CH 65.2

“To whom is it dangerous? Why? In case I might feed the flower to Your Grace?”

“I didn’t say that.”

As a dry smile curled on Anne’s face, the Grand Duke’s eyebrows narrowed slightly.

“Just be honest. There’s no way Your Grace didn’t think that I would use it for Your Grace just a moment ago.”

The Grand Duke’s brow narrowed even more.

Anne grabbed a piece of meat and put it in her mouth, chewing it well and laughing.

“You’re not denying what I said.”

The Grand Duke looked at Anne, chewing on the meat, with eyes that he couldn’t understand, licking her lips with an unprecedented cold face.

“I intend to eat anything my wife gives me.”

She almost laughed at the nonsense that he would accept it without question. It was evident that he was lying to her in an attempt to provoke her anger.

Anne twisted her head and tilted her head up to the Grand Duke.

“You mean you believe me?”

“It’s not a matter of believing or not believing, because there’s no way you’ll give me something like that.”

“How can you trust me so confidently?”

Anne asked again as she wrinkled her beautiful face. As he kept up with the arrogant man’s nonsense, it seemed like it wouldn’t be a bad idea to poison his glass after all.

“If you were going to kill me, you would have already tried.”

The Grand Duke’s lips curled up gently. Even that was not enough, he even gestured to the attendant and instructed them to retrieve the flower right away.

Her stomach churned as she watched his carefree reaction. It was said that even blood-related siblings stuck knives into each other’s backs when they became obsessed with lust. This was just a marriage relationship between husband and wife with no blood shared.

The Grand Duke looked slowly into Anne’s face as she cut up her meat again and brought it into her mouth one after another. Her reaction was much sharper than he expected. She had been rational if not kind-hearted before, but she was sharper than rose thorns now.

“Why don’t you go to Marie’s bedroom today?”

At that moment, Anne suddenly asked a question. But the word she said made him frown. Her unexpected remark, made him raise his eyebrows in displeasure.

“Why are you saying that? Didn’t you know that she isn’t a real mistress?”

“Of course I know. I want you to make it official at this point. There’s nothing bad about it, right? She’s already officially known as Your Grace’s woman, it’s not like the sky will fall just because you’ll make it real.”

Anne, who lost her appetite, pushed away the plate and wrapped her fingers around the stem of the water glass.

“Do you think I don’t know what this dinner means?”

After dinner, they would naturally go to the same bedroom. Since they haven’t had a relationship for over a week, the Grand Duke must be having a hard time controlling his overflowing sex drive. After all, he couldn’t go out without wearing out her body even for a day.

The Grand Duke’s well-shaped eyebrows were furrowed greatly.

“I’m not going to do that from now on, if the wife doesn’t want it.”

“Haa… Since when did you think of me…”

His answer made Anne’s mouth crumple. Anne opened her eyes sharply.

“Even if I don’t want to, you’ll always come and hold me… Or, did you become interested in abstinence?”

“It was because of what you suggested. Our contract… Didn’t you want a child?”

“Ah… That one.”

Anne, who had been sarcastic, rolled her words into her mouth. It was a hard word to speak of.

“Come to think of it, you never said you wanted to have children. It was just my condition. Tell me. Do you really need an heir?”

Anne put on a ferocious expression, wanting him to say with that impudent face that he needed a child. Fleeting embarrassment flitted across his face.

As she glared at his lips, Anne brought the glass of water to her mouth without hesitation. It was a pity that she couldn’t drink the wine that was in front of her because she was pregnant.

The Grand Duke, who saw the markedly changed Anne, was slightly frowning. He was silent for a moment, then spoke slowly.

“I don’t like talking in circles. If you have something to say, say it.”

Perhaps the Grand Duke found it frustrating, so he loosed two of his shirt buttons in succession. His Adam’s apple and well-shaped collarbone were exposed through the gaping collar. When she saw the cool build that disturbed her eyes every time they joined, Anne closed her eyes and turned her head away. She couldn’t bear to think of him who had been holding her carelessly.

As Anne’s expression hardened, the Grand Duke, who assumed that the reason was because he had raised the tone of his voice, cleared his voice with an apologetic expression.

“I know why you are being like this. Why I made County Libelois like that… I punished them so that they would never touch Grand Duchess Cromound again.”