I Became the Daughter of a Disgraced Duke - Chapter 35

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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 35
Cassian explained to ten-year-old Barelmore what stomach cramps were.
“Stomach cramps are when your belly aches so badly you can’t move a muscle—like your insides have gone mad. Your father gets them a lot when he’s stressed, since he’s a bit sensitive.”
……
“He thought you’d run away because you hated him as a father. He knows he’s not a good one—but between the painkillers, stomach medicine, and tranquilizers, he passed out. Try to understand.”
Cassian pulled a chair over to the bedside and sat down.
Ten was still young enough not to understand much, but not so young that he couldn’t grasp an explanation.
Barelmore was a clever child.
He would understand this much.
“Father isn’t a bad person.”
“Tell him that yourself. He’ll be overjoyed.”
“I thought Father hated me. That’s why he kept his distance.”
“He’s just stiff by nature. He seemed bothered that you don’t cling to him the way Adrian does.”
“But Father doesn’t play with Adrian either, and he does play with Iris. Is it just because we’re boys that he doesn’t care much?”
“She’s a girl, though.”
“I don’t understand.”
Cassian rubbed his forehead roughly.
Sigh. He’d come to leave Iris, and now here he was playing counselor—a role he’d never signed up for.
He’d have to extract payment from Zenobion for this.
“Your grandfather was, well—a piece of work. Always hitting people, cursing them. Zenobion grew up watching that, so both of you being sons makes him afraid he’ll act like his own father toward you.”
Having learned nothing but that, Zenobion had fought tooth and nail to strip every trace of his parents from his own life.
That’s why he kept his distance from his children.
He’d have his servants report what snacks the children were eating, but he didn’t live closely with them.
Cassian had no idea whether Zenobion had ever actually played with Iris, but it was probably because she was a girl.
That man never treated women badly.
So he could afford to cherish them easily.
Perhaps with his own son—whom he could never quite love properly—he was merely seeking solace through Iris.
“Think about it. That man didn’t draw Adrian close. Adrian was the one who approached him on his own.”
“……That’s true.”
“Your father doesn’t know for certain that he’s different from his own father. Maybe he never will, his whole life long.”
It was a heavy thing to tell a child.
Perhaps it was heavy for Cassian himself to speak it.
He felt a sharp ache in his chest for Zenobion.
No—it was the memory of his own childhood that made him sick.
Cassian wished Zenobion would hate his father the way he did, but that man loved more than he resented.
‘Who says parents love their children more?’
Sometimes it seemed children loved their parents far more desperately.
“Your mother and Zenobion’s contract was meant to be a marriage on paper—to keep you from being born illegitimate. They were good friends, and though it was a sham marriage, they genuinely respected each other.”
Cassian looked at Barelmore, who had inherited his mother’s features so perfectly.
During the Holy Demon Great War, their territories had overlapped; there was a brief time when he and Zenobion had crossed paths.
That’s when Zenobion had told him.
“I got married last week.”
“What? Say that again?”
“Celestine is pregnant. She wouldn’t tell me who the father is. If we don’t marry before the birth, the child will be illegitimate, so I agreed to be the father.”
“Are you completely insane?”
“In exchange, I’m taking the nobility title that Celestine holds. So any credit I’ve built here is yours now. I don’t need to strive for nobility anymore, since I already have it.”
“What are you even thinking? You could’ve earned a title without making some contract like that.”
“Just like that.”
Deep within the Demon’s Territory, the fog was thick.
You couldn’t see forward or backward.
A gray zone where you couldn’t even tell which way to go.
There, Zenobion was confronting something wholly.
“Seeing you happy because you had a child—I wanted to become a father too.”
……
“I was never loved, but maybe I can give love. Wouldn’t it be a blessing for that child’s life just to have a father who exists—who doesn’t beat, doesn’t starve, who simply watches them grow in silence?”
……
“I want to meet them soon. Whether a daughter or a son, I want to be a different kind of father than ours was.”
That’s when Cassian had thought it.
You’ll live a different life than he did.
‘Neither you nor I will become that kind of father.’
And so they loved children who had not yet been born.
Cassian, waiting for Henrietta to give birth, and Zenobion, who watched his brother and wanted to become a father.
Brothers with no resemblance to each other, yet identical in one desire—to love someone with their whole hearts.
Cassian told Barelmore, born into that love, something important.
“To Zenobion, you are his first love. His first child, his first son, his first family—one he won not through the curse of blood, but through choice.”
“That’s too much to understand.”
“When you’re grown, you’ll grasp what I mean. You’ll see Zenobion’s shortcomings—you don’t have to forgive them, just… know they’re there.”
That was something a child should say about their parent’s inexperience, not the other way around.
No one would blame him, but Zenobion’s love was riddled with gaps.
It was his burden to seek forgiveness.
To demand understanding could be a form of violence.
All Cassian hoped was that Barelmore would know.
“That he loves you with everything he has.”
That one day he’d understand—how a coward, careful precisely because this wasn’t his blood son, still loved him as fiercely as his own.
* * *
Father appeared in my dream.
He was an eagle-man with black wings, but he was so frightened that when a bed monster appeared, he whimpered and wept.
Even with sharp talons, instead of fighting the monster, he just clutched me close and cried, which made me feel sorry for him.
So I patted him in the dream, trying to comfort him.
“Father, it’s okay. The bed monster—well, Uncle Michael will defeat it for us!”
Then Father said something.
“Daughter. Wake up. Time for breakfast.”
Gasp!
The moment my eyes flew open, I saw Father’s face.
He must have gotten up sometime—instead of the dust-covered clothes from yesterday, he wore Uncle’s clean shirt.
“Eat quickly, then we have to sneak home before Adrian notices. He’s making such a fuss about coming along it’s exhausting.”
“Father!”
As he picked me up to take me to breakfast, I grabbed his face in my hands.
Fortunately, unlike in the dream, there were no tear streaks.
“Now, now—pulling Father’s face isn’t a bit too much? Even your father has cheeks, you know.”
“(Father. Are you okay? I understand even if you cry.)”
“A tiny thing mocking an adult?”
“Eek!”
Father stretched my nose out long.
He didn’t put much strength into it so it didn’t hurt, but it felt like betrayal of my kindness, and my lip jutted out in a pout.
“Father didn’t cry for real.”
“Yes, you did. You were sobbing.”
“Adrian put you up to this, didn’t he? There’s no one else who’d teach you such things.”
“(But Father, wouldn’t you cry too if a Demon appeared?)”
“A Demon?”
“Yes. Uncle told me stories about Demons.”
“Don’t worry about Demons or anything like that. You’ll never have to see anything so terrible.”
Father pulled me closer and held me tight.
Somehow his grip felt heavier, stronger than before.
Was he afraid of Demons and trying to hide his fear?
‘Uncle definitely lied to me.’
A fearful, weeping eagle as a hero? That made no sense at all.
“(But Demons eat people. I don’t want to die… Besides, I’m not tasty. Chicken is tasty.)”
“You won’t die. Father will protect you.”
“Mm.”
Could I really trust him? Father was afraid and cried so much.
“You don’t believe me?”
“No, no. I do believe you.”
Father looked unconvinced, but soon breakfast distracted him and he let it pass.
After eating, we snuck out of the Mansion without Adrian noticing.
“You’ll be amazed when you see the house. It’s incredibly beautiful.”
“Is it Sharala?”
“Yes, yes. Sharala, Charala, Warala.”
My excitement reached the clouds.
I had come imagining a house fit for Princess Lulu the doll to live in.
“What?”
A Red Seal had been pasted to the front gate.

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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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