Chapter 223
Rubens took care of the schedule he had postponed yesterday. After attending to state affairs, he gathered with Ottilie Krygen in the parlor to view the portraits of potential brides.
“Hmm. This one looks shorter than I expected. What do you think, Rubens?”
“That seems about right.”
Rubens agreed mildly, and a servant next to the stand brought out the next portrait. How many portraits had they looked at already?
“This is the last one.”
The servant hesitated awkwardly, standing uncertainly.
“There’s really no one who matches Isabella’s stature and family…”
Ottilie murmured as if regretting something, then shook her head and changed the subject.
“No, she’s just some spoiled girl cozying up to the townhouse butler. Such a woman should never become the Madam of the Duke’s household. Don’t you agree?”
“Yes, Grandmother is right.”
“You’ve been looking rather distracted lately.”
Rubens quietly nodded again, but despite his obedient words, his mind wandered elsewhere the entire time. Noticing this, Ottilie spoke with a disapproving tone.
“I hear you haven’t been visiting the Bayatten mansion much these days…”
“There’s no reason to go.”
“You said you’ve put the painter behind you, right?”
“I told you I saw her set fire and flee with my own eyes. I haven’t seen her since.”
Her persistent questioning was tiresome. Rubens suppressed his irritation as he replied.
“Yes, that’s true. But what bothers me is you saying at the meeting that you’re still deeply involved. You said it to shake things up, but you really cared for that painter…”
“And yet you drove a wedge between Macy and me, knowing that.”
Ottilie paused and stared silently at Rubens.
After his conversation with Benedict yesterday, Rubens tracked down the person who had been spying on Benedict and Macy’s carriage.
But that person had already left the capital and vanished. It was undoubtedly Ottilie Krygen’s doing.
“I heard it from His Highness Benedict.”
Ottilie’s blood ran cold at the realization of being found out. But she soon collected herself.
“Yes, I planned it. You’ve been doing things you never did before.”
“For my entire life… How well do you think you know me, Grandmother, to say that so confidently?”
Rubens replied almost mockingly.
“As you know, I was ill from birth and stayed in Lettern village until adulthood. I spent half my life only with my mother.”
“So you mean to abandon your bloodline grandmother and go looking for that painter again?”
Hearing that stung deeply. All of it was for his sake.
No matter how little time they spent together, it hurt to have Ottilie treat the painter like a stranger just because of her.
“I’m just curious. If I weren’t blood-related to Grandmother, would you have done all this?”
“That’s a ridiculous assumption, Rubens.”
Ottilie Krygen looked baffled at such an absurd notion.
“I have pressing state affairs; I’ll excuse myself first. Grandmother can pick the bride.”
Rubens stood without any intention to explain further.
“Wait. What do you mean by that?”
“Think it over yourself quietly. It’s not a difficult matter.”
Rubens left with those words alone.
* * *
The head of the family was so obsessed with his mistress that he lost his senses. And the woman came from a humble painter’s background.
Ottilie had enough reason to plot such a thing. As the family elder, she could not stand to see the family’s reputation tarnished.
Therefore, it wasn’t really fair that Duke Krygen blamed her. As the eldest son of the Krygen family, Rubens should be the one bowing his head in apology for worrying his grandmother.
But then why did he wonder if this would have happened if it had been Eren, not Rubens?
Why did the thought arise that if it had been Eren, he and Macy wouldn’t have crossed paths like this?
It was a pointless hypothetical now.
“To the cabin, no, to the Bayatten mansion.”
Rather than settling things, Ottilie’s words were more like a provocation. She would likely reconsider Rubens’s origins again.
He had hoped that letting it all out would relieve his suffocating frustration, but it did not improve at all.
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