After retiring to my chambers for the rest of the night, I began to write down my plans.
***
Plan A:
Escape on the morning of the 31st of August on the day of my baptism. There should be a merchant's carriage leaving for the Imperial Lands sometime that morning. They said they would leave at sunrise. I have no chance of escaping during the day, so I will leave at around 5am on the day of my debut. If I sneak onto the carriage with the cargo right before they leave, then I doubt that they will check once I’m inside. My guards should be outside the door so they should be none the wiser until it’s time for me to wake up at around 8am.
Plan B:
If anything major in plan A changes then I will take a chance and pay the merchants to hide me, I should probably get some money from my birthday which is coming up. If I get caught then I’ll just run, there will be no way for me to escape if I come back. Worst case scenario, I’ll make a scene and say that I’m being kidnapped. The duke will probably put me under lockdown if I get caught, I think he only adopted me to keep up appearances. Between him and my future murderer, the estate isn’t safe. I’ll do whatever it takes to escape, my plan might not be the best thought out one, but it should work.
***
Once I finally lifted my quill from the parchment, my maid alerted me of the time. It had flown by as I plotted my escape. Now it was time for me to sleep.
The next few days had progressed as usual, and now it was the 12th of August, and Alice's birthday. It was my birthday.
I wonder what gifts Alice enjoys. Hopefully she’s given some money for my escape plan.
After being dressed in a gorgeous versuon of my dark blue dress, with minimal frills, giving it an elegant yet simple look, I went to the dining hall to eat breakfast. The duke was already there, waiting for me. After exchanging the appropriate greetings which, to my disappointment, were correct this time, I took a seat. Oddly enough, the duke –I meant father began a conversation with me. As soon as he had finished his first sentence I knew exactly what he was trying to say.
“I congratulate you on your seventh birthday, Alice, you are now officially my daughter, please conduct yourself in an appropriate fashion. You are now a member of the ducal family of Lambourg, and I am certain that you will not disappoint me.”
The hidden message behind his words was blatantly obvious to me. He was telling me that I mustn’t try anything as it would be futile. After all he did say that he was ‘certain’ that I would behave. I doubt that any of the staff had caught on, you would need to know the situation for that. To them it probably looked like a harmless interaction between the duke and his daughter. I was the only one who knew exactly what this meant.
Okay, if you want to be like that, I’ll play along.
“Why of course father, I will not disappoint you. Because remember, I am your daughter, everybody knows that.”
I then followed up with a big smile, as though I was proud to have been born as that monster’s child, not that I even had been. We then continued to sit there, exchanging enormous smiles. While his smile didn’t waver I decided to follow up with an innocent question.
“So father, how has work been? I hear that managing a duchy is quite difficult, you should be given an award for being such a great father whilst also operating a duchy.”
I watched his smile falter for a moment as delivered this blow to the gut.
“Yes, yes it has been great, I have many connections which allow me to get business done quite quickly, and spend more time with you dearest.”
He was trying to tell me that he was watching me, and that I shouldn’t try anything, but I remained unfazed. My smile deepened, this time genuinely.
“Oh that is positively wonderful, you must have so many connections due to your great reputation, I am certain that the neighbouring duchies think so as well.”
After this jab, the duke momentarily went quiet, as though thinking about how to respond. The chefs, who were still bringing out our breakfast, were eyeing us, obviously sensing the hostile environment. I simply ignored them, having quite a bit of fun with this conversation. The duke finally responded with a decent answer.
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“Yes, I have quite a good reputation with foreign duchies, I doubt that mind if I made a single small mistake.”
Wow, this man is good with his words, almost as good as me.
“That is quite a relief father. I am pleased that your business is going so well, but would that not still tank your reputation enormously, it would cause people to lose their trust in our grand duchy. Perhaps you should be more careful. I would hate for anything to happen.”
I smiled, positively certain that I had already won, and it turned out that I had. The duke responded with a relatively neutral answer, proving my victory.
“Yes, I suppose so. I will take your advice into account, my dearest daughter.”
“Why thank you, dearest father.”
And thus, our fun little conversation ended, replaced instead with a new topic.
“Your brother will be coming to visit today, I trust that you will welcome him warmly, after all, I hear that you two are quite close.”
“Yes, brother Albert will be coming to visit, I look forward to it.”
Watching my fathers face contort in shock brought a small smile to my face. Nowhere near as radiant as my fake smiles in our earlier conversation, but genuine. After the duke quickly recovered from the shock of my knowing about Albert, he quickly gave a careless reply.
“Anyways I simply wished to tell you about Albert coming today, I was unsure if you knew about him. He will be congratulating you on your birthday, please accept his congratulations elegantly.”
I responded with a quick and innocent, “Whyever would you think that I didn’t know about brother Albert. We are very close, he is my brother after all. Are you feeling alright?”
Trying to cover a grin which was forming on my face, I quickly stuffed a piece of egg into my mouth. This was almost too funny! Father remained silent.
***
“Did you notice? Lady Alice has been acting strange for the past week and a bit.”
The other maid vigorously nodded, “Yes! I noticed it too. One morning she even asked to wear her favourite dress! Can you believe it? She never lets us make her wear a dress so easily! She always struggles, begging to wear pants and a shirt, but lately, she’s been the perfect lady.”
“It certainly is strange, I wonder what happened. She changed right after she and the duke went on that trip”, the first maid mused.
“Maybe the master scolded her! …Though, he never really pays attention to her so I doubt that's the case. What do you think?”
“It’s definitely not because of a scolding, after all, whenever we scold her she never listens.”
“But we can’t exactly compare her to ourselves, can we?” the second maid responded.
“I suppose so, it must just be because she is growing now.”
“Yes, that must be the case”, the maids agreed.
As they were about to begin their conversation again they noticed the duke walking past. He was alone, in the servants quarters, strange, strange indeed. Once he had passed the maids exploded into whispers.
“Did you see that?”, the second maid mused, almost as though she was talking to herself. “I did, I did”, the first maid replied, almost squealing. They were excited, this was big news.
“What do you think he was doing?”, the second maid asked. “Isn’t it obvious?”
This time they both answered the first maid’s question, “HE WAS HAVING A RANDEVU WITH A SERVANT!!!” they squealed. They quickly forgot all about their previous conversation, and instead began to gossip about the duke’s supposed lover.
***
I was simply walking through the halls of my estate, searching for my butler, who had disappeared right after we had finished planning Alice’s engagement when I noticed two maids standing in a corner, squealing over something ridiculous. Usually I would've called them out but I had more important things to do. I could have sent another servant in search of him, but I needed to stretch my legs, to clear my mind.
This new daughter of mine is quite troublesome, sometimes I wonder if I would have been better off with the old one. No, no, this one is quite adept in noble mannerisms and such. It makes me wonder. Who is this girl from the orphanage?
Regardless, I doubt that I will be able to find a more suitable replacement. I had originally planned to simply fire all of the staff before bringing this girl here. But she can definitely pass for Alice, the only difference I have noticed is that her eyes are slightly darker than Alice’s, and Alice’s are already extremely dark for a daughter of a duke. Now I am even more curious. Who is this girl?
I sighed, I’m overthinking this. It is simply a coincidence. As I continued my stride towards the kitchen I found my doubts returning. But I needn’t worry, all shall be revealed once we discover her attributes. I sensed plenty of mana on the girl, probably just because she is older than Alice.
As I walked through the doors to the kitchen, I noticed all eyes turn to me. “You may continue”, I remarked.
These commoners, they are so… filthy.
This was my kitchen, but it was entirely different to the rest of the house I had been in. Other than the corridors in the servants quarters and orphanages which I saw, nothing came even close to this level of filth, especially not in my estate. This certainly proves that commoners are an inferior race.
They should all just be eradicated once and for all, that way they will not tarnish us nobles with their presence. Even just keeping the replacement in the house is horrible. Why did I think that a commoner would be alright as a replacement? She still acts like a commoner even after a week in the mansion. I suppose that commoners will always be commoners.
I sighed once again, I guess it is to be expected of an inferior race. The chefs and waiters had returned to their work, some were preparing for lunch, while others could be seen taking cleaning supplies to the dining hall. However, I couldn’t seem to find Christian, my butler, anywhere. The staff were still watching me out of the corners in their vision, as I swiftly spun on my heel and returned from whence I came.
***
It has been an entire 6 days since Aretta left, lately, life at the orphanage has been so boring.
“Children! Come to the sitting room now, we have a guest.”
I could hear the priest sucking up to the newest noble who arrived here, it was a common occurrence. He’d act nice in front of the nobles, before being horrid as soon as they left. I walked over to the sitting room, seeing a noble in fancy attire. It wasn’t exactly a new thing, but this one was dressed extremely well. Only second to a few other visitors we had had before.
As I continued to think, I heard the priest let out a delighted laugh.
“Oh, you wish for that one? He will cost you 3 golds.”
Looking up, I watched as the nobleman threw a satchel of coins at the priest before gesturing to me, “come”. I looked around, thinking that I was mistaken. But I wasn’t, he wanted me.
I followed as he asked me my name. “Tell me your name, boy”, I swiftly replied “Damian, sir”.
“Good, good, you shall do. You are now my son. My name is Viscount Claus. You may refer to me as ‘father”. “Ok” I replied and thus I had now been adopted by a noble.
I was in luck, I hope that the girl I had met before had also had the same experience, we had been adopted. Most nobles adopted commoner children as workers, or slaves. I knew that I could’ve handled the manual labor. But she probably would’ve collapsed.