Page 34 of The Girl Who Fell Through Time (To Fall Through Time #1)

D orian is back in his study by the time Selene finishes tea with Elizabeth. She eats her supper with Ariella and Rookwood. It feels like it’s been weeks since she’s eaten with them, and not just yesterday morning. So much has happened since then.

If either of them reads into her silence, they say nothing about it. Ariella is not as perceptive as her mother, or perhaps she senses that Selene doesn’t wish to talk at all. They swap niceties about the weather, discuss the renovations, a festival the village is planning for the summer.

“They want you to judge the strawberry competition,” Ariella tells her.

“The strawberry competition?”

Ariella nods, even though Selene has never heard of such a thing before.

“I wager most villages have a summer festival, but in Thornmere we celebrate the strawberries. The locals compete to make the best strawberry dish. Dorian usually judges it, but he hates the fanfare. It’s been a long time since they’ve had a Lady Nightbloom to judge the competition. ”

Selene smiles. “It sounds delightful. Do you ever compete, Rookwood?”

“He had to stand down,” Ariella says, beaming. “He kept winning, even when it was blind competition. The locals said he had an unfair advantage because anything he cooked would taste familiar to Dorian.”

“I can’t help it if I’m exceptional,” says Rookwood, placing a steaming syrup pudding in front of Selene.

“Can you help being humble?” snips Ariella.

Rookwood ignores her. “I hope this suits, Selene. I know you like things sweet, but I fear the honey may be too sweet.”

Selene takes a bite. It’s sweet enough to make her teeth ache, but she says nothing, smiling instead. “It was nice of your mother to come and greet us,” she remarks, turning to Ariella.

Ariella grumbles. “Mother doesn’t do nice.”

“Not to you,” Rookwood corrects.

Ariella throws her dishtowel at him.

“She likes interfering,” she continues. “Far too involved with our lives.”

“She likes the boy,” Rookwood insists. He’s probably only fifteen years older than Dorian, but Selene imagines that Dorian will still be the boy to him when he’s seventy.

“Well, obviously, who wouldn’t?”

Who indeed , Selene wonders, before remembering.

The Duke. The Duke doesn’t like Dorian. The Duke tried to kill him.

“I’m tired,” she announces, standing up. “I think I’ll retire for the night.”

“I’ve put some new flowers on your dresser,” Ariella tells her. “Let me know if you need anything else.”

Selene nods, and heads upstairs. She hovers at the door to Dorian’s study.

And quietly passes it by.

Dorian does not turn up for their nightly game. Selene half expected this. He’s probably fallen asleep at his desk again. She thinks about going to check on him, but decides against it. She doesn’t want to watch him sleeping, not tonight. His face feels like a taunt.

She tosses and turns for a while, upsetting Mistress Stripe, who eventually gives up trying to sleep on the bed and curls up on the window seat instead. Selene sighs in frustration. She’s exhausted. Her limbs feel heavy. Her eyes don’t want to open.

But her mind resists.

Eventually, she decides to get up and source herself something to drink.

She knows enough about the kitchen now that she can warm herself some milk.

She tiptoes down, avoiding Dorian’s study, and stops at the kitchen door.

Ariella and Rookwood are still awake. Rookwood is busy measuring out flour into a bowl, muttering loudly.

“I knew that honey was too sweet!” he says. “I should have used hawthorn honey. The rapeseed is always far too sweet— ”

“Rook,” Ariella starts incredulously, “are you making another one?”

“I have to get the measurements right for next time—”

“Sit down, you old fool, before you hurt yourself.”

“I will, just as soon as I—”

She pushes him into a seat. “ Sit .”

Rookwook doesn’t move. There’s something different in his expression. At first, Selene likens it to a soldier given a command by his superior officer, but it’s more than that. He looks like he’d collect the stars in a handbasket if she asked him to.

Ariella doesn’t notice this look. She’s too busy filling him a bucket of warm water. Selene has no idea what she plans to do with it until she brings it to the table, slides it underneath Rookwood’s knee and places herself in the seat next to him.

He makes no sound of protest when she reaches across, rolls up his trousers, unbuckles the wooden leg and places his residual limb in the bucket. Rookwood lets out a groan.

“You’re giving yourself blisters,” Ariella tells him, dabbing at his knee with a steaming cloth.

Rook grabs her hand, turning her palms up. “You’re giving yourself calluses.”

“These don’t hurt.”

She picks up a tub of something from the side and administers it to his wounds. Rookwood sighs, long and hard. His face relaxes—everything relaxes, like the light around them tempers to a golden glow.

“You’re too good to me, woman,” he says quietly.

“I actually find that I am precisely good enough.”

“What would I do without you?”

“Find someone else to tease, most likely,” Ariella returns.

“I don’t know,” Rookwood follows. “I can’t see myself enjoying teasing anyone else quite this much. ”

He leans across and pries the cream from her grip, applying it to her hands in smooth, steady circles.

It would be an intrusion to go in now. The milk can wait for tomorrow. Someone, at least, should get to be with their favourite person tonight. Someone, at least, should be at peace.

Selene continues with the renovations in the house, slowly shaping Ebonrose Hall into something that feels more like her own.

The old, faded wallpaper is stripped away, replaced with warm, rich tones.

She has new drapes fitted, old furniture restored, and light brought back into rooms that had spent too long in gloom.

The work keeps her busy, but it isn’t enough.

She starts making plans in town, too. The library is small, its shelves overcrowded and its books worn with age.

She invests in an expansion, funding new shelves, fresh copies, and better lighting.

A proper schoolhouse follows—one large enough to accommodate more children, with sturdy desks and windows that let in sunlight and a better heating system to keep the classroom warm in winter.

The town has too few places where knowledge is nurtured, and she intends to change that.

She hopes Dorian approves, but he says little about it—just polite, tired smiles here and there. He still turns up for their nightly games, but something in him is different. He picks shorter games—ones that end quickly, ones that don’t require lingering over strategy or conversation.

Is this all because of the kiss ?

Selene doesn’t press. She simply waits, moving her pieces across the board, wondering when—or if—he will let her in again.