My Duke Became a Dragon, So I Took Him to the Ball novel · Chapter 3 of 24
Chapter 3: He Came to the Ball
He is announced from the bag, disappears under a curtain, fails at a cuff and watches Ysmerelle accept a dance of her own and laugh over a tangled fan. HOOK: Thalvian waits outside and will not enter while the duke can order him out.
Caerovan insisted on announcing himself before Ysmerelle entered the ballroom.
The attendant looked at the handbag, then at the name written on his list.
"You can use the ordinary volume," the duke told him.
The attendant announced both of them so loudly that the nearest dancers stopped.
Ysmerelle wished she'd brought her shawl over her shoulders instead of folded beneath her fiance.
He had chosen to stand on it.
She couldn't take it back without asking him to move.
His sister came toward them with a smile that didn't survive the first clear view into the bag.
"You're green," Orivelle said.
"I am aware."
She looked at Ysmerelle.
"He told me you might not come."
"He reconsidered."
Caerovan remained silent.
Ysmerelle left the correction to him.
The silence lasted until his sister lifted one eyebrow.
"She declined to be absent," he said.
Orivelle's smile returned.
She took Ysmerelle's free hand and welcomed her properly.
It was the warmest welcome she'd received under the Lysseroth name.
Caerovan watched them with his claws on the bag's edge.
"Somewhere level," he said when his sister offered refreshments.
Orivelle found a broad window ledge away from the dancers.
Ysmerelle held the bag beside it until he stepped out.
He turned toward the room and spread his wings.
For one impressive moment, his shadow rose taller than he was.
Then his left wing pushed the curtain out over his head.
He disappeared beneath embroidered silk.
Orivelle reached for it.
"I have it," he said.
A horn caught the lining.
Ysmerelle waited until he stopped struggling.
"Would you like me to lift that?"
"Yes."
She lifted the curtain and he emerged backward, dragging a small tassel.
He looked at the tassel lying over his snout.
Orivelle took it away without comment.
That kindness made Ysmerelle want to laugh more than any remark would have.
Odrienne arrived carrying two embroidered cuffs.
"If you must remain visible, wear something appropriate," she told him.
She laid the cuffs in front of him.
They were from a human evening coat.
Caerovan put one foreleg through an opening.
The cuff reached his shoulder.
He tried walking and planted his foot inside the embroidery.
The second step rolled the stiff cloth beneath him.
Ysmerelle held the bag open.
"There's room for those too," she said.
He withdrew his leg and pushed both cuffs toward her.
His aunt's mouth tightened.
The duke let her see him without ornament.
Ysmerelle felt an unwelcome tenderness toward him for managing it.
Then he looked at the man approaching her.
The man asked whether she would dance.
She wanted to.
She'd spent a week learning what her fiance's household expected her to avoid.
She was tired of finding new answers.
"Yes," she said.
Caerovan's tail struck the stone behind him.
She looked at him once before taking her partner's hand.
He didn't speak.
She had been praised for silence at their engagement supper.
Nobody had asked whether she enjoyed being quiet.
Tonight she had accepted something for pleasure, and she meant to keep it.
The dance began before she could decide whether that silence pleased her.
She opened her fan at the first pause.
It caught the ribbon on her partner's sleeve.
She closed it carefully.
The ribbon followed.
Her partner tried turning his wrist to release them and brought the fan against his own chin.
Ysmerelle started laughing.
He did too, and they stopped pretending either of them could dance while tied together.
Across the room, Caerovan watched her free the ribbon with both hands.
She returned to the window ledge warm, pleased and ready to decline his criticism.
He looked at the bent fan.
"I preferred the curtain," he said.
She laughed before she meant to.
Orivelle came back from the entrance while Ysmerelle was still smiling.
"Thalvian is outside," she told her brother.
The duke's tail stopped moving.
"He won't enter while you can order him out."
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