I Am The Evil Duchess

XXXI

The duel with the Grand Duke has long been forgotten, now Regan's mood has improved a lot for some reason.

"Adoption? Why?"

I've been thinking of adopting the Saintess. Asrid and Asthe, I need to get them before the Barony of Verena does, because, in the novel, the Barony just adopted a daughter, which means one of them must've died.

"That is impossible wife, no matter how powerful a noble house is, there is a law in the empire that you could only adopt one child, if you want to adopt another child, you need to go through a lot of tests in the temple before they approve of the adoption."

Usually, noble houses adopt children if they couldn't have an heir, or if they intend to use children for personal purposes. To avoid slavery and abuse, the Temple and the Empire decided that noble could only adopt one child because usually noble families were the ones who get involved in such cases as human trafficking.

"But sponsoring a child is different too."

Nobles who are greedy for power love to sponsor children from the orphanage, though they only sponsor those who have a bright future ahead of them, like children who have magical powers. Those magical powers are the children's mana flowing in their bodies. They could never use powers like flame, water, or divine power because only noble like Regan himself could do that unless they were illegitimate children of the noble houses that has the ability to use magical powers.

"Adoption and Sponsoring are different, if they're children we can take them under our wing to watch on them."

"Let's do it!" I excitedly said, that's right! how could I adopt my son Calix's future bride.

Regan smiled at me. "Alright, I'll take care of it first thing in the morning." he kissed my forehead before adjusting my position on the bed.

"Rest now wife, I have a surprise for you tomorrow."

"What is it?"

"Secret."

I didn't bother to ask any further and I just closed my eyes.

"How stupid can you be?! You still haven't had your first night with the Duke?! How can you conceive a child then?!" a man that looked in his late 40's angrily said. In the room, there can be heard a woman's weeping voice.

"Father! I don't love that man! I love Kai! I don't want to do it! Please, father!"

The man was livid that he immediately slapped the woman. She cried loudly as she endured the abuse. Her hair was all over her face when the man grabbed a fist of her hair before making her face him.

"You idiot! This is all for the Grand Duke! If we successfully killed that bastard Bizeviron mongrell, we could be the new master of the Dukedom!"

Inside my head, there's a voice shouting... 'No! this is not for Kai! this is not for the man that I love! this is for yourself father! you selfish man!'

"I don't want---"

Before the woman could finish her sentence, the man she called her father slapped across the face again, red hand prints were already visible on the woman's cheeks.

"You're just so much like your naïve older sister for being a fool in love, a useless fool!"

*GASP*

I immediately woke up the moment the man's hand almost touch my face.

"It's... A dream?" I muttered to myself. It was so real to be a dream...