Page 41 of The Girl Who Fell Through Time
“And you, my lady?” Ariella asks. “What are some things you like?”
Selene stands baffled for a moment. She knows that there are lots of things she likes, but she can’t remember the last time anyone asked. For years—and certainly in the last year that no one remembers but her—she’s been a fountain of other people’s wants and needs and desires.
“You don’t like that,”the Duke would tell her constantly.“You prefer this. This is what you need. That doesn’t suit you. This does.”
Her mind pales at the memories.
Ariella and Rookwood are staring at her. She’s been quiet for far too long.
“Well, Rookwood’s cooking, obviously,” she says.
“Obviously,” they both agree.
“I’m… I’m particularly fond of strawberries,” she says, like it’s some great secret. “I prefer white wine over red. I like soft colours, and cats, and sweet stories with happy endings.”
These things all probably make her sound silly and vapid and girlish, but she doesn’t care. She rattles on. “My favourite time of day is the morning, if I’m up early enough to see the sunrise. I like the look of the sunlight behind a veil of mist. I like hot baths with petals in them, and I prefer wildflowers over roses.”
Ariella smiles. “Lord Gideon was much the same.”
“I remember,” she says quietly. She thinks about telling them that she made a bouquet of wildflowers to bring to his funeral, but she thinks that may sound boastful, and talking about Gideon’s funeral may cause some upset.
“I also like… at least, I think I’d like it if maybe… you could all call me Selene rather than ‘my lady’?”
Ariella’s smile could not get any bigger. Rookwood looks like he might cry. Selene doesn’t dare check on Soren.
“Right you are!” Ariella says. “Selene, then. A name that pretty deserves to be used.”
Things feel less lonely now that she has asked the servants to call her by her name. It feels wrong to call them servants somehow, although that is technically what they are, and there’s no shame in service. She finds she wants to help them with their daily tasks. She is hopeless at most things, and Ariella immediately dismisses the idea, but Rookwood is happy to have her in the kitchens. He has the patience of a saint.
The days pass quickly this way, but Dorian does not return on the fourth day, as they all hoped. Or the fifth.
Selene doesn’t know him well enough to miss him, but the house does not feel whole without him there.
She hopes he’s safe.
By the sixth day, Selene wakes to a sky thick with grey, the kind that presses close and smothers the land beneath it. A fine drizzle beads against the windows, slipping in slow rivulets down the glass. The house is quiet, save for the occasional murmur of voices in the corridor or the steady rhythm of rain against the roof. Dorian has not written. No one expects him to, but still, she finds herself glancing towards the letters each morning.
She busies herself in the kitchens again, where Rookwood lets her peel apples for a pie. It’s a simple enough task, but she’s slow, careful. Her hands aren’t used to this kind of work.The knife slips, just a little, and she hisses as a bead of blood wells on her fingertip.
Rookwood sighs, taking her hand in his broad, flour-dusted one. “You’re trying too hard,” he says, wrapping a clean cloth around her finger. His touch is gentle, his voice unhurried. “Let the knife do the work.”
“I thought I was,” she murmurs.
He chuckles, shaking his head, then turns away to check the pot bubbling on the stove. She watches him for a moment, watches the way he moves with easy confidence, before turning back to her apples. This time, she follows his advice.
The days continue like this, slipping through her fingers as softly as the flour Rookwood sifts for bread. She learns small things—how to tell when onions are caramelised, how to knead dough without exhausting herself. Marta hums when she works and is shockingly quick with a needle, altering one of Selene’s old gowns to fit more comfortably. Ariella still refuses to let her do much of anything, but the woman is beginning to soften, at least.
But the nights—those are harder.
She dreams of the Duke. Of his hands at her waist, guiding her through a dance she doesn’t want. Of his voice, sharp and mocking, whispering things she cannot bear to hear. Of waking in his bed, of finding herself bound to him, with no way out.
“Silly, foolish wife…”
“At least you’re beautiful to look at…”
“Can’t you do anything right?”
“Look at me when I speak to you!”
