"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.
Thirty-Three
Dominic arrived at Stone Manor with his heart pounding like a desperate prisoner against the bars of his ribs. The journey from Yorkshire had given him ample time to rehearse his words, yet now that he stood before the imposing manor, every carefully prepared phrase abandoned him.
He straightened his cravat, smoothed his rumpled coat, and squared his shoulders. If he could face down highwaymen on the Damascus road, surely he could face the woman he had so foolishly pushed away. But as the butler opened the door, Dominic knew with cold certainty that no danger he had ever encountered compared to the prospect of June's rejection.
"His Grace, the Duke of Icemere," the butler announced with impeccable formality, standing aside as Dominic strode into the entrance hall.
His boots echoed against the marble floor as he followed the servant toward the drawing room. The house felt both familiarand strange—he had been here before, but never with so much at stake. Never with the knowledge that burned in his chest now, threatening to consume him if not released.
The drawing room door swung open, revealing June seated between her sisters on a blue damask sofa. She wore a dress of deep amber that matched her eyes, her chestnut hair arranged in an elegant knot at the nape of her neck. The teacup in her hand froze halfway to her lips as she caught sight of him.
For one suspended moment, nobody moved. Then June set down her cup with deliberate precision, her spine straightening until she sat as rigid as a queen receiving an unwelcome subject.
"Your Grace," she said, her voice cool and measured. "What an unexpected pleasure."
Her formal address struck him like a slap. He had been "Dominic" to her even in their worst arguments.
