5. A Delicate Alliance #2
“If I’d heard rumours before I became fully infatuated with him, I might have paused. If I’d heard he was cruel to animals or kept a mistress or had a secret child…”
Dorian nodded, folding the information away for later, and trying not to be glad about the idea that Selene was an animal-lover. “Why did you think we might have been involved in the past?” he asked her.
“Something about your familiarity that day at my engagement party,” she told him.
He couldn’t find a way to explain to her that it was the kind of familiarity borne of dying in her arms—twice—and spending years looking up at her window in the dark.
“And the way you look at me sometimes,” she told him.
Dorian blushed. “Oh? How’s that?”
“The way I imagined the Duke used to look at me,” she replied. “The way a lot of girls wish that men looked at them.”
Once more, she had rendered him speechless. He had no idea what to say when she leaned across and placed her lips to his.
It wasn’t a chaste kiss, nor a desperate one—it was something in between. Gentle, almost tentative, like she was afraid he might pull away. Her mouth was soft against his, tasting faintly of brandy and grief, and her hand came up, hesitating before it settled lightly on his jaw.
Dorian froze, breath caught somewhere in his throat. His heart kicked hard in his chest. Then—cautiously—he kissed her back, one hand lifting, almost of its own accord, to brush a strand of hair from her cheek.
It only lasted a moment, but it felt like the kind that stitched itself into memory, like no amount of loops and timelines could ever erase it fully from his mind. He could live to be a hundred and forever remember the feel of Selene Duskbriar’s lips on his.
Drakefell, he corrected himself. In this life, she’s Selene Drakefell.
But that hardly seemed to matter when she was forever Selene to him, and she was the one who started it, and if ever there was a man who deserved to be cuckolded, it was Duke Drakefall.
Still. It wasn’t like him.
He pulled away. “Why did you do that?” he asked, his voice rougher than he’d meant it to be.
Selene shrugged, her eyes sad, her fingers falling from his face. “Just for once, I thought it would be nice to kiss someone who actually liked me.”
Selene’s kiss followed him back to Ebonrose Hall and into his bedroom and into his dreams. He’d had a few other kisses in his life, but there was something in that one that the others had lacked, however simple and short it had been.
He didn’t know how to feel about her, or how he felt about her knowing he was so clearly infatuated with her.
He didn’t feel awkward, which he’d always expected he would feel if she found out. He felt strangely relieved.
He felt like he wanted to kiss her again, to draw the sadness out of her, to remind her that she was worth adoring. If she were his wife—
But she wasn’t. She was the Duke’s. Not his. She would never be his.
And yet Dorian felt Selene Duskbriar would follow him into his dreams for the rest of his life, and he’d turn back time a hundred times for a chance of being with her.
Or even just to give her the future she deserved.
To say Selene was helpful was an understatement. Selene was marvellous. She slipped into places unseen, gossiped with her ladies, stirred rumours to elicit reactions, flirted with suspects and kept people occupied while Dorian ransacked their rooms.
Dorian had expected her to be competent—she was intelligent, quick-witted, and had spent years navigating the treacherous waters of court—but he had not expected this.
She moved through the halls like smoke, slipping into conversations with ease, bending people’s words and expectations to her will.
More than once, he found himself watching her, half in awe, half in something he refused to name.
It was dangerous to think like that.
She was less sad now. He could see it in the way she carried herself—still poised, still careful, but no longer weighed down by the suffocating dread he had seen in her before.
She laughed more, too. Not the polite, hollow sound she used in society, but something real.
It was quiet, always quiet, but it curled into him like a secret and took root.
And she was enjoying this. He could tell. Even when she rolled her eyes at his plans or sighed at his insistence on caution, there was a spark in her he had never seen before. A thrill in the chase, in unravelling the mystery. It made her sharper. Brighter. Like she was finally coming alive.
Which was ridiculous, because she had always been alive.
He had to remind himself of that sometimes. That this was not a ghost of the woman he had once known. Not a fragile remnant of the past. She was real, here, in this life, and she was different. He was different. This was not the past repeating itself. Not exactly .
Still, he caught himself watching her too often. Wondering if she would have smiled like this before, had things been different. Wondering if she had ever looked at him the way she looked at their suspects—curious, appraising, as if trying to unravel the puzzle of him.
“You’re staring,” she murmured one evening as they sifted through stolen documents in his townhouse study. Her lips curled in amusement, her fingers deftly sorting through pages as if they belonged to her.
“You’re imagining things,” he countered, setting down his own page.
She hummed, unconvinced. “So you weren’t watching me nearly spill ink on my sleeve?”
“Of course not.”
“Good,” she said airily. “Because that would be very improper, my lord.”
Something in him twisted. He smothered it before it could take shape. It was improper enough that she was here, visiting him unescorted.
He forced his attention back to the papers before him, but her words swam. He was too aware of her, of the way the light caught in her hair, of the faint scent of lavender clinging to her skin. He cleared his throat, reaching for another document. “Did you find anything?”
Her teasing expression faded. She tapped a finger against the page. “Perhaps. Lord Halewick’s ledgers don’t quite match his estate’s earnings. He’s bleeding coin somewhere, and if I had to guess, it’s not on fine wines and racehorses.”
Dorian exhaled slowly. “Interesting.”
She nodded. “I can press him on it at Lady Montgomery’s soirée tomorrow. If he flinches, we’ll know we’re on the right track.”
He should have cautioned her. Reminded her that they were playing a dangerous game. That the Duke’s allies were not to be trifled with. But she already knew that. She knew the risks, and she was choosing to stand at his side anyway .
And, gods help him, he liked it. He liked having her here, liked having someone who saw the world as he did, who played the game not because she had to, but because she wanted to. She made the terrifying business exciting.
Selene was marvellous.
And he was in trouble.
It turned out that Halewick had a mistress and an illegitimate daughter that he kept in town, which explained the discrepancies in his funds. Dorian could strike him off the list. He wondered how long it would have taken without Selene’s help. Another loop, perhaps.
She delivered the revelation at the next society event, slipping up beside him as he poured himself a glass of punch. Her breath was warm against his ear, her voice a murmur.
“Halewick is compromised,” she whispered. “Nothing more than a fool with a wandering eye and too many secrets to keep track of.”
Dorian chuckled under his breath, taking a sip of his drink to hide his smirk. “You’re magnificent.”
Selene tilted her head, amusement flickering in her eyes. She turned her gaze to the dance floor, where couples twirled in elegant synchrony. “Will you not dance with me?” she asked, her voice light, almost teasing.
The question caught him off guard. The back of his neck prickled with heat.
“No,” he said, too quickly.
Selene arched a delicate brow. “No?”
He exhaled, forcing himself to meet her gaze. “No,” he repeated, lower this time, “because if I dance with you, everyone will know how utterly besotted I am, and no one will ever leave us alone again.”
There. He had said it. Not wrapped in subtlety, not half-veiled behind duty or deflection. The truth laid bare between them, impossible to take back.
Selene’s breath hitched. He braced for her to rebuff him, to tell him he was being inappropriate or foolish. He half wished she would. If she pushed him away, if she severed this fragile, impossible thread between them, maybe—just maybe—he could let her go.
Instead, she inhaled softly, smoothing the silk of her glove as though she hadn’t just shattered his resolve.
“I’m travelling to Nocturne Hall again tomorrow,” she murmured.
“There’s a bower house on the grounds. I’ll leave the key beneath the stone by the rosebushes.
If you ever need to get word to me, send it there. ”
Dorian’s fingers flexed around his glass. She wasn’t rejecting him. She wasn’t running. She was giving him a way to find her.
He smiled, slow and knowing, and raised his drink in a quiet toast. “As you wish.”