Chapter 114………………………………
“What… what do you mean by that?”
The question slipped out of my mouth before I could stop it.
“An orphanage?”
“Don’t you remember?”
Angela tilted her head as she studied my expression, looking puzzled.
“You were young, but it wasn’t so long ago that you’d forget completely…”
I tried to detect any sign of deception in her reaction, but there was none.
Instinctively, I could tell. Angela wasn’t some swindler trying to squeeze money out of me.
Did Idel really grow up in an orphanage?
There was no way for me to know. I had never paid much attention to Idel’s childhood before.
“Why was I at an orphanage? Was I temporarily left there because my family was going through hard times?”
“No, that’s not it.”
Angela shook her head with wide eyes.
“You were abandoned in front of our orphanage when you were three years old. Later you were transferred to another orphanage, and from there you were adopted by the Wallace Count’s family.”
“….”
So Idel wasn’t the biological daughter of Count Wallace and his wife? She had been an orphan?
It was hard to believe. Not even once had I doubted that Idel and the Wallace family were related by blood.
After all, Idel and the Countess of Wallace looked quite alike.
But now that I thought about it, the way they had treated Idel suddenly made strange sense.
It wasn’t just simple mistreatment. The Wallace family had often treated Idel like an outsider.
Like a servant.
Wait.
I stared at Angela suspiciously, then opened the carriage window and spoke to the driver.
“Please go to Williams Street. Right now.”
Williams Street was where many law offices were located, including Sharon’s office.
Count Wallace and Samuel had already left the capital.
That meant the only member of the Wallace family I could meet immediately was the Countess.
I would go to Sharon and ask where the Countess was staying.
This Angela person…
She didn’t seem to be lying, but I couldn’t believe her words without verification.
More than anything, I wanted to meet the Countess right away and find out the truth.
“I-Idel! Why are you suddenly doing this? I’m not lying!”
Sensing my suspicion, Angela hunched her shoulders anxiously.
“Calm down. I’m just going to confirm the truth with Countess Wallace.”
“…Really? That’s a relief. But that woman probably won’t tell you the truth.”
“Why not?”
“Because you were secretly adopted.”
“Secretly adopted?”
“This is something I heard while tracking down where you went. Someone at the orphanage you were transferred to told me that the Wallace couple asked them not to leave any adoption records. They wanted to raise you as if you were their biological daughter.”
“Is that even possible?”
“If you pay enough money, anything is possible. I gave that person a little bribe myself to hear the story.”
There were many things I wanted to ask Angela, but first I asked this:
“Why did you go to such lengths to track me down?”
“H-Huh? Well… because I was worried about you.”
“Then why did you only appear now? Did it take you that long to find me?”
“That’s…”
“If you don’t answer honestly, I can’t trust anything you say.”
“Alright! I’ll tell you everything!”
Angela continued reluctantly.
“Back then, I was planning to take you to the Cassius family. But then I heard rumors that Riena was being cherished and adored there, so I thought… what’s the point of all this?”
“Wait a moment. Why are Riena and Cassius suddenly coming up?”
“Oh, right. You lost your childhood memories. Then you probably don’t remember Riena either.”
No way.
“Riena—yes, the Cassius young lady—used to be at our orphanage. She was your close friend. You two were always together.”
Another shock washed over me.
A question that had surfaced after the strange dream I had at the Luciviu Mine came back to mind.
How had Idel and Riena become friends?
Yes… this was it.
Idel and Riena had come from the same orphanage.
I should have suspected it the moment Angela mentioned the orphanage, but I had been too distracted by the revelation that Idel wasn’t the Wallace family’s biological daughter.
“Why were you planning to take me to Cassius?”
After steadying myself, I spoke again.
“Is it related to the ‘important matter in my life’ you mentioned in your letter?”
“Well… the truth is…”
Angela swallowed nervously and glanced around with trembling eyes.
Then she looked at Vineta, the only other person in the carriage besides us, and asked:
“Is this knight someone you trust?”
“Yes. Someone I trust.”
We had fought the divine beast together at the mine, risking our lives.
“I see… Idel, don’t be too shocked when you hear this.”
Perhaps reassured by my confident answer, Angela’s voice became calmer.
“The child who was originally supposed to be adopted by the Cassius Duke’s family… wasn’t Riena.”
“It was you.”
It was truly something impossible to hear without being shocked.
Just then, the carriage stopped and the driver called out:
“We’ve arrived!”
Williams Street wasn’t far from Spring Flower Park, so we reached it quickly.
“…Tell me the rest later.”
Now that Riena’s name had appeared, this was a matter that required even more careful handling.
“Please wait here for a moment.”
I told Angela while exchanging a glance with Vineta—meaning she should keep watch so Angela couldn’t go anywhere.
Seeing Vineta nod, I stepped out of the carriage and entered Sharon’s office.
“Lady Idel! What brings you here?”
Robbie greeted me warmly, but unfortunately this wasn’t the time for pleasantries.
“Is Sharon here?”
“If you mean the lawyer, she’s with a client right now—oh, there she is.”
At that moment, Sharon was coming out of the consultation room.
“Oh my, what’s the matter? You came without even sending word.”
“Idel…”
And beside her was Countess Wallace.
“Countess, let’s talk.”
Sensing something unusual in my tone, Sharon lent us the consultation room.
The Countess and I sat facing each other.
“I heard the news,” she said cautiously.
“They say you became rich thanks to that abandoned mine. But that mine originally belonged to Wallace. Shouldn’t you share some of it with us? Please pay off Samuel’s debts too.”
I was so dumbfounded I couldn’t even laugh.
Even if she had decided to divorce because her life had become difficult, her love for her son clearly hadn’t disappeared overnight.
“Why should I do that? He’s not even my real brother.”
“What do you mean…?”
“I was adopted into the Wallace family.”
The Countess’s pupils widened.
“I-Idel… don’t tell me your memory has returned?”
So Angela had been telling the truth.
“You deceived me well all this time. And I never even knew—I believed you were my real family.”
“We weren’t trying to deceive you! We thought it would be better for you. You had lost your memory after the accident and were already confused…”
“What accident?”
“Huh?”
“Countess Wallace, I’m extremely angry right now. If you want even a little bit of my goodwill, stop hiding things and tell me the whole truth. Understood?”
Intimidation, apparently, was very effective in making her talk.
“When you were about six or seven, you slipped and rolled down a slope,” she said, trembling.
“You hit your head on a rock and fainted, but fortunately it wasn’t a serious injury.”
“But I lost my memory.”
“That’s right. You couldn’t remember anything.”
“Why did you hide the adoption? No—why did you adopt me in the first place?”
There was no way I could believe that the financially struggling Wallace couple had adopted an orphan out of kindness.
The Countess hesitated, but under my pressure she finally spoke.
“…We needed a daughter to marry the son of Baron Kainberg.”
Baron Kainberg—the very man who had tried to seize my mine through a territorial war.
“It was a long time ago. We were drinking and made a promise. If the Count had a daughter, she would marry my son.”
Yes. The baron had indeed said that before.
“I thought adopting a child for such a reason wasn’t right, but your father insisted.”
“You wanted Baron Kainberg’s wealth.”
The Countess lowered her head weakly.
“I see now why you hid the adoption from me. If I believed Wallace was my real family, then even after becoming Baron Kainberg’s wife I wouldn’t abandon you.”
She said nothing—essentially confirming my guess.
“If I were known to be an orphan, the Kainbergs might dislike it. So you secretly adopted me to make it look like I was your biological daughter.”
“How did you even figure that out…?”
“And the reason you and I look alike—it’s not because we’re mother and daughter. You chose a child who resembled you from the beginning.”
“Idel.”
“That’s unfortunate. After all that effort, the Kainbergs rejected the marriage anyway.”
Most likely, Baron Kainberg had broken the old promise after seeing the Wallace family’s worsening financial state.
Since Wallace already owed him a great deal of money, they probably couldn’t protest.
“But in the end, Liandro appeared and married me instead. So you achieved something far greater than your original goal.”
The orphan they had treated like a servant had become the wife of the Cassius family’s young duke.
“…Don’t say it like that.”
“Hah. I didn’t think I could be even more disappointed in you.”
I looked at Countess Wallace coldly and stood up.
“W-Wait!”
She grabbed my arm, but I shook her hand off.
“Unless you’re hiding something else from me, we’ll never see each other again.”
I left the consultation room, gave a brief farewell to Sharon and Robbie, and returned to the carriage.
Angela was waiting for me.
“You said that the child originally meant to be adopted by the Cassius family… was me.”
It was time to hear the rest of the truth.
