truth. That, and the infection on top of it.” Without taking her eyes from him, she went on, “The mind and body have ways of protecting themselves — the mind especially can send the body into this type of hibernating state, not true unconsciousness but a deep, deep sleep, so it can more effectively heal.”

Raising a hand to resettle her shawl, Catriona flicked a glance Heather’s way. “I don’t see him not waking as a bad sign — not yet. It might, in fact, be the opposite, an indication that his body is coping as it should and he’s healing. The fever itself is a sign that his body is fighting the infection.”

Heather nodded. The words were a comfort; she held them close.

Catriona reached out and laid her fingers on Breckenridge’s wrist. After a moment, she sat back again. “His pulse is still steady. Not as strong as I’d like, but there’s no hint it’s weakening, and at the moment his temperature is good. However, fevers being as fevers are, I’d expect his to rise again before morning.”

Settling in the chair, flicking the shawl across her shoulders, she caught Heather’s gaze. “I suggest we take turns getting some sleep. One of us needs to be awake in case his temperature spikes — as I expect — or alternatively if it goes the other way and he starts to shiver.” Closing her eyes, she wriggled down in the chair. “If he does start to shiver, or gets too hot again, wake me immediately.”

“All right.” Heather leaned on the bed, Breckenridge’s hand between hers, and settled to watch him through the night.

After two hours, Catriona woke and insisted Heather needed to rest. Heather knew better than to argue; laying her head down on the bed, she closed her eyes.