26 Learning About My Debut (Pt 2)

After the incident of my fall, Elaine's parents quickly went through the crowd to find me.

'What are you doing?!', Elaine's father whispered and shouted at the same time.

'Pull yourself together Elaine. This is your debutant ball. Everything you do, every step, every word is to be perfect,' Elaine's mother said to me.

Talk about concerned parents.

'Yes I understand father, mother.' With that I left them to go join the party. I was about to approach a group of noble girls when someone grabbed my arm from behind me.

'You're hurt,' said the guy.

He was tall and had a lean body with short black hair and red eyes. I didn't recognize him, but he was very handsome that even I had to stare for a second to admire his beauty.

Perhaps he was another noble or one of the rich families that were invited to the ball. My eyes moved to where he was holding me.

There was a scratch on my elbow that probably happened during the fall. I took back my arm and turned to meet his eyes.

'It's fine, it doesn't hurt,' I told him, but he wasn't having any of it shaking his head. He then put his hands around the wound and a magical light appeared. Slowly the wound on my elbow disappeared.

My eyes widened in surprise seeing another magic skill performed before my eyes.

'There. All better.' He gave me a small smile.

We then turned back to the group of girls whose attention was on us, eyes wide with wonder.

'Wow that was amazing.'

'I've never seen anything like that before.'

'How did you do that?'

They were crowding the black haired man with blushes on their cheeks and giggling. Lots of giggling. We then conversed about magic and how not many were able to use it in this day and age. Only the blessed ones from birth can do magic. The number of people who can do magic has been dwindling this past decade, nobody knows why.

I put this information in the back of my mind so that I would research more on it later.

It occured to me that I do not know his name.

'Thank you for healing me, Mister.....?' I trailed off.

'You can call me Anthony. It's my pleasure to help you Lady Elaine. Honestly, how can someone like your fiancé treat you so badly after you were hurt.' He looked across the room, spotting Alex and Anastasia talking to a bunch of noblemen.

I did not understand before how Elaine could be so possessive of Alex in the book, but now looking at them so happy side by side does make me pissed off a tiny bit. More towards Alex though, does he have no shame being so affectionate with other women when his fiancé is right here?

He's either stupid or arrogant, both of which I can't stand.

'Maybe because he's an idiot?' I replied to Anthony who looked back at me with wide eyes and a big smile. There were tears in his eyes as he held back laughter which he coughed away.

I realize that the some of the women surrounding Anastasia were those I met during Beatrice's tea party including Beatrice herself.

I walked towards the crowd with Anthony behind me curious to what they were talking about. Finally I was near them enough to hear their words.

'Miss Anastasia, you're so beautiful!', one lady said while smiling at Anastasia.

'You're so lucky Sir Alex like you so much,' said another noble lady.

'Would you like to be our friend? We have tea parties that we usually attend to, you are most welcome,' said the noble lady who once told me I was a liar to my face.

They hated me so much yet one meeting with Anastasia and they fall in love with her. Is that what being the main character is? To have everyone love you almost immediately?

'Greetings Sir Alex, Miss Anastasia,' I gave them a small nod but I wouldn't bow to them as a form of greeting. Even the image in my head of bowing to them made me want to stab someone. I didn't call her a lady because let's face it she isn't. I'm kidding, it's because it wasn't revealed yet that she was the missing Earl's daughter so was just a commoner right now.

The women who treated Anastasia so welcomingly turned sour at seeing my face.

Doesn't matter, who cares what they think anyways? Still, I need to build a good reputation considering Elaine's past so their reactions are somewhat understandable.

'Hello ladies, its nice to see everyone tonight.' I looked out the glass window and saw the starts bright in the night sky.

They looked at each other for a minute probably thinking I was going to throw a fit seeing Alex be so close to another woman, but I would never give them the satisfaction.

'My greetings as well. I am Anthony,' he bowed to the group of noble women who stared at him with hearts in their eyes. Without missing a beat they were already enamored with his beauty. Who can blame them? Heck he was more handsome than Alex and Cedric which is not an easy thing to do. Even Anastasia couldn't hide her blush when she saw him.

Alex on the other hand was looking at him with suspicion as he stood beside me. We were facing each other, Alex and Anastasia mirroring me and Anthony. If this was a manga there would be electric currents over our eye staring contest.

Finally one of them women couldn't hold back her cough to break the silence. It was the one who called me a liar when I said I could bake and proved to her I could.

'Doesn't Anastasia and Sir Alex look great together?', she said. I could tell she was trying to get a reaction out of me, but if she thought I was the old Elaine, she was very, very wrong.