147. Tatiana and Oksana (3)
She shouldn’t have sent Yuri away like that that day.
Even without being Grand Duke, he would have been enough.
If he had said like that day to give up the Grand Duke title and live together outside the palace, she would have felt like she had the whole world.
It was already too late.
Now she had to become the Grand Duchess no matter what.
That was all she had left after losing love.
“I don’t want things like you divorcing Her Highness the Grand Duchess. Just let me and this child stay by Your Highness’s side. That’s enough. I’ll live quietly without saying a word.”
“What?”
“Even if he can’t become a prince, doesn’t he deserve to be loved even without knowing Your Highness the Grand Duke is his father?”
“……”
“I don’t mean that you should treat him the same as Prince Nikolai. Even just the kindness shown to a Grand Duchess’s maid’s child would be fine. Greeting him when you meet him, smiling and calling his name. That’s enough.”
Of course, it was a lie to put Yuri at ease.
He ultimately didn’t send Oksana away from the palace, but she wanted more and more as days passed.
She would suddenly kiss him when he wasn’t expecting it, or suddenly hug him from behind.
Each time, Yuri would startle and pull away with a serious face, but he couldn’t get angry since he didn’t know when she might speak up.
Then one day,
Oksana properly crossed the line.
Yuri, who had left his office and entered the bedroom where Tatiana was sleeping, took off his clothes and went into the bathroom.
When he finished bathing and climbed onto the bed in his robe, something seemed different about his wife lying with her back turned.
“Who are you?”
At those words, Oksana turned over, wearing a thin, see-through chemise.
She had drugged Tatiana to sleep in another room and came to lie in her place.
“Don’t you get tired of sleeping with the same woman every day? Tonight—”
“……Get out.”
“What did you say?”
“Didn’t you hear me say get out?”
Oksana got off the bed feeling humiliated.
“How can you do this to me? I’ll tell her everything. To Her Highness Tatiana……”
“I should tell her. I can’t keep hiding it anymore.”
As Yuri tried to go out to find Tatiana, she frantically grabbed him.
“I-I was just joking! I won’t tell Her Highness. I did this today because I wanted to be loved! Can’t you just love me again like before? I’m fine even being a concubine.”
“I love Tatiana.”
The cruelest answer came back.
“When I wanted to die after you rejected me, she was the one who embraced and understood me to the end even when my nerves were on edge. Even when I treated her coldly throughout, she endured and only looked at me.”
“I-I can do that too! I’ll only look at Your Highness too. Actually, I’ve regretted that day ever since. I love Your Highness.”
“Oksana.”
Yuri finally turned around.
At his quiet voice calling her name, Oksana felt hope again for reconciliation.
“I decided to love only that person for life. I won’t forgive anyone who hurts her. Even if it’s me.”
With those final words, Yuri left her behind.
Oksana felt humiliated that he chose Tatiana until the end.
‘Only looked at you? Don’t make me laugh. That’s just what you want to believe!’
From the next day, Oksana began digging into Tatiana’s past.
And she found a man.
She laughed out loud, sensing he would be good kindling for a scandal that would soon cause big waves in the palace.
“Did you know Her Highness the Grand Duchess had a man?”
Hearing Oksana’s words, Yuri laughed in disbelief.
After trying everything else and failing, was she now trying to tarnish his wife’s reputation?
Though it was laughable, Tatiana would get hurt if he left it alone.
“I trust Tatiana more than anyone else in this world.”
Yuri was about to part his lips to tell her to leave the palace now.
“They say Her Highness liked Officer Naryshkin before marriage.”
“Would someone who committed adultery and had an illegitimate child get angry over just that? Demanding only a clean past and chastity from one’s wife is selfish and contradictory.”
“Would you still be so generous in accepting it if the relationship continues to the present?”
“Stop talking nonsense and leave my palace right now.”
“Before I leave, I must tell you this. I was wrong about Prince Nikolai and Mikhail looking alike.”
“What do you mean?”
“Prince Nikolai has a different father. I heard rumors he’s Officer Naryshkin’s son……”
Before those words finished, Yuri grabbed Oksana’s neck with one hand.
Meeting his bloodshot eyes full of killing intent without flinching, she continued speaking.
“Since Officer Naryshkin is also related to the Grand Duke’s family, silver hair alone can’t confirm he’s Your Highness’s son. Have you done a paternity test?”
“Nikolai is my son. Watch your mouth.”
“Your Highness slept with another woman on the day your wife gave birth, but a woman can’t do the same? She could have slept with an old lover before her wedding night.”
“Shut up. You’re begging to be killed.”
“If Her Highness Tatiana truly isn’t having an affair with Officer Naryshkin, you can kill me then.”
“Fine. Good. If she’s not, I’ll behead you and hang it on the city walls.”
Yuri removed his hand from her neck.
Oksana smiled with her eyes while coughing.
“There are whispers spreading that Her Highness always disappears somewhere whenever Your Highness leaves the palace briefly.”
“I’ll have to behead those spreading such rumors along with you.”
“You can behead them after confirming. When you go out, suddenly return earlier than your expected arrival time.”
“Good. No need to wait longer, let’s do it right now.”
“R-right now?”
“That way you won’t be able to try anything else. You’re not taking one step out of here.”
Yuri came out and locked the door, had knights guard it, then headed straight out.
Oksana, who had acted surprised, burst into laughter once the footsteps faded.
Everything was going according to plan.
Yuri wouldn’t know she had bribed people everywhere to respond at any time.
Yuri fell completely into the trap she had designed.
When he returned, Naryshkin lay half-n*ked beside the napping Tatiana, drugged.
Unable to believe the reality before him, Yuri painfully left the scene of adultery.
Oksana believed he would now use this as grounds to depose Tatiana, but her expectations were completely wrong.
He loved Tatiana even more than she had thought.
So he decided to overlook his wife’s adultery.
And to prevent her from meeting Naryshkin, he barely left the palace and stayed glued to his wife’s side.
The problem was Nikolai.
The spark Oksana had thrown gradually turned Yuri’s heart to ashes.
He began doubting everything from the parts where his son didn’t resemble him to the parts he had thought resembled him.
One day, when he saw Naryshkin giving Nikolai a toy gun and playing shooting games together, he couldn’t bear it and unconsciously ran out to grab Naryshkin by the collar.
He grew weaker and weaker.
He never did the paternity test.
What if that child really wasn’t his son?
He was tormented by the fifty-fifty probability while wanting to hold onto even that faint hope.
Tatiana struggled, not knowing why her husband had changed.
Yuri, who used to tightly hug Nikolai whenever he saw him, began avoiding his youngest son at some point.
“Why are you acting like this to Nikolai? Did I do something wrong?”
“No, it’s not that. I’m just a bit sensitive lately. I keep getting headaches.”
“Take this medicine. I got new ones since the old ones didn’t seem to work well.”
Just as Tatiana was taking headache medicine from the bottle to put in her husband’s hand as usual,
Suddenly, people burst in from outside without knocking.
“Stop!”
Duke Oblonsky appeared with knights and shouted.
“What is this rudeness?”
The palace physician ran to the angry Yuri.
He took the medicine Tatiana was holding, tested it, then revealed it contained poison.
Saying the medicine the Grand Duchess had been giving the Grand Duke contained small amounts of poison, which was why his body hadn’t been the same and he kept getting headaches.
Of course, this too was Oksana switching the medicine bottle without Tatiana knowing.
“If you had continued taking this, Your Highness……”
The physician trailed off.
The circumstances were set up to show that after learning her husband had discovered her affair with Naryshkin, Tatiana tried to poison the Grand Duke first.
For that incident, Naryshkin was executed for treason, Tatiana was deposed and sent to a monastery, and her maiden family House Valuyev was exterminated for participating in treason.
By then, Yuri’s mother had already passed away, so Duke Oblonsky recommended Oksana as the third Grand Duchess.
Yuri, shocked by his beloved wife’s betrayal, simply went along with it.
Though he hated his wife who tried to kill him, he never forgot her his whole life.
So when she died in a flood, he went mad beyond anyone’s control.
