Why Not Become the Grand Duke?

"Grand Duchess—have you never considered becoming the Grand Duke yourself?"

Laila went blank at the unexpected question. The hand moving her spoon froze mid-motion, as if turned to stone.

"...The title of Grand Duke will pass to my brother Kyle. Presumably."

Her answer came only after a long pause. Rather than agree, Ervan posed another question.

"Has it been decided that way?"

Laila did not answer—for the simple reason that nothing had, in fact, been decided. Her father, the Grand Duke, had never once raised the matter of succession, and neither had Laila ever asked. She had simply assumed that her father and her brother would settle it between themselves when the time came.

"If nothing has been decided, then doesn't the Grand Duchess still have a chance?"

"...I've never thought about it. Not that sort of question."

There was a considerable age gap between Laila and Kyle. By the time Laila was born, Kyle had long since begun his education as heir, and from the very first of her memories, he had reigned over her as an absolute presence she could never defy. Though she stood on equal footing with Kyle as the legitimate daughter of Esdelheim, he had spent long years taming her so thoroughly that she could never recognize her own standing.

"Perhaps my brother Kyle will—"

Watching Laila visibly shrink into herself, Ervan cut her off.

"Your brother, Young Duke Kyle, is a despicable coward."

Laila's eyes widened slightly at the scathing verdict.

"He cannot deliver a single opinion of his own, not to His Majesty the Emperor nor to anyone in high society. He always wriggles out of an argument with phrases like 'as my father the Grand Duke has said,' or 'Laila was just telling me...'"

It was exactly what she had overheard at the boutique. And Laila realized, once again, that it was no lie.

But do the others think so too?

Because it was the very turn of phrase Kyle always used on her.

"And yet before you—the one person he believes he can trifle with—he is insolence itself. A coward, and a base one at that."

"..."

Ervan had, at long last, tossed a small spark into Laila's stiflingly narrow world. The spark flared up into a roaring blaze that tore down her walls, and at last it crumbled the boundary between her and the vast world beyond, carrying her into a place she had never known.

Yes. That's right.

Never once in her life had Laila been understood, or comforted, by anyone. Ervan had merely spoken the facts as they were, yet to Laila his acknowledgment was comfort and understanding both—and salvation besides. Just how much solace she drew from his words, Ervan would never know.

"What reason is there that someone as clever and strong as you should not become the Grand Duke of Esdelheim?"

"I..."

"If you've never thought about it, then think about it starting now."

Ervan breathed courage into her.

"I'll say it plainly: you would suit the seat of Grand Duke far better than that craven coward ever could."

Laila, silent until now, asked a question of her own.

"If I become the Grand Duke, what do you stand to gain, Viscount?"

Ervan arched one eyebrow, looking intrigued.

"Must I gain something?"

"I'm only curious what it is you want from me. I can't make sense of why you would try to help me."

Somewhere along the way the gelato had melted entirely, but such a thing no longer mattered. Setting down the spoon she no longer needed, Laila waited for his answer.

"I want the Grand Duchess to hold power."

Laila quietly held his gaze. Ervan's golden eyes, vivid with light as ever, met hers without wavering. Not for a single instant did he look away. It was the kind of unshaken, silent trust that only a man who spoke nothing but the truth could show.

After a brief contest of wills, Laila was the first to drop her gaze.

"Viscount, I am Esdelheim already, and everyone judges me a person of power."

Ervan shook his head.

"Some time ago, I spoke with His Majesty the Emperor. About you, Grand Duchess."

To hear that the Emperor had spoken of her—Laila's expression tightened before she could help it.

"His Majesty said this: that the Grand Duchess has never made a single mistake, not once since she was very small."

It was only natural. Whenever she made a mistake that might be seized upon as a flaw, Laila had always turned back time and set that moment right.

"To be precise, His Majesty said you have never erred so much as the ordinary slip of the tongue anyone might make."

"How gracious of His Majesty to think so well of me. I do make mistakes from time to time, so I'm relieved he seems never to have witnessed one."

Laila let the modest deflection slip out with practiced ease. But Ervan shook his head again. That was not what he meant.

"To which I replied: the Grand Duchess does not make mistakes."

Only then did Laila grasp what he was driving at.

"That is the degree of power I want for you, Grand Duchess. The kind of power that ensures that even should you err, no one would dare call it a mistake."

"..."

"The Grand Duchess I have observed is a person obsessed with perfection."

Laila was a little startled, but said nothing. He was reading her with unsettling accuracy.

"I've wondered why that might be."

"And what conclusion did you reach?"

Ervan produced his answer as though he had been waiting for exactly that question.

"The Grand Duchess believes herself to be the weaker party. So she pursues perfection so that no one may ever seize upon a weakness. If that is so—then if she held real power and stood in the position of the strong, mightn't she be freed from that obsession as well?"

"..."

"Well. It is only a hypothesis. For all I know, the Grand Duchess may be someone quite different from what I imagine."

Ervan did not press her. If anything, he even left her a door to slip out through. And rather than deny it—I am not the person you think I am—Laila chose silence. Her mind was in turmoil.

"Of course, even as Grand Duke you would still have to mind His Majesty's moods. Treason is something one does have to think through, after all."

Ervan tossed out the jest as if to lighten the air.

"'Treason is something one does have to think through'—how remarkably flexible your mind is, Viscount."

Laila's rejoinder was delivered with perfect elegance. It carried both a barb—that he, the Emperor's own blade, would so casually put treason into words—and her astonishment at how thoroughly he had seen through her.

"And yet even His Majesty cannot act rashly toward the Grand Duke. If you became the Grand Duke, protecting you from His Majesty would grow somewhat easier for me—and that would be my gain."

At the word protect from Ervan's lips, Laila's heart loosened once more. It was an awkward phrase, somehow ticklish and strange to hear. But not because she disliked it—rather, she found she liked it every time she heard it. And that was precisely what frightened her.

What if I start wanting to lean on you? What am I to do then?

The one who heard the question in Laila's heart was not Ervan, but Laila herself. The perfect Laila answered:

You must not. You are the Grand Duchess. You may depend on no one—and you have no need to.

"..."

Laila lightly folded the napkin that lay neatly across her lap and set it on the table. Ervan, who had been watching her, soon began clumsily folding his own. As though he had never done such a thing in his life, his hopelessly graceless attempt filled her vision.

And the imperfect Laila whispered to herself:

Perhaps Viscount Ervan would be all right? Leaning on each other, the two of us might be able to stand a little more easily than we do now.

With the napkins laid askew on the table, their meal came to a close, a period set at the end of it.

A week had passed since that dinner.

In the days that followed, Ervan and Laila met several more times as betrothed, but Ervan never raised the matter again. He had no wish to pressure her. Yet not for a single day since had Laila forgotten his proposal. The more she turned it over in her mind, the more sense it made.

The thought that had begun as Why can I not become the Grand Duke? had ended, in time, as What would I need?

I need Viscount Ervan.

If she were to contend with Kyle for the seat of Grand Duke, her marriage to Ervan would be a formidable source of strength. The marriage had been arranged by the Emperor's own hand, and so it would carry flawless legitimacy—Ervan's existence would be unshakable backing with which to crush the incompetent Kyle.

I must see this marriage through. For my own sake—not Esdelheim's.

The Ervan of a week ago could never have foreseen things reaching this point, yet in the end he had only furthered his own cause. Just as he had declared, Laila had truly come to need Ervan.