***
Eun-woo had a great time as the ball went on. And as she regain her senses again, she noticed that she and Selena were praised by a group of men.
And at last, the group of men finally made the two smile, as if they were born that way. Even the calm Selena burst into laughter at the man's speech wearing blue mask. And not to mention Eun-woo, who was laughing all the time and wiped her tears from time to time.
"Hey, Eleanor. I know that you're in the middle of enjoying the party, but what do I say… Have you ever bear a resentment against someone?"
Their most pleasant time, was when they met group of people in the middle of the ballroom.
Selena asked Eun-woo, who giggled at a joke thrown by someone while sipping the glass that one lady had given her. Eun-woo was laughing for a moment that she put down the glass she was drinking and almost hiccupped.
"Resentment… you mean. Why? Is something wrong?"
Eun-woo whispered to Selena after lowering her voice so that people around her could not hear him.
"Why do you say that?"
"No. If there's nothing wrong going on, then everything is fine."
Selena responded with a calm voice. With that stable smile, Eun-woo was relieved and fell into conversations with the crowd again.
However, Selena could also feel a certain kind of attention drawn towards them, or to be more precise, towards the young Lady, Marquis Eleanor Miller.
Selena was also not an elite trained knight, but as a female knight, she was a talented person who learned various martial arts from a young age to swordsmanship, archery, and chess. To her, this kind of murderous gaze was the kind that could be easily distinguished.
'Of course, there must be a lot of eyes on her because she is purely beautiful…'
Eleanor was definitely drawing people's attention at the ball. Not only her, but also me who could visually confirm that many people's eyes were flying to her.
'But this is definitely a different kind…. It's somewhat…!'
This feels very uneasy. Yes, this word. This feeling is some sort of uneasiness.
Selena soon noticed that she was not concentrating on the conversation and pulled herself together to return to the group. But something uncomfortable fell on her mind like a stone for a while, making her wary.
Meanwhile, Eun-woo was also aware that something was wrong.
'Is a ball a place where people who don't know each other like this are chatting haha, hohoho?'
Obviously, the people around her were beautiful and witty, but Eun-woo realized that she was feeling something else was amiss.
Despite Selena's presence who seems to be holding her back herself though constantly listening and smiling to others, Eun-woo couldn't remove that something is seriously missing.
"Look at that. His highness, the Silver Masked Duke is busy today."
Then someone let out a giggle laugh and pointed to a corner of the hall with a fan.
Eun-woo coughed and turned her head to the direction a lady was pointing, as if she had heard the title of 'His Majesty the Duke'. Selena patted her back.
"Drink slowly. You'll get indigestion."
"Oh… Thank you."
However, while answering Selena, Eun-woo's gaze was fixed on the tallest man at the end of the hall, as if she was possessed by something.
The man wearing a silver mask to the tip of his nose, leaned against the pillar in a posture that looked boring to anyone, drawing attention from a group of ladies.
Eun-woo found the woman next to the man, fluttering the white and red veils of her skirts, and without realizing it, she jumped up from her seat.
"Lady Miller? Is there a problem?"
The people around her gave a strange look over her mask. Eun-woo couldn't be more glad to see that she was also wearing a mask. This is because it was clear that her earlobes had turned red.
'That man… … What the hell is he doing over there… !'
The man in the silver mask was clearly Tashian. Eun-woo immediately approached him and was terrified when she saw women who were keenly seducing him, and her burning chest was on the verge of bursting out.
As if no one was interested, the women were clinging to his side regardless of his attitude and slightly raising their hands on his arms and chest.
Eun-woo felt as if her stomach was boiling at the sight, and she took a step in that direction without realizing it.
Tashian, with a silver mask, shook his chest in front of her eyes and didn't not give any glance to the women around him, as if they were thrown on the ground, and turned his gaze to her as if she attracted him with an invisible thread.
Eun-woo turned her back on his gaze that landed on her.
'He definitely looked at my side!'
She grabbed her red cheeks as if she couldn't believe it, stumbled and leaned against Selena's stretched arms.
"Lady Miller. Are you sure you're alright? Didn't you drink too much?"
"No, I'm really fine. I think I'm dizzy for a moment."
Selena slowly brought her back to their place. However, Eun-woo felt her nerves naturally shift to the place where the silver mask was, once again.
He was still looking at her. When he looked at her, the ladies around him were already a few steps away from him.
Eun-woo turned away from him again.
She felt a sharp pain in her chest, as if she had applied liquid painkiller. She looked around, trying to divert her mind so as not to be caught up in this alien feeling that seemed to run through her.
At that time, a large man's chest blocked her eyes. Eun-woo was startled and was taken back at the sudden large shadow.
"Lady?"
Compared to other masks, a modest brown mask with not much decoration caught her eye. It was a bright blonde man.
Eun-woo looked at the red lips of a man bowing toward her, and thought he had seen him somewhere.
"If you don't mind, will you dance to a song with me?"
It was a gentle, soft voice. Eun-woo glanced at the seat next to her. Selena was already receiving a dance request from another blue mask man.
"Don't be burdened. It's just that, I'm asking you tonight to dance because of my light desire to take a closer look at Lady's beautiful platinum blonde hair."
The man smelled of alcohol, but it was the same for everyone here. Rather, his face looked much better than others.
The man seemed to reach out one hand, as if not to refuse him. In that naturalness, Eun-woo put her right hand over his hand without realizing it. It was a big hand. The man holding her hand lightly smiled brightly, slowly leading her to the middle of the venue hall.
Eun-woo then remembered that she didn't know how to dance, until she reached the spacious space in the middle of the venue, where the two of them stopped, but it was already too late.
She whispered awkwardly to the man.
"I'm sorry, but I'm really bad at dancing. I might step on your foot a lot."
"You can call me Count Briton."
"Ah… Count Briton, I am really…"
"If it's about dancing, you don't have to worry. Because dancing is primarily a role for males."
He grinned and took her hand with one arm and grabbed her slender waist with the other. Eun-woo made her body tense with the man's hand that suddenly touched her, and clumsily followed the steps he stepped on.
"Unlike your words, you are very good at it."
"… Please don't say that."
As soon as the man's speech fell, Eun-woo bowed her head in shame when she stepped on his feet.
"I'm, I'm sorry. Count."
"Ha ha. It's okay. Lady is so light that I couldn't feel your weight."
Eun-woo slowly felt her tension relax. Contrary to her worries, the music was very calm, and in the first place, it was a dance in which two men and women whispered one word or another in each other's ears in the dark lighting and slow beat, so not much technology was needed. No one seemed to be paying attention to her dance moves.
She thought as she danced.
'This isn't bad either…'
Eun-woo felt that she opened her eyes to a new thing he had never experienced. Ironically, the feeling of resentment had subsided a little while ago when she witnessed the Duke flirting with women.
Eun-woo closed her eyes and savored the moment. The man who held her thin waist and wrapped his hands, was a fairly tall man with gentlemanly courtesy.
Eun-woo couldn't erase the feeling of seeing this man somewhere.
I'm sure I had seen him somewhere..
She worked hard to remember the man in front of her.
"Perhaps, have you seen me somewhere?"
Eun-woo couldn't overcome her curiosity and raised her head and asked him a question. She could feel his eyes twinkling in the mask.
"When Miss was watching the Blanche Game with the Duke, I was the one who was there."
Eun-woo exclaimed, "Oh".
"Oh, I remember now. You found the noir card, right? You had a great sense of vision."
"Thank you for the compliment."
"We met in a place like this."
The man's eyes made a light smile in the mask.
"Actually… I've been waiting for a chance to talk to Miss since earlier."
Eun-woo was embarrassed by his sudden confession and couldn't find a suitable answer, and just bowed her head.
A man who introduced himself as Count Briton, opened his mouth as if he was complaining.
"At the banquet earlier, the duke had such a fierce expression and escorted the Lady… It wasn't easy to create opportunities."
"Oh…"
In Tashian's mention, Eun-woo unknowingly dyed her cheeks red. He certainly walked around to flirted like an overprotective parent throughout the banquet.
Thinking of him, Eun-woo felt as if something was tightly clumped together again. She asked brightly with envy to erase the feeling.
"You're so good at dancing."
"Well, I've been terribly trained by a tutor since I was young."
At his playful words, Eun-woo giggled and laughed, and once again stepped on his foot.
"Count of Briton! I'm so sorry!"
"It's really okay. I didn't even feel it."
Count Briton continued to dance with an exaggerated smile, as if he had no problem at all.
Eun-woo felt something ticklish about him. When she was with Tashian, it was a significantly different difference from feeling tension that the invisible tight thread would break right away.
'It's like we're in a fresh relationship just by dancing together, it's fun…. That's why everyone is having a ball…'
The dance they danced to was Minuet. With a dance in which the partner continued to change, Count Briton's turn was now over and an unknown orange mask gentleman was waiting for her.
Eun-woo turned toward Count Briton to greet him once again for giving her a good experience.
But at that moment, a big hand came out of nowhere on her waist.
It was a strong force. As she came to her senses, a tall man stood between Count Briton and her.
Unsurprisingly, Eun-woo unknowingly put her hand on the thick chest of the man who suddenly wrapped his hand to her waist.
"If you don't mind."
She thought that her heart had frozen at the heavy voice hitting her ears.
"Why don't you dance to a song with me?"