Odette smiled at the graciousness of present company. He deserves to be kept waiting as he did me, she thought to herself. She was just about to voice an apology and tell him she would not dream of leaving his side until one of her brothers came back when Leon did. "Ah, here is Leon," Odette smiled as she waved her brother down with small flicks of her closed fan. "I am certain he will be much better company than I am. You will certainly have more in common," Odette said as her brother appeared by her side. "Leon, your friend has felt very ignored by you this evening. You should apologize." Leon, despite never having met Laurent in real life, shook the latter's hand as if they were old friends and apologized for leaving him in the company of such a droll lady. Leon invited Laurent to have a drink with him and to meet some daughters of some noblemen as Odette slipped away discreetly to meet Armand.
The evening was a mixture of memory and dream for Odette. It was actually a combination of several different parties. The timeline had been moved around a fair amount but that was conveniently ignored for this dream. Armand had not made his intentions clear to her parents until at least a couple months after the party at the Louvre, unlike this dream where he proposed a week later. Their wedding had been lavish but the attendance had been tiny because they had chosen to invite a few, especially after the king had turned down attending their wedding in favor of visiting Austria or somewhere else. It was something. The particulars were not important in this dream because after Armand's proposal on the terrace of her home, Odette slipped into a different setting and this one was a lot more from memory. It was her bedroom in their home at court and she was pregnant with her first child.