12. Ebonrose Hall
D orian barely slept, the endless hours in the carriage with the darn cat leaving him pale and worn, but he forced a smile as Selene stepped out to walk her pet.
She looked rumpled, tired, and utterly alone, yet still she tried to compose herself.
When she asked if he was well, he brushed off her concern, blaming carriage sickness.
The following sneeze didn’t help him, but she didn’t press.
At the inn, he introduced her simply as “Lady Selene”, careful to keep her identity concealed until their marriage was secure.
Selene was quiet all through breakfast. He wondered what she was thinking about—the lavish wedding she’d always imagined, he assumed, or how her parents were coping with her departure, or even what she was doing with him, of all people .
There was no fanfare now. Just toast, tea, and tired silence. She did her best with her hair, but he could see the difference weighed on her. He wished he could give her more.
He wondered if she was thinking about calling the whole thing off, of going home and telling her parents she’d made an awful mistake. He wouldn’t blame her if she wanted to—he just had no idea what he’d do if she asked him to take her back.
Would he try telling her the truth?
He prayed it wouldn’t come to that. He didn’t want to seem like a madman.
Dorian left her in the carriage while he spoke to the priest. When he returned, he found her spiralling again, lost in thoughts she wouldn’t voice.
Hoping to steady her, he offered her the ink-blue silk kerchief he’d picked up at the haberdasher’s—his house colour—and folded a rose-pink one into his breast pocket.
A small gesture, but her eyes lit up regardless.
“Are you ready?”
“Yes.”
The ceremony passed in soft words and flickering candlelight. She flinched at the vows. He wondered if it was him she was dreading, or if she was thinking of the wedding she ought to have had. As panic crept into her breathing, he shifted his arm just slightly. She held on. He hoped it helped.
When the vows ended, and the priest pronounced them wed, Dorian offered her a quiet smile. “That wasn’t too bad, was it?” he said gently.
Selene didn’t answer. Customarily, the wedding vows were sealed with a kiss. She leaned in, trembling.
Dorian wouldn’t kiss her this way. He couldn’t. He placed a chaste kiss on her cheek instead. He couldn’t give her a parade or a palace. But he could give her this—a marriage on her terms, and time. Time to breathe. Time to heal.
He dared not hope for more.
The ride to Ebonrose was agony, not just because of the cat but because of her proximity. She sat opposite him, close enough that every shift of the carriage sent the whisper of fabric against his legs. He sat rigid, hands clenched together in his lap, and let the ache build in his chest.
She smelled of roses. It was an old, familiar scent, one that had clung to the air when they were children, when she had passed him in the halls of the Florenwall Academy, when he had seen her at balls and knew, even then, that she was too far above him.
It was the scent that lingered in the bower long after she left in the evenings, haunting the empty room whenever she was away.
The same scent that ghosted his skin after they lay together.
That couldn’t happen again. Not just because she’d probably never come to see him that way, but because he refused to get her pregnant again. He couldn’t lose another child. He couldn’t watch her suffer through a pregnancy and grow round with his child and lose them both, again.
Not that he suspected that was even on the cards, but it was on his mind.
She was his wife now, after all.
Wife . It felt like a lie, a deception he’d yet to atone for.
He swallowed hard and turned his gaze to the window, watching the countryside roll past in a blur of grey and green. Ebonrose was still half an hour away. And when they arrived, she would see it—his real home, his true life, the place no one in the capital spoke of.
Would she hate it?
She had been to his townhouse in a previous timeline, a place curated to be palatable to those of her world, a place where he could pretend, for a little while, that he belonged among them.
But Ebonrose Hall was different. Ebonrose was old stone and sprawling fields, muddy roads and quiet halls.
It was Soren, sharp and scowly, who had never once cared for etiquette.
It was Rookwood, whose heart was as warm as his cooking, and Ariella, who was Dorian’s second-favourite woman in the world, and saw through everything.
What would he do if Selene didn’t like them—or they didn’t like her? It had been years since he’d thought to imagine the two worlds merging, and certainly he’d never imagined them colliding this way, and bringing Selene back here as a stranger.
Finally, they arrived at Ebonrose Hall. He thanked his stars that, in this loop, he’d already been back for several weeks, and Ariella and Rookwood were familiar with his history and in the know about his travels.
Soren had more knowledge than them, after living through them multiple times.
He was the only one who had seen Dorian’s feelings for Selene up close, even if he could never understand them.
Dorian braced himself.
From a distance, the house held its dignity well enough. The grey stone was softened by ivy, the towers still reached skyward with muted elegance. It was not Roselune Abbey—no gold-leafed ceilings, no vast, manicured gardens—but there was a solidity to it, an unpretentious grandeur.
For a moment, he allowed himself to believe that Selene might see that.
But as they drew closer, the truth became unavoidable.
The shutters hung unevenly, battered by time and wind.
The ivy, unchecked for years, had crept too far, choking the walls rather than gracing them.
The stone showed patches of bare masonry where paint had peeled and never been refreshed.
The gravel drive was riddled with weeds, the lawns overgrown and speckled with wildflowers that no gardener had planted.
He saw it now through her eyes, and though he had long since stopped caring what the capital thought of him, he cared what she thought.
If he went back again—
The wheels crunched to a stop, and he forced himself to move first. It was too quiet.
There should have been a line of servants waiting, a footman to open the door, a steward to announce their arrival.
But there was no one. Without staff to send ahead, they could hardly have been expected to know precisely when he would arrive…
He offered his hand to Selene, bracing for judgment. She hesitated before taking it, and in that moment, he wondered if she already regretted all of this.
He didn’t look at her face. He couldn’t. Instead, he turned to the figures quickly arranging themselves at the top of the steps.
Rookwood bowed first, offering them a warm, genuine smile. “Welcome, Lady Selene,” he said. “I’m Roan Rookwood. I serve as the butler and, er… cook here.”
Dorian didn’t have to glance at Selene to know she was startled by that. It was very unconventional.
Ariella stepped forward next, her dark auburn hair arranged in a style far too elegant for Ebonrose, as if sheer will alone would maintain a standard of decorum. Her sharp eyes met Selene’s with an assessing glint before shifting to Dorian.
He merely introduced her. “Ariella Everfrost, housekeeper.” And my cousin, but essentially my sister. He had no intention to keep that information from Selene, but he wasn’t sure now was the time to explain his complicated family history.
Ariella curtsied briskly. “My Lady.” But her attention flicked back to Dorian, expectant. She doubtless had a lot of questions he’d be forced to answer later.
And finally, Soren.
“Soren, my valet.”
That was a pathetically small word for what Soren was to him, but it was the lie they used in public, and the one that would serve best for now until Dorian could explain it better.
Soren made no move to smile. He stood too stiffly, too warily, as though expecting a fight. His pale hair caught the light, almost too bright against the grey of the house behind him.
They all stood there, the three of them, wearing expressions that ranged from polite welcome to quiet disbelief.
“Welcome to Ebonrose Hall, My Lady,” Ariella said at last. “We are delighted to serve you.”
Selene was escorted upstairs by Ariella, and Dorian went immediately to his study.
All his previous plans had been thrown in complete disarray by this new development, and he had no idea what his next move should be.
Withdrawing to his study also excused him from having to witness Selene’s reaction to her humble lodgings.
He asked Ariella to put her in the bedroom belonging to the lady of the house, because it was the best room that they had, but he wondered now if that was a mistake. It was very, very close to his…
The room in question had been his own before the death of his father.
It used to be his mother’s room—though she had kept almost exclusively to her husband’s chamber and kept it more as a private parlour—but Dorian had moved into it after he outgrew the nursery, by which time his mother had been long gone.
It was unconventional, of course, but Gideon Nightbloom had never agreed with the idea that “children should be seen and not heard” and couldn’t understand nobility’s obsession with keeping their children as far away from them as possible.
It was an opinion that Dorian shared. He never would have kept his child away from him.
He sighed, lying back in his chair, completely at a loss as to what advice his father might give if he were still here.
He never would have encouraged Dorian to give up trying to help people, but what advice would he give regarding Selene?
They’d never had to talk about romance before, other than how to behave towards young women and treat them with the kindness Gideon expected Dorian to treat anyone.
Love hadn’t had to come into the conversation.
Would he tell him to give her space, to leave her be entirely, to seize another chance?
Would he caution restraint, knowing how much it had hurt Dorian in the past?
Gideon Nightbloom had never recovered from the loss of his wife and child.
Would he understand Dorian’s reluctance?
His father had been gone for so long that Dorian was forgetting the sound of his voice. His advice was much harder to summon.
“Knock-knock,” said Ariella, arriving at the door. “I’ve shown your new bride to her chambers and left her to get settled in.”
“She isn’t my new bride,” Dorian reminded her.
“There’s a priest and a marriage license that would disagree.”
Dorian sighed, handing her a letter. “Could you see to it that my solicitors receive this and make the necessary arrangements with the Duskbriars? We can’t have her family coming to take her back.”
“Indeed,” said Ariella, pocketing the letter.
Dorian leaned back again. “How did she find the rooms?”
“She was very polite about them.”
“You hesitated.”
“They are a bit outdated for a fine lady.”
Dorian grimaced. There was nothing to be done, now. A part of him was already making a mental note, that if he did have to go back in time again, perhaps he’d see to the renovations before Selene spontaneously married him.
Providing, of course, that she made the offer. There was no guarantee. Clearly, his spreading of rumours was what had affected her change of heart, but there was no knowing if she’d pick him again. He had no idea how that had happened.
“So…” Ariella began.
“So what?”
“How stunning is she? You really didn’t exaggerate. She’s absolutely beautiful. You should take her on a village tour. If you like, I can arrange a private dinner at—”
Dorian groaned. “Worry about your own love life, not mine.”
“I do not have a love life for precisely this reason. Far too much drama. Romance is better in books. Haven’t you learnt anything from my mother?”
“You never listen to your mother.”
“I do in this regard. ”
Dorian didn’t think that this would be the best time to tell Ariella that, in one of the few past timelines when he’d managed to convince her to come with him, Rookwood had fallen behind and she’d died trying to get to him.
There was almost certainly something in that, although whether or not she’d admit it was another thing altogether.
Romance might not have been better in books, but it was safer.
“Thank you, Ariella. I will take all this under advisement.”
“Take the tour under advisement,” she clarified. “Don’t stay away from romance. I require it from you.”
“Good day, Ariella.”
She huffed under her breath, and went about her business.
The candles had burned low by the time Dorian finally exited his study, filing everything away and heading upstairs.
The house was impossibly quiet in a way the capital never was.
Even at this time, there was always noise.
Wheels on gravel, drunks in the streets, sailors making their way to the docks, horses braying, stamping hooves. He always preferred the quiet.
He wondered if Selene missed the noise.
He hovered by her door. Behind it, he could hear Selene sobbing.
He sighed. She could never learn to be at home here. Not under such conditions.
He was just fooling himself.
Perhaps he always had been.