The Villainess Hides Her Wealth

Chapter 11

This was what the kitchen maid revealed.

“Are there any difficulties?”

Lilika was friendly to the servants. The kitchen maid was also young, so she often talked to Lilika, who cared about her.
Then one day, when she was coming back after running some errands, the kitchen maid and Lilika met alone, without any other maid present.

“It’s a hassle to boil a small amount like syrup in a large, thick pot. But I’m a new maid, will it be alright to complain about the cooking utensils… Ah, I’m not gossiping about the others.”
“Yes, I know what you mean. Don’t worry.”

The next day, Lilika went out and bought a small… lead pot to give to the kitchen maid.

“I never intended to murder the Duchess. Lady Lilika must have misunderstood something, too.”

The kitchen maid thought that it would be no problem because it was given to her by Lilika, but she was worried that this would cause her harm.
She looked completely unaware of what Lilika had done using her and what would happen next.

“The maid said I gave her the lead pot. Yes, that’s right. But…”

Lilika’s reaction to the incident was bizarre.
Although she was taken aback, she denied the fact that she was trying to murder the Duchess.

“Because I also ate the syrup that was made in that pot…”

Lilika claimed that she was also a victim of the incident. Although she blurred the end of her words as if she were heartbroken, she looked like she had already thought about them and was speaking without any trouble.

“I bought it on a street I used to go to long ago when I was a commoner… The color was weird so it caught my attention, but I never thought it would be a lead pot. I’m sorry…”

Why was her repertoire always so obvious?
She came from a lowly background, so even if she didn’t intend to do anything wrong, she did it because she didn’t know anything.

‘My mother almost died, but I can’t believe she’s calling herself a victim. Shouldn’t an apology come first in situations like this?’

I could still vividly remember seeing my mother buried in the coffin in my previous life.
I hated myself for just brushing it off when she said she was sick, as she had always been weak. I continued to blame myself. And regretting it.
I didn’t know that my mother was slowly dying, and lived my life as usual, foolishly.

If Lilika had brought in a lead pot to slowly kill my mother without leaving behind evidence, how much dessert did she eat knowing that the syrup was made in it?
No, Lilika wasn’t one to eat sweets in the first place. It wouldn’t have been noticeable at all even if she ordered a variety of desserts and just didn’t eat the ones with syrup.

“Lead poisoning? Isn’t that dangerous?!”

My father, who heard about this later, didn’t blame Lilika either. He just directed all the blame to the kitchen maid.

“Even if Lilika didn’t know, you, a maid who works in the kitchen of a noble family, used a pot made of lead? Was the education of this ducal family that lax?”
“B-But I didn’t doubt it since it was given by the Young Lady, I just…”

When instead of being solved easily, things got bigger than she expected, the kitchen maid begged Lilika. She, who remained calm even though she was taken aback earlier, was now hanging onto her while weeping.

“Lady Lilika, you know that I only used the pot that you gave me. Please help me! I will work harder from now on, so…!”

But Lilika acted like she didn’t know anything.

“What have you done to my sick mother!”
“L-Lady Lilika…?”

The kitchen maid froze in place when she saw Lilika roughly avoiding the blame.

“It’s fine that you fed me lead. I am young and healthy after all… But my mother is not well…”

The kitchen maid must have felt that Lilika was betraying her.
However, Lilika would have to get angry in this situation to prove that she had no malice, so she wouldn’t side with the maid unless she was a fool.

‘Is it going to end with just the maid being punished?’

I didn’t feel sorry for the kitchen maid. The maid, who was close to Lilika in my previous life, had confronted me several times.
Still, if someone that Lilika was able to use were to be dismissed, it would be successful to some extent.

‘I didn’t think I would be able to take care of Lilika right away anyway.’

Even when the name ‘Lilika’ came out of the kitchen maid’s mouth, I wasn’t expecting much.
If Lilika had intended to kill my mother, she would have prepared a way out of it.

Rather, Lilika’s cold-hearted reaction to it gave me a new conviction.

‘Lilika, as expected, I can’t go with you.’

Yeah, it would have been rather vain if the person who twisted the situation so that I would die at the hands of my family in my previous life collapsed with only this.
Well, it’s not like Lilika wasn’t hit at all by this.

“I thought Lady Lilika would take her side, I didn’t expect her to get upset instead…”
“Didn’t that maid just do what Lady Lilika asked…”

I didn’t do anything outrageous to attract the attention of the kitchen servants.
The punishment of the kitchen maid reached everyone’s ears. The Viikos flowers, which showed a tumultuous reaction to the lead, must have left quite an impression on the kitchen people.

“If we do what Lady Lilika says and end up becoming someone who tried to murder the Duchess…”

Of course, this was not the only reason Lilika lost the confidence of the servants.

Lilika didn’t tell me the color of the dress she had fitted in the dressing room the other day.
Except for Lilika herself, the only people in this world who knew that it was light pink were the designers in the dressing room and a handful of her close maids.
Lilika suspected that the maids next to her had tipped me off.

So, when the lead pot incident happened amid such a chaotic atmosphere…

“It is best that we do not associate as much as possible with the higher people.”
“Besides, the fact that she was involved with Lady Yuria’s fiancé is a bit… isn’t it?”

The servants who knew Lilika as a friendly and good-natured girl felt betrayed by her. If people with a nice image from the beginning do something bad once, won’t the opinion about them get worse?

‘It’s interesting to see how Lilika, who was close to the servants, is now slowly becoming isolated in the castle.’

I smiled brightly as I recalled the fact that Lilika had moved the servants to attack me in my previous life.

“The kitchen was examined again and again, and the retraining of the servants was completed. You can rest assured now.”

Even though it was something he didn’t have to do, the butler brought the tray for teatime himself, gave a greeting, and withdrew.
Our eyes met when he glanced back at me, and his gaze was a little different from the previous look of disapproval.

‘Maybe this will help me later.’

Since he was the person who my father trusted the most, wasn’t it beneficial? Though I wasn’t even aiming to attract the butler’s attention.

“I can’t believe I have been eating syrup made in a lead pot all this time…”

It seemed that my mother was shocked when she realized that she was almost suffering from lead poisoning.

“Mother, we don’t know how much lead has accumulated inside your body, so wouldn’t it be better not to apply any powder? I’m very scared. If Mother is not by my side, I…”

In fact, I wasn’t expecting much when I said this.
However…

“That’s right, I have to protect you. You also must have had that syrup when you were having teatime with me.”

Certainly, after what happened during the last birthday banquet, in which Sir Vieira publicly confessed to Lilika, my mother had changed.
Her heart ached for a moment, but a determined light appeared in her eyes again.

“I used to apply that powder to cover up my haggard complexion. But, Yuria, you are more important than that. I have to be by your side.”

It was as she said.
After my mother died, my father, brother, and servants, who had been conscious of her, did not hide the fact that they only loved and cherished Lilika.
Even if rumors filled with malice were spreading in the social world, no one could control them.
The other ladies my mother associated with were only close to her, not me, so those who would have taken my side if my mother were still alive turned away from me.

“Mother…”

Instead of powder, I made a cream for my mother to apply on her skin.
Of course, her body wasn’t good either, but it seemed that she hadn’t been moisturizing properly even though she had very dry skin.

‘I didn’t think my hobby of making natural cosmetics in my previous life would help.’

I explained the ingredients and effects of the cream.
At least it would be much better than grinding bovine bones or spreading the intestines of monsters on one’s skin, like they did in this era.

“It’s a cream made with Calendula flowers. It will be effective.”
“Oh my, thank you. How did you make this?”

My mother, who had taken the cream with a cheerful face, asked after a moment, puzzled.

“No, wait. Calendula flowers? It’s a flower that doesn’t bloom at this time of the year. How did you make it?”

Honestly, it wasn’t that hard to make the cream. If you mix the ingredients properly, it will not take more than a few minutes.
If there was a problem, it was the ingredients…

“It was my worthless blessing of growth. But still, it should be used well. I was exploring it whenever I had time, without telling anyone.”

The power that descended on the Primrose family.
My brother had the blessing of the sword, and Lilika was later enlightened with the blessing of healing.

‘But I… I received this worthless blessing of growth.’

Blessing of growth.
It didn’t work with animals, because it was an ability to grow plants well.

‘It isn’t farming either. I hid it because I felt ashamed as it was an unfit power for a noble lady… but I decided to do everything I could.’

Researching like crazy to uncover my mother’s death in my previous life.
And even now, I was still studying when I wasn’t with her.
There was more to discover about the blessing of growth.

It was a fact that the plants I had cultivated with sincerity contained special powers.

‘It’s a little different from the sacred power of the temple… It can just be called the power of a blessing.’

In any case, even if it was just a small amount, I wanted to believe that this particular energy would be much more effective than ordinary cosmetics. It was a power that’s called a blessing in the Primrose family, after all.

So, while I was growing the hard-to-find Viikos flowers, I made everything I could get on the market with crops that I grew on my own.

The ingredients were limited because I could only make it with things that could be grown secretly without clashing with the garden of the castle, but the results were not bad considering that.

‘Blessing of growth… When I poured my energy into them, the flowers bloomed even though it was not the season for that.’

Of course, I couldn’t grow flowers, dry them, collect seeds, turn the collected ingredients into oil, and mix it all with beeswax in the garden of the castle, so I was thinking fiercely about replacing them with something else…

Honestly, the process was never easy.
As I poured my heart and soul into each ingredient, it was much more tiring and complicated than in my previous life, where I easily made it.

‘I made all that effort, but the result was just a few small containers of cosmetics.’

A bitter smile was about to appear on my lips, but I was in front of my mother. I just smiled softly.

Anyway, after some patch testing, it didn’t seem to be a bad ingredient for my mother. I comfortably gave my mother a cream and lotion made with calendula, which was effective for moisturizing.
No matter how dry her skin was, it would be too much to even give her oil, so this was enough.

“A cream Yuria gave me. Thank you. I’ll use it well.”

But I didn’t know at this point. How much of a sensation one of the cosmetics I made would cause.

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