THE INVITATION.

The letter Yvette sent out was very effective.

She never got a reply from Bastien, but clearly he had opted out of replying to her and directly sent a letter to Claude.

In Yvette's letter, she had written that she looked forward to seeing him again, and she expressed how sad she was that she couldn't meet him unless he visited her, as she would've liked to attend a ball, but she'd never been allowed before. Then she mentioned that her parents might not even let her attend Genevieve's debutante ball when she turns eighteen, since Yvette never got to have her own. She was already nineteen but was never given a debutante ball.

It wasn't something that usually happened, but if it was someone as unloved and uncared for as Yvette? It was plausible.

Bastien must have then sent an invitation to Claude, inviting the entire Decaux family to a ball being hosted at the Olivier estate. There was always a ball to attend at any given time. He must have also singled out each and every Decaux child for Claude to be forced to bring Yvette along.

If Bastien didn't specify, then Claude and Adele would have simply left Yvette behind as they always did.

It was clear Bastien did specify Yvette though, because Adele walked into her room one morning with an extreme expression of displeasure on her face, and told her that she was going to attend a ball with the rest of the family that night.

Yvette brought up the fact that she had no appropriate dresses, but Adele didn't care and simply asked her to wear a spare dress. The spare dresses were usually kept in the cellar, and they were old dresses from any of the Decaux women that were already out of style. Sometimes they kept the spare dresses in the cellar rather than throwing them out just incase they needed the extra fabric for something.

It would be embarrassing to wear a dress out of season, but Yvette simply said okay and then Adele left.

While the other Decaux women were getting dressed and pampered by the maids for the ball, Yvette was down in the cellar again, digging through the collection of spare dresses to find something that she liked.

She didn't have a lot of fitting options, but she eventually came across a white dress that she thought looked quite pretty. She also managed to find some old heels amongst where the spare dresses were kept, and fished out a pair of glass slippers.

Oh? So now she was Cinderella? Well. She supposed the comparison was apt.

With her dress and shoes chosen, Yvette headed back upstairs to get dressed. She put her dress on, slipped into her glass heels, and then looked at her reflection in the mirror.

It was a very bare look. She didn't have any jewellery so something felt a bit lacking from the overall impression. Still, she plucked out the one ribbon she owned, the white one that laid on her dresser without being touched most days, and when she tied it up in her hair, at least she felt the overall look was elevated slightly.

Still, it didn't matter all too much. At the end of the day her natural beauty would more than make up for the lack of jewellery and make up.

Her finishing touch was a spritz of the perfume she stole. It was subtle enough that her family members would likely not notice, especially since they probably wouldn't be able to smell it over their own perfume.

When Yvette finally made her way to the foyer, she caught everyone's hateful gazes. Claude was wearing the frown he always wore whenever he thought about Yvette. Adele seemed angry that Yvette had picked one of her old dresses rather than one of Sabine's or Genevieve's. Sabine seemed quite angry from the whole Adam debacle, as she was glaring very hard. Genevieve, meanwhile, just seemed kind of put out that Yvette still looked nice even in a dress that was out of season.

They all climbed into a carriage without much fuss, and then took off towards the Olivier estate.

As far as Yvette was aware, Bastien wasn't the one hosting the ball, it was his mother, Agnes. Originally none of the Decauxs were invited because it was a ball that was thrown in honour of Agnes, since it was her birthday, and Agnes was not very familiar with the Decauxs. Bastien had probably gotten his mother to extend an invite, though, and so they were able to attend last minute.

Just before they arrived, Adele instructed Yvette not to say anything out of line, not to talk about what happens at home, and definitely to not talk to any men. Adele hated Yvette, but she was not blind, she could see how beautiful Yvette was, she knew that if she spoke to a man at the ball he would likely show interest and possibly even ask for her hand in marriage. And Adele just couldn't stand the thought of Yvette possibly being happy and marrying someone. She needed Yvette to be at home, in the Decaux manor, being miserable.

Yvette wasn't planning on talking to anyone beyond Bastien, but since Adele had made the ridiculous rule that she couldn't talk to any of the men there at all, Yvette decided she might actually want to speak to all of them. She would definitely, at the very least, be dancing with more than one of them.