Secret Wardrobe Of The Duchess

“….That’s an interesting idea.”

“I think it’s a good opinion. Making jam and candies isn’t hard to try. It would also be good for our peasants.”

Rubica stared at the roses in the vase for a moment. She recalled the pleasant conversation she had had with Lord Sesar about flowers. She hadn’t even imagined this would happen back then.

‘How would he react if I ask him to make a rose that tastes good?’

As he was Sesar, he was either going to be confused and stroke his beard, or say it sounded like an interesting challenge. Rubica had a feeling it would be the latter, as he was Lord Sesar.

‘Oh, I’m already making plans to make candies from the rose.’

Rubica looked at Gabriel with much curiosity as she drank lemon juice. Now she almost admired this small and cute girl.

“I will do as you said.”

Then she added after hesitating a little.

“But is there something you want in return? Like you want your family to handle a part of the production of jam and candies or want production of packaging.”

Gabriel wasn’t a subject of Claymore like Carl and Ann. She was a Tangt. It was weird Lady Tangt was giving business advices to Claymore instead of using the ideas for her family, but regardless of that, Rubica couldn’t shamelessly get her ideas and let Claymore monopolize all profits from them.

“In return?”

Gabriel looked at Elise for a moment. Then she blushed hard again.

“There is something I want, but it’s a little embarrassing…. Can I talk to you in private?”

Ann looked confused, but she willingly left the room with Elise. When Gabriel was alone with the duchess, she took a deep breath, closed her eyes, and yelled.

“I want to be pretty like Ms. Solana!”

“What?”

“How has she changed like that? You are her mistress, so you must know. I wanted to meet Madam Khanna and get her advice, but she is so busy now and doesn’t have time for someone like me. Could you let me meet her?”

Gabriel said all that without breathing and gulped down the rest of lemon juice. Rubica looked at her, a little shocked.

‘But you are already pretty enough.’

She wanted to say that. But how Elise had reacted when she said that to her? Even though it let her recover a bit of her confidence, she just thought Rubica said that to cheer her up.

Gabriel was not like Elise who could change instantly with just a little work done on her hair.

Elise had known she was quite pretty in the first place, although her hair had been a little wrong.

On the other hand, although Gabriel was witty, she seemed to lack confidence when it came to her appearance as much as Elise had.

“If the person who transformed Elise….”

“So you know who that person is. Please, let me meet her.”

Rubica just couldn’t tell her the person was actually her. She didn’t to become even more famous.

“Anyway, if that person tells you to stop wearing corset, what would you do?”

“I should stop wearing my corset? But I cannot get a pretty silhouette without it, my waist is just too flat. Even girls who are much thinner than me tighten their corset.”

“And what if she tells you to stop penciling your eyebrows?”

“I haven’t come out without drawing my eyebrows ever since I was ten. My eyebrows are too faint.”

Gabriel touched her thickly-drawn eyebrows and said sadly.

Rubica studied the girl carefully. It made her get afraid and she grabbed her by her sleeve to plead.

“Please let me meet her.”

Gabriel was not like Angela nor Elise. Elise was timid, and she was also submissive. When Rubica insisted, she ended up wearing the dress Rubica wanted her to wear and cut her forelocks even though she was afraid of it.

But would Gabriel do like Elise?

She seemed to be a girl who liked to ask questions until she could accept it and find answers herself.

What Rubica wanted her to do was to stop tightening her corset and wearing thick makeups as her cute, lively bare face looked much better.

Rubica was sure that the girl wouldn’t accept such advices now. Plus, she wasn’t like Elise. Rubica could ask her to have faith in her and try her advices first.

‘And what has changed Elise the most was not me.’

Elise’s attitude had remarkably changed after what had happened with Dashner at the training ground. Even though she usually wore comfortably, now she didn’t hesitate to wear splendid dresses when it was needed.

She had stopped worrying about how she looked to others and what they thought of it. Ironically, when she was free from other’s evaluation, she could find her true beauty.

As every person had different kind of beauty, the journey to find it couldn’t be the same. Rubica couldn’t repeat the mistake she had made with Elise on Gabriel.

“Okay, I will let you meet her.”

“Really? Thank you, thank you!”

“But I have one condition.”

Rubica gulped hard. This time, she held Gabriel’s hand tight. She couldn’t know if what she was about to do would work, but she had to try. One good thing was that unlike Elise, Gabriel was extremely enthusiastic.

“A condition? Please tell me, I’m willing to do anything.”

“Every night before you go to bed, look in the mirror and say, ‘I am beautiful.’ ten times.”

“What?”

“Then come back here a week later. You must do as I said.”

Gabriel blinked. She was supposed to say that to herself? That was somewhat embarrassing.

“Do I really have to do that? Can’t I just pay her? I have saved enough money in secret.”

But Rubica shook her head.

“You must do as I said, or meeting the person who transformed Elise will do you no good.”

That was a strange request. Gabriel asked why she was supposed to do that, but Rubica said she couldn’t tell her now and she would tell her exactly a week later.

“Ha…”

Gabriel really wanted to say she couldn’t do that unless she was told why. That was how she usually was. But….she wanted to be pretty really badly. Whenever her mother sighed and said she wished Gabriel looked only half as good as her sisters, she just smiled and said, ‘Well, I never wanted to be born like this’ got what she wanted, but then she had to weep all night wetting her pillow.

She would rather die than to feel so miserable for her entire life.

“I will do it. But you are going to let me meet her a week from now, right?”

Duchess Claymore smiled mysteriously. The smile made Gabriel believe in her. Ms. Solana’s change had been like a miracle. She had a feeling that the gods were about to grant her a miracle as well.

***

After Gabriel left, Rubica finally got to see the books. She got shock, gloom, and resignation all mixed up together.

“What the, but the balance hasn’t decreased. It has doubled!”

“All thanks to you.”

Carl said with admiration, but Rubica wanted to grab him by his collar and yell, ‘Thanks to me? It’s all thanks to you who do your work too well!’. What kind of magic had he used that selling of some roses had let to this outcome?

“I’ve heard from Ann about the decision. I will send the roses to the queen tomorrow. And we are planning to invest this amount of budget on production of rose jam and candies.”

Carl wrote down the amount of money, but as it was about making food, it was less than 1/10 of budgets that had increased dramatically. Rubica sighed to see there were was still a lot of money remaining.

“What are we going to do with such huge money?”

“You can use them as you want.”

Rubica named some jewelers and perfume makers, trying to see how the butler would react. She implied she was planning to spend as much as Edgar had last time, but Carl didn’t turn pale. He just smiled kindly and said he would add appointments with the sellers in her schedule. Oh, where had Carl who had told on her to Edgar when she said she was going to invest on Sesar gone?

“No, it’s fine. I already have too much jewelry.”

She said so and added milk and sugar to her tea. It made Carl’s lips twitch.

“But madam, I think adding milk and sugar diminishes tea’s unique scent.”

However, Rubica just lifted the cup and drank it pleasantly. She was punishing the butler for doing his job too well. As she had expected, he looked like as if there had been bugs crawling all over his body. Then he quickly ran away, saying he had to pay wages to some workers.

That made Rubica feel good for a moment, but then she became sad. Now she had no way to make Edgar hate her. She was about to be sentenced to life as Duchess Claymore.

How Carl and Ann would react if she told them she was getting divorced as she had promised Edgar? Maybe they would chase her to the other end of the continent. Her lips curled up to imagine the scene and she had to push them down again with her hands to calm down.