I Became the Daughter of a Disgraced Duke - Chapter 15

—————
This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
—————

Chapter 14
Making a friend cry meant you were a bad child.
‘No, no! Don’t do this—you’ll cry and then things will really fall apart!’
I quickly threw myself into his arms and patted his back—tap-tap-tap, gentle rub, soft thud—trying to comfort him however I could.
Then.
All at once.
He pulled me into a tight embrace.
“(Cassian?)”
His grip was so fierce I could barely breathe, so I squirmed against him.
That was when I felt it—a heartbeat thundering wildly against my face, pressed to his chest.
It pounded so violently I was afraid it might burst, so I stopped struggling at once.
Cassian’s frame was solid muscle, unyielding, and though the sweat mingled with the faint ghost of cigarette smoke made my nose sting, I remained still in his arms.
I had no choice.
The way he breathed—deep and shaky, his whole body trembling—looked so sad that even a child like me could see it.
* * *
Blink. Blink.
I closed my eyes and opened them again, confirming the scene unfolding before me.
‘Goddess, what on earth is happening here?’
Could someone please explain what happened while I was in the bathroom?
“You’d raise her when she’s not even your daughter?”
“She is my daughter. What are you talking about?”
“Just yesterday you said she wasn’t your father’s daughter! You even filed the paperwork!”
“Look at her face, for heaven’s sake. Who else’s daughter would she be? She’s mine.”
The teacher who’d come to visit was arguing with Cassian. And they were both fighting over who got to take me.
* * *
A single piece of fruit had nearly killed the child. The terror he’d felt in that instant was more chilling than when a blade had sliced past his neck.
Cassian had been frightened to his core, yet the moment she woke, she patted his back.
‘She’s not Iris.’
There is no magic to revive the dead.
That exists in the Domain of the Divine, and the goddess does not grant prayers that would violate the Laws of Nature.
So this child could not possibly be Iris—he knew that well—and yet the impulse to care for her made it hard to breathe.
“Hee-hee-hee.”
But then the child smiled brightly.
Her cheeks flushed like peaches, radiant.
It was an innocent, artless laugh—the laugh of a child who’d been showered with love and knew nothing of the world’s darkness.
In that moment, though he knew the thought was madness, he felt certain: this girl was his daughter.
Blood-bound or not, he had already become her guardian.
The decision had been made long before they reached the Hospital—made without his even realizing it.
And with that thought came a strange, unshakeable conviction.
‘This child is Iris.’
Cassian Calypso, your lost daughter—it’s this girl.
He knew it was insane, knew there was no evidence whatsoever for such a claim, and yet… he simply knew.
But his mind, cold and clear, made a different assessment.
‘Iris is dead.’
So the girl could not be Iris.
Perhaps they shared many similarities, and his weakened heart, fragile as it was, had begun to conjure fantasies of its own.
‘She has a peach allergy, doesn’t she.’
This girl required special care.
Small in stature, tiny fists, nothing about her but those large, round eyes—how could she possibly survive in the Orphanage?
It was a rationalization dressed up as concern, but as his mind and body collided, the blood seemed to drain from him entirely.
In that moment, she nestled into him with a soft sound.
Cassian bit his lip hard.
She was a different age than the Iris he remembered.
But her face resembled his daughter’s.
Her way of chattering on—the same as Henrietta’s ceaseless prattling in her letters—was identical.
The warmth of her small body, the bright, crystalline sound of her child’s laughter—eerily the same.
And so, and so….
‘I said I would protect her….’
A vow.
A promise.
I swore an oath.
I resolved to do it.
I truly meant it—and yet when the moment came to die, I couldn’t even stay by her side.
That was Cassian Calypso—a pitiable fool.
Some called him a hero, others a duke, but the truth was he was nothing but an idiot who couldn’t protect his own daughter.
That’s why I wanted to protect the child before me.
It wasn’t some grand ambition.
I didn’t fool myself into thinking I’d be a good guardian.
Just three meals a day and sending her to school—that was all.
A sponsor and a sponsored child. That was the extent of it.
* * *
“What do you mean ‘someone else’s daughter’? She’s my daughter.”
“Now hold on. Then what are these papers? You’re not telling me you forged documents to abandon your own child?”
“That’s… well, that is…”
“Yes?”
“That thing, I mean. That.”
“What thing?”
“That’s… a Miracle?”
The light drained from the Orphanage worker’s eyes, but Cassian pressed on without shame.
“Surely there are mysteries in this world that medicine cannot explain. My vitality is simply too robust, you see. Does that suffice?”
“Mm.”
Stretching the pretense as far as it would go, the worker twisted their lips and asked:
“Do you even know this child’s name?”
“How could I not?”
“Then what is it?”
“My daughter’s name is…”
Cassian turned to look at the child sitting up in the hospital bed, watching the commotion unfold.
‘What was her name again?’
I’d never thought to ask.
Baron had taken the child, and… well.
I’d fled and left her in Baron’s care, so I never had the chance to hear it.
Cassian improvised.
“Iris. I named her after myself.”
“Good heavens, sir. You’re really going to keep lying?”
“I knew a foreign woman once, and I only just remembered—she had a peach allergy too.”
“Sir! That’s no way to live a life!”
The worker shrieked, glared at him, and left the room.
Cassian settled himself in front of the child, who had been sitting in stunned silence, and asked:
“So, what is your name?”
At this, the child’s eyes widened perfectly round, and she tilted her head before answering:
“Iris!”
Cassian froze where he sat.
It was as though someone had struck him across the face.
Slowly, methodically, he examined the child’s hair, her eyes, her earlobes, her chin, her fingers—and then her face again. Every detail, over and over.
“Ha. Ha ha. Ha ha ha…”
The dead child’s name. The identical allergy.
Was it a Miracle, or fate?
Or perhaps the vengeance of the Divine for one who had coveted the boundary between life and death?
The mockery of a demon toward a sinner?
Cassian laughed, hollowed out.
CHAPTER 02.
“Huh!”
Morning sunlight snapped my eyes open.
“Gruhhhhh…”
The man was making strange noises in his sleep, wearing nothing but his pants.
It seemed I was going to be living under the same roof as him.
Since I wasn’t his real daughter, I had to make a good impression, so I was thinking about how to seem like a good, well-behaved child.
That’s when I remembered Michael.
Michael was the scariest man in the neighborhood where the Orphanage was.
He had a hulking body covered in massive muscles and a reputation for a terrifying personality.
But Michael, for all that, was very fond of us, and whenever I passed by and greeted him, he’d press a candy into my hand and say so.
“Look at you tiny things with your manners. Such a polite little one—how adorable.”
That’s when I resolved to greet him faithfully from that day forward.
‘When will he wake up?’
The room was dim and musty-smelling, but the sunlight slanting through the half-open window cast his face in a kindly glow.
Without those yellow eyes visible, he seemed a little less frightening somehow.
I gathered his hair gently and braided it into two pigtails.
“Tee-hee-hee.”
With his hair in pigtails, he was actually rather cute.
After that I tried poking his cheek and lifting his eyelids, but he still wouldn’t wake.
So I began poking my fingers one by one through the dark holes burnt into the blanket.
‘Grown-ups always say not to play with fire, but this man’s such a fool.’
Maybe he skipped school so much he never learned properly?
Just as I was mulling this over, his eyelids began to flutter.
Sitting at his bedside, I watched as his long dark brows rose slowly.
Those pale yellow eyes I feared so much wandered through empty space before settling on me without focus.
My heart began to thump at the thought of greeting him.
After all, the first secret to being a good child is saying hello!
“(Good morning! Have a blessed day! Dear sir. Did you sleep well? Were you peaceful through the night? May you have a wonderful day!)”
I offered every morning greeting I knew.
My shoulders rose with pride.
A little giggle escaped me.
His bleary eyes gradually came into focus on me.
Then all at once he jerked upright.
He pulled the blanket up to his neck.
“What the—! What are you doing in my room!”
“(I snuck over and slept next to you yesterday, sir. Because it was scary in the dark.)”
“What are you talking about? You know you’re not supposed to just barge into someone else’s room, don’t you?”
“(Sir, I’m hungry. Should we eat?)”
“Do you want to get in trouble? I’m a very scary person, you know. Just recently I was having trouble even looking people in the eye, and now this little mouse of a thing—”
As I watched him raise his voice the moment he woke, my chest swelled.
Here I was, greeting someone so frightening with such confidence and courtesy!
‘Maybe I’m actually a very brave child?’
My chest swelled with pride.
Delighted, I burst into bright laughter, and he stared hard at me.

—————
This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
—————