A Defiant Liaison

XII

"One day, I plan to love so loudly, my body abandons every demon harvesting me." Arati Warrier

---- 

XII.

Safe. Safe. Safe.

Such was the chant that was flowing through Belle's mind in that moment. Her heart was thundering. Her limbs were shaking. It was as though her body was determined to be afraid, but her mind wasn't. Belle didn't want to be afraid of Peter, and she knew in the deepest parts of her soul that she didn't need to be. Such certainty was another sort of terrifying.

Belle was too busy in that moment reminding herself that Peter was safe to remember that she had meant to avoid him. In fact, she was not at all certain how she had come to be in such close proximity with him, but she was glad that she had done. To hear what he had said in her defence filled her with a sort of security that she had never felt before.

Thoughts of any sort of residual or underlying prejudices, anxieties or doubts about her appearance and what it would mean to stand up with her, all vanished. Belle knew that Peter was proud to stand up with her, and he would put anyone who had anything nasty to say in their place. Belle had not heard what those women had been saying about her, but she had heard it all before. She did not need to imagine. But nobody had ever spoken for her like that before.

Not even Belle, herself, had spoken for herself like that before.

Looking up at Peter, whose gaze was focussed ahead as he led them through the crowd to the dance floor, made her want to cry. All resolve to spare him from the burdens she carried had vanished, and Belle knew that she would punish herself for it later.

But she wanted to dance with Peter. She wanted to dance with him like normal young women danced with young men. She wanted to be spun about a dance floor and pretend like her nightmares were not realities, and that her burdens did not exist, and that she might have what Susanna had been blessed with today.

But there was something else inside of her burgeoning. It was like the truth was more at the forefront of her mind than it had ever been before. It was bubbling to her lips and she wanted to speak. She had been very careful to keep much of herself a secret from everyone.

Nobody knew even from whence she came, and yet she felt the first secret spill out of her mouth with no sense of control at all.

Just as Peter delicately left her in the line of ladies and took his place opposite her in the line of gentlemen, Belle uttered, "Saint-Martin."

Peter's brows furrowed slightly at her confession. "I beg your pardon?"

The music started and Belle realised suddenly that she had quite no idea of the steps. Her eyes widened as she froze. But Peter stepped forward and claimed Belle with an elegant sense of gallantry. He claimed her hand and placed his other on the small of her back. Belle took a breath as she reached up her other arm to place her hand on his shoulder. She allowed him to lead as they broke away from the line of dancers.

"I wanted to dance a waltz anyway," he murmured with a wry smile.

Peter had saved her. It was a different kind of saving, but it was one that she enjoyed. It was one that she was certain that she could quite easily get swept up in if she allowed herself. But Belle was quickly learning that her resolve was far weaker than it ought to have been.

She really took no notice of the other dancers as she kept her eyes on Peter, but out of the corner of her eye, she could see that several other couples had paired off as they had and were dancing together rather than in the line.

"Saint-Martin?" he prompted quietly as they turned. "Is that what you said?"

Belle nodded. She had certainly said it. She had practically shot the information at him as thought it had desperately escaped the confines of its prison inside of her mind.