The Grand Duchess's Flight
The situation was a complete shitshow. Carla had fled the nursery in a daze, leaving only Lumican, me, Mary, and a crying Lucian behind. The atmosphere was naturally fucked beyond repair. Mary hovered anxiously, unable to approach.
“Let me have him.”
In the end, I stepped forward first and took the wailing Lucian from her arms.
“There, there. Shhh.”
I awkwardly patted his back, and to my surprise, Lucian’s crying stopped abruptly.
“Mama… Papa… Mama…”
Lucian burrowed into my chest. ‘Sigh. You little rascal. Yeah, go ahead and eat.’
As I reached to loosen my bodice, Grand Duke Lumican approached.
“It seems Lucian is hungry.”
But when I stole a glance from the corner of my eye, that bastard—who had just put on that disgusting spectacle in front of his own wife—was now standing right behind me, practically drooling as he tried to peek over my shoulder at my breasts.
‘Holy fuck… Look at your own kid, you pervert!’
I immediately started plotting how to chase this horny Grand Duke out of the room. Before breastfeeding, I deliberately spun around with Lucian in my arms, showing him my front. But the Grand Duke’s eyes weren’t on his son at all—they were glued to my chest, licking every inch with his gaze.
I couldn’t take it anymore and spoke coldly.
“Your Grace. I must feed him now. The young master has been through quite a shock, so please leave us.”
The Grand Duke clicked his tongue in clear disappointment.
“Don’t mind me…”
‘I do mind, you fucking asshole! You just ripped your wife’s dress open and now you’re pulling this shit here?’
I sharply cut off the Grand Duke’s sticky attempt to stay.
“I asked you to leave.”
Finally, Lumican—who had been stuck between a human and an animal—flinched, then reluctantly dragged his lingering gaze out of the nursery.
‘Clueless bastard. Go comfort Carla or something. Though she’d probably just push you away anyway.’
The moment the door closed, I let out a breath of relief and offered my breast to Lucian. The nursery finally returned to peace. With soft sucking sounds—*chup, chup*—Lucian settled down, and Mary exhaled in relief.
“Haa… I thought I was going to die. I couldn’t even breathe properly.”
Mary patted my shoulder gently.
“Sena… Don’t hate Her Ladyship too much.”
I continued softly patting Lucian’s back as he nursed and answered indifferently.
“I don’t resent her. Any mother would have reacted that way.”
‘Of course her method was completely unhinged, but still… she’s a mother. Especially with a husband like that.’
Still, I couldn’t understand why Lucian completely rejected his biological mother and refused to even look at her. ‘What happened in the original story?’
No matter how much I racked my brain, I couldn’t recall any episode where young Lucian had rejected Carla. The only thing that came to mind was Carla gaslighting him as the villainess.
To dig into the original story’s past, I decided to probe Mary, who had served the Grand Duke’s household for a long time.
“If it weren’t for that incident… the young master probably wouldn’t avoid Her Ladyship like this.”
I trailed off deliberately, casting the bait. Lucian was busy suckling on one of my “baits,” and I waited for Mary to bite the other. I hoped she’d spill the reason behind Lucian’s rejection of his mother.
But instead—
“Yes… From your perspective, it’s only natural. After all… you were protecting Her Ladyship and the young master when you… Hic!”
Mary’s eyes suddenly welled up with tears.
‘What?’
Wait, Mary? I told you I’m on Carla’s side! Sure, she did get a little handsy, but I can understand the circumstances, so I’m still favorably disposed toward her! And even though her breasts are small, she’s still an incredible beauty.
‘……Huh? Wait a second.’
A sharp pang shot through my lower abdomen, as if my womb had been pierced. Sena must have been pregnant around the same time as Carla. But there was no child. Sena’s loyalty and atonement toward Carla.
‘There was an assassination attempt targeting Carla and Lucian.’
At that moment, Sena had thrown herself in front of them and taken a spear—or was it a sword?—to the gut. It had pierced straight through her womb. In the end, she had miscarried her own child.
‘Holy shit. Then Sena is literally the savior of both Carla’s life and her child’s life!’
Sena had turned down a government post to remain as a guard and maid. In the end, she had staked her own life and her child’s to protect Carla and Lucian. That explained the complicated emotions Carla must feel toward Sena.
A rival who had stolen her husband. A nanny who monopolized her son’s love. But at the same time, a pitiful woman who had saved both her and her child’s lives at the cost of losing her own baby. An affection mixed with hatred so tangled that it couldn’t be neatly defined as jealousy or resentment—driving her slowly insane.
‘She feels indebted.’
Carla currently carried an enormous debt of gratitude toward Sena—for both her own life and her child’s. It was a grotesque, twisted relationship where both women bore wounds and debts that could never be erased from each other.
‘That insane Grand Duke bastard. What a fucking piece of shit.’
The root of all this tragedy was that horny Northern Grand Duke, Lumican. If that bastard hadn’t gone around spraying his seed everywhere—or if he had just shown Carla even a shred of kindness and left Sena alone—the women in this household wouldn’t have gone this crazy.
By the time I realized it, Lucian had finished nursing and fallen asleep. I carefully handed him over to Mary. She wiped her tears and apologized.
“I’m sorry, Sena… for bringing up painful memories…”
I simply answered calmly.
“It’s fine. The young master is safe now, isn’t he?”
Well… since it hadn’t actually happened to me, I brushed it off like some magnanimous saint. But I was sure Sena’s feelings were genuine too. From the note we exchanged at dawn, Sena truly didn’t resent Lady Carla.
The problem was that I still hadn’t learned the reason behind Lucian’s rejection. But I had gained a much more powerful card instead: Carla’s overwhelming sense of debt toward Sena. If I used that, waking Carla up and reconciling her with Lucian would be a piece of cake.
‘Alright, I’ve made up my mind! Tonight I’m grabbing Lucian and storming straight into Carla’s bedroom. I’ll let her slap me a few times, have a raw heart-to-heart woman-to-woman talk, comfort her, shit on the Grand Duke together, and naturally guide Lucian to recognize Carla as his mother!’
My nanny escape plan was becoming clearer by the second. This miserable life as a walking milk machine was finally about to end. I was filled with satisfaction.
But then—
BANG!
The nursery door flew open so violently it nearly woke Lucian. A maid burst in, her face deathly pale.
“I-it’s terrible!! Her Ladyship… Her Ladyship said she’s packing her bags and returning to her family’s estate!!”
‘……What?’
I couldn’t believe my ears. Returning to her family?
‘Goddamn it, you fucking Grand Duke piece of shit!!!’
In front of everyone, that bastard had ripped open his wife’s dress, squeezed her breasts, and humiliated her. Because of the shit he stirred up, my only hope—Carla—was about to walk out the door.
‘Fuck no! If she leaves, I’ll be stuck doing all the childcare alone!’
Without thinking twice, I bolted out of the nursery.
‘My Lady! Don’t go!!! How am I supposed to raise this kid by myself?!’
This absolutely could not happen. I had to stop Carla no matter what. By any means necessary.
I pushed my body to its absolute limit, sprinting down the corridors of the Grand Duke’s residence.
‘I can’t believe I have to stop a biological mother from running away because of a kid I didn’t even give birth to. Is this a romance fantasy possession or a trashy drama?!’
Swallowing my tears, I ran and ran toward Carla’s bedroom. My still-unfamiliar body screamed in protest, my breathing growing ragged. But I couldn’t stop my feet.
Carla’s family estate was in the distant capital, several days’ carriage ride away from this barren Grand Duchy. If she really packed up and left right now?
I would be forced to handle every ounce of solo childcare in this godforsaken house, plus endure that insane Grand Duke’s nightly horny visits—all by myself.
Absolutely not. For the sake of my freedom and my sanity, I had to stop Carla by any means necessary.
“My Lady……!”
I finally reached the door to Carla’s bedroom. I threw it open with enough force to nearly break it.
And another spectacle unfolded before my eyes.
“………”
The spacious bedroom, normally adorned with the finest carpets, was in complete chaos. The wardrobe doors were flung wide open, and Carla’s dresses and jewelry boxes had been shoved haphazardly into travel trunks. It was so messy it was hard to believe this was the room of the meticulous Grand Duchess who never allowed even a speck of dust.
Traces of desperate flight were everywhere. And in the middle of that chaos, Carla—the same woman who had fled the nursery earlier—was desperately trying to close the lid of a trunk.
But she couldn’t leave. Because that shameless Grand Duke bastard was standing right in front of the luggage, blocking her path.
“Are you running away?”
A sneer played on Lumican’s lips. He was about to dig into his wife’s wounds again.
“This isn’t like you, Carla. Where did that usual haughty pride of yours go? Now you’re tucking your tail between your legs like a beaten dog and trying to run? How cowardly.”
As I caught my breath and assessed the situation, the urge to sew that bastard’s mouth shut surged through my mind. The only reason Carla had mustered the courage to visit the nursery today despite her fear was because of the shallow comfort I had given her yesterday. She had tried to reclaim her place as a mother, no matter how small that courage had been.
But that precious, fragile courage had been ripped apart and trampled by her insane husband right in front of everyone. And instead of apologizing, he was mocking her for being cowardly?
‘I can’t let that dog keep running his mouth.’
Original story be damned—Carla’s mind was clearly at its breaking point. It wouldn’t be strange if she chose to jump out the window and end it all right now. That Grand Duke bastard would pretend to mourn on the outside while secretly raising a toast on the inside if she died. I had to stop this no matter what.
Just as I was about to step forward, Carla lifted her head.
“Is that what you came here to say?”
Her eyes were red and swollen from dried tears. But unlike the breakdown she had in the nursery earlier, her voice was bone-chillingly cold.
“How very relaxed you are, Your Grace. I had no idea that the position of Grand Duke, ruler of the North, was so insignificant that you have time to stand around watching your wife pack her bags.”
Carla shot back without yielding. She let go of the trunk with trembling hands and stared Lumican dead in the eyes.
“Move. I’m leaving of my own free will, so why are you stopping me? Isn’t this what you wanted? To get rid of your annoying legal wife and put your precious lover in her place.”
“Watch your tongue, Carla.”
Lumican’s smile vanished completely, as if stung. Oh, so the Grand Duke bastard has a weak mentality compared to that big mouth of his.
I couldn’t stand by and watch this crisis escalate any further. Dragging my heavy legs, I threw myself between Lumican and Carla, right into the middle of their razor-sharp standoff.
“My Lady……!!”
The moment I stepped in front of them, both of their gazes snapped toward me at the same time.
“Sena……”
The Grand Duke’s unnecessarily sorrowful, suppressed voice and Carla’s freezing, icy glare stabbed into me. After confirming my face, her facial muscles began to twist like someone bitten by a viper. Her eyes traveled from my face down to the slightly disheveled front of my maid uniform, rumpled from breastfeeding.
“How lovely.”
A hiss escaped through Carla’s teeth.
“The two of you really can’t seem to stay apart, can you? Well, of course. You’ve been together since childhood, haven’t you? Sharing the same room, the same bathtub, rolling around like a whore and her patron every night.”
Her Ladyship took a step toward me and began spitting venomous words I never imagined could come from her lips.
“I suppose you taught each other how to masturbate too, didn’t you? Two horny beasts tangled together—must have been quite the sight.”
“……!”
‘Whoa…… Our Lady is really pissed off. Her vocabulary is on another level.’
For a moment, I was so stunned my mouth fell open. I never dreamed that such unfiltered, sexual insults would pour from the mouth of a romance fantasy noblewoman—let alone the Grand Duchess.
Just how much blood must be boiling in her veins, how shattered must her heart be, for her to degrade her own lips with such vulgar, uncultured language just to tear into me?
But Carla’s venom had no handle. It was a bladeless knife that required her to carve out her own flesh just to stab me and Lumican—a self-destructive blade.