98. The Position of Grand Duchess

“Please stop this!”

Mikhail shouted at Oksana with a horrified expression.

“You’re the one who needs to come to your senses. What makes you less qualified than Nikolai to become Grand Duke?”

“Mother, do you truly believe that? People laugh.”

“Who’s laughing? You are the legitimate heir of the former Grand Duke. While Nikolai is the son of a sinful former consort, you have me, your mother, still alive and well.”

“That’s all there is. Just being your son.”

He muttered with a bitter expression.

If he hadn’t been born as Oksana’s son, no one would have thought to make a good-for-nothing like him the sovereign.

Moreover, he would have remained on good terms with his brother until now.

“How can you think so narrowly? Nikolai is not a wise ruler. The people groan under his brutality. When everyone realizes the need for a new ruler, they will all seek you out. That’s why you must always be prepared to take the Grand Duke’s position.”

“The people groaning because of Brother……”

His face contorted involuntarily as it became painful to listen to her words.

When living in Hersen Palace, various rumors about his brother had dominated the capital, and he had actually believed them at times.

That his brother was truly a tyrant.

‘Mother, the world I saw outside was different.’

While some were remnants of problems that needed to be eliminated, the previous Grand Dukes had avoided stirring up the hornet’s nest.

Maintaining a centralized system required cooperation from the noble boyars.

They had turned a blind eye and granted favors to ensure their continued loyalty to the Grand Duke’s family.

But his brother was different.

To punish the corrupt practices of nobles who lived in luxury while sucking the blood of the common people, his brother raided sites of illegal activities and corruption without regard for his own safety.

“Was it really Brother who oppressed the people?”

Now everything started to feel suspicious.

All the things he had seen, heard, and learned while living under his mother’s wing.

Had he perhaps been fed only false information favorable to his legitimacy as heir in a thoroughly controlled environment?

“Even if your ambitions were realized, what sin have the people committed that they should have to serve someone like me as their ruler?”

His brother was the people’s savior.

“Mikhail!”

When Mikhail, feeling he couldn’t communicate with his mother, turned his back to her and walked toward the door,

“How long will you keep running away! You need to be confident!”

He stopped and turned at those words.

“Be confident?”

“Yes.”

“How…… How can I be confident in front of Brother?”

“What?”

“Because I feel guilty for having taken everything from Brother! Do you know how I feel, finding it difficult to even speak to Brother like before?”

“Stop with this weak nonsense. What exactly did you take!”

Oksana shouted as she approached her son, who looked ready to burst into tears at any moment.

“Are you truly asking because you don’t know?”

“Yes. Go ahead and tell me.”

“Isn’t my very existence that of an illegitimate child who broke up Her Highness Tatiana, the former Grand Duchess’s family?”

Oksana struck her son’s pale cheek.

“That woman was merely a traitor who betrayed the former Grand Duke. As a criminal of high treason, she couldn’t even enter the temple mausoleum where past Grand Duke couples are enshrined. Why do you call such a woman ‘Her Highness’?”

“……”

“And illegitimate child? Why would you be illegitimate! How could you be a child born out of wedlock when I am the Grand Duchess who properly held the national marriage ceremony!”

“Mother……”

“I was first. That woman was the one who came between the Grand Duke and me. If not for the Grand Duke’s family’s opposition, I would have been the Grand Duchess from the start. Just because I reclaimed my position a bit late, should my child be called illegitimate?”

Her son’s words had touched on Oksana’s complex.

If Tatiana hadn’t been deposed and stepped down, she would have fallen to being just a mistress who bore the Grand Duke’s illegitimate child.

But she had endured with all her might and finally claimed this position.

After all, the one who survives until the end claims victory.

“It’s enough that you’ve avoided Nikolai until now. Keep your seat at tonight’s banquet. We need to see what kind of woman he’s brought, claiming her as his wife.”

“……”

“If you don’t show up today, I’ll leave what this mother might do in that situation to your imagination.”

Mikhail clenched his fists until his nails left marks on his palms.

Like his whitened fists, his already moon-pale face lost even more color.

He was once again gripped by a sense of powerlessness, unable to handle his mother or do anything according to his own will.

***

Under Oksana’s threat, Mikhail finally attended that night’s banquet.

Though threatened by his mother, he actually wanted to see his brother after so long.

He had seen Nikolai that day at the Despot Club building and the illegal fighting arena, but those times had been obscured by darkness or from afar, so it had been a very long time since he’d seen his brother up close.

“Why isn’t he here yet……”

Oksana muttered while smiling, looking at the empty seat of the Grand Duke.

At the long table placed in the center of the formal dining hall sat the Grand Duke’s family members, except for the Grand Ducal couple.

There were Oksana and Mikhail, the eldest daughter-in-law Lyudmila who was Ruslan’s widow, her sister Irina, and Princess Klavdia who was Nikolai’s sister and Ruslan’s blood sister.

Except for Mikhail, they were all people who didn’t have good feelings toward Nikolai.

“Hah…… Instead of bringing someone he wants to marry for approval, he notifies us after the fact. I really don’t understand what’s going on.”

Klavdia muttered with a hollow laugh.

“They must be so in love they couldn’t wait until the national marriage ceremony. Don’t scold your brother too harshly later.”

“Mother, you’re too soft on him.”

She shook her head at her stepmother’s words.

Oksana always acted like a loving mother who cherished her stepchildren like her own in front of others.

Everyone except Mikhail and Duke Oblonsky, even her closest confidants, fell for her act.

This included her stepdaughter Klavdia and daughter-in-law Lyudmila.

They didn’t even notice that Oksana was subtly driving wedges between Nikolai and them while pretending to care for her stepchildren.

“Though he accepts casual words from family due to his deep nature, he is still the Grand Duke. You should properly address him as ‘Your Highness’ and show respect in his presence.”

“He demanded that? That we show him respect? He dared to speak to you that way, Mother?”

“Klavdia, you misunderstand. I just……”

“You don’t need to cover for him. Now I know how he behaves toward you when we’re not watching.”

Klavdia, thoroughly misunderstanding, bit her lower lip with her upper teeth.

This too was Oksana’s intention.

Mikhail, who witnessed his mother’s faint smile appear and disappear unnoticed by anyone else, clenched his fist again.

He was the only one in this place who knew her true face.

“My dear, how have you been? Is your accommodation comfortable?”

Oksana turned her attention to Lyudmila, asking with a kind smile.

“Yes. Thanks to your constant care. I enjoyed the fruit you sent earlier.”

“They were from Arsetia, and they were so delicious I thought of you. You like sour fruits, don’t you?”

“You remember even that?”

“Of course I remember, you’re my only daughter-in-law. If there’s anything that needs repair in your quarters or if you’re uncomfortable with anything, you can always tell this mother.”

Mikhail immediately grasped the meaning implied by the words ‘my only daughter-in-law.’

It meant she had absolutely no intention of accepting the woman Nikolai brought as her daughter-in-law, that is, as Grand Duchess.

“Thank you, Your Highness.”

“I told you, you can call me mother when we’re alone.”

“No, I couldn’t.”

“If Ruslan were alive, he would have passed on the ownership of the Summer Palace to you, how regrettable……”

Oksana dabbed at her reddened eyes with a handkerchief as she recalled her son who had gone first.

She was skillfully drawing out malice toward the couple from the hearts of Ruslan’s wife and his younger sister.

As if Nikolai had stolen the Grand Duke position that should have been his brother’s, and Katya had taken Lyudmila’s place.

“I’m sorry. I made a slip of the tongue. Being all gathered like this, missing Ruslan so much, I just……”

“It’s alright, Mother. We all feel the same way.”

Klavdia spoke while looking at the head seat where the Grand Duke sits.

The only person who should be sitting there now was her brother Ruslan.

The dining hall door opened in the midst of the warm atmosphere.

“His Highness the Grand Duke enters.”

At the servant’s announcement, everyone in the dining hall rose from their seats simultaneously to show respect.

Nikolai didn’t enter alone.

He appeared escorting today’s protagonist, Katya, holding her hand.

“Except for the former Grand Duchess, this is the first time for everyone to meet. Let me introduce you. This is my consort, Katarina de Vasily.”

After bowing in greeting and straightening up, Mikhail was startled to see the woman beside his brother.

‘No, why is that woman there……?’

It was that very woman who kept disturbing his heart.

Though she had platinum blonde hair then, for some reason, she now had strawberry blonde hair.

When their eyes met, Katya turned away as if she didn’t know him.

“I’ve heard much about you all. I’m pleased to meet you.”

Mikhail involuntarily blushed at her cultured smile, which was something unimaginable when she had been flying around beating up men at the Despot Club house.

His heart pounded at her contrasting charm.

Nikolai, bringing Katya to his seat, pulled a chair that was diagonally adjacent to his seat at the head of the table and placed it next to his own position.

Then he seated Katya there.

Everyone was shocked by the Grand Duke’s sudden action.

At the palace dining table, the head seat had always been exclusively for the sovereign.

It was unprecedented for a consort’s seat to be placed at an equal position with the ruler.