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There were times, on the rare occasions when Dwight Enys fell into a fitful sleep, leaning against the wall, unable to fight off his body's weariness any longer, when he dreamt that such things existed as soft beds. Delicious food. Hot baths. And the soft hands and scented curls of a woman named Caroline.

He would wake from these dreams into the reality of a French prison, the living hell of it, in agony as the illusions were torn from him. In those moments, it was nearly unbearable to consider a further existence, and he longed for nothing more than to slide back into sleep and live a while longer in the delusions of his imagination.

But there were men who needed him. He had not the luxury of letting go, giving up, as he saw so many around him do. He couldn't blame them, certainly. There was nothing to live for. Little hope of being freed, no contact with the world, no pleasure in the foul food and the rats and insects that tormented one day and night.

Dwight considered himself fortunate that he at least had a task, something to keep his mind and hands occupied. It was difficult to be a doctor with no medicines, no access to fresh air or clean water, but that made it all the sweeter when a patient pulled through. He needed to live, to remain awake and alert, for these men, so that he could help them to fight.

It was easier to pretend that nothing he dreamed of was real, that he had always slept sitting up against a filthy wall, that he had always eaten foul food, that he had never bathed … that there never had been such a person as Caroline Penvenen. In truth, he had never deserved her to begin with. Letting her go, albeit within the confines of his own mind, was the kindest thing he could do for her. And for himself.


As she did so often, Caroline Penvenen woke from a dream turned nightmare in which she and Dwight were reunited, but then he became … something else. A different creature each night. A gaunt shadow of his former self, a decaying body risen from the grave—there was no end to the horrors her imagination could concoct in her sleep, it seemed.

Perhaps her sleeping mind gave too much credence to the dark looks of Ross Poldark when she mentioned Dwight coming home, and to the gentle suggestions he made that the Dwight who came home from prison would not be the same as the one who had left.

In truth, Caroline wasn't certain what he meant. Dwight was gentleness. He was dedication to his work, to the people he tended. She could not fathom how a man so formed, so set on the path of his life, could ever be altered. No. The Dwight who came home to her—and he would come home to her—would be the man she loved.

Closing her eyes, she could feel his gentle hands on her body, and the warmth and softness of the expensive sheets on which she lay became the rough, scratchy linens of the narrow bed in that cheap inn as she relived that night—her true wedding night, the night she became his in body as she already was his in heart and soul. Not even his kisses could have prepared her for the fire that had built inside her, the way her skin had tingled with every caress, the way—

Abruptly, she pushed the sheets back. That way lay madness, she knew. All she would do if she dwelt on that night was drive herself into such a frenzy that she must use her own hands to bring herself to the peak of pleasure, and it was never enough. It was never close to enough.

Caroline rose from her bed, already making lists, planning who she could write to. Someone somewhere must be able to ransom him. She refused to believe that all her money couldn't buy her the only thing she wanted—to bring Dwight home to her.

The truth was that she was rapidly running out of people she could write to, and no one yet had been willing to help her. Many promises had been made, but nothing had come of any of them. And once her letters had been written and posted, there was nothing else to do with her day.

To think she had once enjoyed being an heiress, swanning about in beautiful clothes and eating fine foods and visiting insipid people who had nothing to talk of but the dull lives of other insipid people. If Dwight were here, she could hear about his work, help him in it, be part of making people's lives better. It was enough to make Caroline wish that she had a doctor's calling, that she could take up the work he had left behind.

But she had no calling, neither that of a doctor nor any other. As a woman, she was naturally expected to need none. And yet the days were long, and empty, and nothing could fill them.

She could barely stand to look at, much less eat, her luncheon, wondering what Dwight was eating. If Ross was to believed, very little, and that moldy and full of worms. Caroline could scarcely imagine such food. If she could even come close, it was because Dwight had opened her eyes to the plight of those less fortunate than she.

Pushing away the plate once she had eaten as much as she could stomach, she left the table, and the house, riding to the ocean to stand on the beach, the place where she felt closest to him. She looked out across the water. He was there, out there somewhere, so far from her. Surely the depth of her longing must call to him, must bring him back across the sea to her. How could it not? Was there no power in a woman's love?

But if there was, it was not working today, as it had not yesterday or the day before. Caroline turned away, disconsolate, as the waves rolled as ceaselessly over the shore as each empty day rolled over her heart.