Belle had noticed the man’s reaction as soon as she corrected his choice of title when addressing her. A look of disapproval crossed her mind, but she did not show it in her face—well, except for when she had raised a brow. Ah, he was truly a man, and in the worst way possible. Perhaps that should have been a sign to just ignore him or send him out—after all, Belle was being nice! She was being lovely, and that was a lot coming from Belle. She was helping him, as she knew how English society was. Being forced to be around English aristocrats and high European society in general, Belle knew a lot about them. She was helping him in order that he would do well in European high society—so that he would accomplish whatever he wished to accomplish here—but his ego was already too high for corrections, it seemed. If not for the fact that Belle was still learning how to control her curiosity and that she was used to dealing with people with high egos, she would have turned to her usual self around people that displeased her—the cold, muteless Belle—but instead all she could do was stare blankly at him.Trying to find the right emotion on her face to use or the words to use, she decided to settle on a smile. A polite smile one she was accustomed to giving at times- the times being when a friends or father would ask her a question she did not want to respond to.
She had also noticed that he had pushed the flowers he brought to the back of him and she decided not to talk of them till he brought them up. Flowers, such a common gift for courting,but she was a Fleur, Flowers were important and special to her no matter how common they were as after all she was brought up to view flowers as angels as they were so many traditions surrounding them when it kept to her household. Courting rules surrounding flowers, marriage rules surrounding flowers, birthday rules surrounding flowers, festival rules surrounding flowers-way too many rules that other families would not even consider and thus because of that- there was even more rules upon rules. The Fleur household was built upon a lot of rules and traditions, that yes- sometimes Belle defied when the rules were too much for her or displeasing to her nature as a woman whom growing up has only ever truly wished for one thing; a name for herself and a better easier life which means that first her life cannot be easy and her life had to have a lot of rules too. Rules she had learnt were important for structure but of course not all rules were good nor were all traditions, especially the societal norms that were especially forced on women and the tradition that marriage is the most desirable thing of life- to her that was the opposite. Marriage was truly undesirable in all its aspects, whether love marriage or arranged marriage, very undesirable.
When she had finally spoken again- this time to ask a question, he had corrected her grammar as her French accent sipped in, it had made her internally laugh—ah, that correction had really hurt him? Was it truly that serious? She thought to herself, He really wished to one-up her for such a simple thing. He was quite lucky that Belle decided that she would be nice, but her decision was based mostly on her curiosity, so was he truly lucky? After all, a curious Belle was not the best thing. Thank you,”She said, “I am not English-born, though I am very accustomed to English customs, and thus I may mess up at times." In her head, she was thinking—see? Was that so difficult? Accepting the correction instead of taking it to heart. But though she would admit- she was not very happy with the correction and that was because she knew it did not come from a place of heart. No, not all, it came because of pride and Belle knew a lot about pride, being born to a prideful mother and unlike she would like to admit, she had inherited that pride quite well. Thus, when she had thanked him for the correction, her pride was definitely hurt and she had wanted to reply with something cruel and cold- but she was no longer a kid she was 10 and 9 years and instead she had twitched on the inside but did not show it- used to having what people would call- an expressionless face the expressions only coming when she wished for them- but though sometimes her body did betray her, like… No, no she should not think of that.
“Last night,” She began, as he asked her about what she meant with her words “I had a conversation with Lord Rutherford, finding out he was the brother of a dear friend of mine, and he was hosting your family. And it made me remember that it has been a while since I’ve come across his sister, my friend, and thus I told him to tell her that I would invite her over to the Fleur many for a little tea party and to extend the invitation to your dear sister. As a welcoming- and because it would be unkind if I did not.” Also it was because she wanted to see what type of person was the mehta girl and whether she might be a problem or not in the future for Belle, she really did not need more problems than she had already.
When he had sat down after Belle had invited him to sit- she pleased at the distance he created. Could be larger but that was not the point. He might not be too bad- still cocky, she concluded but not all that bad in other aspects of him. He had then brought the flowers he had pushed to his back in front of her,
“I… had brought these”
“Flowers? Thank you, thank you very much,” She had said in her nicest tone to strangers possible. She gazed at the flowers and they were certainly beautiful- not as beautiful as roses, of course. No, no flower was as beautiful as roses, and perhaps that was due to her bias, but it was the truth—there was just something about roses that made other flowers pale in comparison. She dropped the flowers next to her on the coach, “They are quite lovely,” She complimented the flowers.
mentioned:
@Caticorn - Prit
@Jass - Bay
@Littlefeets - Maise