Chapter 85: Evening Soiree-II

Ian could hear the loud sounds of her heartbeat and also learned how her heart had always sounded the way it did now when she was happy and pulled his smile wide to rest on his lips. "I see." he whispered, his words coming to the corner of her cheeks. "Is it your first time to hear someone praising for your beauty? You seemed to be very surprised a moment ago."

Elise saw him looking at her and how his hand loosely lifting and tilting the glass he held between his fingers for the red liquid to smoothly swung around the direction his hand moved. His eyes made her feel as if she was in a corner when the place they were was wide and vast. Though the situation felt hard for her to take her breaths, she didn't dislike the feeling she had now. 

Despite the jittery nerves, she managed to say, "Yes. Except from uncle Russel and my parents I rarely receive any praises. My hair color is a bit odd and people often avoid it." she replied. Her parents and uncle often praise her like any other family members would do to their daughter, however, when Ian had praised her, it felt different. It was as if she was pulled high to the clouds, her heart elevating with brimming pure happiness.

Ian hummed faintly, "That would be the mistakes of those men then. They are all blind to not see your most beautiful features." he trailed with a grin. He pushed his body from the wall he leaned by his elbow and his other hand moved from his waist to stop at her hair. His fingers trailed on the end of her hair, playing and twirling the bright red strand between his finger and turned his eyes up with a wide smile. Elise had her breaths tightened to hear him asking, "Don't you have suitors meeting you in your house?"

She blinked and reply, "There was."

"Was?" he questioned.

"I rejected their kind offer because we don't share the same feeling." replied Elise and Ian hummed happily to her reply. For a village girl it wasn't easy for them to reject a suitorship. This was because they were too afraid they wouldn't be able to meet a new suitor who would court them again and became old without marrying. And it wasn't unusual to see women marrying in a young age with a man that they didn't truly love. But Elise had rejected the man due to their unmatched feeling for each other which shows he sincerity in marriage.

"How many men had come to court you?" he continued his question. The pianist who was playing on the far right corner of the room had took a change of a song which sounded more melodic and hauntingly beautiful.

"Only once." Odd Ian thought, from the Sulix he remembered that she had many suitors coming to ask for her hand. Which mean, the girl didn't know that she was considered beautiful and an apple to many men in the village; and Mr. and Mrs. Scott didn't seem to tell her this. But it was good on its own, thought Ian. With the choice Mr. and Mrs. Scott had made, it kept Elise save from the men who was smitten by her.

Elise then turned her eyes, and met her eyes with the people who had gathered in a crowd some sitting while the others were standing. She saw their eyes looking at her dress she was wearing before turning to look away as they don't want to be on the bad sie of the Lord.

"Are you worried about your dress?" came his question, he had also noticed the people looking at her which he didn't particularly cared of but he had noticed how there was a troubled expression in his puppy's expression. Like the words he had uttered to the family of the Count, he didn't mind what dress Elise was wearing as the girl looked beautiful with whatever had clothed her. What makes her to be enchanting wasn't her dress but her own self which had attracted him since the first time he had met her again after nine years.

"A little." she confessed. Her dress were attracting many eyes and she was worried that she had perhaps troubled Ian because of her dress with all the rumors that had erupted in the room. 

Letting the hair he had been playing with to slip off from his fingers, he looked at her, bending slightly for his face to come closer towards hers. Elise took a step back which she didn't meant to but still nevertheless to feel how the wall hit her back. "Only a little? I could tell it's not only a little. Tell me what are you thinking, puppy."

When he took another step closer, her back pressed to the wall. She stared at him and he saw her blue eyes were glistering like a liquid glass color that had hit a light. The breaths she didn't know she had held ran out of her lips when she replied, "I'm worried that they would talk about you because of me. A maid is not often seen well." It may have sounded like a futile worry to others but Elise was a girl who lived in the small village that could barely pass as a town due to the population. She had seen the segregation between the poor and rich and how rumors could destroy a person. 

"The rumors you meant." he reiterated her words. He took her chin by her fingers, his hand lifting her head up with her eyes looking down in a taunt. Elise felt the proximity to be too close for her to breath as if a single breaths she let out of her lips would brush his face which it did and it only made her even more stuck in between her happiness to get near him and her nervousness. 

"Silly little puppy, what do you have to worry for? In this land there would be no one who dare to create a rumor about me unless they would want to have their tongue rip and beheaded in the scaffold." he whispered to his ears, his words bring a shuddering difference of gentleness than the words he had breathed out. "And you are not only a maid, Elise. You are my maid. The Lord's maid. Mine. Out of all people, you have a higher status and once I have said that, sweety, no one could rebuke my words."