Chapter 1 - Chapter 1

Translator: Nox

The Duke of Hermont’s Male Mistress - Chapter 1The Duke of Hermont’s Male MistressChapter 1

Chapter 1

Bright light washed over her face. A cozy warmth radiated from right beside her.

Roy grimaced and curled in on herself. As something soft and snug wrapped around her, she instinctively snuggled deeper into its embrace.

‘Wait, why is the sun so bright? It shouldn’t be this bright…’

Besides, her scalp felt tight and stuffy. Had she fallen asleep without taking off her wig last night?

As she absentmindedly raised a hand to pull the wig off, her bleary eyes caught sight of an unfamiliar face.

Fine platinum-blond hair shimmering like silver in the sunlight, sharp eyes, a straight and sleek nose bridge, neatly shaped lips, and a resolute jawline.

A man as smooth and breathtaking as a sculpted statue lay right before her eyes.

And that devastatingly handsome man was stark naked.

Holding her close in his arms.

“Mmph—!”

Roy clamped a hand over her mouth just in time to stifle a scream. Her heart hammered wildly against her ribs.

She was completely naked too. Her face instantly drained of all color.

‘Who on earth is this?!’

Her mind raced frantically as she desperately tried to piece together what had happened the night before.

A wager, arm wrestling, billiards, alcohol. And then, in the end…

‘C-Crazy! I knew my damn competitive streak would get me into trouble one day!’

Swallowing back a wail of despair, Roy carefully slid out of his embrace. Fortunately, the man seemed fast asleep, not stirring in the slightest.

She snatched up her clothes strewn messily across the floor, threw them on, and bolted out of the room like an arrow.

Before opening the cabin door, Roy took a quiet, deep breath. Creeeak. She gently pushed the door open and tiptoed inside.

“Back already?”

Her efforts were in vain, as her housemate’s voice rang out immediately. Roy straightened her awkwardly hunched back and managed an awkward smile.

“Haha. Uncle Harper. You’re up already?”

The middle-aged man limped toward her. His unkempt beard and weathered face bore the unmistakable marks of a man who had once roamed up and down the forest freely.

“Look at the time—of course I should be awake. Looks like your shift ended late.”

“Yes, well… Business went on late, so I slept at the tavern.”

“Nothing happened, did it?”

“Nothing! Nothing at all! Really, absolutely nothing happened!”

Roy waved her hands frantically in denial. At her exaggerated reaction, Harper’s eyes narrowed with keen suspicion.

She subtly averted her gaze, and Harper let out a sigh, shaking his head.

“Roy. Come here for a moment.”

“I won’t stay out overnight again next time…”

“I’m not trying to scold you. Have you thought about what I told you the other day?”

“What you…”

Roy racked her brain for a moment before her expression hardened.

“About telling me to leave this place?”

“Yes.”

This was the Elysia Mansion, one of the Imperial Family’s summer villas. Though recently its ownership had changed after being granted to a naval officer as a reward for his victory in war.

Harper was the longtime gamekeeper of Elysia Mansion and a father figure who had taken in Roy when she was a street orphan and raised her.

Thanks to that, Roy had naturally worked as the gamekeeper’s assistant since childhood while disguising her gender.

For generations, this summer villa had been famous for scandalous affairs between emperors and maidservants, which led to a peculiar rule up until ten years ago forbidding the employment of female servants—be they children or adults.

Although that rule had soon vanished as an outdated custom, Roy, having already set foot on the estate under false pretenses, had no choice but to maintain her male disguise to avoid the crime of lèse-majesté against the Imperial Family.

Fortunately, passing herself off as a boy had not caused much trouble.

Though somewhat pretty and small-framed for a boy, from the tender age of barely ten, Roy had hauled stags up and down mountain paths that even two grown men would struggle to carry. Seeing that, hardly anyone could have doubted her gender.

Living alongside Harper in the cabin at the forest’s entrance, she had enjoyed fairly peaceful days. But two years ago, trouble struck.

Harper had fallen ill with a rare disease.

“My mind hasn’t changed. How could I leave you behind and go anywhere?”

“But you can’t keep living a lie forever.”

“I don’t care. Even if I have to live disguised as a man for the rest of my life.”

Roy had only found out two years ago, but Harper’s illness had begun over five years back.

By the time she realized it, Harper had already piled up a mountain of debt trying to pay for his medicine alone, and now his mobility was so impaired that he could no longer properly carry out his duties as a gamekeeper.

From then on, Roy began working as a gamekeeper by day and taking on all sorts of part-time jobs by night.

The ever-increasing interest and medical expenses were far beyond what their wages at Elysia Mansion could cover.

Yet Roy was fine with it. She was ready to do anything for the man who had raised her.

Disguising herself as a man or working at a tavern until the crack of dawn was nothing. It was merely a means of survival, and compared to the thought of losing him, she did not even consider it a hardship.

She did not even want to imagine a world without Harper.

“If you bring up leaving again, I’m really going to get mad, okay?”

Afraid the conversation would drag on, Roy hurried up to her room on the second floor.

“Seriously, every time I manage to forget, he brings up leaving…”

Swallowing her gloomy mood, Roy changed into her work clothes. She had no time to indulge in sentimentality.

The new master of the mansion was said to be arriving this summer.

She had to maintain the hunting grounds flawlessly so that Harper’s absence wouldn’t be felt.

“I’m heading out!”

Roy called out cheerfully as she stepped out of the cabin.

Vitor’s hand brushed over the empty space beside him. Not a trace of warmth remained on the sheets to show that someone had lingered there.

Wondering if it had all been a dream, he glanced around the room.

The wooden chair knocked over next to the bed, the water pitcher he had fetched when she said she was thirsty, and the towel he had used to wipe down her body—the room bore every trace of last night.

‘Indeed, there’s no way a night that passionate could have been a dream.’

Knock, knock.

“What are you spacing out like that for?”

Alan was already rapping on the open door, having let himself in without Vitor noticing.

“What’s this? Things seemed pretty intense with Natalie, but did you end up sleeping alone after all?”

“No. We slept together.”

“Huh? Then where did she go?”

“She ran away.”

Alan’s brows shot up in bewilderment.

“The moment she opened her eyes, that woman vanished behind my back.”

An incredulous laugh burst from Vitor’s lips. Putting it into words made the reality of the situation sink in even deeper.

The fact that a mere tavern waitress had dared to use Vitor Carl Hermont and toss him aside.

“Hah, what a piece of work…”

The Duke of Hermont’s Male Paramour