Chapter 32
Thirty-Two
"More tea, June?" April asked, her voice gentle as she lifted the silver pot.
June sat perfectly still in Stone Manor's drawing room. The journey from Yorkshire had mercifully numbed her somewhat, and now, surrounded by her sisters' concerned faces, she found herself explaining a situation so absurd she might have laughed if it hadn't torn her world asunder.
"Yes, thank you." June extended her cup, noting how steady her hand remained despite everything. A sennight since she'd left Icemere. A sennight of carefully reconstructing her armor, piece by piece.
Little Leonardo, April's four-year-old son, tumbled across the carpet at her feet, chasing a wooden hoop with single-minded determination. His two-year-old sister Annabelle sat nearby, arranging dolls in a solemn circle as if conducting some important parliament of toys.
"So he truly believes he's dying?" May leaned forward, her spectacles sliding down her nose. "And that's why he sent you away?"
"He didn't precisely send me away," June corrected, taking a measured sip of her tea. "He offered to leave Icemere Castle himself. I chose to go instead."
"But why?" May persisted. "Why would either of you leave? I don't understand."
June set her cup down, arranging the saucer just so. "Dominic believes he carries a family illness—the same that took his father and grandfather before their time. He calls it the 'Blake curse.'"
"And you believe this curse exists?" April asked, rescuing a biscuit from Leonardo's eager grasp before he could stuff it entirely into his mouth.
"I believe he believes it," June replied carefully. "His father did die young, as did his grandfather. But whether this represents an inheritable condition or merely unfortunate coincidence, I cannot say."
What I believe is that he's a coward, she thought, the bitterness rising like bile. A coward who would rather push me away than risk my pain.
"But surely a physician could—" May began.
"Dominic has consulted physicians," June interrupted. "None has offered him much hope. Though I suspect his mother knows more than she has revealed."
"The dowager duchess? What makes you say that?" April shifted Annabelle onto her lap, smoothing the child's dark curls absently.
"She speaks of the future as though it stretches decades ahead. She mentions grandchildren. These are not the words of a woman expecting to lose her son imminently."
May made an impatient sound. "So he pushed you away to protect you from future grief? As if you're some delicate flower incapable of making your own choices?"
"Precisely." June's smile held no warmth. "He believes he's protecting me from future grief, as if I'm incapable of deciding what pain I can bear."
"Men," May muttered, reaching for a biscuit. "They think themselves so logical, yet make the most irrational decisions."
"Do you think," April asked carefully, "that perhaps he simply doesn't love you enough to risk it? That perhaps this 'protection' is merely an excuse?"
June looked up sharply, meeting her sister's concerned gaze. For a moment, the carefully constructed walls around her heart threatened to crumble. She drew a steadying breath.
"No," she said finally. "That's not it at all. He cares enough to push me away, which makes his decision all the more infuriating."
In her mind's eye, she saw him again—standing by the window in their bedchamber, rigid with self-control, refusing to meet her gaze as he spoke those devastating words. The memory made her fingers tighten around her teacup.
"Well, I think it's unutterably foolish," May declared. "To waste what time one has because one fears its end? What sense is there in that?"
"None whatsoever," June agreed, her voice steadier than she felt. "I told him as much."
April bounced Annabelle gently on her knee, her expression thoughtful. "What will you do now, June? Will you return to him?"
"I cannot." The words tasted bitter on her tongue. "Not unless he comes to his senses."
"And if he doesn't?" May pressed.
June set her teacup down with deliberate care. "Then I shall build a life without him."
The simple declaration hung in the air between them. Both her sisters stared at her, clearly surprised by her certainty.
"June," April said softly. "I've never seen you like this about a man before."
"Like what?"
"So... affected. Even when you're trying not to be."
June looked away, unwilling to reveal just how deeply Dominic had worked his way beneath her defenses. "We suited each other," she said simply. "Or so I thought."
"You love him," May stated, not a question but a certainty.
June didn't deny it. What would be the point? Her sisters knew her too well.
"I would rather face a lifetime of grief with him than safety without him," she admitted, the words emerging with surprising steadiness. "But I cannot be with a man who doesn't trust my judgment about my own heart."
Leonardo crashed into her skirts, laughing as he looked up at her with innocent joy. June ruffled his hair, grateful for the momentary distraction. How simple children's happiness seemed—unencumbered by pride or fear, unburdened by thoughts of mortality.
"What did the dowager duchess say when you left?" April asked, shifting Annabelle to her other knee.
"She was distressed. Confused." June smoothed her skirts where Leonardo had wrinkled them. "I believe she would have told me more about this supposed curse if I had pressed her."
"Perhaps you should have," May suggested.
"Perhaps." June stared into the distance, remembering Louisa's tear-filled eyes, her puzzling certainty that June was "good" for Dominic. "But I was too angry then. Too hurt."
"And now?" April asked gently.
"Now I am merely...resolute." June lifted her chin slightly. "I will not chase after a man who believes he knows better than I do what is best for my heart."
Her sisters exchanged glances, clearly impressed by her clarity if concerned by her pain. June forced a small smile, determined not to succumb to self-pity.
"Enough about my marital difficulties," she said, reaching to tickle Leonardo as he circled her chair again. "Tell me about your plans for Christmas. Will you both stay at Stone Manor?"
As April launched into details about holiday preparations, June allowed her thoughts to drift momentarily.
She wondered what Dominic was doing now—whether he stood at that same window, staring out at the Yorkshire landscape, believing himself noble in his solitude.
The image made anger flare anew within her chest.
Let him have his noble sacrifice. Let him wrap himself in righteous solitude. I refuse to beg a man to love me openly, honestly, without conditions.
And yet, beneath the anger lay a deeper, more painful truth: she missed him with an intensity that frightened her. Missed his wit, his unexpected tenderness, even his infuriating stubbornness. Missed the man who had carried her from those ruins as if she were the most precious thing in his world.
June lifted her teacup to her lips, hiding the sudden trembling she could not quite control. One day at a time. That was how she would rebuild herself. One hour, one minute if necessary. And if Dominic never came to his senses?
Then she would learn to live with the hollow space he'd left behind.
Dominic circled his study for what must have been the hundredth time that day, his boots wearing an invisible path into the Aubusson carpet. It had been a week since June had left. She had taken the castle's heart with her when she departed, and he was a lost soul drifting aimlessly.
His desk stood in disarray, ledgers splayed open, correspondence unanswered.
The decanter of brandy beside them sat empty, its crystal catching the afternoon light that streamed through windows he hadn't bothered to have curtained.
His cravat hung loose around his throat, his waistcoat unbuttoned—small rebellions against propriety that would have scandalized Winters had the butler dared enter the study in recent days.
You did this. You pushed her away. You protected her.
Yet the justification rang hollow now. What good was protection if it left them both in misery?
The door opened with a soft click. Dominic didn't turn, recognizing his mother's light tread across the threshold.
"If you've come to lecture me, I'm not in the mood," he said, continuing his restless circuit of the room.
Louisa closed the door behind her, her eyes tracking his movement. "I've given you three weeks to wallow in your misery, Dominic. That seems quite sufficient."
"Wallow?" He barked a laugh that held no humor. "Is that what you think this is?"
"What would you call it?" she countered, moving further into the room. "You've barely left this study. You don't eat. You don't sleep. The servants whisper that you're becoming a ghost before their eyes."
Dominic waved a dismissive hand. "Let them whisper. What does it matter?"
Louisa approached cautiously, like one might approach a wounded animal. When she reached him, she placed a gentle hand on his arm, stilling his movement.
"You're destroying yourself," she said softly.
Dominic laughed bitterly, gesturing to the empty room. "What does it matter? I'm already dying."
Louisa's fingers tightened on his arm. He looked down, surprised by the sudden intensity of her grip. Her face had gone very pale, her eyes—so like his own—filled with an emotion he couldn't immediately identify.
"No, Dominic," she said, her voice hardly above a whisper. "You're not."
He stared at her, certain he had misheard. "What?"
"You're not dying," she repeated, more firmly now. "You never were."
The world seemed to tilt beneath his feet. Dominic pulled away from her touch, needing distance, needing solid ground beneath this sudden shifting of reality.
"What are you saying?" His voice emerged raw, strained.
Louisa drew a deep breath, her hands clasped before her as if in prayer—or supplication.
"You don't carry the Blake family illness," she said, each word deliberate. "You never did. You never could."
Dominic shook his head, unable to process her words. "That's impossible. Father—"
"Your father was not your blood father," Louisa cut in, her voice breaking slightly. "I was already with child when we met—when we married."
The revelation struck him like a physical blow. Dominic staggered back, bracing himself against the edge of his desk as the room swam before his eyes.
"What?" he whispered.
Louisa's face crumpled, years of carefully maintained composure giving way to naked anguish. "Our marriage was one of convenience, Dominic. I was ruined—carrying another man's child. Your father was determined never to sire an heir because of the family ailment."
"You let me believe..." Dominic's voice grew stronger, anger supplanting shock. "You let me believe I was dying? My entire life?"
"I wanted to tell you," she said, taking a step toward him. "So many times. But at first you were too young to understand, and later—"
"Later what?" he demanded, his voice rising. "Later you thought it convenient to let me believe I carried a death sentence? To let me structure my entire existence around an imminent end that wasn't coming?"
Confusion gave way to rage in a white-hot rush. Every decision he'd ever made—the reckless adventures, the refusal to form attachments, the desperate pursuit of experience over stability—all founded on a lie.
"I didn't want you to feel different," Louisa pleaded. "To know you weren't truly your father's son. And I was ashamed of my past, of the circumstances—"
"Ashamed?" Dominic slammed his fist onto the desk, sending papers scattering to the floor. "I've carried this burden my entire life! I've avoided connections, pushed people away, lived every moment as if it might be my last—and for what? A lie told by a coward!"
The accusation hung in the air between them. Louisa flinched as if struck but didn't retreat.
"Yes," she admitted quietly. "A coward. I was afraid—of losing your love, of seeing disgust in your eyes. And later, when I realized how deeply the burden affected you, I was afraid of what the truth might do."
"And what of June?" Dominic demanded. "What of my wife? Do you know what I've done?"
"I know," Louisa said, tears streaming freely down her face now. "I know you pushed her away to protect her from grief that was never coming. I should have stopped you. I should have told you long before you met her."
"Why didn't you?"
"You hid it so well," she said, stepping closer. "You always seemed so happy with your adventures, your freedom. I was blind to how deeply it affected you. How it poisoned your ability to imagine a future."
She reached for him, and this time he didn't pull away. Her arms encircled him, her tears dampening his shirt. For a moment, he stood rigid in her embrace.
"Your father loved you," she whispered fiercely. "Blood meant nothing to him. He was so proud of you, Dominic. So proud of the man you became."
Dominic closed his eyes, memories flooding back—his father teaching him to ride, to shoot, to manage the estate. The man who had never treated him as anything but a beloved son.
"Who was he?" Dominic asked finally. "My blood father."
Louisa pulled back, wiping tears from her cheeks. "A soldier. Handsome, charming, utterly faithless. He promised marriage, then disappeared when he learned I was with child."
"And Father knew? From the beginning?"
"Yes," she nodded. "The marriage was his idea. He knew he should never father children because of the Blake illness, but he wanted an heir. You were his salvation as much as he was mine."
Dominic moved away from her, toward the window that overlooked Icemere's grounds. The truth rearranged itself in his mind, pieces falling into new patterns, illuminating the past in ways both painful and liberating.
He had no death sentence. No inherited doom. No reason to have pushed June away.
"I can have children," he said suddenly, the realization dawning with stunning clarity. "I can grow old."
"Yes," Louisa confirmed, something like hope entering her voice. "Yes, Dominic."
He turned back to her, anger still churning within him but now tempered with determination.
"This doesn't erase the deception," he said firmly. "What you and Father did, the lie you maintained… it shaped my entire life."
"I know," she said simply. "I cannot undo that harm. I can only beg your forgiveness and hope that knowing the truth now gives you freedom for the future."
The future. A concept he'd never truly allowed himself to contemplate. A future with June, with children perhaps, with decades stretching ahead rather than the handful of years he'd grudgingly allotted himself.
If she would have him. If she could forgive his arrogance, his presumption in deciding what was best for her heart.
"I need to get my wife back," he said, already striding toward his study door.