26. The Spy and his Wife #2
“You’d stay longer if Soren was with you, wouldn’t you?”
“Soren is a ghost,” he reminded her. “He can practically move through walls. Do you blame me for being a little more cautious when it comes to you?”
She tilted her head, eyes gleaming. “You’re sweet when you’re protective.”
Dorian groaned, a flicker of heat darting across his belly. Oh, how quickly she could unravel him. “Selene, please.”
“What if there was another way? ”
He glanced at her. “Another way of what?”
“Of trying to ascertain what Lord Dashridge may be involved in without rifling through all his belongings?”
He raised an eyebrow. “Go on.”
She guided them back towards the ballroom, keeping her voice low. “Dashridge has a weakness.”
Dorian folded his arms. “Does he?”
She smirked. “Drink. And flattery. He likes to talk when he’s indulged. If we guide the conversation carefully enough, he may give us what we need without ever realising it.”
Dorian glanced towards the ballroom, where Dashridge was now leaning heavily against a column, gesturing wildly as he spoke to a group of equally inebriated men. “You think he’ll just confess his crimes over brandy?”
“Not outright,” Selene admitted. “But men like him always want to impress. They like to boast. If I ask the right questions… if I stroke his ego a little… he may let something slip.”
Dorian exhaled through his nose. “And you’d rather dance circles around him all night than let me break into his study?”
“It would be far less dangerous.”
“Debatable.”
Selene rolled her eyes. “Just trust me.”
“I do trust you.” Dorian sighed, adjusting his cuffs. “It’s most other people I have a problem with.”
Selene leaned up and pressed a kiss to his cheek. “You pick locks, husband, but I can pick at people. Watch and learn.”
Dorian barely had time to smother a smile before she slipped away, vanishing into the ballroom with all the ease and grace of a queen taking her throne. He stayed back, watching as she moved through the room.
The guests had grown looser, their laughter turning boisterous as the night wore on.
It was easy enough to spot Dashridge in the thick of them, his cheeks flushed from drink, his movements just a little too slow.
Selene approached him as if she had all the warmth in the world to offer.
Dorian couldn’t hear her words, but he didn’t need to—he knew that smile, knew the effortless charm that could soften even the most guarded of men.
She gestured, and a servant filled Dashridge’s glass.
Dashridge, predictably, preened under whatever flattery she offered, his already broad posture expanding.
He spoke at length, all wild gestures and self-importance, and Selene—Selene—listened intently, nodding at just the right moments, laughing when required, as if she truly hung on his every word.
Dorian could only watch in wonder. He had seen skilled spies extract information with painstaking precision, seen scholars unearth secrets buried in ancient texts, but Selene?
Selene wove her magic in plain sight, turning a simple conversation into a trap so elegant that Dashridge would never even realise he was stepping into it.
She danced with him, keeping Dashridge engaged, never once losing control of the conversation. Dorian watched, mesmerised by the shift in her posture, the way she leaned in just so, guiding the discussion to where she wanted it. Dashridge, drowning in his own self-importance, never noticed.
Then, at last, she let him go.
Dorian wasted no time sweeping her into the next dance. His hand found the small of her back, his grip firm as he led her into the steps. “What are you doing?” he asked, voice low.
“Patience, dear husband…”
He exhaled sharply, dipping his head towards her ear. I’ve waited lifetimes to hold you this way, and I’d wait more. “You’ve no idea how patient I can be…”
She only smiled, her focus still half on Dashridge, tracking his glass as the evening wore on.
More than once, he saw her refill it without him noticing, slipping her own into his when he turned away.
Dorian recognised the technique. The Duke had used her for this before, hadn’t he—sent her to flatter men and loosen their tongues? Dorian hated the thought of it.
But now—now, she was wielding it for herself. For them.
Dorian waited, watching as the night stretched on and the ballroom emptied, until Dashridge was well and truly drunk. Only then did Selene lean in, her expression as polite and guileless as ever, and ask him her seemingly innocent inquiry.
Dorian had spent years unearthing lies, finding the edges of deception in the way men hesitated, in the flickers of their eyes, in the carefully curated responses meant to hide the truth. And Selene, in a matter of hours, had drawn the same conclusion through sheer, brilliant manipulation.
Only she didn’t seem like Selene tonight. She seemed like Luna.
When she returned to his side, he was already shaking his head in awe.
“I don’t think he’s involved,” she murmured.
“He answered quickly. He didn’t appear to be keeping anything back or looking for something safe to say.
And if he was in league with the Duke, I don’t think he would know not to include you.
He would have given me an answer akin to the one the Duke first sent your father, or looked towards him for an answer. ”
Dorian stared at her. “How can you be sure he won’t report to the Duke if he is involved?”
She gave him a look of pure amusement. “After that much drink? Because of an innocent question asked by simple, sweet Selene?”
Dorian scoffed. “There is nothing about you that is simple,” he said, voice rich with admiration. “Although there is much about you that is sweet.”
“Do you think so?” she asked.
“I do.”
She tilted her head at him, considering. “Give me one moment,” she said. “One moment when I’ve been sweet.”
He fell silent. Not because he couldn’t think of an answer—there were too many, in fact—but because he was searching for the right words, and the right instances. He needed to make sure he picked something from this timeline, which either meant something recent, or something much further back.
“The day of my father’s funeral,” he admitted at last.
Selene frowned slightly, confused .
“Very few people came,” he explained. “And those who did—at least in the capital—they didn’t know him. They came out of obligation. But you—you came, and you brought him wildflowers, because you knew he preferred them.”
A small smile curved her lips. “My secret talent,” she murmured. “I’ve always been good at remembering what people like.”
He nodded. “You… you gave me a handkerchief. You distracted the congregation that day. You drew their attention away from me.”
Her gaze dropped to the floor. “Sometimes, I feel bad about that,” she admitted. “Of course you should be sad. Why did I feel the need to distract people?”
“I’m glad you did.” His voice was softer now, more certain. “It was—thoughtful.”
She hesitated before speaking again. “Have I ever told you how I knew?” she asked. “How I knew your father didn’t like flowers from the hothouse?”
He shook his head.
“There was a ball,” she explains. “A ball at Roselune Abbey. I was maybe ten or twelve at the time. Old enough to be aware, not old enough to be included. I snuck down in the night to see what all the fuss was about. Your father caught me snooping through the windows. I can hardly remember what he said, but he was so kind and good to me. I remember he made a little bouquet for me out of the flowers growing in the hedges. Told me all the names of them.”
Dorian could picture it—the man his father had been, the kind of thing he would do.
“Spoke about you, too, actually,” she continued. “I can’t name the feeling he left me with, but I remember him. The nice man who made a young girl feel special.”
A lump formed in Dorian’s throat. “He would have liked you,” he said at last.
Selene’s voice was gentler now. “I am sure that I would have liked him. ”
Dorian twirled her under his arm, watching the way the candlelight caught in her hair. She fit against him so effortlessly, so perfectly—until she added, lightly, “In a very different way from how I like you.”
He missed a step. A small, barely noticeable misstep—but how could he not, when she’d just said something like that?
Selene leaned in close as the dance came to an end, her breath warm against his ear.
“Dorian,” she whispered. “Come away with me.”
He swallowed. “Where?”
She smiled. “You know where.”
They didn’t even make their excuses. One glance was enough.
They slipped away from the dance floor, fingers brushing, then tangling together as they moved faster.
Selene nearly tripped on the hem of her gown, and Dorian caught her, steadying her with a firm hand on her waist. Neither of them slowed.
Anticipation thrummed through his veins, intoxicating.
By the time they reached the stairs, they took them two at a time, dizzy with something far stronger than wine.
At the door to their chambers, Selene fumbled with the handle—or maybe he did.
It hardly mattered. The moment it shoved closed, he was on her.
His hands framed her face, and his mouth found hers, crashing into her like a wave against the shore.
She barely had time to gasp before her back met the wall, knocking the breath from her in more ways than one.
She grabbed at him—his face, his hair, his shoulders—pulling him down to her as if afraid he might disappear.
For a fleeting second, he felt her hesitate, like she hardly knew what was happening, and then she melted.
No, more than melted—she dissolved against him, like she had never existed before this moment.
Dorian pulled back, just a fraction, just enough to see her, to catch his breath. “Are you still mad at me?” he whispered.