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Chapter 5.
Rainer Hayes (1)
Inside was a single cufflink with a subtle sheen.
It was the only keepsake Evan’s mother had left behind.
But Cecilia now knew it was no mere keepsake.
「G.H」
The initials of Duke Gilbert Hayes were engraved on the cufflink.
It was an item he had given as a gift to the maid who had been his lover.
And that maid was none other than Evan’s birth mother.
In my past life, this was how Evan proved he was the duke’s son.
But in this life, she couldn’t bear to watch that happen again.
Cecilia carefully tucked the cufflink into her bosom.
She intended to think slowly about how to use it.
I think that’s everything.
Cecilia checked her bag one last time and quietly closed it.
She had just been about to stand up.
“Cecilia! You damned girl! Where are you? Come out this instant! I won’t let you off the hook today!”
Tricia, Viscountess Osborn and Rosena’s mother, kicked the door open and burst in.
Rosena followed close behind her.
Smack!
“How dare you forget the kindness of those who raised you and stab us in the back? You wicked girl!”
Tricia strode over and slapped Cecilia across the cheek.
Cecilia rubbed her cheek and turned her gaze back.
The sight of the two women trembling, unable to contain their rage, almost made her laugh.
The kindness of those who raised me?
They had openly favored Rosena over her and scolded her at every turn.
Viscount Osborn and his wife had never been people who embraced Cecilia with warmth.
They had skipped meals and beaten a ten-year-old child at the slightest excuse.
Back then, Cecilia had simply believed it was her own fault.
But now she understood.
They had been afraid.
Afraid that Cecilia would someday ask for her parents’ estate back.
“I should never have taken in a creature like you in the first—”
Smack!
Before Tricia could finish.
This time, Cecilia’s palm struck her across the cheek.
Tricia, who had been jabbing a finger at her and spraying spittle, had her head whipped around.
Her cheek flushed red along the shape of Cecilia’s handprint.
She heard Rosena gasp in shock.
“Leah! Y-you, what do you think you’re—”
Smack!
Another sharp crack rang out, and the viscountess’s face snapped in the opposite direction.
“Oh my! This girl has gone mad!”
“H-how dare you!”
Rosena shrieked, and Tricia lunged at her with a face full of fury.
But Cecilia had no intention whatsoever of taking it lying down.
In an instant, she seized the viscountess’s arms and subdued her.
Being tall, Cecilia was more than a match for the Osborn mother and daughter.
“Let go! I said let go!”
Tricia thrashed about unbecomingly, her hair in disarray.
But the more she struggled, the tighter Cecilia gripped.
Then, with a frosty gaze, she spoke.
“You have no right to raise your voice, having raised your daughter so poorly.”
“What? How dare you strike an elder twice and then—”
“One of those was on Rosena’s behalf. Or shall I hit her instead?”
Cecilia jerked her chin toward Rosena.
Rosena’s expression stiffened.
Cecilia looked like she would genuinely hit her right now, pregnant or not.
Rosena hurriedly changed her attitude.
“L-Leah… Why are you suddenly acting like this?”
Rosena spoke in a tearful, pitiful voice.
Her big eyes were full of tears.
“If you were hurt, we could have talked about it beforehand. Why in front of so many people, of all places…”
Rosena tried to appeal with tears as a weapon, as always.
In the past, Cecilia’s heart had always softened at that sight.
But she refused to be played for a fool any longer.
“Oh, that? I did it on purpose.”
“…What?”
“Putting on a show is your family’s specialty, isn’t it? I was disgusted, and then a perfect opportunity came along.”
Rosena stood with her mouth agape, speechless in shock.
It was the first time in her life she had heard such harsh words from Cecilia.
She had always grinned like a fool and granted her every request!
Cecilia let go of the viscountess’s arms with a toss.
“Do you want to keep fighting? Then let’s go to the square together. Wouldn’t it be better to have an audience, while we’re at it?”
“Y-you…!”
“Mother! Are you all right?”
Tricia clutched the back of her neck and staggered.
Rosena rushed over to support her mother, but Cecilia, without so much as a glance, picked up her luggage and quietly headed for the entrance.
“Where do you think you’re going! Rosena! Send word home right now! Tell them we’re sending her to Marquis Dylan!”
Tricia shouted at the top of her lungs behind her.
Marquis Dylan was a shameless lecher who, even in his seventies, chased after women.
He was said to be looking for his sixth match.
He was the kind of prospect that every noble of Listea with a daughter shuddered at.
“You must be mistaken! Our house is still your guardian! So I’ll send a marriage proposal to the marquis’s house right away! Even that is too good for you!”
The reason for bringing up the Dylan marquisate was obvious.
They meant to sell Cecilia off and pocket the wealth that would come in return.
That they did such calculations even in this situation was truly Osborn through and through.
“Hey, where are you going! I’m not done talking!”
Cecilia ignored them and walked out the door.
Their words, spoken by creatures who weren’t even human, weren’t worth answering.
Once outside, she moved forward without hesitation.
For now, I’ll stay at a hotel.
Fortunately, she had some money she had been saving little by little since childhood.
It was made up of coins that the Osborn couple had tossed her one or two at a time as if doing her a favor, which she had secretly hoarded.
It couldn’t compare to the inheritance her parents had left, but it was enough to stay at a hotel for the time being.
The problem is what comes after.
She had come out with great momentum, but.
As the viscountess had said, legally Cecilia was still under the protection of the Osborn house.
Even if she was an adult, in matters of marriage she could not be entirely free of her guardian’s influence.
Once talks with the Dylan marquisate begin, things will get troublesome.
For an unmarried young lady with no background to stand against a noble house was realistically not easy.
Noble society always revolved around families.
What should I do…?
Cecilia kept thinking as she headed for the hotel.
What she needed now was a sturdy fence that neither the Osborn viscounty nor the Dylan marquisate would dare touch.
Three days after the commotion at Cecilia’s wedding.
A carriage arrived in front of the ducal residence of Hayes.
It was the carriage that Rainer had ridden back from the family’s territory.
“Welcome back, my lord.”
Stepping down from the carriage, Rainer gave a light nod to his aide Harry, who had come out to greet him.
The midday sun illuminated his sharp jawline, as if carved with a chisel, and the high, straight bridge of his nose.
Even his dark black hair, lightly tousled by the spring breeze, remained impeccably neat.
Standing with his long legs planted on the ground, Rainer slowly removed his gloves.
Elegant dignity seeped from even that trivial gesture, but his expression was hard.
It was always like this on the day he returned from the Hayes territory.
“Is the dowager in good health?”
“Sadly, she’s still walking around perfectly well on her own two feet.”
At Harry’s question, Rainer frowned and loosened his cravat.
It was a rare moment of him showing emotion, he who always carried himself with restraint.
And no wonder: the relationship between him and Elise was the worst imaginable.
“For a vulgar bastard, you cling to the Hayes name like a dog, straining with all your might.”
Outwardly, Rainer was known as the late-born son of the Grand Duchess Elise.
But the reality was different.
He was an illegitimate son, born between the late Duke of Hayes and his mistress, Mariana.
Elise, proud both as a noblewoman and as a woman, could not accept her husband’s infidelity.
Even if every man in the world kept a mistress, her husband alone should not have.
To be laughed at by people over this was a humiliation worse than death to her.
All her rage and despair had fallen upon her husband’s young mistress, and in the end Mariana had met her death in a mysterious fire.
After that, Elise had subjected Rainer, who had come into the ducal residence, to verbal abuse and violence.
“If it’s truly so hard, perhaps you might refrain from going for a while.”
His faithful aide Harry advised him cautiously.
Now that he had distinguished himself in the war and become the crown prince’s closest confidant, Rainer could receive a sufficiently high title even without the Hayes dukedom.
With part of the inheritance from the late duke and his war rewards added, he also lacked nothing in wealth.
Harry was dissatisfied that Rainer went out of his way to visit Elise and endure needless insults.
“Do you think I go because I like it? I go so the old men of Hayes can see me.”
But Rainer raised a hand and rejected his aide’s advice.
There was only one reason he performed the courtesies of a son toward Elise, even if only on the surface.
The Hayes dukedom.
The fire that had killed his mother Mariana had undoubtedly been Elise’s doing.
But all he had was suspicion.
To uncover the truth, he needed to climb to a position higher than Elise’s and press her.
“My brother won’t last long. Until then, I mustn’t give the Hayes retainers any grounds to fault me.”
By good fortune, Gilbert, Elise’s son, had no children and was bedridden with illness.
Therefore Rainer was the likely candidate for the next duke.
Until then, he had no choice but to keep his head down and endure dealing with that vile old woman.
Avoiding unnecessary gossip was also crucial.
“Oh, by the way, there is a guest in the reception room at the moment.”
At that report, Rainer stopped in his tracks.
