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Mariah is in this world.

James sat up at that thought, the heavy bedclothes slipping from his white-knuckled grasp. He surveyed the wrinkled linens with a dazed intensity, the memory of his vision clashing with the stillness of the chamber. Only a heartbeat prior, his fingers had ensnared a black fabric…a shroud that had concealed⁠—

The memory struck with the force of a blow, and James surged from the bed. He bypassed the bellpull, and did not even pause to don a dressing gown, his entire being consumed by a singular, desperate purpose.

Without knocking, he turned the ancient knob on the door between his chambers and his wife’s. Only as the hinges groaned did the realization strike that she might yet be sleeping or amidst her toilette. He also belatedly took in his own preference for sleeping in a state of nature.

Mariah, seated at her escritoire within a sun-drenched alcove, lifted her head at his abrupt entrance, blinking rapidly.

“M-my lord?” she stuttered as James followed her gaze, recalling that he had not taken the time to dress before he came to see her. While he had made love to Mariah countless times, he had never stood before her nude in full daylight. Under ordinary circumstances, he was not a man to typically be embarrassed by nudity, yet a telltale heat, both fluttering and remarkably heavy, spilled up the expanse of his chest. He turned with a sudden sharpness, acutely aware of the view he was offering her, before he located a burgundy silk dressing gown and wrapped it around his body. He stalked back through the now open door, his face burning with a previously unknown sense of embarrassment.

Behind her rosewood escritoire, Mariah clutched her dressing gown more firmly against her chest, as if seeking sanctuary within its folds. For a fleeting instant, James imagined he glimpsed a smoldering heat within her gaze, yet it was swiftly eclipsed by a veil of weary disillusionment.

No. He looked closer. It was just…emptiness. She regarded him with a hollow indifference, as if he had effectively schooled her in the bitter lesson that he was not merely unreliable, but someone capable of reducing her most cherished dreams to a heap of lifeless ash.

That thought caused a wave of pain to cascade through him, and he pulled his robe tighter reflexively. He had not given himself time to reckon with his dream, whether it was a dream, or something else, it did not matter. What mattered was convincing the woman before him to give him a chance.

Mariah was the first to break their silence. “I thought you were r-returning to London, my lord.”

Her my lord grated, but it was no more than he deserved.

“Mariah,” he began purposefully, “something happened, I—” How could explain what had happened without sounding like a madman? She would likely have him sent to Bedlam if he attempted to explain his revelations. “I don’t know how to say this to a person such as you.”

“A person such as m-me?” While her tone had previously leaned toward emotionlessness, he recognized his error as her body became rigid. He remembered only too late their conversation on her “marks against her” for being Irish, in trade, and having a stutter.

Double damn, he had only meant he did not know how to apologize to a woman but he had well and truly put his foot in it.

“I’m sorry.” Was all he found he could say. He had already wronged her in so many ways.

Her eyes widened as she blinked, the moue of her mouth betraying that she was taken aback by such an admission, yet her posture remained rigid, closed off.

“For the assembly hall, for Barrymore. Bloody hell, for everything. For spending your father’s hard-earned money on anything besides saving the estate. I’ve been…beyond selfish since we wed, it’s only taken me losing almost everything to see it.”

She stayed in the same position before him, her uneven breath the only indication she was at all affected by his words. For a moment, something softened in her eyes before that chilling emptiness returned. An emptiness that did not align with what she said next.

“Very w-well. I accept your apology.”

“Mariah, you can’t—” he began before her words registered. “You do?” A previously unknown joy shot off within his chest, striking with the force of a cannonade. “Mariah, I don’t deserve you, thank heavens. I was thinking, perhaps…” He rubbed his hand behind his neck, his hair tickling the skin there as it moved. “Perhaps we could start again, you and I, you see⁠—”

“James,” she said sharply, before lacing her fingers together in a frantic knot, as if the unexpected power of her own utterance had startled even herself. “I said that I f-forgive you, but I would still like for you to go to London.”

“But I…how can we…?” he trailed off as a look of something like pity briefly graced her lovely face. The rare northern sun spilling from behind her reminding him of the vision of the man from his dream. But was it a dream? He had to make her see…

“My lord,” Ah, she was back to my lord, was she? He could do something about that. “I b-believe that we should carry on as we had before. Live s-separate lives.”

“But why should we when we have this?” He let out a low growl, closing the distance between them before ensnaring her waist in his firm embrace, hoisting her closer to his heat. His gaze descended to her pillowy lips, lingering for a heartbeat to offer her the chance to utter a denial. The second she voiced a desire for him to cease, he would immediately yield to her wishes.

When no denial came, he claimed her mouth with his own. Despite the composed propriety she maintained throughout the day, James had long since surmised that Mariah harbored a secret appreciation for a touch of roughness in their bedsport, for she swiftly yielded, returning his kiss with a fervor of her own. She tasted of tea and fresh mint, a scent uniquely hers that he had relished upon many occasions, yet never had their coupling kindled such a profound sense of exhilaration within him. Embracing her now sparked a previously unknown ecstasy, a thrill he had once believed only the far reaches of the world could provide, as he finally acknowledged the truth of his own heart. He was falling in love with his own wife, a realization that was as startling as it was welcome.

“How can we live apart when we have this?” he rasped, reluctantly pulling his lips from hers to reiterate his point.

Her dilated eyes refocused, and she seemed to recall where she was as she shoved his hands off her and turned, wrapping her dressing gown around herself more tightly. “But it is all we have, J-James. Just because I forgive you does not mean I trust you. Or wish to have a real marriage with you. I just do not believe in bearing grudges or anger.”

“But Mariah…I. “His throat was thick as silence settled between them. In all his years, he had never spoken his heart to another soul. The widows he’d been involved with before he got married liked him for his looks and his charm, not the depth of his soul. Yet, as he gaped at her, he realized that no amount of practiced charm could hope to bridge the chasm between them. “I think I could love you. I’m…I’m falling in love with you.”

Mariah stared at him as something pulsed in those midnight blue eyes, something like sadness mixed with anger and frustration. Then, as if a curtain had been drawn, they went blank, and she sat down at her escritoire again, placing the ancient rosewood between them.

“You d-don’t know me, James.” Her response made him feel just as bare as he had been earlier that morning, and was somehow tenfold worse. “Not really.”