The Villainess Duke Lady Hides Her Identity - Chapter 12

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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 12

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Leponya had no intention of escalating the matter. She simply needed a safe place.
Her plan was to have the retainers and the Duke keep each other in check, each harboring just enough suspicion to prevent any of their malice from growing beyond control.
But if the retainers were blamed for crimes they hadn’t committed, the hatred directed at her would only intensify.
‘This won’t do.’
Or worse—if it were revealed as a setup, she’d be held responsible and cast out.
Leponya bolted upright from her seat.
‘I need to go to Duke Craiton’s study right now.’
Buddy and Becky had asked her to wait while they went to inquire if a visit to the study would be permitted, but there was no time for such formalities.
‘Has he already figured out I’m the one behind this?’
Leponya hurried out of her bedroom. Perhaps due to the commotion, there was no knight stationed outside her door.
‘Good. Let’s go.’
Leponya shifted her still-unhealed leg forward. That was when it happened.
“Hey.”
Tap, whoosh—!
“Huh?”
Someone seized her shoulder. Before she could react, her body lifted into the air, and her vision tilted.
Her feet left the carpet, and when she regained her senses, she found herself dangling at someone’s side.
“What is this?”
A light voice came from above her.
Leponya turned her head to see who was holding her at their hip.
Her eyes met those of a man looking down at her with an expression of mild annoyance.
A man whose silver hair, unruly and unbound, fluttered carelessly in the breeze.
His eyebrows and eyes tilted upward, giving him a fierce appearance.
His blue eyes were as cold as frozen ice, and with several buttons of his shirt undone, he looked far from orderly.
“Hey.”
Not to mention the way he spoke without restraint to a stranger he’d just met.
“Who are you?”
A man unkind to outsiders at the estate.
‘The household’s notorious second son….’
It wasn’t difficult to deduce the man’s identity.
Felrens Craiton.
Second son of the Craiton Family and a notorious troublemaker.
Perhaps because he was an Aura Master, his face looked young like Duke Craiton’s—barely appearing to be the same age as the true Leponya, who had only recently come of age.
“Who are you, making that face, in my house, coming out of my father’s bedroom?”
His tone was aggressive. With an expression threatening enough to resort to violence, Felrens interrogated her.
‘There’s no way he doesn’t know I’ve been adopted.’
Leponya closed her mouth and fixed her gaze on Felrens’s face. If he truly thought her an outsider, he would have drawn his sword already.
He wasn’t asking because he didn’t know. He was asking even though he knew everything.
‘If he already knows everything….’
Leponya slowly parted her lips.
“Who are you?”
“What?”
“I’ve never seen you before. The Duke warned me to be careful of strangers. If you’re curious who I am, you should introduce yourself first.”
There was no need to play along. It wasn’t as though Felrens managed the family’s heirlooms, nor was he the household head who could expel her.
Leponya shot Felrens a suspicious look and brought her fist down on his arm.
“Put me down.”
She’d spoken at length, and her tongue felt heavy.
“Ha.”
Felrens, who’d suddenly taken a punch from what appeared to be a five-year-old, let out an incredulous laugh.
Felrens set Leponya down onto the carpet.
“My name? You’ll be shocked when you hear it.”
“I won’t be.”
“Really? Felrens Craiton.”
Felrens introduced himself as if proposing a test.
“Haven’t you heard the rumors about the second son of this house? He’s a reckless vandal with a terrible personality, so bad they have to keep him on a leash just to manage him.”
Felrens bent his knees to meet five-year-old Leponya’s eye level.
“I’m that second son.”
Beneath his playful tone, his eyes betrayed suspicion and wariness, contempt and rage in full measure.
He couldn’t expose his emotions so nakedly to a five-year-old child, so he masked them behind that jesting manner.
But the fact that he’d come unannounced made it clear he’d rushed here to oppose this adoption business.
‘Should I greet him back?’
While Leponya deliberated, Felrens crinkled his face and irritably swept his hair back.
“Something feels… off.”
“Hmm?”
“Ha. So what kind of con artist was this that Father fell for her so completely? She’s come prepared, hasn’t she.”
“Hmm?”
“Little one. Where’d you get that face?”
Your face? Leponya reached up to touch her own.
“It’s just my face.”
“Didn’t anyone teach you that you get punished for doing bad things?”
Leponya’s brow furrowed. Was he really insulting her face? She understood his opposition to the adoption, but criticizing her appearance—that was too much.
“Ha. So you came with a plan, did you. …Little one.”
“Leponya.”
Leponya held Felrens’s icy gaze unflinchingly.
“Leponya Craiton.”
Felrens’s face hardened with killing intent—the kind of expression that would make any five-year-old cry and run away.
But Leponya continued flatly.
“An adoption doesn’t go through just because I want it alone. You al—”
…She couldn’t bring herself to call him “brother.”
Leponya closed her lips briefly in thought, then pressed her tongue firmly and, stifling a cough that seemed about to burst, spoke again.
“…You know that well enough.”
“You?”
That was an unconventional way for a five-year-old to address someone.
“If my adoption bothers you, don’t come to me—go find the Duke.”
Felrens’s eyebrows lifted askew.
“It’s cowardly to come to a five-year-old like this. I don’t understand why adults always act so cowardly toward me.”
“Adults? Ah. I saw some servants here earlier—are you talking about them?”
“It’s not me who can dissolve the adoption. It’s the Duke. If you don’t like me, go to the Duke and ask him to dissolve it. Either way, my opinion doesn’t matter for disadoption, so if you just convince the Duke… Hack, hack!”
She’d talked too much. Leponya contorted her face and coughed violently. Her throat stung; tears welled up.
She wiped them away roughly with the back of her hand, then heaved a shaky breath and spoke.
“The Duke picked me up off the street. The Duke is the one who talked about adoption. So talk to the Duke. Understood?”
“Hey, wait.”
“I’m busy. I have to go. Goodbye.”
Leponya turned sharply, offering a curt farewell. She needed to get to the Duke’s study quickly—she’d wasted enough time already.
She had to get there soon and tell him to settle this matter quietly without making it bigger than it needed to be.
Only then could she live safely until she left this place.
Leponya hurried her small feet along. Then she crinkled her face and whirled around abruptly.
“Why are you following me?”
Felrens, who’d been casually trailing behind Leponya, tilted his head.
“There’s a burnt smell coming from the mansion. Do you know why?”
“You could ask someone else.”
“They all look busy.”
“I’m also bus— Hack, hack!”
“It seems faster to just answer me, little one.”
Even after being told her name, he still called her “little one.” Leponya glared at Felrens and grasped her burning throat.
Because she was in the form of a child, it was fortunate that Felrens seemed not to expose all his negative emotions the way the rumors suggested.
“There was a fire in my bedroom.”
Ah. Her tongue… Leponya twisted her face and spoke slowly and carefully.
“That’s why there’s a burnt smell in the mansion. The fire’s been put out, and they’re investigating who caused it, which is why I have to go quickly. Got it?”
Surely all his questions were answered now.
Leponya turned sharply again and walked as fast as she could. But Felrens merely followed behind her at a leisurely pace with his long legs.
After only a few steps, Leponya stopped again.
“Why are you following me again?”
“I still don’t understand some things. I wanted to ask you more, but you walked away first.”
“If you studied with that kind of curiosity, you would have graduated from the Academy already.”
“You know I didn’t graduate from the Academy?”
“Your father told me.”
“My father isn’t busy bragging about his children—he’s busy criticizing them. Anyway, your bedroom caught fire, didn’t it?”
“Yes. Why?”
“What were you doing at the time?”
Felrens’s eyes gleamed sharply.
‘What? Why is he asking that? Did he infer something from what I said?’
Leponya answered with a reluctant expression.
“I was sleeping.”
“In the place where the fire was?”
“Yes.”
Felrens nodded and stepped toward Leponya. She swallowed hard.
“Little one.”
“Mm?”
“You’re five years old, aren’t you?”
Felrens reached out his hand. Was he about to hit her? Without thinking, Leponya shrank back and squeezed her eyes shut.
“Yet you speak remarkably well. I was still babbling at five, according to what I was told.”
Felrens slipped his hands under her armpits and hoisted her up. Startled by the sudden height, Leponya clenched both fists tightly.
“Little one. Did you notice you’ve been trembling the whole time?”
She’d only just regained consciousness, so her body was still shaking.
“I just woke up from fainting, so…”
Embarrassed, Leponya mumbled as Felrens carried her along, dangling from his hands.
“Little one. Whether you’re a con artist who deceived my father or not—that’s a separate matter. For now, since you’ve been granted Craiton Castle, no one can attack you.”
“What?”
“If someone intentionally set fire to your bedroom, then that perpetrator deserves to die for attacking the Craiton Family.”
Deserves to die.
Leponya—no, the perpetrator who set the fire—faltered.
“We’re going to Father’s study, aren’t we? I’ll take you there.”
Felrens’s face turned glacial in an instant.
It was completely different from how he’d treated Leponya moments before. His chilling gaze was so terrifying that merely looking at it made her body tremble.
‘Wait. That’s separate.’
Leponya looked down at her suspended body and her legs dangling uselessly in the air. The position was ridiculous. He wasn’t holding her in an embrace—he was simply carrying her along with his hands under her armpits, letting her hang.
“This—this is absurd. Put me down!”
“It would be strange for me to hold a con artist in my arms. But I’m not heartless enough to ignore a five-year-old who’s trembling from shock.”
“Ignore me! Please, just ignore me!”
Dangling helplessly, Leponya covered her face with both hands in mortification.
“You’re right, little one. It was my father who adopted you, and it’s my father who should decide on disadoption. I vented my frustration on you, not him. So instead of an apology, let me tell you something.”
Felrens spoke with utmost seriousness.
“If you became a daughter here expecting family or anything like that, you’d better stop right now.”
………
“This family has no family.”

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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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