The Villainess Duke Lady Hides Her Identity - Chapter 4

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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 4

The Duke drew Reponya close, then slipped his hands under both her armpits and lifted her high into the air with a swift motion.
‘Ah!’
She’d been carried before—slung over shoulders like a sack—but never like this, dangling toward the sky. Without thinking, frightened Reponya gripped the Duke’s wrists tightly.
“……Oh.”
The Duke’s brief response came as he lifted her higher still.
For a five-year-old, the child’s body was remarkably light, rising effortlessly.
“Having fun?”
Reponya, whose eyes had held nothing but wariness until now, flushed with embarrassment.
“N-no, put me down!”
At her age, such games were absurd. Worse, far too many eyes were watching.
Heat flooded her face, and Reponya screwed her eyes shut.
A soft laugh escaped him. Cautiously, she cracked one eye open.
“Now that’s more like a proper five-year-old.”
The Duke gazed at her with evident satisfaction.
The Butler approached from behind him.
Their eyes met. The moment he saw Reponya’s face, the Butler froze mid-step, his expression startled, as though nailed to the ground.
‘What’s wrong with him?’
The Butler, now ashen, spoke carefully, watching for his master’s reaction.
“Your Grace, this little guest—”
“Reponya.”
The Duke spoke her name while watching her glow brilliant in the sunlight.
Reponya couldn’t tell if he was speaking to her or introducing her to the Butler, so she pressed her lips firmly shut.
It seemed the Duke had no intention of waiting for an answer, for he continued without pause.
“Reponya Kraithan.”
“……!!”
At those words, the Butler fell silent. The servants standing with their heads bowed froze.
Even Reponya, suspended in the air above them, gasped.
Every eye widened in shock.
“From today onward, this child will become my daughter.”
His low voice carried across the spacious manor.
‘Does this mean I’m becoming a Noble Daughter?’
A daughter. She had only hoped not to be taken away or sold—and she would have been grateful merely to find work as a maid.
But a daughter?
Reponya’s eyes drifted toward the servants—where, by all rights, she should have stood.
The stunned Butler ventured to remonstrate with the Duke.
“Your Grace. You’re being hasty—letting emotion override careful judgment—”
“I gave it sufficient thought on the journey here.”
“Even so, adoption requires procedure.”
“You mean verifying the prospective parent is of sound standing? Is there anyone in this empire with credentials more certain than mine? The means to raise a child? I doubt anyone in this empire surpasses me in that regard either.”
“But this is not a purchase, sir. Surely a little more consideration—”
The Butler was right. Even purchasing goods didn’t happen this way.
As Reponya nodded in agreement, the Duke’s expression hardened and he fixed the Butler with a sharp look.
“Is deliberation only deliberation if I take time, and hasty only if I decide quickly? The moment I saw this child, I felt it. And if I sent her back to the Orphanage to think it over slowly, I know—I absolutely know—I would regret it.”
The Butler exhaled a long, heavy sigh.
“But surely the little guest’s own wishes ought to be heard.”
“Then, Reponya, I give you a choice.”
Her hair, loosened from its tie, brushed against the Duke’s cheek. Though their eye color differed, their hair seemed alike enough that one might think them truly family.
“You’ve heard it already, but you should have gone to the Orphanage. If we cannot locate your family or find a guardian after confirming your origins, you would remain there.”
Reponya knew this path all too well.
“And you would smile prettily whenever prospective sponsors arrived, always trying to present yourself well, hoping someone would adopt you.”
“…….”
“But I have no intention of sending you to such a place. All of that is unnecessary. I intend to adopt you myself.”
Why? Why would someone adopt a child he doesn’t even know, after merely a moment’s thought, as though purchasing an object?
“However, if you wish not to stay here, I will send you to the Orphanage at once.”
What of searching for his lost youngest daughter?
The words caught on the tip of her tongue, but she swallowed them down instead of speaking.
The Noble Daughter of House Kraithan had been attacked and gone missing twenty years ago. If she were alive, she would be twenty by now. So if the Duke had been considering adoption, it would make sense for him to adopt a girl who was the same age as his lost daughter—twenty years old.
Instead, he was talking about adopting Reponya, a girl he’d met by chance on the street. He knew nothing about who she was or where she came from.
‘Ah. This might be Adoption Play.’
Adoption Play. A game nobility played as a matter of course.
When they were bored or needed a child to handle family affairs, they would simply adopt any child.
Since they could always annul the adoption when they tired of it or the child’s purpose had been served, it wasn’t something the nobility gave much serious thought to.
Or they could put the child on the marriage market and sell her off to a good family.
During her time at the Orphanage, she had seen children easily adopted and then annulled, or sold off under the pretense of marriage.
Now she understood.
‘He means to use me as a substitute for the Noble Daughter he lost.’
It was common for nobles to adopt a child of the same gender as a lost or deceased child, treat them well, and ease their guilt in that way.
It happened frequently in aristocratic society.
They would raise the child until adulthood, then either annul the adoption or send her away somewhere inconspicuous and distant.
‘It’s a common story.’
Otherwise, there would be no reason for him to adopt a child he’d seen for the first time on the street.
‘If I become the Noble Daughter of House Kraithan.’
It would be far easier to move through that vast mansion, easier to search for the heirlooms.
Reponya swallowed hard. She’d been thinking in silence for quite some time, but the Duke did not press her.
‘He thinks he’ll use me as a substitute in his Adoption Play. I’ll tear that arrogant notion to shreds.’
If he was using her as a substitute on his end, she could use him just the same on hers.
“I’ll do it.”
Reponya quieted her turbulent emotions and smiled. It was something she’d learned since childhood—not difficult at all.
“I’ll become your daughter.”
She heard dry breath drawn in from those around them.
“Butler.”
“Yes, Your Grace.”
“The girl—no, the Noble Daughter. Prepare the Annulment of Adoption papers for the Noble Daughter. If there’s anything else needed, see to that as well.”
“Very good.”
She had finally been called the Noble Daughter. Reponya felt her cheeks flush as she buried her face in her small hands.
The Duke, who had been holding her aloft, set her down on the ground. At the same moment, the servants bowed in unison with perfect coordination.
“We greet you, Noble Daughter.”
She had posed as a nobleman with false identities while on assignments before, but this was the first time she had received treatment as a Noble Daughter from the servants of an actual aristocratic house.
‘It was the right choice.’
Reponya, as if unaccustomed to such treatment, rolled her eyes about.
It was the day she officially became the Noble Daughter of House Kraithan.

* * *

The Duke suggested they eat first since he was hungry, but Reponya refused.
This mansion was so grand and vast, so clean and fragrant, that simply being in it made her feel out of place.
She wanted to wash herself—still covered in grime as she was.
“I don’t want to eat while I smell like this. Let me wash up first.”
“Who said you smelled?”
“Well, does anyone need to say it? You can see it just by looking.”
“I don’t see it.”
The Duke tilted his head with an expressionless face. His attitude suggested there was nothing wrong with her appearance.
“Just, I want to see the bedroom too. I’m sleeping here from today on, right?”
There was a chance the Duke might change his mind in the meantime. Since he’d made the decision so easily, he could revoke it just as easily.
To avoid being cast out, she had to secure her own space in this mansion first.
“…Am I not?”
Reponya swallowed hard and looked up at the Duke with an anxious expression.
When their eyes met, the Duke reached out and stroked her hair.
“Why would you ask such an obvious thing with such worry? Of course you’ll sleep here from today on.”
The Duke ordered the maidservants to bathe Reponya and show her to a bedroom.
Reponya proceeded as she’d hoped—soaking herself in a warm bath and washing, then heading to the bedroom where she would stay.
She had wanted to wash herself alone, but the maidservants insisted on helping, and she nearly died from the ordeal.
Her body might be five years old, but her mind wasn’t.
She had tried hard to refuse, but the maidservants kept popping sweet candy into her mouth as if coaxing a child, and she finally gave up and let herself be bathed, feeling utterly exposed.
When the maidservants saw the scars and marks that remained on Reponya’s body, they flinched, but they did not show it.
Because Reponya didn’t mind in the least.
After washing, there were no prepared children’s clothes available, so she put back on the same dress she’d been wearing—and the maids felt so guilty about it, you’d think they’d committed a crime.
‘Nobles change their clothes every day, after all……’
Reponya buried her nose in the fabric and sniffed.
At the Orphanage or the poorhouse, she’d worn the same garment for more than a month at a stretch without thinking twice, and during her time at the residence the Pope had arranged, she’d cycled through only a handful of dresses, wearing each for days on end—so she paid it no mind.
‘It doesn’t smell at all, having just come out of the wash.’
Reponya withdrew her hand from the dress and looked around the bedroom she’d been shown to. The maids who had escorted her seemed troubled by the shabbiness of her clothes and left, saying they would go see if any garments the young masters had worn in childhood remained.
Alone now, Reponya was free to examine the bedroom at leisure.
‘This room—.’
Sunlight poured through the generous windows, filling the space with the warm, woody scent of daylight. Beside an enormous fireplace, dry firewood was stacked in generous abundance, and behind it sat a carved Wooden Horse in the shape of an animal, perfectly suited for a five-year-old Reponya to ride and play upon.
The horse, crafted by a master artisan, had been smoothed and lacquered with evident care. The carpet spread across the floor was thick enough that a child could fall without injury, and the bookshelf holding picture books and fairy tales was deliberately low.
What’s more, the bed was astonishingly spacious for a room supposedly prepared for a five-year-old Reponya.
A bedroom prepared entirely to a child’s measure.
‘……So this is the room he kept ready for that daughter he lost.’

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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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