Chapter 169
Chapter 169: Chapter 169
“Your Grace, Lady Tangt has arrived.”
Elise carefully knocked on the door to announce the visitor’s arrival, and Ann looked at the clock in surprise.
“My, it’s already time!”
Countess Tangt had asked if she could send her daughter to Rubica so that she could get advice on how to host a tea meeting. Of course, that was only an excuse, but Gabriel had left Rubica a good impression at the meeting.
Even though her mother scolded her, she was a witty and clever girl. Rubica could see through what the countess was up to, but she didn’t want to miss a chance to socialize with interesting girls just because she didn’t want to be part of Countess Tangt and Marchioness Miramont’s fight, so she didn’t refuse.
“What should we do? Should we bring her here to the sewing room?”
And Ann was more excited than anymore else about this and was taking too many steps further.
“What if she asks you to be her chaperone?”
“Ann, as the letter said, we are just going to talk about tea meetings. She would find it too much if she was invited in the sewing room for our first meeting.”
“Then it would be better to meet her in the reception, but a side of your hair is in a mess. Jennie!”
Rubica left Ann, who was making a fuss, and gave orders to Elise.
“You must be able to communicate with Miss Tangt better as you are of similar age. Why don’t you go down and meet her first? Oh, and don’t forget to bring enough cakes and fruits.”
“Okay.”
Rubica remembered how Gabriel wasn’t able to eat cakes to her content at the tea meeting as her mother didn’t let her.
She wanted the girl to eat what she wanted at least during the visit. Rubica then saw Elise go down and let Jennie do her hair.
Today, Rubica was wearing an orange-colored dress with apricot flowers embroidered on it. The dress wasn’t new but had been ordered a long time ago. Only its stomacher was new. Rubica had put ribbons which she secretly made at night. That much was enough to transform it into a new dress in fashion.
-If you cannot take all the orders you are getting, you can use dresses you already have and only make matching stomachers.
When Rubica whispered to Khanna, she looked at her as if she had just saved her life.
Khanna’s shop had been getting so many orders and every worker, including herself, couldn’t sleep more than three hours a day.
Rubica’s idea had been introduced as ‘Madam Berry’s Suggestion’ and was now popular.
It cost a lot less but also easier to catch up with fashion than ordering a bunch of new dresses.
Jennie braided up Rubica’s lose hair and finished it with a ribbon made with the same fabric of her dress.
When Rubica went down to the reception room, she could see some maids standing in a circle with Gabriel in the center.
“Oh, look.”
“Yes, we are really in it.”
They were so busy talking about something that was thicker than a pamphlet but too thin to be called a book that they failed to notice Rubica coming.
“Your Grace.”
Gabriel spotted Rubica only some time later and stood up. The maids curtsied at her in surprise and scattered back to their work. Rubica was curious about what they had been looking at, but she forgot about it the moment she saw Gabriel.
‘Why? Oh my gods, why?’
Gabriel now looked very similar to Elise at the tea meeting, although the details were slightly different.
The dress made of royal blue fabric that Madam Khanna had said was impossible to get, the red lips, and she even cut her fringe short like Elise.
It even made Rubica wonder why her stomacher had pearls and diamonds instead of ribbons.
“Thank you for inviting me, Your Grace.”
Gabriel smiled shyly as usual. What she was wearing didn’t match her at all. One good thing was that she wasn’t wearing thick makeup as she did in the tea meeting and her lovely smile was being somewhat shown.
“Nice to see you again, Miss Tangt. You must have come a long way.”
“But it didn’t take long thanks to the mana stone carriage. Oh, and please call me Gabriel from now on.”
Rubica hid her shock and asked the girl to sit down. She took a deep breath and then sat down as well. Rubica looked closely, and it looked like the girl’s corset had been tightened so much that she had to take a deep breath each time she sat down and stood up.
‘Well, those cross stripes require a thin waist.’
Rubica pitied her. Gabriel was small and cute, so imitating Elise wasn’t right for her.
Who on earth tightened her waist so much? Even though the table was full of desserts that had been made just for her, she couldn’t even try one of them.
As she was wearing a tightened corset, eating just one cookie could give her a stomachache.
Compared to her forced beauty, Elise, who was wearing her grey dress as she wanted with her hair tied for work, looked rather pretty and comfortable.
As the girl was a guest, Rubica was supposed to compliment how she looked, but she just couldn’t bring herself to do it and changed the topic.
“What have you been reading? You seemed to be having quite a lot of fun.”
Gabriel replied shyly, “The Little Bird’s News. I have the latest edition that just came out yesterday.”
“And you are in it.”
A maid whispered to Rubica.
“I am in it?”
“Yes, look.”
Gabriel’s face turned red. Before she could stop the maid, she put The Little Bird’s News on Rubica’s hand. And when she opened it, she immediately saw the headline that read, ‘Will The New Duchess Be Able To Rule Society?’
Rubica started to read, half in curiosity and half in fear.
The first article harshly criticized how the duke bought so many jewels and expensive luxurious goods.
[Claymore has always been the best at practicing frugality, the greatest value in this kingdom. What kind of person is the duchess who transformed the duke who used to be as cold as the icy wind of the Seritos Mountains? To find out, The Little Bird’s News has succeeded in sending an agent to participate in her tea meeting.]
‘Oh, it looks like, just maybe…’
Rubica’s heart started to beat fast. Her efforts of trying, in every possible way, to become infamous were about to pay off. She hurried to the next page, anticipating the thought of being called the evil lady who immersed Claymore into the pit of evil called extravagance.
[But Duchess Claymore, who our agent met…]
‘Is about to be described as a woman that must be criticized for giving out cakes and sweets made of expensive sugar, buying new table cloths, plates, and napkins, and even having a new flower invented just to decorate her garden?’
[Was extremely kind and modest.]
Rubica couldn’t believe the line she was reading and blinked. She read it again. Then again. Still, it said ‘kind and modest’.
[And frugal.]
Now, what was that supposed to mean?
[However, at the same time, she wasn’t stingy. She didn’t hesitate to present roses to her guests, and what she did for Miss Elise de Solana is…]
After that, the reporter described in detail how Elise had become Rubica’s lady-in-waiting.
Rubica couldn’t read more and raised her pale face.
“What is this?”
“We don’t know either. We didn’t know what we said among ourselves would be in a magazine.”
“Actually, a lot of people have been asking my mother about how I became your lady-in-waiting.”
“Oh, and it even has what I said. I did talk about what happened when you ordered from Madam Khanna for the first time at the tea meeting, but…”
Ann looked quite confused. As she had said many things to many people, she couldn’t guess which of them had told her story to the magazine.
The reporter even added a worried comment that read, ‘Although I do admit Madam Khanna’s dresses are beautiful, I fear Duchess Claymore is caring about the dukedom’s economy too much.’
“This is not it. I didn’t do that to get such compliments.”
Where did it start to go wrong? Rubica realized she had been doing it all wrong since the first step.
She even wished she could tear her hair, but the people around her, including Ann, were looking at her with kind eyes.
“But isn’t it all the better? I’ve learned eating cake on the first day of marriage is to honor the god’s will thanks to this magazine.”
“But, but… I fooled Steven just because I wanted to eat cakes.”
“Oh, you don’t have to be so humble.”
The mighty castle with her impression was so strong that even Rubica herself couldn’t bring it down.
She failed in making Edgar get sick of her, and now being kicked out for not having the virtues a duchess should have was practically impossible.
She picked up her cup to cool down her burning insides