If You Are Suited for the Villain's Secretary - Chapter 74

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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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If the Villain’s Secretary Suits Me
Chapter 74
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Everyone at the Plibie County Estate wondered.
What could possibly be inside the Vault Room that Odette visited every single day?
Since she showed it to no one, the servants speculated it must be brimming with dazzlingly expensive dresses and extravagant jewelry—treasures so magnificent they’d blind the eye.
“…Sigh.”
Yet what filled the Vault Room was not gold, but pale smoke and ash.
Exhaling cigarette smoke, Odette tossed papers into a small brazier.
One sheet, then another.
“Where on earth did the previous Count and Countess spend all this money?”
The white papers, now turning ashen gray, were debt documents of House of Plibie.
“Even after purchasing so many bonds, I’ve only eliminated half of them….”
The marriage of the only daughter of the Crimson Merchant Guild and the indebted Count Plivier.
In the Medior Empire, the status of nobility was exceptionally high. The peerage laws were strict, making titles correspondingly rare.
Yet people whispered that the Count had made a profitable bargain—after all, in a single marriage, his father-in-law had paid off enormous debts.
However, such talk came from those who didn’t know Kaileb Crimson.
Kaileb hadn’t forgiven the debts. He had merely purchased the bonds of the previous Count Plivier—debts scattered across various creditors—under the Crimson name.
“Only the hand holding the leash changed.”
Odette muttered with cold derision.
On paper, Basil owed a debt to Kaileb.
Kaileb had magnanimously declared he would forgive the debt entirely if Basil “performed his duties as a son-in-law well”—but what condition could be more subjective than “if he performs well”?
At the slightest misstep, Kaileb would sell Basil’s bonds to debt collectors. Odette discovered this fact one month after the marriage, when creditors came calling on Basil.
“What do you mean? My father paid off all the debts. So why are you demanding repayment from the Count….”
They were taking tea together while touring the county to maintain the appearance of a “harmonious” couple.
Odette rebuked the debt collector for his audacity in interrupting the Count and Countess’s teatime, but the creditor merely shrugged.
Only then did Odette see Basil’s face.
All color had drained from it, leaving it deathly pale.
“Let us speak alone. One interruption to my teatime is quite enough.”
Yet as he rose and departed without hesitation, as though accustomed to such humiliation and shame, his retreating figure lodged in her heart like a thorn.
From that day forward, Odette began secretly purchasing Basil’s bonds through bankers she knew, as they circulated in the market.
Even Odette didn’t understand why she was doing this.
After all, it was money Crimson had promised to repay anyway—selling my dresses and jewels to clear it instead isn’t strange. I’m Crimson too. I’m simply doing what Father couldn’t manage.
Father must have made a mistake. There must have been an oversight….
Yet even thinking this way, I couldn’t bring myself to ask Father directly.
“Why does Father keep talking about grandchildren? It’s a political marriage anyway, isn’t it?”
So I asked something else instead.
A question: Why would Father, who dismissed and ridiculed Basil with every word, want grandchildren?
Kaileb laughed. “Yes, I can see why you’d hate it,” he said.
It was true that Odette despised the political marriage.
…But that was because I disliked loveless marriage, not because I disliked Basil.
Odette suppressed that answer and waited for Father’s next words.
“That’s precisely why I’m waiting—it’s a political marriage, after all. My greatest wish is to see our princess become the mother of a count.”
Odette was a dutiful daughter.
She had been raised that way. Yet she couldn’t bring herself to nod at this, so she changed the subject.
“Even so, wouldn’t it take decades for my child to become a count?”
“Well, it shouldn’t take that long.”
Under normal circumstances, she would have let it pass.
But something about his words—that it wouldn’t take long—gnawed at her.
Surely not. It couldn’t be.
Restless with inexplicable dread, Odette eventually learned of a small prank that had become fashionable in high society.
One would announce “I have a new family member,” observe reactions, then reveal “Just kidding! Were you surprised?” while showing off a newly acquired pet.
Odette decided to play this prank on Father. It was an elaborate prank—she even bribed a Doctor.
But she needed to see Father’s reaction. She had to understand why he so desperately wanted a grandchild.
The day she announced the news.
“Well done, my princess. Perfect timing.”
‘What does that mean?’
“If a year had passed without news, I would have found a way to procure a child somehow… Yes, this is more natural. But I’ll need to make preparations.”
Procure a child? More natural? Make preparations?
“You needn’t worry about anything, my princess. Even if a ‘problem’ arises, I will absolutely make you the mother of a count. Do you understand?”
…What on earth are you saying, Father?
But it was the moment she saw the gleam of exhilaration in his eyes.
The words to confess it was a prank, or to ask if he was scheming something without her knowledge, never left her lips.
Only then did a certain dissonance she had felt throughout her marriage—or perhaps ever since being born and raised as Kaileb Crimson’s Daughter—become crystalline.
Father, who praised me as “my princess” at every turn, surely harbored no ulterior motive.
He must be doing this because he wants me to be happy. That’s what I believed. Perhaps that’s what I wanted to believe.
“My beloved daughter, you need not know anything.”
Then why won’t you tell me anything?
And I’m already the count’s wife—why would you make me the count’s mother?
‘As if the current count will soon cease to exist….’
Kaileb’s Daughter was far from ignorant as he believed her to be. Just as Father thought he knew his daughter, she knew her father well. An ominous premonition seized her.
So she postponed the pregnancy. To reassure Father and to discern his movements through Norbert. She also needed justification for his sudden dismissal of servants and sale of possessions.
If Kaileb had bought people with money, one need only offer a larger sum.
Odette bribed the Doctor by surrendering all the precious items she had acquired through auctions. The Doctor accepted the terms.
After all, this lie had a deadline of ten months.
No one would forfeit the chance to gain fortune that could change their life, merely for adding flesh to a ten-month pregnancy fabrication.
Thus she could deceive Kaileb, but as time passed, pretending to be pregnant became increasingly difficult. Most of all, she couldn’t feign childbirth itself.
Moreover, the ominous premonition gradually hardened into certainty.
‘He’s holding a succession ceremony before the child is even born. Then, after the ceremony ends, Basil’s ‘usefulness’ will….’
cease to exist.
The moment that thought crossed her mind, Odette realized the truth.
If Father ever tried to harm Basil, there was only one thing she could do now.
Eliminate the very need to designate an heir. In other words, ensure that Basil and she were no longer anything to each other.
“Ha ha….”
‘But why.’
Knock, knock—
“Madam, I heard you called for me.”
That man outside the door, who must have known the true nature of Kaileb Crimson far earlier than I, his own daughter, ever did—why wouldn’t he.
…grant me a divorce.
With a hollow laugh, Odette opened the vault room door while holding the cigarette in her hand.
Basil appeared. Despite the acrid, burnt smell mixed with tobacco smoke that must have assaulted him the moment he entered, he didn’t retreat and simply stood there.
“Come in.”
Only after permission was granted did Basil finally step into the room.
He was always like this. He feared me. His face was perpetually pale, cold sweat beading on his forehead, as though merely looking at me caused him discomfort and tension.
Odette despised it. It felt like a constant reminder that despite the name of marriage, we were nothing but creditor and debtor.
Odette deliberately met Basil’s gaze and drew in a long drag of cigarette smoke, then exhaled. One breath, then another.
After a long moment, Basil’s lips finally parted.
“…Did you smoke before?”
“Sometimes, in secret from Father before the marriage. But lately, strangely, I’ve been smoking more often.”
“I didn’t know.”
That’s it?
Odette let out a bitter laugh.
“Don’t you have anything else to say?”
Basil’s weak, gentle eyes gazed at Odette. Then slowly, he shook his head.
Odette stubbed out the cigarette roughly and stepped closer.
“Really nothing to say?”
Basil blinked several times before asking quietly.
“Has life at the estate… been very suffocating?”
“Ha.”
“I have no interest in smoking, so I wouldn’t know. But I’ve heard people usually turn to it when their hearts feel stifled. So when you say you’ve been smoking frequently lately… I’m a little, concerned.”
Odette bit her lip.
“No. That’s not it.”
Odette’s expression twisted.
“That’s not the question you should be asking. You know it.”
“….”
“You should be asking if a pregnant woman should be smoking like this.”
“….”
“Whether I’m even pregnant at all… isn’t that what you should be asking.”
Odette covered her face.
“We’ve never even spent a night together, let alone kissed. …So whose child am I carrying if not yours? Why won’t you ask? Why won’t you call me a liar, why!”
“….”
“Then why won’t you… divorce me?”
Odette lowered her hand, her voice breaking.
Her eyes burned with heat, and her vision blurred.
Through the haze, she pleaded with the man before her.
“…Let’s get divorced. Please, let’s divorce. Okay?”

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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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