Dissolute Duke Needs Home Education - Prologue

“Come in.”

Diego gave his permission in a deep voice. At the same time, the door creaked open. The door opened to reveal a strange, Parisian-looking woman. She cautiously walked in with a tense expression.”

“I heard you called.”

Diego took in the woman as she walked toward him. She was neatly dressed, her clothes clean, but they didn’t look expensive. Her blond hair, pulled back into a ponytail, was unkempt and unruly. It was clear that when she used to attend social events such as tea parties, she looked much neater.

It was no longer convincing to try to present oneself as a powerful figure, especially for someone like a home tutor who belonged to the working class. Diego knew all too well how much of an investment a noblewoman’s finely crafted interpersonal appearance was.

Tearing his gaze away from her, Diego took a seat on the sofa and sat down. He said in a light tone,

“Have a seat. I thought we might have something to talk about.”

The woman’s hand twitched slightly as she took the seat in front of him. Diego lazily clasped them together. He called her name in a soft voice.

“Miss Estella.”

“Yes, Your Grace.”

“Are you afraid of me?”

Estella did not answer. Diego slowly leaned back in his seat, his poor tone contrasting with what he had just said.

“I seem to recall that it was you who requested a conversation in the first place.”

“…….”

“Tell me, Miss Margaret. What was your intention when you caught my eye.”

The corners of Diego’s mouth twitched up as he finished. Surprisingly, Estella did not keep him waiting for long. She took a short, deep breath and spoke.

“I just wanted to let you know that I am someone who might be of use to you, Duke.”

“Is there something you want from me?”

Diego went straight to the point instead of wasting time. He had no vicious hobby of bantering with someone who preyed on his weaknesses. Diego spoke poignantly.

“My father is an incompetent gambler, my siblings can’t even get a decent meal, and my mother has been suffering from lethargy for years.”

Estella remained silent, as if his findings were true. Diego was a little irritated by this lack of response. He asked sarcastically.

“How can I satisfy you by saving that life? Are you coveting the position of the next duchess?”

This time, the reaction was unusual. Estella, who had been hanging her head until just now, widened her eyes and stared at Diego. She closed her lips as if she was about to burst out laughing, but hastily raised her right hand to cover her mouth. Diego’s mood worsened even more at the sight of it.

It was only when Estella had managed to calm her strangely contorted expression that she spoke.

“Duke, there is only one thing I want.”

“Speak.”

Diego urged her, his tone gentle. Estella looked him straight in the eye and answered.

“Don’t kill Cecilia and Cedric.”

Diego’s face instantly froze.

The owners of the names Celia and Cedric were none other than his half-siblings. They were also one of the reasons why Estella had moved into this mansion as a home tutor.

Diego’s eyes narrowed. The obvious request not to kill his family must have been because he already had a record of killing his father. It was not his intention for that secret to leak out to that fearless home tutor.

Diego remembered the voice that had stopped him in the corridor so long ago.

“Little Duke, you will need a black bow tie.”

At the moment she delivered the message, she had a tense expression on her face. Upon hearing the unfamiliar sound, Diego furrowed his brow. It wasn’t until he descended to the lower level and was about to leave the front entrance that he understood Estella’s words. He had been moving without much thought, but he couldn’t help but stop his steps.

It was the day he executed his plan to murder his father.

Diego’s father, Duke Berta, had many enemies. However, if one were to name the person with the biggest regret towards him in the capital, it would probably be his own son, Diego.

As aristocrats are wont to do, the former Duke of Berta was immediately matched with a fiancée by his parents the year he came of age. The woman with whom he shared the misfortune of being bound by papers was Dolores Botry, the eldest daughter of the Marquis of Botry. Dolores, who was also Diego’s biological mother, was unfortunately an ugly woman.

Dolores Botry had an appearance that was far from society’s aesthetic standards, but at the same time, she was a mature personality who could let it go as a slight regret. The saying that the world is fair was proven to her in a somewhat unfortunate way. Her husband was a man who did not share the same maturity.

Dolores was abused and neglected by her husband and died of a mental illness.Diego, who was born from her womb, was also despised by Duke Berta.

“It’s a good thing you don’t look much like her, but that sinister redhead is oddly unlucky.”

Duke Berta said so often. Until Diego was a grown man, he often stabbed him just because he was in a bad mood.

The woman who met such a montrious man was different. Anna, Duke Berta’s second wife, was a commoner, a courtesan. She had a talent for baking men to her will. When she hugged him with a playful voice, Count Berta’s face relaxed like never before. Thanks to her, Anna was able to take the position of the Duchess and give birth to a son and a daughter.

Duke Berta, in love with Anna, wanted Cedric to succeed her, even though Diego already existed. Despite their age difference of eighteen years, he was willing to cripple his firstborn son by crushing a part of his body.

Diego glanced briefly at his left hand, which had been the target of a persistent robber he had encountered on the street not long ago. The injury he had sustained was merely a superficial scratch compared to the robber’s intended purpose. Diego didn’t even pause to consider who had done it.

Diego had grown up to be a monster who wanted to kill his father, and for that he felt little remorse.

Diego asked, his eyes cold.

“Teacher, have I ever sent poisoned tea to children as my stepmother did to me?”

“Because it’s not the right time yet.”

“If now is ‘not the time’… then when is the appropriate time to kill half-siblings?”

“When they have no father to protect them, and when their mother has gotten on your nerves.”

“You are out of your mind, Miss Margaret.”

Diego said with contempt. Estella suggested impatiently.

“I will help you to send the former duchess away from this mansion for your sake, Your Grace.”

“Is there any reason for me to continue listening to this nonsense?”

“I know a way to get her out of this mansion legally.”

Estella spoke as if she were pleading, but she didn’t look defeated at all. Even as she made unreasonable proposals, she kept a sincere expression. Her behavior was always unpredictable. Where does her arrogant confidence come from?

Diego crossed his arms over his chest, and after a short sigh, he spoke up.

“What do you have to gain by helping me?”

“I told you, the safety of the children I teach.”

“Do you think I will keep the seeds of discord alive? It’s simply a matter of getting rid of everyone, including you.”

“Cedric is a good boy, not to mention Cecilia, who is still very young. The Duchess is a courtesan, so no one will stand in your way if she is thrown out of the manor. All I ask is that you leave them with enough money to live somewhat decently, considering they have been abandoned.”

“That is not what you should wish for.”

“If the Duke had believed in the saying that ‘children are innocent,’ my request could have been a little different.”

Estella’s attitude was resolute. Her eyes, which had been filled with fear when she first entered the room, shone with determination.

It made Diego feel a little ridiculous. He felt foolish for thinking she might ask for money. He wondered why he choose to give an evasive answer when there was an easy one. No, it wasn’t his problem. It was probably because she chose an option that most people wouldn’t take.

Spare the children.

Diego quietly pondered her demands. When he heard her say not to kill Cedric and Cecilia, he felt shaken as if he had been caught. The plan to assassinate Duchess Berta naturally included the deaths of his half-siblings as well. It seemed that the person who had planned this job was aware that it was a cowardly act. Diego was pierced by a conscience he didn’t even know existed when he saw how her demands stabbed at the edge of his conscience.

“Very well, Miss Margaret. I’ll take you up on your offer.”

Diego replied in a breezy tone that didn’t match the tension of a few moments before. He clasped his hands together and placed them under his chin.

“But I do not intend, as you say, to put the seeds of discord out of sight. I intend to keep Cedric and Cecilia in this mansion. And I want Miss Margaret to take charge of their education.”

“……Yes?”

“I will trust that you will not raise my siblings to be ungrateful children who know no grace.”

The last words were more of a warning. After all, the formal succession ceremony was scheduled for the near future. He could have killed the tutor to silence her, but he didn’t want to make a big deal out of it at such an important time.

As it turned out, Estella would keep her silence simply by him not touching the children. Diego knew she was a sweet woman who cared about the children.

Diego finished his story and turned to leave. Whatever plans the arrogant tutor might have, there was no reason to refuse her offer. Even if she had an insatiable ambition to keep Cedric alive for her future.

But Estella blinked her big eyes and said.

“But I was going to leave the mansion with the children.”

Diego stared nervously into the thick glass that shielded her eyes, unable to fathom what she was thinking behind those cloudy lenses.

“You have two choices, teacher. Either take care of and embrace those children, or see the blood of the children you taught before you leave.”

Diego summed it up bluntly. He had other things to worry about besides the disposition of his half-siblings.

Estella’s shoulders sagged. After a small sigh, she muttered a tiny reply of understanding, then strode out of the room, leaving behind an unceremonious goodbye even though he hadn’t asked her to leave. Diego stared at the closed door with a dumbfounded expression on his face.

She was a woman who seemed to have lost her courage in many ways. If Diego had been a nobleman who felt offended by someone else’s arrogant attitude, her neck would have already been on the line. However, it seemed that Diego himself was not such an impeccable human being either.

“Can’t a lunatic who killed his own father handle that woman?”

Diego muttered self-deprecatingly, and the smirk soon vanished from his lips. Diego pushed himself up from his seat and turned back to the papers. It was time to sign his father’s death certificate.

He almost wrote the name that had just impressed him, ‘Estella Margaret Montiel,’ but then he chuckled to himself and readjusted the quill. Soon, a perfect signature was on the paper.