Page 5 of The Girl Who Fell Through Time (To Fall Through Time #1)
Her answer wouldn’t be flattering. Because the other options are dreadful. Because your poor social standing will make the arrangement plausible.
She swallows hard. “Because I’m fairly sure you won’t hurt me.”
Dorian turns sharply, walking to the edge of the garden. He stares out at the foliage for a long time. Selene’s mind races. She should have said something more flattering, something cleverer, sold herself better. She doesn’t even know if Dorian likes women.
“All right,” he says.
Selene blinks. “Come again?”
“I said yes,” he repeats. “I’ll marry you.”
“Are you… sure?”
“Quite sure. The only thing is, how are we going to convince your parents to give their permission?”
“We can’t,” Selene admits, her voice catching slightly. “We would have to—” She hesitates. Elope. The word lingers in the air, unspoken.
Dorian raises an eyebrow. “An elopement? How scandalous, my lady.”
“It’s… necessary,” she murmurs.
“Quite,” he agrees, pushing his glasses up his nose.
Elopements are scandalous, she knows. But their scandal fades once they’re completed—once the couple is married and enough time has passed. Eventually, such stories become romanticised. At least, they do when the couple appears to be in love.
Selene swallows hard. She can pretend to be in love with Dorian. She has pretended just fine with the Duke.
“Shall we?” Dorian asks, gesturing towards the house.
Numbly, she nods. There ought to be a thousand questions crowding her mind, and yet there are none. How will this work? What story will they tell? And how ‘married’ will he expect them to be?
They wander back through the grounds, the quiet settling between them like a fragile veil. Selene still can’t quite believe Dorian has agreed. She can’t believe they’re really going to do this.
“What’s your favourite colour?” she asks as they approach the house.
Dorian blinks, taken aback. “I’m sorry?”
“I should know something about you if we’re to pull this off,” she explains.
Dorian laughs, the sound edged with nerves. Of course he’s nervous—what they’re planning is absurd. “Emerald green,” he replies. “Rather dull, I know.”
“You’d look good in green,” Selene comments, her voice flat and detached. She isn’t even sure what she’s saying. “I like lavender,” she adds quickly. “Pink. Sunrise colours. Anything soft.”
“I like horse riding,” Dorian offers after a moment.
“I’m not a very good rider,” she admits. “But I am quite good at embroidery. I like…” She hesitates. She wants to say she likes making pretty things, but she stops herself just in time.
Weeks into her marriage to the Duke, she had confessed the same thing, presenting him with a handkerchief she’d embroidered with his favourite hound.
He’d laughed at her, as though she were a child showing off a simple drawing.
He couldn’t understand why she’d want to make anything herself when she had servants to do it for her.
Dorian isn’t the Duke, she reminds herself. But the truth is, she doesn’t know him well enough to be sure he wouldn’t laugh, either.
Their conversation ends as the voices of her parents carry over the wind. Selene’s stomach tightens. Her mother and father emerge from behind a row of manicured hedges. Against the wild beauty of the garden, they seem sharp and overbearing.
Her mother, Lady Evangeline Duskbriar, is the very image of Florenwall’s grand dame.
She wears a stunning dress of rich crimson silk embroidered with threads of gold, the fabric shimmering in the dappled sunlight with each calculated step.
Her light gold hair is arranged in perfect curls, adorned with garnets.
Elegant as she is, her smile never reaches her eyes.
When her piercing gaze lands on Dorian, it carries a flicker of distaste.
Her father, Lord Alistair Duskbriar, is a more understated but no less imposing figure.
His dark suit, tailored in a style several seasons past, speaks of his adherence to tradition and disregard for current fashion.
He carries himself with a stiff dignity.
Though Selene favours her mother in appearance, she has inherited her father’s green, glass-like eyes.
His gaze lingers on her briefly, touched with impatience, before shifting to Dorian. A faint scowl forms, as though Dorian’s presence is an affront to the family’s carefully maintained image.
“There you are, Selene!” her mother exclaims, her tension masked by a falsely cheerful tone.
She dismisses Dorian’s presence entirely, treating him as though he were a footman rather than a lord.
Her focus remains firmly on Selene, her smile tight as she delivers the news.
“The Duke has formally asked for your hand, dear. He’s waiting to accept you in the blue room. ”
Her father gives a small nod of approval, his eyes gleaming with expectation.
Selene has known this was coming. Of course she has. But now that it’s here, now that he is here, she can’t seem to respond. It’s all happening again.
Refuse, a voice inside her urges. Speak!
But she can’t. She can’t speak. She can’t even move.
“Selene?” her mother asks, frowning. “Are you quite all right? This offer is hardly unexpected.”
Selene swallows. “Oh, Mama,” she croaks, barely managing to find her voice. “I can’t marry the Duke.”
“ Can’t? ” Her father’s eyes flash dangerously. She’s glad Dorian is here. Her father is a strict man. He has never hit her—not yet—but she has never stopped fearing that he might.
“What nonsense is this?” her mother demands, pressing a hand to her chest.
Before Selene can respond, Dorian steps forward. “Selene cannot marry the Duke,” he says, his words impossibly steady. “Because she is already married to me.”
Silence follows. Selene stares as Dorian. This is quite the deviation. What is Dorian planning?
Her father breaks into a disbelieving laugh. “Is this some sort of jest, Nightbloom?”
But Dorian’s calm remains unshaken. “As you know, Lady Selene and I attended the Florenwall Academy together for several years,” he begins, his tone clear and measured.
“We rekindled that acquaintance at my father’s funeral two years ago.
Since then, we have been writing to each other in secret.
We knew you would never approve of a marriage between us, but on the evening of the Fortesque Ball three months ago, we could no longer resist our feelings and decided to elope.
” He pauses, clearly for dramatic effect.
“We were wed by a priest from my own estate.”
Selene’s mother’s mouth falls open in shock, while her father’s expression hardens further, lines of fury etching his forehead. “This is outrageous!”
“I do apologise for our secrecy—”
“I ought to challenge you to a duel—”
“You would be within your right,” Dorian interrupts, pushing his glasses up his nose, “but you would not win.”
There’s something dark in his expression Selene hasn’t seen before. She remembers that Dorian was skilled at fencing as a boy. It has been almost a decade since she last saw him duel, but she doubts his threat is an empty one.
“I’m sorry, Papa,” Selene adds plaintively. “I know I entertained the idea of the Duke, but only because I didn’t know how to tell you the truth. Lord Nightbloom and I… we just didn’t know what to do. But the marriage is done now, and I’m afraid there’s no undoing it.”
The fury in her father’s eyes remains far from abated, but he doesn’t move to strike her. He knows it would look far worse if he did.
Selene inches closer to Dorian’s side, just in case.
Her father’s voice cuts through the tense silence. “You’ll need to show proof of this supposed union before we believe such nonsense.”
Selene casts a desperate look at Dorian. Of course her father would demand evidence. And they don’t have any.
“Of course,” Dorian replies, unflappable. “I’ll have a copy of the marriage licence sent to you by tomorrow’s end.”
Her father still looks as though he wants to strike him—or perhaps her—but the sound of whispers from the house tempers his ire.
They have drawn an audience. Selene can’t tell what, if anything, the onlookers have overheard, but her father wouldn’t dare attack a man in public.
With no other option, he nods curtly and walks away, leaning heavily on her mother for support.
The moment her parents disappear, Dorian turns to her.
For a brief, terrifying second, Selene assumes he is about to end the charade.
He will demand that she follow her parents and confess that it has all been a terrible joke.
Perhaps he has been toying with her all along, leading her to humiliate herself.
He has no reason to help her, after all.
He will tell her to marry the Duke, and after this debacle, no one else will even consider her.
But when he meets her gaze, there is no cruelty in his eyes—not even a glimmer of mischief. “Pack your bags,” he instructs, his voice solemn. “I’ll come for you tonight.”