104. The Grand Duke’s Weakness
“So don’t stupidly misunderstand.”
Katya looked down at Mikhail and said.
“I’m so dumbfounded I don’t even feel insulted, but do you know what I can’t tolerate? That whether you acknowledge it or not, I’m your sister-in-law.”
“……”
“Isn’t treating your brother and ruler’s chosen wife like this just disrespecting the Grand Duke?”
“I-I……”
“If you try to insult the Grand Duke like this one more time, I really won’t let it slide.”
She had already been angry seeing everyone except Nikolai acting like family among themselves at last night’s dinner.
Like mother, like son—the son followed his mother in disrespecting his half-brother.
Katya felt more outraged about Nikolai being disrespected than about the insult to herself.
They spread false rumors calling him a tyrant to fuel the people’s misunderstandings and fears, yet they themselves didn’t fear the Grand Duke.
If Nikolai were truly the ‘Bloody Grand Duke’ as rumored, their heads wouldn’t be intact.
Yet they acted so recklessly, taking advantage of his consideration and generous tolerance toward family.
All her previous worries now felt meaningless.
The fear of inheriting her mother’s hereditary disease, and the thought that she wasn’t qualified to be Grand Duchess… was hiding her feelings really the right thing to do?
She loved the Grand Duke.
‘So I want to stay by the Grand Duke’s side forever, to protect him. I want to be on his side.’
She wanted to become his real family.
She would tell Nikolai.
That she didn’t want to divorce, that she wanted to become a real couple.
The time-limited marriage contract was canceled as of today.
Having reached that conclusion, Katya turned and started running to meet him.
Seeing her leave without a word, Mikhail stood up with a dumbfounded expression.
“You’re the first woman who saw my underwear! So you must take responsibility!”
He shouted toward where Katya had already disappeared.
He didn’t care even though she had called such things provincial earlier.
It was fine if it was provincial.
He had never failed to get what he wanted since birth.
Whether through whining, throwing tantrums, getting irritated, or angry, everything was given to him.
But Katya was different.
His desire to possess grew more intense after seeing something that seemed catchable yet wasn’t.
He had ruined what would have been difficult even with a sincere, serious confession by spouting nonsense about becoming his concubine.
Sadly, he only now realized his feelings for her were real.
Mikhail bit his lower lip hard.
‘How can I stop this marriage.’
Though he had envied what his brother had, he had never coveted it.
Especially since his mother deposed Tatiana and finally took her place. He had always lived with guilt.
Even his position as the beloved youngest son of the family was essentially something he stole from Nikolai.
So he had been busy running away, pretending not to notice his mother’s ambition to make him the next Grand Duke.
But for the first time, he coveted something of his brother’s.
Katya.
He would give up everything he had just to have her.
Blood seeped from the center of his bitten lip.
The taste of blood was bitter.
Just like this unrequited love.
Pavel and Brunhilde, who had been hiding and watching this scene, appeared as soon as Katya passed the trees.
“You startled me! How long were you there?”
“Since ‘Become my concubine.'”
“Then why didn’t you come and stop it right away?”
“Fortunately, since we didn’t jump out immediately, we got to see the masterpiece scene of kicking his shin.”
“So you saw everything? I used my foot since you said I couldn’t use my fists.”
Katya shrugged and said to Brunhilde as they walked together.
Hearing that, Pavel barely held back his laughter.
She really was born clever.
“I’m relieved. I regretted telling you that after hearing those words, worried you might stay still. I felt bad for saying it.”
Brunhilde, who they thought would lecture them, actually looked satisfied.
“You did well.”
Pavel added his opinion.
“Some illnesses can only be cured with a beating.”
“What illness?”
“The illness of dying if they don’t talk nonsense for one day. I think he’s a serious patient.”
“That’s true but can you say that?”
Rather, Katya asked in surprise.
Though Mikhail deserved the criticism, he was still part of the Grand Duke’s family.
If Pavel’s words got out, he wouldn’t escape punishment.
Seeing the Grand Duchess’s worried face, he smiled gently.
“Of course, there’s no subject in that sentence.”
“Oh my, look at this man?”
As Katya gave two thumbs up, all three burst into laughter.
“Wait, I shouldn’t be doing this right now.”
She grabbed her skirts with both hands to run again.
“What’s wrong?”
“I must hurry to meet the Grand Duke!”
She had something to tell him.
That they should stop this flimsy contract marriage of playing blind man’s buff when their feelings were mutual.
***
Meanwhile, an unexpected visitor had come to the Winter Palace early in the morning.
Nikolai opened the reception room door with a stiff face.
Seeing the guest inside, he put on his smiling mask.
“Did you sleep well, Mother.”
Oksana, who had been drinking tea, put down her cup and greeted him with a smile.
“Yes. I slept well, thanks to you. Come in.”
There were thorns behind the smile.
She had hardly slept peacefully last night.
Because her stepson had introduced Katya as his consort in front of all those nobles, as if declaring war against her.
His intention that the family’s approval didn’t matter was clear.
It was laughable.
The child who had trembled and cried in her arms the day his brother Ruslan died by their father’s hand…
Nikolai, afraid that harming the woman who had taken his real mother’s place would undermine his legitimacy as a ruler, had no choice but to treat her like a mother and live with her all this time.
Yet now, he was willing to rebel over a marriage issue.
“What brings you here at this hour?”
“Does a mother need a reason to visit her son?”
“No. Welcome.”
“Come sit. Let me see my son’s face up close. I couldn’t talk properly with you sitting so far away yesterday.”
Just listening to the conversation, they seemed like a close mother and son.
Though Nikolai felt nauseous at the artificial atmosphere, he calmly matched her mood and sat across from her.
Oksana naturally took her stepson’s hand on the table and stroked it gently.
“Oh my, look how rough your hands are. You must have suffered much in the South.”
“It’s nothing. You must have worried and waited anxiously for your son’s safe return.”
She certainly had worried greatly.
All the assassins she had sent to bring Nikolai’s head had gone silent.
She worried that her stepson might return alive.
“It’s fine now that you’ve returned safely.”
“Seeing your worn face from worry makes me feel so sorry and embarrassed. Perhaps I should have come back injured.”
“How can you say such things?”
“If I had come back completely injured, you could have nursed me like when I was young.”
At those words, the smile suddenly disappeared from Oksana’s lips.
This wasn’t the first time she had tried to kill Nikolai.
After Tatiana was deposed, Nikolai lived like an invisible person in the family, hated by his father, with few palace servants attending him.
Taking advantage of this, there were frequent secret assassination attempts.
Each time, the loyal palace servants who remained by Nikolai’s side saved him.
After Ruslan died and former Grand Duke Yuri blamed Nikolai and locked him in the tower, he fired all those servants and drove them from the palace.
Anyway, before that, when her assassination attempts failed and he was injured, Oksana would volunteer to nurse her stepson, pretending to worry.
Yuri admired her kind heart.
Not knowing that Oksana was actually the one trying to kill Nikolai.
Despite receiving her devoted care, the child showed no improvement.
No, rather, his recovery was slower than before Oksana came.
The young Nikolai, who had been diligently taking the medicine his stepmother gave him every day, one day secretly pretended to take it because it was too bitter.
Strangely, his body felt refreshed on the day he skipped the medicine.
That’s how he accidentally discovered,
That there was poison in the medicine his stepmother gave him.
Nikolai, who had truly trusted and relied on his stepmother after former Grand Duchess Tatiana was confined to the monastery, felt extreme fear for the first time.
That besides the powerless palace servants, there were no adults left in the Hersen palace to protect him.
“Yes. If you had come injured, I would have.”
Oksana regretted.
If only she had killed him when he was young and powerless, she wouldn’t have struggled so much.
She had belatedly heard news from the Southern boyars who arrived at the Spring Palace yesterday.
That Nikolai had been stirring up trouble at places under Oksana’s control in the South, like the Molnitsky Girls’ Academy.
In other words, he had declared war on her faction.
Now she really had to eliminate this child.
Until now, she had only sent assassins from behind since Mikhail hadn’t properly made up his mind about directly pulling Nikolai from the Grand Duke’s seat.
But given the situation, she needed to drag her son by the collar to sit in Nikolai’s place if necessary.
‘There’s no way for both of us to live. You must die for me and my son to live, and if you survive, my son and I will lose our lives to you.’
So you must die.
Her turquoise-eyed, soft silver-haired stepson particularly resembled his father among the Grand Duke’s children.
‘You started this war.’
If you had died quietly, it would have ended with just your life.
Now things have become easier since you’ve developed a weakness.
Oksana slowly smiled as she watched the strawberry-blonde woman running toward the Winter Palace through the window.
‘In war, you shouldn’t create weaknesses.’
