Chapter 28
Twenty-Eight
Why must he insist he is dying?
June sighed as she looked out at the gardens she'd walked with Dominic only hours before.
His response to her innocent question about Greece lingered between them like a ghost; that barely perceptible pause, the forced smile that never reached his eyes, the nod that meant nothing because she could read what lay behind it.
He didn't believe he would live to see next summer.
He didn't believe they had a future to plan.
She turned away from the window, pacing the length of her bedchamber with agitated steps.
The rooms the dowager duchess had prepared for her were beautiful—all blue silk and polished wood—but at this moment, they felt like a gilded cage.
Every luxury seemed to mock her with its permanence while her husband viewed his own existence as fleeting.
"Should we travel to Greece next summer?" she'd asked him, her mind filled with sun-washed shores and ancient ruins they might explore together.
And he'd looked at her with such profound sadness that for a moment she couldn't breathe. Just a tiny hesitation, a shadow crossing his face before he manufactured that smile and gave her that empty nod.
June stopped before her dressing table, staring at her reflection without truly seeing it.
The dowager duchess's words from their tea echoed in her mind: "It gives me such comfort to know these walls will witness another generation of Blake laughter.
" Louisa didn't speak like a woman who expected to lose her son prematurely.
She spoke of grandchildren, of futures unfolding, of time stretching comfortably into decades rather than mere months or years.
Which of them is right? June wondered, resuming her pacing. The mother who has known him all his life, or the man himself who feels the rhythms of his own heart?
The uncertainty was maddening. June was not accustomed to puzzles she couldn't solve through study or observation.
This was different—a mystery of mortality that couldn't be unraveled through books or logical deduction.
It required faith or resignation, and June found herself capable of neither at present.
She needed distraction—something, anything to occupy her mind and hands before she wore a path in the fine Aubusson carpet.
The dinner hour approached, but after their ride, Dominic had mentioned some estate business requiring his attention.
June had bathed and changed, and now found herself with unexpected time before they would reconvene.
On impulse, she left her chambers, making her way down the grand staircase toward the lower regions of the castle.
At Stone Manor, whenever she'd felt unsettled, she had often visited the kitchens.
Something about the warmth, the smells, the practical industry of cooking had always soothed her.
Perhaps Icemere's kitchens would offer similar comfort.
The hallways grew narrower as she descended, the elegant wallpaper giving way to whitewashed stone.
She followed the scent of something savory—garlic and herbs and some exotic spice she couldn't immediately identify.
When she reached the kitchen door, she pushed it open, expecting to find Mrs. Braithwaite and her staff preparing the evening meal.
Instead, she found chaos—and Dominic at its center.
June stood frozen in the doorway, certain she must be hallucinating.
Her husband—the Duke of Icemere, notorious rake and society darling—stood at the enormous butcher-block table, sleeves rolled to his elbows, waistcoat smeared with flour, his dark hair falling across his forehead in disheveled waves.
He was whisking something in a copper bowl with such concentration that his brow furrowed, his teeth catching his lower lip in an expression of boyish determination.
Pots bubbled on the stove, filling the air with steam. Vegetables lay half-chopped on boards. What appeared to be the remnants of a sauce had splattered across one wall, and at least three different preparations were underway simultaneously on various surfaces.
"Dominic?" she said, unable to contain her astonishment.
He looked up, surprise giving way to a grin so genuinely delighted that June felt her heart turn over in her chest.
"June!" He set down the bowl and wiped his hands on a cloth that appeared to have seen better days. "You're early. I wanted to surprise you."
"Consider me thoroughly surprised." She stepped fully into the kitchen, taking in the disaster area that surrounded him. "What on earth are you doing? Where is the staff?"
"I've given them the evening off," Dominic replied, moving toward her with the easy grace that seemed inherent to him, regardless of setting. "As for what I'm doing—I'm bringing the world to you."
"I beg your pardon?"
He gestured around the kitchen, his blue eyes alight with enthusiasm. "You said you wished to see Greece, to travel. And while we shall certainly do so, I thought—why wait for summer when I could give you a taste of the world tonight?"
June stared at him, momentarily speechless. This was so far from anything she might have expected that she struggled to process it. "You're... cooking?" she managed finally.
"Don't sound so alarmed," he laughed. "I've become quite proficient during my travels. Well, perhaps not proficient, but at least competent enough not to poison us both."
June moved further into the kitchen, taking in the various dishes in preparation. On one counter sat what appeared to be a flat bread, sprinkled with herbs and drizzled with oil. A pot on the stove emitted a rich, garlicky aroma that made her mouth water despite her confusion.
"I had no idea you could cook," she said, watching as he returned to his whisking.
"One of my many hidden talents," Dominic replied, the dimple in his cheek deepening as he smiled. "Though I confess, Mrs. Braithwaite nearly had an apoplexy when I banished her from her domain."
June lifted an eyebrow. "I can imagine. I'm surprised she didn't simply refuse to leave."
"I may have employed my most ducal tone," Dominic admitted, a mischievous light in his eyes. "The one I reserve for particularly recalcitrant Parliamentary committees and overly familiar social climbers."
The image of Dominic imperiously ordering his cook from her own kitchen was so absurd that June couldn't help but laugh. "You're utterly mad."
"Perhaps. Sit down." He gestured to a wooden chair at the servants' table. "Tell me about your afternoon while I finish this sauce."
June settled into the chair, watching as he returned to his work with unexpected competence. For all the chaos around him, his movements were surprisingly confident, his hands sure as they wielded knife and whisk.
"When did you learn to cook?" she asked, genuinely curious.
"Here and there, over the years," he replied, adding something to the sauce that filled the kitchen with a new, exotic scent. "A summer in Greece, a winter in Spain, three months in Damascus."
"But why? Surely you traveled with servants."
Dominic glanced up from his work, his expression turning thoughtful. "At first, yes. But I discovered something rather quickly—one can only truly experience a destination when one lives as though one truly belongs there."
"And that required culinary skills?"
"Among other things." He moved to check another pot, stirring its contents with a wooden spoon. "I found that if I dismissed my retinue and lived as the locals did—ate what they ate, slept where they slept, worked as they worked—I gained insights no mere tourist could access."
June tried to imagine it—Dominic, with his aristocratic bearing and impeccable manners, living in some Mediterranean fishing village, sleeping in a humble cottage and hauling nets alongside weathered fishermen.
"It's difficult to picture," she admitted.
"I'm not surprised. Most of Society would find it equally incomprehensible." He sprinkled some herbs into the pot he was stirring. "They travel to say they've been somewhere, not to truly know a place or its people."
June watched him, struck by this new facet of her husband she'd never imagined existed. "And you wish to know places truly."
"I do." He looked up, meeting her gaze with an intensity that made her breath catch. "Life is too short for superficial experiences, wouldn't you agree?"
The words pierced June to the core. Life is too short. There it was again, that certainty of limited time that drove him. Yet instead of using it as an excuse for dissipation and excess, as many men might, he channeled it into a hunger for authentic experience, for depth rather than breadth.
He's wrong about dying so young. He must be. His mother doesn't believe it, and neither shall I.
June pushed the troubling thoughts aside, focusing instead on the man before her—flour-dusted and disheveled, yet somehow more vibrantly alive than any gentleman she'd ever encountered in Society's gilded ballrooms.
"What is that you're adding?" she asked as he reached for a small ceramic jar and shook something dark and powdery into the sauce.
"Pepper from Damascus," Dominic replied. "Though not the kind you're familiar with. This has a different heat—slower to build but more lasting."
"Is it very hot?"
His smile turned slightly wicked. "That depends entirely on one's tolerance. I've made yours milder than mine."
"How gallant," June remarked dryly. "I assure you, I'm not some delicate flower who wilts at the first sign of spice."
Dominic's eyebrow arched in challenge. "We shall see, my brave Duchess."
True to his word, Dominic served the meal without summoning any servants.
He arranged platters on the rough wooden table where the kitchen staff normally took their meals, poured wine into simple clay cups, and pulled out a chair for June with the same courtly grace he might have shown in the finest dining room in London.