“I do not care if it’s uncomfortable for you, I am very comfortable standing. Just tell the story Blackwood,” Belle stated as she crossed her arms. She had already giving Corin her ears- that she would hear the tale he wishes to tell, but she would not sitt, no matter how long the story might be and how much her legs would probably shake.
Belle Rose Fleur was never a rule follower, and she was not about to start- especially with Corin. She had no desire to give him what he wanted, to give him that satisfaction. They were not friends, allies or anything at all for each other. She had frowned, internally rolling her eyes as he stood too. She bit back a response to that, to say the words that danced in her mind. She only wanted him to tell the story and go, not waste time by going back and forth.
She crossed her arms as he began to tell his tale. He told tales of noble girls being forced into marriages, running away. The tale seemed less and less like a tale and instead something more, like Corin had a person connection to the person who the tale was about. When he had revealed the tale was about his mother, Belle had not been shocked or moved. She blinked, raising a brow- ‘was that it? was that what he wanted to tell her?’ of course Belle knew that it could not be it, he wouldn’t come all the way from wherever he was to the La Mansion Britannique De Fleur just to give her a backstory of the late Mrs.Blackwood, and as she pondered about it. She began to put two and two together- he could not mean?
No, no. Her father would never, but her mother… Belle never held no trust in her heart for her mother to not do what Belle thinks she has done…
“I do not come here for my own self interest, I am merely urging you to care for yours. I have spoken to the Duke, and your parents are keen on marriage for you within the season. For your sake, Belle Rose, chart your own course"
Belle blinked, staring at him with a bored expression, “Is that it?” If what she was guessing true and for the love of God let it not be true, she already had a planned, more than a plan, she had multiple. She was never naive enough to doubt the possibility of such a thing, she was a Fleur and she knew where all the Fleur value lay in- politics. They lived and breathed politics, always looking for an advantage, always wanting to rise even more and in politics you always expect the unexpected. There were no true rules to the game of politics and how it should be played, and some argue that politics should always be fair- and indeed, politics should be fair but it was not. Just like life never was.
'Don’t come again," Belle told him as she walked up the stairs , making sure her footstep were heard with each step she took. She did not go fully up, no after all, her parents had forbidden her for doing so till a specific amount of time. So she waited some minutes - the minutes she hoped and knew that Corin would be gone by. When those minutes had ended, she walked back down, rolling her eyes. He had come to tell her to marry, tell her to fall in love, and it made her want to burst into laughter.
You would think by now, after all that she had done, he would know, Belle was not capable of falling in love