Hand Cream for Calloused Hands
Behind me, as I returned to the Walterheim estate, the carriage of the Roeyental Duke Family rolled to a stop. Jester approached me while I stood there in a daze and cleared his throat a few times.
"Ahem. Your Grace."
"Hm?"
"Shouldn't you be escorting your fiancée?"
"Ah."
When the carriage door opened, I stepped toward Cecilia and held out my hand.
"My lady."
"...Thank you."
The moment Cecilia took my hand and stepped down from the carriage, the Roeyental coach finished its duty and turned back toward the duchy.
Jester approached Cecilia as she stared blankly after it.
"Welcome to the North, my lady. I am Jester, butler of the Walterheim estate."
"Yes. It's a pleasure."
"Your Grace, what are your plans for the remainder of the day?"
"Show the lady around the estate. I'll be in my office clearing the backlog of work."
"Very well."
I left Cecilia in Jester's care and headed for the office. The sight of dozens of reports stacked on the desk drew a sigh from me as I sank into my chair and began reviewing them. Most were complaints from the regional lords about the orcs.
"I need to catch those rats sooner rather than later... but how..."
"This will be your room, my lady."
"This is..."
"It belonged to the late mistress of Walterheim."
"I see."
Years had passed since its owner was lost, yet the room was kept meticulously clean and orderly.
"And this is the personal maid who will attend you from now on."
"I'm Lan. I look forward to serving you, my lady."
"Yes. I look forward to working with you as well, Lan."
"Lan, I'll go report to His Grace now. I'll leave the rest of the lady's tour to you."
"Yes, sir."
After Jester left, Lan began unpacking the luggage Cecilia had brought.
"Good heavens, if you go around dressed like that in the North, you're practically begging for a cold!"
"Is that so? I managed just fine through the winters in the capital."
"The capital's winter and the North's winter are worlds apart. We'll need to prepare proper clothes for the season..."
Thud!
The door swung open, and a middle-aged woman strode in with several attendants at her heels.
"Ugh. Maid Chief Leni."
"Lan, what exactly do you think you're doing in here?"
"I was unpacking Her Ladyship's things on Butler Jester's orders."
"Hmph. So you'll ignore the commands of your Maid Chief and take orders from Butler Jester instead?"
"That's not what I—"
Lan scratched her cheek with an awkward smile. Leni glared at her, then turned with a gentle smile toward Cecilia.
"Lady Cecilia, allow me to show you around the estate. Please, come with me."
"..."
Cecilia looked at Lan.
"Is that His Grace's command?"
"Pardon?"
"Or is it simply the Maid Chief's personal decision?"
"That is..."
"Lan."
"Yes?"
"Continue unpacking."
Leni glared at Cecilia for dismissing her, then led the maids who had followed her out of the room.
"Ugh..."
"Quite the aggressive welcome."
"Maid Chief Leni was brought in by the late young masters and made Maid Chief. She clashes with the butler over every little thing, so from the servants' perspective, it's pure misery..."
"Is that so."
"And yet you sent a Maid Chief like that packing in one go!"
Lan's eyes sparkled as she looked at Cecilia.
"You're amazing, my lady!!"
"It's nothing worth praising."
Unlike Lan, who wore an innocent smile as she sorted the clothes, the look in Leni's eyes when she had regarded Cecilia was the same false smile Cecilia had seen so often in high society back in the capital.
So she's trying to keep the interloper of a lady in check. There's no need to get drawn into her games.
"Lan, once you're finished unpacking, would you show me around the estate?"
"Yes, ma'am! Of course!"
"Ugh."
A teacup filled with fragrant tea was set before me just as I finished clearing the mountain of documents in the office.
"You've worked hard, Your Grace."
"If this much piles up from a short absence, I dread to think what it'll be like while I'm at the Academy."
"If something urgent arises, you could always use a gate, could you not?"
"You do realize how expensive the budget is for a single gate use, don't you?"
"With the North this dangerous, does money really matter?"
"I can't argue with that. Anyway."
I set the teacup down and looked at Jester.
"What about the investigation into the capital-born servants still remaining in the estate?"
"Every one of them has a backer... except for one individual who does not."
"And who is that?"
"Maid Chief Leni."
"Huh."
"Unpleasantly clean, in fact."
"That's all the more suspicious."
"Shall I dig deeper?"
"Please. Starting with the Walterheim estate, we need to clean out every last one of the imperial family's rats nested across the entire North."
Crack!
I stretched and looked out the window, and Cecilia and a maid wandering the estate came into view.
"That maid?"
"Her name is Lan. I took her in as my adopted daughter and raised her."
"Jester's adopted daughter. That makes her trustworthy."
"As you said, Your Grace—is she not the ideal choice to stay at the lady's side?"
"Well done. If any vassal or servant tries to provoke the lady, report it to me at once."
Jester nodded with a pleased smile.
"For a contractual relationship, you seem rather fond of the lady."
"It's not like that."
I'm just worried some fool will provoke Cecilia without knowing better and hit the detonation switch.
At her first shared breakfast with her fiancé, the Grand Duke of the North, Cecilia found herself quietly impressed as she watched Victor maintain flawless table manners—nothing like the rumors she had heard in high society.
The way he holds his utensils, the order he uses them—it's remarkably polished. So much for the gossip of high society. I was worried after hearing the rumor that he picks up meat by the bone and tears into it with his teeth.
The dishes set before Cecilia were excellent enough to rival anything she had eaten at the duchy.
Is that man the chef of the Walterheim estate?
With a massive frame that suggested no delicacy whatsoever and a face marked by scars, he looked like a battle-hardened warrior—and would have passed for one without question if he hadn't been wearing a chef's uniform.
"Is something the matter, my lady?"
At Victor's question, Cecilia offered a soft smile and pointed to the soup in front of her.
"I was simply admiring how excellent this soup is."
"Oh?"
Flinch!
The bald head chef twitched at Cecilia's words, though no one noticed.
"Tender meat in a broth without a trace of grease—I can hardly begin to imagine how much care the cooks poured into it for those who would eat it."
"The chefs of the Walterheim estate are the finest in the North, after all."
"Yes. I would say the finest on the continent without hesitation."
Hans, head chef of the Walterheim estate, began to shed tears of pure emotion inside.
Sniff...!!! She recognized the effort poured into that soup!!!
The deep flavor of a soup that could only be achieved by tending the fire all night, carefully skimming away every bit of fat. Looking at Cecilia, who had understood the philosophy in that soup, Hans made a vow.
From this day on, only the finest ingredients will ever grace Her Ladyship's table—sob!
"Pfft."
Only Jester noticed that the tips of Hans's ears had gone red—Hans, a northern man who never showed emotion, was moved beyond words.
On the way back to her room after breakfast, Cecilia's eyes fell on the maids hard at work cleaning the estate.
"My lady? What's wrong?"
"Lan."
"Yes?"
"Would you show me your hands?"
"Uh... sure."
Cecilia looked at Lan's hands and frowned. Then she walked toward a maid who was in the middle of cleaning a window.
"Whew. That's this one do—eek!!"
"Look out!"
"Whoa!"
The young maid, unaware that Cecilia and Lan were behind her, startled at the presence she felt at her back and lost her balance—just as she was about to topple backward, Lan darted in and steadied her.
"Sister Lan."
"Honestly. How many times have I told you to check behind you when you're working?"
"I'm sorry. Um... and this person is?"
"This is Lady Cecilia."
"E-eep?!! H-His Grace's fiancée... I-I'm so so—sorry!!!"
The maid, tripping over her own tongue, looked like a puppy that had just made a mess.
"Hehe. It's all right. You're not hurt, are you?"
Cecilia reassured her with a gentle smile.
"No! Not at all!"
...This child's hands, too.
"All right, all right, get back to work. Stand there gawking and Maid Chief Leni will have your head."
Watching the maid dash off with a wave, Cecilia seemed to reach a decision and turned to Lan.
"Lan, is there anywhere in the estate that could serve as a workshop?"
"How long has it been since I had peace like this."
Having powered through late into the night on caffeine, I felt a surge of pure catharsis at the empty desk before me.
And at the same time—
"...I'm bored."
An overwhelming dullness began to make my head swim.
"Maybe I should find some work to—"
"Is that so, Your Grace?"
"..."
Speak of the devil. Jester set a stack of documents of unknown origin down on the desk.
"What is this?"
"The ledgers of the North and the Grand Duchy of Walterheim."
"..."
"Shall we go over them together?"
The idea of me looking at ledgers—me, who had been at war with numbers since my previous life—was absurd.
"Sorry, Jester, but I'm terrible with numbers. Something will definitely go wrong."
"Is that so... a pity."
"I'm going to take a short walk."
"Yes... please do. I'll stay here and sort through the ledgers... alone."
Feeling Jester's resentful gaze on my back as I escaped the office, I scratched my head and decided I really needed to hire an administrative aide to support him.
"Well, before I leave for the Academy, maybe I should loosen up and shoot some arrows for the first time in a while... Hm?"
On the path to the estate's training grounds, a light burning in a building caught my eye.
"What is that?"
That building was the magic workshop that had been left abandoned after my mother passed and it lost its master. Unease washed over me as I opened the workshop door, and inside—
Thud! Thud!
"My lady, is this enough grinding for the herbs?"
"Yes. Thank you."
Cecilia was compounding the ground herbs while Lan cheerfully pounded away at a mortar.
"My lady?"
"Ah, Your Grace."
"Aaaah!! Your Grace!"
"What are you doing in here? Don't tell me..."
In the novel, Cecilia used the workshop for magic training and alchemy to relieve the stress of the love triangle between the crown prince and the protagonist. That was how her mana circuits twisted, how she read a forbidden grimoire and went berserk.
Could this be the prelude to her rampage? Is that... poison??
"Ah, well, you see..."
"Her Ladyship was making a moisturizing cream for the maids!"
"...Huh?"
Moisturizing... cream? Now that I looked, the finished product over there was identical to the hand cream my roommate in my previous life used to apply.
"A moisturizing cream? Why would you..."
"The hands of everyone working in the estate are in such terrible condition. I wanted to help even a little, so I got a bit ambitious. Ah—and I used the money I brought from the duchy for the herbs, so please don't worry on that account."
Kgh! Did someone just set off a flashbang? This is the villainess? There's a halo shining behind her—she's a saintess!