KEO.PLUS

“Mary? Are you talking about the Mary who is now being adopted by Duke Sergei?” Nicholas II asked.

Mary’s full name was Mary Pavlovna, and she was the legitimate daughter of Tsar Nicholas II’s uncle, Grand Duke Paul.

However, Duchess Alexandra passed away when Grand Duchess Mary was only one year old. Because her father, Grand Duke Paul, could not cope with the grief and take care of the young Mary and her newly born brother, he had to hand them over to his brother, Duke Sergei, for adoption.

But because Grand Duke Paul later married a divorced woman, the former Tsar Alexander III was furious and did not allow Grand Duke Paul to return to Russia. Duke Sergei and his wife then became the official guardians of Mary and her brother.

In essence, Duke Sergei has been raising Mary and her brother since they were young. Although there is no official father-daughter relationship, their practical relationship is not much different.

As a legitimate grand duchess of the Russian royal family and a peer of Nicholas II, Mary was indeed suitable to be a candidate for this royal marriage.

However, Mary was only seventeen years old (two years older than in the original history, a small adjustment according to the setting of this book) – was the age difference between her and Arthur a bit too large?

Empress Alexandra did not have this concern. For a real European royal marriage, the family’s status and prestige were far more important than the age gap between the two parties.

Arthur’s Saxe-Coburg-Gotha family enjoyed a level of prosperity even surpassing that of the Russian royal family, the Romanovs, so there would naturally be no issue of an unequal match.

After deciding on the candidate, Nicholas II asked Empress Alexandra to remind Duchess Sergei to prepare Mary well for the evening banquet.

In fact, besides Grand Duchess Mary chosen by Nicholas II himself, there were dozens of Russian nobles and their daughters attending this banquet.

If Mary was the main candidate for the Russian alliance, then the other noble young ladies were there to accompany her.

Of course, it was also possible that one of these noble ladies could be chosen by Arthur to become his lover.

After all, the European royal marriages nowadays have to take into account both parties’ attitudes, and for Arthur, a monarch who had gained real power, his own attitude far outweighed his family’s interests.

Duke Sergei’s manor, inside a certain room.

In the room, a young and beautiful girl dressed up lavishly sat at her dressing table, carefully examining herself. Beside her stood a girl dressed as a maid, attentively helping the young lady comb her long hair.

“Lolita, what do you think, do I look good?” The girl examined her own face while looking expectantly at her maid.

Although she was a maid, the girls had a good relationship. For Grand Duchess Mary, Lolita was more like a friend.

“Of course you look beautiful, Your Highness. If you wear this pearl necklace, you’ll be the most beautiful swan at the banquet!” As Lolita combed Mary’s shoulder-length hair, she replied with a smile.

Similar scenes took place in various locations across Saint Petersburg that afternoon. For Russian nobles, Arthur, who had an independent territory and was in control of real power, was considered a great suitor, even though he was a bit far away. After all, family interests outweigh everything else, right?

Moreover, during the war, Russia and Australia established a relationship. If these nobles could establish a connection with Arthur, even just as a lover, at least their families could receive strong support from abroad.

The first thing nobles look for in a marriage alliance is the other party’s family and whether they are legitimate or not. Arthur was born in one of Europe’s most illustrious families, the Saxe-Coburg-Gotha family of the British Empire, and was also a legitimate member.

These two points alone were enough to attract the vast majority of nobles, not to mention the £100 million fortune that Queen Victoria gifted to Arthur, which caused a sensation in Europe at the time.

At around eight o’clock in the evening, the grand welcome banquet finally began.

As the protagonist, Arthur attracted a lot of attention at the banquet.

Wearing a custom-made suit, Arthur, after a simple grooming, appeared as an extraordinary and handsome young man.

Although not breathtakingly handsome, he conformed to the aesthetics of Western people, and with his top-notch background and wealth, bewitching was not an exaggeration.

There were numerous delicacies at the banquet, but Arthur had no interest in the food.

The reason was that as the protagonist of the banquet, he was constantly being invited to dance by noble girls in their teens.

At first, Arthur did not understand, but he soon realized the true purpose of Nicholas II’s banquet.

These one-after-another noble girls – if this wasn’t a matchmaking process, then what was it?

However, Arthur did not reject it. After all, he was already twenty-two years old, and the vast Australian and New Zealand Federation had yet to have a legitimate heir, something that all the citizens and officers of the Federation were looking forward to.