The Black-haired Noblewoman, Who Disguised Herself, Seems To Have Been Doted On While Serving As The Caretaker For The Duke Who Dislikes Women - Episode 1

From a small rural town south of the Hastina Kingdom, I was taken in by the Count Everly family when I was eight years old.

The moment my uncle, Count Avery, who is my mother’s brother, appeared before me and I hesitantly greeted him, he grimaced.

“…Hmph. Doesn’t she look just like Cynthia? It’s as if she’s a living portrait. Creepy.”

“Is this girl the child of your sister who ran away with a man? …Ugh, she has such a look that seems like she could easily seduce a man. And her hair…”

“Are you saying that this child will be living with us in our mansion from now on!? As the adopted daughter of the Countess Everly family, will she be attending social events with us from now on? Absolutely not, I refuse!”

Countess Everly and her daughter Padma grimaced even more than the Count himself. They said they didn’t like my appearance, first ordering my hair to be cut short and dyed jet black. Then, they instructed me to wear only an old servant’s dress, forcing me to live not as a lady of the Count’s family but as a servant.

For about ten years since then, I have been getting out of bed every morning before the sun rises, applying a homemade dye made by mixing soot from the fireplace with cheap perfume, dyeing my hair jet black, and then carrying out the household tasks assigned to me by the three members of the Everly family.

The count’s family would immediately resort to violence if they were displeased with my work or behavior. They would complain about the breakfast being late, dust on the window sills, sloppy mending of dresses, and so on, even if I paused my work to look at them.

While being subjected to complaints I had no memory of, I was kicked by Count Everly, slapped by the Countess, doused with dirty water from a mop bucket by Padma, and frequently deprived of meals under the pretext of punishment.

The Everly family often had visitors. Most people either didn’t notice me, thinking I was just a servant, but occasionally, some would notice my presence and ask the three members of the family about me.

“I thought she was an unfamiliar servant, but… upon closer inspection, doesn’t she look just like Miss Cynthia? Count, could it be that girl…?”

One day, when a male guest noticed me cleaning the hallway and asked, Count Avery replied with a reluctant tone.

“…Yes. Actually, it’s a memento from my late sister. Since she left the Everly estate, I hadn’t heard from her at all until she finally sent a letter the other day after more than a decade. In that letter, she wrote some incredibly selfish things, like how she was about to pass away due to illness and that she wanted to entrust her only daughter to me.”

“Goodness… That Miss Cynthia… So, she is already…?”

“Yes. I received the news of her passing, so I went to the southern town to pick her up. But oh my, that Cynthia… I don’t know how she raised her daughter… This little girl turned out to be an incredibly troublesome troublemaker. She stole things from the house and tried to sell them off on her own, and when we weren’t watching, she would hit Padma. We were at our wits’ end. At this rate, we can’t even take her to social events.”

It was a lie. I had never done such a thing. But even if I protested here, a terrible punishment awaited me after the guests left. I held back my frustration and continued polishing the hallway floor, feeling the gaze from the reception room.

“Well then… you must have a hard time, Count.”

“Well, for Cynthia, who has been abandoned by her father and mother, I am her only remaining family. It is our duty as a couple to raise her as a memento of the past. However, we cannot continue to indulge a daughter whose attitude and behavior have become so intolerable. With a heart of stone, we are now re-educating her strictly from scratch.”

“Goodness… I can’t believe she is the daughter of that well-mannered Miss Cynthia.”

“She was a well-mannered sister on the outside, but she was the kind of girl who would elope with the youngest son of a baronial family. She was indeed a troubled child. The man from the baronial family she eloped with also died in an accident at work before Cynthia, and misfortune just kept piling up…”

In front of the guest who was listening with keen interest, Count Avery was speaking seriously while putting on a hypocritical face.