Page 11 of The Girl Who Fell Through Time
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. WhatisDorian 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 toelope.” 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 otheroption, 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.”
Selene shuts her bedroom door behind her, leaning against it for a moment as she tries to catch her breath, her mind reeling. Everything feels surreal, like the remnants of a feverish dream.
Yesterday, she was married to the Duke. Yesterday, a war was breaking out. Yesterday, she was dying.
Her hand moves to her midsection, half expecting it to bloom with blood, to wrench her back to that moment. But it doesn’t come.
You’re not dead,she reminds herself. You’re not hurt. You’re not dying.
But she was. Yesterday, she died. And before that… she was dying long before the Duke killed her. Hemight not have wielded the pistol that took her life, but he snuffed it out nonetheless, little by little, chink by chink.
Now Dorian Nightbloom is here to rescue her from that fate, and she isn’t sure if she feels relieved or terrified. How in the world does he intend to conjure a licence for a marriage that doesn’t exist?
A thrill of panic rises in her chest. It’s an awful, terrible idea. It’s never going to work. And if it does, she will be cast out of polite society.
Then again, there are other ways to be ruined.
She needs to prepare. If Dorian is serious about spiriting her away, she won’t question his methods—not tonight, at least.
