"Shall we?" he asked, gesturing toward the bed.
June nodded, unable to trust her voice. They slipped beneath the covers from opposite sides, maintaining a careful distance between them. The mattress dipped slightly with their combined weight, creating a gentle slope that threatened to roll them together.
"I feel I should apologize," Dominic said after a moment of silence, his voice quiet in the darkness.
June turned her head to look at him, his profile just visible in the moonlight streaming through the window. "For what?"
"This is hardly the wedding night most brides envision."
Despite her nervousness, June found herself smiling. "I doubt most brides envision any specific wedding night at all, beyond a vague sense of duty and perhaps trepidation."
Dominic propped himself up on one elbow, looking down at her with a mixture of surprise and amusement. "Lady June Blake, are you suggesting that proper young ladies don't spend hours imagining their wedding nights in explicit detail?"
"I am suggesting," June replied primly, though her lips twitched with suppressed laughter, "that many of us are kept in such ignorance of marital relations that we couldn't imagine them properly if we tried."
Dominic laughed softly, and June found herself joining him, the tension between them easing into something more comfortable.
"In any case," she continued when their laughter had subsided, "I find I prefer this—talking like friends—to what I had imagined."
"And what had you imagined?" Dominic asked, his voice dropping to a lower register that sent a pleasant shiver through her.
June's cheeks warmed. "Nothing specific," she hedged. "Merely... nervousness and awkwardness, I suppose."
"And are you nervous now?"
She considered the question honestly. "Less than I expected to be."
Dominic smiled, settling back against his pillow. "Good. I find I enjoy talking with you, June Blake. I would like to continue doing so for as long as possible."
The simple sincerity of his words touched her deeply. "I would like that too."
They continued to talk in the darkness, their voices growing softer and their responses slower as fatigue claimed them both. June wasn't sure when exactly their conversation trailed into silence, or when Dominic's breathing deepened into sleep. She only knew that the last thing she remembered was watching his face in repose, peaceful and unguarded in a way it never was in waking, and thinking that perhaps, despite everything, they might find happiness in whatever time they had.
When she opened her eyes again, the room was still dark, though a faint gray light at the edges of the curtains suggested dawn was approaching. For a moment, she couldn't identify what had awakened her. Then she heard it—a harsh, wracking cough beside her, followed by a rattling intake of breath.
June turned quickly to find Dominic sitting upright in bed, his body convulsing with each cough. His nightshirt clung to his skin, damp with sweat, and even in the dim light she could see the unnatural pallor of his face.
"Dominic?" she reached for him, her hand touching his arm and finding it trembling violently. "Dominic, what's happening?"
He couldn't answer, caught in the grip of another coughing fit. His entire body shook with the force of it, and when he drew breath between coughs, the sound was thin and strained, as if he couldn't get enough air.
Terror seized June's heart, cold and absolute. This was it—the thing he had warned her about, the weakness that had claimed his father and grandfather. Not in some distant future, but now, in this bed, on their first night as husband and wife.
"Dominic!" she cried, louder this time, gripping his shoulders as if she could physically anchor him to this world. "Tell me what to do. How can I help you?"
But Dominic only shook his head, unable to speak as another fit of coughing wracked his frame. His hand clutched at his chest, fingers digging into the fabric of his nightshirt as if trying to reach the treacherous heart beneath.
June had never felt so helpless, so utterly terrified, in all her life.
Twenty-Three
Dominic's lungs burned as if he'd swallowed fire. Each cough tore through his chest, ripping away his breath and leaving him gasping in the darkness. He clutched at the bedsheets with desperate strength, his knuckles white against the linen as he fought for air that would not come. This was it, then—the family curse claiming its due, just as it had claimed his father and grandfather before him. The cruel irony of timing did not escape him, even as his body betrayed him on his wedding night.
"Dominic!" June's voice came to him as if from a great distance, though she sat beside him on the bed. Her hands gripped his shoulders, warm and steady against his trembling frame. "Please, tell me what to do!"
He wanted to answer, to reassure her, but another fit seized him, wracking his body until his ribs ached with the strain. A cold sweat broke over his skin, chilling him despite the heat he felt burning from within. He pressed a palm against his chest,feeling the erratic pounding beneath—too fast, then too slow, a heart forgetting its steady rhythm.
June's palm came to rest against his forehead, her touch blessedly cool against his fevered skin. "You're hot," she said, her voice trembling slightly. In the dim light, he could see her eyes wide with fear, her lower lip caught between her teeth.
