However, Annelie concluded with a still cold face.

“So you don’t need to do anything more.”

“Miss Heich.”

“Like you said, we’re no longer anything to each other.”

While firmly returning his own words. With eyes suggesting she didn’t need anything he gave.

Recalling the conversation that ended up being the worst, Elroy roughly rubbed his face while stopping mid-walk. The more he tried to get closer, the more distant it felt. He always made mistakes at important moments.

‘……How would I properly know how.’

Annelie said he was her first man, but she was also his first woman.

Not just mixing bodies but also kissing, holding hands or giving gifts. And giving his heart, being rejected in all those things too.

He felt completely lost about what to do, where to seek help. He felt so inexperienced that his grandmother would have commented that he finally looked his age for once if she saw him.

The only thing she didn’t reject was treating her father. So Elroy repeatedly brought his family physicians and excellent city doctors to steadily push into this house. Thanks to those results, he could at least stay in this area.

Even so, he still couldn’t get closer. Though he knew he would be summoned to the Tevant main house soon, though he knew he needed to resolve something before then, Elroy wandered lost not knowing how.

Eventually, he lightly clenched and unclenched his fist as he turned his head. From a distance, he watched Annelie settle in the field and sketch the yellow scenery. Each time she drew lines with charcoal, she furrowed her brow, and her hand trembled slightly. When she became aware of Elroy’s presence nearby, her free-flowing lines became confined within a small frame.

In reality, Elroy wasn’t looking at her drawing. His gaze remained fixed on Annelie. Like she herself should become an artwork, Annelie preserved beautifully as scenery.

“Duke.”

How long had he been like that? His secretary, who had approached without him noticing, carefully opened his mouth.

“……The lord of this place wants to meet you before you leave.”

“The lord?”

“Though called a lord, he’s more like a village chief managing several surrounding villages. The actual owner of this surrounding territory is apparently a businessman who bought the land. They say he found it bothersome to come down and manage himself, so he left the work to the original lord.”

That was something Elroy already knew. He quietly opened his mouth while pressing his furrowed brow.

“How did they know I was here……”

Then stopping mid-sentence, he realized he hadn’t particularly kept his presence here secret and let out a small groan. When coming down, he hadn’t even considered keeping his identity secret. Finding Annelie Heich was his only important concern.

Anyone could have found out he was here. Though he hadn’t arrived particularly ostentatiously, Elroy knew well that someone like him was rare in this small village.

In times like these when newspapers and gossip spread quickly, rumors about a high noble suddenly appearing in a mountain village would have spread immediately. Finding out who that person was wouldn’t have been very difficult either. Since he hadn’t particularly tried to hide it.

“Should we…… decline?”

In reality, he had no reason at all to accept the invitation. Elroy, who was about to calmly decline, briefly flinched and looked over at Annelie standing far away.

“Actually…… we didn’t receive much compensation money.”

He recalled what Annelie’s father had said when asked why they hadn’t immediately sought a physician when they received land compensation.

“The lord said I haven’t worked in a long time, so he needed to deduct overdue taxes and labor taxes first……”

“……”

“And when we received that money, I wanted to send Annelie to the Academy…… told her not to use it and save it. Though it’s still a bit short for tuition.”

Recalling that conversation, Elroy quickly changed his mind.

‘I should meet him.’

Taking the money meant as compensation because someone was sick and couldn’t work—when nobles hadn’t collected labor taxes from the territories for who knows how long—was blatant embezzlement. The remaining compensation money undoubtedly went straight into the so-called lord’s pockets.

It wouldn’t be difficult for him to go demand and make him spit that out. Though he might not be the lord’s direct superior, it wouldn’t be hard to point out and pressure about breaking the law.

“Tell him I’ll attend.”

“Yes, that you won’t attend…… Pardon?”

“Tell him I’ll attend.”

The secretary, who naturally thought Elroy would decline, widened his eyes then started flustering. Eventually he whispered trying to stop Elroy.

“Duke. This is quite a backward place. I heard they’ll receive you at the largest tavern in the village since there’s no proper hall.”

“……”

“Will you really go to such a place? It will be noisy and cumbersome. The tavern won’t even be clean.”

Though his secretary said those words knowing how fastidious Elroy usually was, he remained rather calm. He had slept in dark, dirty rooms amid noisy chaos and cursing, borrowing the power of anonymity. Remembering that those habits also stopped while staying with Nelie in the townhouse made his mouth taste even more bitter.

He had found himself more at peace listening to Annelie Heich chattering about drawings than the noise filling the alleys. He slept better lying beside the woman with the subtle scent of pigments and ink, being her man, than lying in a bed with musty, stale smells hiding in anonymity.

That was all in the past too. Though not such an old memory, it felt bewildering that it seemed like a preserved past he could no longer return to.

Still, if he would linger around with lingering attachments…….

He should at least do this much. He didn’t hope for Annelie to look at him again. He just thought it would be good if she received proper compensation and went to the Academy. Though she claimed with her own mouth she had no greed, he wanted her to continue doing what she wanted to do with those eyes that sparkled with enthusiasm only when receiving lessons.

“Tell him firmly that I’ll attend.”

“……”

“Tell Miss Heich’s house that I’ll be late.”

He wasn’t sure if Annelie would wait for him even if told that. She might feel relieved not seeing him instead. Because she spent more time out in the yard just because he was in the house.

Elroy moved his feet while smiling bitterly. Though he wanted to keep Annelie in his sight longer, the tavern was quite far from here. He planned to attend promptly and return early.

Seeing the Duke move away, Nelie sighed heavily and crumpled up the drawing she had been forcing herself to make, throwing it far away. The drawing that already wouldn’t come was even more blocked when he stayed nearby. Self-loathing crept up toward herself for being unable to do the only thing she knew how to do.

‘What if I can never draw again like this.’

While thinking that and massaging her hands on her way back home, Tina approached Nelie with busy steps.

“Nelie!”

“Tina?”

“The postman came by earlier.”

Tina’s face looked quite interested saying those words. She held out a fairly thick envelope to Nelie while whispering.

“Do you have another man besides that blonde man?”

“Huh? What man?”

“You must have lived quite grandly in the city? Who’s Jerome?”

About to respond to the subtly teasing tone, Nelie quickly took the letter hearing Jerome’s name. It was indeed a letter with Jerome’s name written on the envelope.

‘It arrived properly.’

Getting a reply meant her letter had reached Jerome. The letter that had been wrongly delivered to the Duke must have found its proper place.

‘Maybe he sent the ring together.’

If Jerome’s letter went to the Duke, the Duke’s ring must have gone to Jerome. Jerome was a kind person, so he might have sent the misdelivered mail together.

She needed to return that ring to the Duke. After that…….

That uninvited guest would finally leave. Her life would return to the moment without Duke Tevant.

That was right. It was right but……

Erasing the sudden feeling of emptiness, Nelie looked at the letter. Jerome’s handwriting was neat like always. That felt like it was reproaching her for disappearing without a word, making her heart sting.

“……”

Perhaps before hoping he would show goodwill and return the ring, she should have worried about the contents of the enclosed reply first. Remembering Jerome who had remained silent in the final moment made her hands tremble and face heat up unknowingly. She wanted to clear up the misunderstanding. But her heart would hurt if Jerome actually wrote a letter criticizing her.

‘Still, I have to read it.’

Her relationship with the Duke was practically over in ruins anyway. She wanted to wrap up her other relationships from the city without shame at least. Nelie briefly closed her eyes, took a deep breath, then opened the letter without hesitation.

Before long, Tina’s eyes widened, having been certain it was a love letter.