"Cold feet, I imagine..."
"Always was a flighty girl..."
"The Duke of Ice, caught at last..."
By the time he reached the hallway, his chest felt tight, his heart performing that now-familiar stutter that reminded him of his borrowed time. He braced one hand against the wall, forcing himself to breathe deeply until the sensation passed.
This is not how I imagined my wedding day, he thought with grim humor. Not that he had ever truly imagined a wedding day at all. Until recently, marriage had seemed as remote a possibility as spontaneously growing wings.
And yet, in the span of days, everything had changed. The moonlight, June's lips, August's fury—all conspiring to bring him to this moment, pacing a hallway while his bride-to-be had fled their own wedding.
He should be relieved, he supposed. This could be his escape from a commitment he'd never sought. He could claim the insult was too great, that no gentleman could be expected to pursue a woman who had publicly rejected him. He could return to his carefully constructed life of deliberate impermanence.
The thought left him cold.
The realization struck him with unexpected force: he didn't want an escape. He wanted June. Not merely because of a kiss or a scandal, but because in her amber eyes he'd glimpsed something he hadn't known he was searching for. A challenge. A purpose. A reason to make his remaining time matter.
Albert Vestiere had said to give her a moment. The moment had passed.
Dominic straightened his cuffs and strode toward the garden doors at the end of the hallway. If June had fled the house, she wouldn't have gone far—not in her wedding finery. The gardens, then. A place of temporary refuge.
He found her exactly where something in his heart had known she would be—seated on a stone bench beside the small fountain in the rose garden, her peach dress bright against the greenery. Her gloved hands twisted together in her lap, her face tilted toward the sky as if seeking answers in the cloudless blue.
She looked beautiful. And terrified.
The sight of her fear pierced him more deeply than her flight had done. June Vestiere—proud, defiant, sharp-tongued June—should never look afraid.
He approached slowly, deliberately allowing his footsteps to sound on the gravel path so as not to startle her. She turned at the noise, her body tensing visibly before she recognized him.
"May I sit?" he asked, stopping several feet from the bench.
She nodded, a single sharp movement. "It's your right, I suppose. As my almost-husband."
Dominic settled beside her, careful to maintain a proper distance. Her scent reached him nevertheless—roses and something uniquely her, a fragrance he'd already begun to associate with desire and comfort in equal measure.
"Are you well?" he asked, though the answer was plainly evident.
June sighed, a sound that seemed to come from the depths of her soul. "No, Your Grace, I am not well. I am about to marry a man who once described me as 'thin as a reed, with hair like unpolished brass, and eyes too large for her face.' A man who had 'no interest in schoolgirls with romantic fantasies.'"
Dominic's stomach dropped. "What?"
"You don't recall?" June turned to face him, her amber eyes bright with unshed tears. "At Oxford, when my brother confronted you about my... infatuation. I was outside the library door. I heard every word."
Understanding dawned with sickening clarity. So this was the root of her animosity, the reason for her cool demeanor whenever they met. Not a natural dislike, but a wound he had inflicted without even knowing.
"I remember the conversation with your brother," he admitted quietly. "And I remember you—the girl who loved books more than balls, who spoke of Roman ruins with more passion than most ladies discuss fashion."
"Then you remember your dismissal of me," June said, her voice steady despite the hurt evident in her eyes.
Dominic ran a hand through his hair, disturbing the careful styling. "I was barely twenty-six, June. Young, arrogant, determined to live each day as if it were my last." He shook his head. "I said many foolish things in those days. Things I regret."
"And now you're to be saddled with the very girl you dismissed," June said bitterly. "A part of me wishes to run away and never return. Another part wishes to proceed with this farce and hope that perhaps, in time, we might find some measure of..." She trailed off, unable or unwilling to name what they might find.
"Happiness?" Dominic suggested gently.
June's laugh was hollow. "I was going to say 'tolerance.' I know there is no real choice for either of us. The scandal would ruin my family, and your reputation, whatever it may be, would suffer equally. We are both at fault for being caught in such a compromising position."
Dominic studied her profile—the proud tilt of her chin despite her distress, the intelligence in her eyes, the quiet dignity with which she faced an uncertain future. Something shifted within him, a certainty taking root where there had been only chaos.
