“Whether you throw it away or not, just remove it.”

“These are the scented oils that Madam likes.”

She looked with regret at the high quality essential oil that the maids had painstakingly squeezed from flower petals. It was Anne’s favorite. How did he know what she liked?

“I don’t want to use it.”

Anne, who was enjoying the leisure time of her body swaying pleasantly in the soft cushioned rocking chair, spoke nonchalantly.

Unopened gifts from the Grand Duke were piled up in the east wing where she was staying. At first, she sent them back because she didn’t need them. But when he told them to throw them away if she didn’t like them, the maids, who couldn’t do anything about it, were watching on both sides.

“Then, I’ll put it in the room at the end of the hallway.”

Emily tidied up the gift boxes, following Anne’s orders.

“Angroanne.”

She didn’t even hear the sound of footsteps coming, but there was a knock and the Grand Duke’s voice sounded. Previously, he showed his presence without hesitation and wouldn’t even bother knocking on the door. Now he came quietly, like he was sneaking around.

Anne let out a long sigh. He constantly knocked on her door, even though she didn’t want to see him.

Entering the room, the Grand Duke stared at the presents piled up like garbage in a corner of the floor with a lonely expression.

It seemed that she wouldn’t accept the gifts he sent every now and again. It was the method he chose because he would suffocate if he stayed still, even though he knew that these methods would not be effective at all.

He didn’t expect this to ease her mind. But still, he felt bitter when his efforts were rolling on the floor.

But it was better than her shutting herself in her room and watching her refuse to even talk to him. In the beginning, that was what bothered him the most.

Seeing that the Grand Duke’s eyes lingered on the box for quite some time, the maid took away the presents to hide them.

“Is there anything you don’t like today?”

Anne glanced at him as he tried to start a conversation, and arranged herself in a comfortable position.

“I didn’t know you were such a persistent man. Constantly sending gifts I don’t need, showing your face every day even when I don’t want to see you? I guess you were trying to court me with something like this… It’s futile.”

Whenever Anne saw him for the past few days, she had been sarcastic, not hiding her displeasure. It was partly because she was deliberately trying to provoke him, and partly because she was imitating how he used to treat her.

When she said it outright, his expression darkened even more. He had a face like that of a sinner.

“You can leave if you have nothing to say.”

As Anne spoke coldly, the Grand Duke’s gaze returned to her. The Grand Duke hesitated, perhaps fearing that he would be kicked out again. He hesitated for a long time, as if he was about to say something, and then came up with some random words.

“I was thinking of holding a festival at the end of this summer… What do you think?”

“A festival?”

A festival all of a sudden. As she wondered where he got that idea, she suddenly remembered that she had asked Marie in passing.

Florence, the capital city called the city of flowers, was in full swing around this time of year with the Lavender Festival. It became a source of trouble for her to ask if there was such a festival in this place. When asked if she felt homesick for the capital, Anne neither affirmed nor denied, but Marie seemed to have interpreted it differently and reported it to the Grand Duke.

Anne, who was about to ask when he had heard such a thing, ignored him. She was now too weak to ask where he had heard these things. All she could do was confirm once again that the Grand Duke heard every word she spoke.

“They say when people suddenly change, they’re going to die. Daymond, what kind of trick is this again?”

Despite Anne’s ridicule, the Grand Duke only looked at her with nervous eyes and continued to talk.

“Until now, there has never been a festival held in the North. So I decided to try holding one this time.”

Each capital and territory had their own festivals, but there were none in the north. Usually, the Lord prepared the festivals themselves, but Grand Duke Cromund didn’t pay attention to these things, so there hadn’t been one for hundreds of years.

So what kind of whims did he have to suddenly hold a festival?

“What kind of festival is there to hold here?”

“Well, I wondered what it would be like to hold a flower festival…”

“Up here in the North?”

Anne looked at the Grand Duke with a rather strange expression.

The festivals weren’t held just for the sake of it. They were held to commemorate something such as the festival dedicated to the founding of the kingdom, the festival for celebrating harvest season, or a festival for celebrating the founding date of a certain territory. Or, in some cases, the name of the product would be used as an advertising method to increase the amount of trade by informing the product of the region during the festival.

However, when it came to northern products, she thought it would be high-quality magic crystals or iron ore products from nearby mines, so why flowers all of a sudden?