I Became the Daughter of a Disgraced Duke - Chapter 33

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Chapter 33
His heart plummeted.
The blood drained from his entire body.
An arrow through his skull would have been kinder.
Kasian pushed past the maid and began tearing through the entire Manor.
“Iris—!”
“Iris! Daddy’s here!”
He ransacked the wardrobe, overturned the bed, checked the floor beneath.
With each moment his heart hammered against his ribs as if it might burst.
His hands trembled violently. When he couldn’t find the child anywhere in the Manor, he bolted outside and tore through the Garden.
He checked the gap in the fence, then ran about the grounds searching, calling—frantic.
“Iris!”
How long had his daughter been back?
He should have abandoned this house, taken shelter under Zenovion’s roof. Then he would never have left the child alone.
The terror was driving him mad.
Lose her twice?
If anything happened to Iris, he would die too.
He’d survived five years on nothing but a single week of glimpses when she was small.
But now he’d experienced her laughing, crying, speaking, chattering—calling him “Daddy, Daddy”—day after day.
No parent could emerge unscathed from that.
Zenovion came running home late and seized hold of him.
“Kasian, Kasian! Calm yourself!”
“Calm myself? How?”
This man had been locked in the house the whole time—what had he done? Hadn’t even kept watch over the child?
Kasian’s eyes blazed crimson with rage.
He grabbed Zenovion by the collar and ground out a warning.
“If anything happens to Iris, you die too. Understand? I’ll kill you first!”
“One of the maids saw Iris this afternoon. So we’ll find her soon.”
“You speak so easily. Did you think she wasn’t truly my daughter, is that why you can say such things?”
Kasian’s voice turned sharp as a blade.
He looked ready to tear the mage before him apart with his bare hands.
“You don’t know! You’ve never lost a child who was right there in front of you!”
……
Click.
Zenovion gripped the hand that held his collar.
The white-knuckled fist was trembling as if poisoned.
“Barelmore disappeared with her. He should have shown by now—but the child never came.”
Zenovion’s voice wavered as he confessed, powerless.
Only then did Kasian realize that Zenovion was shaking just as badly as he was.
“We’ll find her—we c-can find her. We have to. We will.”
Terror-stricken, Zenovion drew a deep breath and pried Kasian’s hand away.
He had despised Kasian bitterly for breaking that old Promise, and yet he had also pitied him—because Kasian was a parent who had lost a child.
A half-brother might break such a vow, must never do so, but a parent who has lost a child cannot help but be driven to it.
He had never wished for the day when he would know the same terror.
Such misfortune—he never wanted to experience it.
But now, in this moment, Zenovion understood, if only dimly, what hell Kasian had endured for the past five years.
Kasian collapsed against him, his voice breaking.
“Why is living so hard? We barely got her back, and now—”
* * *
“Iris. Wake up.”
“Iris.”
“Wake up.”
Someone kept shaking her. But she wanted to sleep more—why were they doing this?
“(I want more sleep. Go away.)”
“Iris. It’s time to eat. You need dinner.”
“(I’m sleeping.)”
“There’s Strawberry Cake for dessert.”
At the words “Strawberry Cake,” her heavy eyelids snapped open.
The last wisps of sleep clung to her, but driven by the promise of dessert, she stumbled down from the Attic.
At first, Daddy had picked her up and they’d bought it from a shop on the way home, but these past few days she’d been eating it at Uncle’s house before returning.
“I want to eat chicken for dinner.”
“Don’t you think vegetables taste better than meat?”
We made our way down to the first floor, chatting about our favorite foods.
Though the manor usually filled with savory aromas and the bustle of meal preparations, the atmosphere felt strange—almost unsettled.
“Is something wrong?”
Barelmore approached one of the maids and asked.
“Young master! Miss!”
The maid caught sight of us and let out a shriek, then bolted away.
A moment later, the front door burst open with a tremendous crash, and Father and Uncle came running through.
Father, with his tall frame and long legs, crossed the distance in a heartbeat—and the instant he saw me, he sank to the floor and pulled me into his arms.
“Father?”
He didn’t answer.
His embrace reeked of sweat.
He trembled like the earth itself was shaking.
“Father, what’s wrong? Aren’t you going to eat dinner?”
“You, you, you…… where, where did you go.”
His voice was thick with something—heavy and wet.
It sounded almost like a whimper.
“I was playing in the attic with Barelmore.”
“The attic?”
“Yes. It was fun.”
“Thank, thank goodness. Oh, thank goodness.”
My shoulder suddenly grew wet, as though rain had begun to fall.
A faint sound of sobbing brushed against my ear.
“Father, are you crying?”
……
From Father came only the sound of ragged, shuddering breaths.
Why? Didn’t grown-ups not cry?
‘Why does Father always cry?’
A sudden panic seized me—as though I’d done something terribly wrong.
Then it occurred to me that Father must have been startled when I went up to the attic without telling him.
I braced myself for a scolding, but instead Father’s voice trembled with fear as he asked me:
“Are you hurt? Are you injured anywhere?”
“No, I’m fine. But there was a bug. Were you… worried about me?”
“Of course I was. You, you really need to stop scaring me like this. My heart can’t take much more of it.”
Rather than scold me, Father—his strength seeming to drain away—pleaded with me as though I were the one comforting him.
‘My heart can’t take it… because of me.’
In those words, I felt how deeply he cherished me.
Not some stranger who happened to be called Father, but the Father I had longed for.
The one who loved me as much as Mother did—my true father.
My chest tingled with warmth. The love Mother gave me and the love Father gave me felt subtly different.
Perhaps it was because I’d never received this kind of tenderness from him before.
Shame washed over me, and I could barely keep my body still.
It felt like a warm, soapy bubble swelling up inside me, growing larger and larger.
“Don’t cry. I’m sorry. I’m not a bad child.”
“I’m not crying.”
A lie—I’d heard him sniff just a moment ago.
Because he seemed frightened, I held his neck tightly and rocked back and forth against him.
“Stop crying now. There, there.”
I suppose I inherited my cowardice from Father.
I’d never seen Mother cry.
As I stroked Father’s unusually long hair, I caught sight of Uncle behind him, checking on Barelmore.
“Are you all right? You’re not hurt anywhere?”
“No? No, I’m fine. We were just playing in the attic…… Father?”
Uncle clamped his lips shut and pulled Barelmore into a tight embrace.
I met Barelmore’s startled gaze.
Was it really so surprising that we’d returned safely—had there truly been an attic monster?
“Where on earth did you go without saying a word! Did it never occur to you that your father would worry?”
Uncle began to scold Barelmore.
As his raised voice rang out, even Father looked shaken.
The sound of quick footsteps came from far off—patter-patter-patter!—and a small body crashed into both Barelmore and his uncle.
“Oof!”
“Edrian?”
If his uncle hadn’t caught him, Barelmore would have staggered backward and fallen from the force of impact.
Barelmore snapped irritably.
“Hey! What’s wrong with you now!”
“You’re not… you’re not really my brother!”
“Do you want a beating?”
“Why were you alone with Iris? What were you two playing? Why won’t you play with me?”
“Why does it matter?”
“I’m your brother! But you like Iris more than me?!”
Edrian glared at Barelmore with indignation, then burst into bitter tears.
“Waaah-hic-hic! You’re the only brother I have! Father! Please hit him for me! Waaaahhh!”
His father held him in an almost suffocating embrace and wouldn’t let go, while Edrian wailed and sobbed.
In the midst of this chaotic scene, Barelmore laughed as if he might cry.
* * *
Barelmore remembered clearly the day Edrian had appeared.
“How many nights will you be away this time?”
“At least a month. I need to help with the reconstruction after neutralizing the Southern Gray Zone.”
“Father, please be careful.”
“Don’t worry.”
His father was often away from home.
There was much to be done in the aftermath of war, but a younger Barelmore could scarcely have understood such things.
Then one day, an unfamiliar maid returned with a small child in tow.
Edrian was a handsome boy with the same golden hair as his father and eyes like his uncle’s—a pale, golden yellow.
His father, returning from his business trip, had said:
“This is your brother. I want you both to cherish each other.”
Barelmore had loved his brother.
Though a half-brother, Edrian was infinitely dear to him.
With Edrian around, Barelmore was never lonely.
It was only early this year that his brother became someone to resent.
“Isn’t it amusing? The Lord’s adopted son is raised as the young master’s true heir, yet the young master—whose mother is of noble blood—is treated as an illegitimate child.”
Barelmore had overheard the maids gossiping while doing laundry, and in that moment he learned that he was not the true son of his father, Zenovion.

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