“Another gift?”

“……”

Normally, when receiving a gift, the reaction is either joy or gratitude. Or both.

Unfortunately, Claudel, who let out a sigh, seemed to be neither.

Kaian hesitated for a moment, but couldn’t give up his desire to see her in this dress.

“It’s a new dress. Why don’t you try it on?”

The dress brought by Madame Marcel was an extremely elegant and sophisticated garment.

These days, Kaian was putting his heart and soul into giving Claudel the best, the most special, things that didn’t exist in the world.

Originally, he was not one to covet or find meaning in possessing things that everyone else had.

He tended to keep only very rare or universally perfect things for himself.

Such a man was greatly satisfied with a marriage forcibly arranged by royal decree.

Claudel was an extremely beautiful woman, except for bearing the colors of Beaumont.

She was kind-hearted and honest, with appropriate refinement and common sense.

He never thought that a bride forced upon him so ridiculously would love books and be smart enough to study the duties of a duchess on her own without being told.

The women Kaian grew up seeing closest were all ‘princesses’.

Queen Silvia, his mother Lady Elise, and his cousin Bianca.

After marriage, only their titles changed, but they were essentially princesses.

As such, the queen who grew up learning statecraft in the royal palace left a deep impression on Kaian, and his mother’s abilities were no less impressive.

In fact, his father was much older than his mother when she married into the Temnes duchy, one of the two pillars supporting the kingdom. The previous duke and duchess had an age gap of eleven years.

Kaian could understand, after he grew up quite a bit, that Lady Elise probably had the idea of making a marriage that would politically help her sister, the queen.

As a result, his mother was also a person of great influence as the mistress of the Temnes family and the lady of Lowen.

Of the three princesses he knew, only Bianca was the least bold.

Bianca alone lived a normal life of a noble lady rather than politics, but that was because, unlike her mother’s generation where she had to inherit the throne as a woman, she had a reliable full-blooded heir in Valkyrie.

However, Bianca was still of the Oberon royal bloodline, so it was thought that what was inside her was unknown.

For generations, the royal bloodline had a strong consciousness of being greedy and having to possess the best things.

Kaian, being half royal blood himself, was aware that he might be like that too.

After all, since they had princess mothers, Valkyrie, Kaian, and Bianca were all half royal blood.

Anyway, since the women Kaian grew up seeing were like that, when he came of age and debuted in society, he was utterly dismayed by the well-raised young ladies with flowery heads.

What was he supposed to do with women who seemed impossible to communicate with, who couldn’t even speak properly when they saw him and just stared blankly at his face?

However, when he accidentally discovered that Claudel, who had rolled into his hands, could even read the ancient script of the Sol continent that had become a dead language, he was really surprised.

And that woman was very charming both day and night.

At the end of a forced marriage, Kaian couldn’t help but slowly acknowledge that he had obtained a woman unparalleled in the world.

The young king’s discernment, which the entire Oberon kingdom admired.

At one time, he thought that if he had known marriage would plunge one into such anguish, he wouldn’t have made himself marry like this.

Now, he even wondered if the reason for forcing him to marry, with nonsensical excuses like making peace with the detestable Beaumont, was to match him with such a partner.

If before the marriage, Valkyrie had asked his opinion, saying there was a woman with these conditions in Beaumont, their hereditary enemy, and she would be a perfect bride for Kaian, would he marry her? He absolutely would not have taken her as his wife.

He had been planning to attack Beaumont within this year.

Anyway, Kaian was absorbed in making his perfect wife, who had become his possession, the most precious woman in the world.

However, the woman who from the beginning said the things he gave were excessive and unnecessary, lately showed no spirit in her reactions no matter what Kaian gifted.

So when he saw this dress today, he had a feeling.

That with this, Claudel would surely like it, her eyes shining as she said it was pretty.

“Try it on. Come on.”

When Claudel clasped her hands in front of her chest and showed no sign of even touching the skirt of the new dress, Kaian urged her.

“I don’t want to.”

“What?”

“I don’t want to wear it.”

Kaian was taken aback.

“Why?”

When asked like that, Claudel even retreated three steps away from him and avoided his gaze.

“You always say the same thing.”

“I always say the same thing?”

“Yes.”

“What do I say?”

It’s true that having received praise all his life, when he tried to do it himself, it felt like something he couldn’t do, so he said things that suited her in a roundabout way, but he hadn’t always said the same thing.

“Try it. Try it on.”

“Why is that?”

“Just that.”

As Kaian’s eyebrows twitched, Claudel moved two more steps away from him.

“At night.”

He felt wronged.

If Claudel didn’t seem to like it very much, he had just indulged his private desires a bit by making her uncomfortable or teasing her.

“How many times have I said that?”

“Every time except once.”

……That was true.

He even remembered what the one exception was.

He had brought Claudel a fine horse for her to ride.

Seeing the black horse with a distinct white star on its forehead, the woman’s golden eyes sparkled in the sunlight, seemingly very pleased.

Watching that, he had thought:

‘Since that can’t be worn on the body, I can’t tell her to just try that on.’

That was the one exception.

“That’s… ahem. But when you receive a gift, don’t you try it on?”

“I won’t accept gifts anymore. No, I don’t want to receive any more. At this rate, strange rumors might spread in the territory.”

“What rumors?”

“That the villainess of Beaumont married in and is squandering Temnes’ fortune on luxuries.”

That was nonsense.

Claudel was only getting things necessary to maintain her dignity, and to squander the fortune on this would take over a thousand years.

“Ha. Haha.”

But the woman saying such things was so cute that Kaian couldn’t help but laugh.

“Ha. Are you worried about my financial situation now?”

If the reason she wouldn’t accept his gift today was so adorably that…

Kaian, feeling pleased, embraced the woman who had retreated a full five steps away from him in one swoop.

“Thank you, that’s admirable. You’ll make a thrifty lady of the manor.”

“Ugh. Let go.”

“Let’s try that on quickly. Hmm?”

He pulled on the strings of Claudel’s dress himself.

In the end, she ended up changing into the new dress, and seeing how well it suited her as expected, he was satisfied with the skills of the newly hired seamstress.

After struggling with Kaian and finally being forced to change into the dress, Claudel felt tired.

“Haa.”

When she sighed, Hannah tilted her head.

“What’s wrong, my lady?”

“It’s nothing.”

Thinking it was something no one would understand or empathize with, Claudel felt she couldn’t tell even Hannah.

“Is the new dress uncomfortable? It’s so pretty though.”

The new dress Kaian brought this time was in a unique style she had never seen before.

The form of the dress was in the southern style, but it was a style that nicely accentuated Claudel’s figure.

Moreover, it was so detailed that it felt like a true custom-made dress, and the idea of dyeing the material specifically for the dress design led to a sophisticated finished product.

“No. The dress is comfortable. Very much so.”

On top of that, it was comfortable to wear without any bothersome parts, making it even more perfect.

“Then why are you like this? If it were me, I’d be twirling around the castle.”

Although they had been friends since childhood, Hannah was quite strict about separating public and private matters.

She still shared friendship and feelings like a friend, but she never envied or coveted Claudel’s possessions or lifestyle due to their different social status.

Even Hannah, who was like that, couldn’t take her eyes off today’s new dress and kept admiring it.

Ironically, Claudel, who received the gift, felt gloomy.

As time passed, Claudel’s dress room, which had been emptily cool, was being filled with all sorts of dresses and jewels.

And in a very short time at that.

However, Kaian didn’t allow her anything else.

“I don’t need things like this.”

What she really wanted, sadly, was that man.

Kaian.

She wanted to have him.

Kaian was a very busy person, managing a vast territory.

Such a person would come to Claudel’s side at night, listening to her request to not sleep alone.

If only Kaian had said a word she wanted to hear instead of these jewels or dresses.

But he was the type who couldn’t straightforwardly say nice words or compliments.

There was no emotion in the words he said to her.

‘It’s as if I’ve become a trophy or some object.’

All the things Kaian possessed were precious and of outstanding quality.

Although not as much as Duke and Duchess Beaumont and Irena, Claudel hadn’t grown up lacking much as a young lady while staying at Belmond Castle.

Irena found it strange that Claudel had no interest in jewels or dresses.

When they were young, she even felt sorry for her, wondering if she didn’t know because she lived like a commoner.

She even lamented that they couldn’t enjoy dressing each other up as sisters.

Even to Claudel’s eyes, it was obvious at a glance that Kaian was a man who knew style and had high standards.

The more Kaian brought jewels or dresses like this to fill her private treasury, the more distant Claudel felt from him.

They were husband and wife, yet.

The man was paying a price to her.

In exchange for taking her body.

“…How long will this last?”

When such thoughts came to her, Claudel felt at a loss.

When she was being educated as a lady of the castle, the etiquette teacher said that a lady should be like a flower.

Claudel disliked that expression even then.

Isn’t a flower something that can’t take root again once plucked?

The one who plucks the flower can perfectly go off to pluck another flower.

It seemed wrong to her to educate noble young ladies to the point of brainwashing them to be ‘flowers’ just to describe beautiful youth.

If she were born again, if she had the chance, Claudel wanted to become a very strong and powerful person.

So that she could pluck Kaian, whom she liked.

“I want to be the one to pluck the flower.”