Pale pink hair. Eyes slightly darker than that. An impression that still looked gentle despite gritting her teeth.

Has she aged a bit since before? The youthful and playful face in her memory now bore the weight of time. The title of Viscount, which she used to tease as ill-fitting, now felt quite appropriate.

Apart from the joy of seeing him, confusion surged. She had come to the reception room looking for Luke who was late for breakfast, but why was her elder brother standing here? With such an angry expression, no less.

Aria stopped her feet instead of running to him as usual. Now she was no longer Dylan’s one and only precious younger sister, but merely an former employee with an employer relationship from long ago.

Digging deeper, perhaps they were enemies. Considering that Aria was the one who smuggled away Elodie’s daughter, and was an indirect cause of her death, that might be a more fitting word choice.

An enemy who killed oneself. Aria inwardly let out a hollow laugh. It was because her own situation felt so absurd. Separate from the joy of getting a second chance.

“…So you were in this mansion after all, Aria Hilton.”

Aria acknowledged Dylan’s voice that finally rang out.

‘After all’, he says.

Had rumors spread?

Aria lifted her skirt slightly with a very awkward feeling, and bowed her head politely to him.

“I greet you… Viscount of Rothwell.”

“There’s no need for such formal greetings. Rather, don’t you have something to say to me?”

“Something to say?”

“I heard that you were the one who brought the Duke’s illegitimate child.”

“…Illegitimate child?”

Aria, who was about to nod, paused at her elder brother’s choice of words.

Illegitimate child. Illegitimate child?

Was there another Duke in the Empire besides Luke Lisianthus? For a moment, such an absurd thought crossed her mind.

But thinking carefully, she understood why he had made such an assumption.

Even Elodie herself would have thought her daughter was stillborn if she hadn’t listened to Aria’s words just before dying.

Dylan, who hadn’t witnessed the birth process and only heard the result, would feel even more so. Aria carefully chose her words.

“That… You’ll know when you see for yourself.”

“See for myself?”

Dylan’s expression worsened at Aria’s incomprehensible words. He tilted his head with his arms crossed.

“Right. I suppose I do need to see what kind of child it is.”

Though his attitude was utterly hostile, Aria knew he could never harm Bonita.

Well, because he would know just by looking once.

Bonita is Elodie’s daughter.

It was an undeniable truth.

While the two were talking, Luke and Renan came out of the reception room. Renan’s gaze, which had been conversing with the Duke, turned to his elder brother, then shifted to the blonde woman in front of him.

His brow furrowed. After briefly searching his memory, he recalled that the beautiful woman of indeterminate age was the maid who had previously served Elodie.

Aria Hilton. She was the very woman who had brought the Duke’s child to the mansion.

“…”

Unlike Dylan, he didn’t even speak to Aria.

Luke, who had been watching the awkward confrontation, suggested to Dylan.

“We were just about to have breakfast. If you’d like, please join us.”

“Rather than that−”

“Bonita will be joining us too.”

Bonita was the name of that girl.

They’re already having cozy family meals when she hasn’t been here long? He felt inexplicably annoyed.

But it wasn’t worth pressing further here. Strictly speaking, the Duke having a child wasn’t a big issue in itself.

Unlike the Crocus Empire, which frowned upon infidelity and considered loving one spouse for life a virtue, the nobles of the Aleph Kingdom preferred to leave as many descendants as possible.

It was the difference between the Empire, which passed titles to the first-born legitimate child regardless of gender, and the Kingdom, where male-preference succession culture had developed.

Not only the great nobles, but even the lower nobles in the provinces kept concubines discreetly.

Especially for a ducal house with few heirs, they needed to actively produce even illegitimate children to prevent the line from dying out. The reason Luke or the previous Duke Lisianthus didn’t do so was simply because they were devoted husbands.

But feeling betrayed was unavoidable. Dylan silently followed behind the Duke.

Aria watched Dylan’s retreating back. Then Renan, who had been quiet, suddenly spoke to her.

“Miss Hilton, was it?”

“Huh? Ah, yes.”

She didn’t show the same courtesy to Renan as she had earlier. While the Rothwell Count family was certainly an old and prestigious house, Renan’s status as one who wouldn’t inherit the title wasn’t particularly high.

If pressed, it would probably be similar to Aria, who would receive the Hilton baronetcy.

Of course, one could find fault if they wanted to, but the Renan she knew wasn’t that fussy.

“The atmosphere seems different.”

“…Pardon?”

“The Miss Hilton I knew didn’t have this kind of feeling.”

At Renan’s words, Aria fell into thought.

Had the real Aria been acquainted with Renan?

“Hmm.”

Renan’s pale pink irises scrutinized Aria thoroughly. As if seeing right through her.

“Something… No, never mind.”

Come to think of it, Renan had an exceptionally good eye for people. His luck too.

In social circles, it was rumored that this was because he had inherited the fairy blood flowing in the Rothwell line most strongly.

Regardless of whether that was true, Renan’s intuition was certainly good. That ‘intuition’ had multiplied the Rothwell Count family’s assets several times over with his business acumen.

…Perhaps he might be able to tell?

Such expectation rose slightly. Of course, she wasn’t thinking about it seriously.

It had been a long time since black magic disappeared. Moreover, even that last black magic was the kind that controlled people or created holes in the sky for monsters to appear.

Putting a dead person into a living person’s body. It’s normal to think… that such a thing isn’t possible.

A strange standoff continued between the two. Meanwhile, they had arrived in front of the dining room.

The servant guarding the front opened the door with a silent bow. Dylan’s eyes darted sharply.

‘The old Lady Lisianthus?’

The first person to catch his eye was an elderly woman with a stern expression, dressed in an old-fashioned dress. Even past sixty, her eyes were still so piercing that Dylan momentarily flinched.

Renan, standing behind, bowed his head politely.

“It’s been a long time, Lady Lisianthus.”

“…It’s been a long time.”

Dylan followed his younger brother’s greeting half a beat late. The lady gazed at the two as if looking at annoying insects.

“What’s this? So suddenly.”

The person she addressed was not the two of them, but her son, Duke Lisianthus.

“They visited early in the morning. We can’t send them away without offering breakfast, can we?”

“Tsk. At this crack of dawn? Really, young people these days don’t know proper visiting etiquette.”

Catherine clicked her tongue after checking the time. It was just that the Lisianthus ducal family unusually enjoyed early mornings, while most nobles started their day around 11 AM, getting up late.

8 AM could indeed be called the crack of dawn.

The Rothwell brothers knew this fact well, so they just cleared their throats awkwardly.

It was then that a small figure popped out from behind the old Lady Lisianthus.

“Ah− Aria!”

Bonita, sensing the presence of strangers behind her, quickly changed the word ‘mother’. It was because of Aria’s request the day before.

“Bonita. If there are other people around, call me by my name. Aria.”

“By your name?”

“Yes.”

Bonita was very displeased that she couldn’t call her mother ‘mother’. Moreover, wasn’t calling her mother by name something only ill-mannered children would do?

But Aria’s eyes looked so sad as she made the request that Bonita couldn’t object.

“You can call me that when it’s just the two of us though. Understand, daughter?”

“…I understand.”

Aria’s request was extremely timely. Thanks to that, the two Rothwell brothers could purely watch Bonita running towards Aria without any other assumptions.

“Bonita.”

“I was waiting because you didn’t come. Um, Aria.”

Bonita, holding onto Aria’s skirt, smiled brightly. At the sight of the baby angel-like appearance, a grin spread across Aria’s face as well.

“Were you very hungry?”

“Not that much!”

Bonita’s head turned after answering bravely. Her eyes wavered as two men who looked strikingly similar to her entered her view.

‘Who are they?’

Until now, no other nobles had visited the mansion. At most, it was Catherine who had barged in while they were enjoying a picnic by the lake, or the two priests who had visited for the paternity test.

Among them, Catherine was originally a member of the Lisianthus family, so it was hard to call her a ‘different’ noble. So for Bonita, this was her first time seeing nobles who weren’t blood relatives. (In fact, they were blood relatives.)

On the other hand, the shock the two men experienced was incomparable to what Bonita felt.

They stood still in that spot as if nailed down. They felt dazed as if hit on the back of the head with a hammer.

Even the hot-tempered Dylan couldn’t say anything and just opened and closed his mouth. He rubbed his eyes as if he couldn’t believe what he was seeing, then soon crouched down as if his legs had lost strength.

Coincidentally, it was right in front of Bonita. Their eye levels matched perfectly.

Their eyes were so similar, as if looking in a mirror. Dylan muttered blankly.

“I-Illegitimate child, you said? But that’s not it?”

“…What nonsense are you suddenly spouting?”

Luke, who had been watching the scene, retorted as if dumbfounded.