Sold To The Cruel Pr Chapter 88: The First Dance

Chapter 88: The First Dance

Theron looked at her, his eyes widening with surprise for only a fleeting mont.

He should have seen it coming sooner.

This, then, was what he had promised. And the court had not even granted him a single night to breathe before placing this pampered, ornantal woman in his hands.

He wanted to turn away.

But before he could, his mother caught his hand.

"Co now," Margrethe murmured, her voice light with insistence. "Do not be shy. Hold out your hand and let her stand beside you, where everyone can see."

Theron looked at his mother.

Then at the woman waiting below.

Golden-blonde hair, twisted into an elaborate knot that seed almost too perfect to have been touched by a human hand. Amber eyes, bright and unmistakable, carrying the proud color of House Caelvaris. Full cheeks. Poised shoulders. A smile composed of confidence and lineage, the kind of smile that had never once needed permission to exist.

So this is the woman I am ant to spend the rest of my life with?

Theron drew in a slow breath.

No.

It did not feel right.

He stepped down from the platform and approached her, raising his hand before he rembered, too late, that he was not wearing gloves.

His jaw tightened.

Of all the monts to forget them.

This was exactly why Kael usually stayed close—always reminding him, always catching what he forgot before it beca a problem.

Roselyn Caelvaris lifted her hand.

Then paused.

Theron’s gaze flicked from his bare hand to her face again.

She smiled, head tilting ever so slightly, and sothing in that smile made him instinctively wary.

Then she bit the tip of her glove and tugged it off in one swift motion. The rings on her fingers struck the floor with a clear, ringing sound.

Theron blinked.

Roselyn, without a shred of hesitation, spat the glove onto the floor and placed her bare hand in his.

A collective gasp rippled through the hall. Pearls were clutched. Fans lifted. Murmurs spread like sparks through dry grass.

Beside her, the Archduchess, her grandmother, leaned in and whispered sothing sharp behind the concealnt of her fan.

"But he is not wearing his gloves," Roselyn said, not bothering to lower her voice.

Theron felt the open pride in her tone, the unblinking certainty with which she carried herself. She looked as though the world had already agreed to belong to her.

Perhaps it had.

She was the eldest granddaughter of the Archduke. The woman hailed as the most beautiful in all of Greenvale.

Theron withdrew his hand at once.

He was not prepared for this much chaos from a stranger.

Without thinking, he rubbed his palm against his trousers, as if he could wipe away the strange, clinging impression of her hand. Too soft. Too smooth. Too cushioned.

Odd.

The only woman’s hand he had ever truly touched was Aveline’s, and hers had never felt like this.

He turned, intending to leave.

"Perhaps—" The Archduchess stepped forward, and Theron stopped, still not looking at them.

"His Highness should ask Rosalyn for a dance," she suggested. Her tone made it sound less like a suggestion and more like a decree. "To begin the rrints with your first dance as betrothed."

Theron felt his mother stiffen beside him. No matter how he looked, it looked like the CAelvaris family wanted this marriage to happen, and for so reason, his mother was bowing down to them. But why?

Then Margrethe turned her gaze to him, her panic turning to a soft smile. "Why don’t you, Vaelor?"

"Dance?" Theron echoed under his breath.

And then, unbidden, a mory rose inside him.

Willowgrave Mansion.

Aveline, younger and furious and impossible, dragged through every lesson her mother could force upon her. She had hated studying. She had hated sitting still. She loved climbing on trees evne though she couldn’t get down, she loved chasing the dogs and horses, she loved getting her dress dirty and jump into the lake...

But dance lessons had been the worst of all, especially with that stern teacher who seed determined to wring every ounce of grace out of her. Grace, she never had to begin with.

So... she had made him her practice partner.

They had been the sa height then, and she had delighted in stomping on his feet with a look of perfect innocence, as though it were an accident every single ti. He had endured it longer than he should have, until the day they were taught the dip.

He had been so irritated by her smug little smile, so determined to wipe it off her face, that when she leaned in expecting the usual lesson, he had kissed her instead.

He had not thought of it in years.

Their first kiss.

Aveline had made a spectacle of herself afterward, refusing dinner and insisting on being punished. Her father had only laughed and then, with his smile still hanging on his lips, asked him not to do it again. That only made Aveline pout more.

Later, when Theron had tried to sneak her food, knowing she couldn’t handle hunger, he found her in the kitchen beneath the table, already stealing bites for herself.

Her mouth had been sared with frosting. She had looked up at him, grinned with all the wicked triumph of a child who had won, and then shoved him down and kissed him back, just to prove she could.

Those were bright, careless days... Back when nothing between them had a price... and nothing had needed to be chosen.

After that, she had stopped stomping on his feet on purpose. She had still hated most of the steps, but there was one she loved—one she loved so much that she would laugh every ti he spun her beneath his raised hand, her fingers warm in his and her hair sweeping around her as she turned under his arm.

The underarm turn.

Back then, his height had made it awkward. Now, with the distance between them grown into sothing else entirely, he could imagine doing it properly. Smoothly. Easily.

Would she still laugh like that now?

Before he knew it, his mouth had softened into a smile.

"Vaelor?"

His mother’s voice pulled him back.

He looked up.

Roselyn stood before him now, poised and expectant, her smile polite and perfect and entirely ready to be received.

Theron swallowed.

For one mont, the hall seed too bright, too full of eyes, too full of obligation.

Then he took a breath and lifted his hand.