TOML CH 08

After lounging around for a moment, I began wondering how I was supposed to greet Duchess Harriet.

But since most of the employees I encountered every day at the trading company were commoners, I couldn’t quite remember the proper etiquette for dealing with nobles.

The simulation of my first meeting with the Duchess playing out in my head seemed to buffer at every scene.

I hurriedly practiced the etiquette required when dealing with high-ranking nobles.

I started by practicing the greeting a noblewoman was supposed to give someone of higher status than herself, but my reflection faintly visible in the glass display cabinet looked anything but graceful.

“I should have practiced more while Rebecca’s memories were still clear.”

Since I had hardly had any opportunities to meet nobles after possessing Rebecca’s body, I had almost completely forgotten even the etiquette that remained in her memories.

High-ranking nobles couldn’t exactly expect impeccable manners from a merchant who had a noble title but was working as a commoner-like trader. The chances of anyone actually criticizing my lack of etiquette were low.

Still, being good at it was better than being bad at it.

Once again, I promised myself that when things settled down, I would study some useful things such as foreign languages and proper etiquette.

Of course, the chances of me actually following through were extremely low.

I should have paid more attention to the setting of the novel instead of focusing only on the romance between the male and female leads.

If I had, at least some of it would have been useful now.

The original novel, Your Majesty, Marry Me Instead of My Sister, was one of my favorites because of the female lead Rosalyn’s unique personality and the author’s signature dry writing style, which somehow made even the miserable parts of the story feel like a comedy.

I had read it several times because I liked it so much, but since it was an adult novel, the parts that had remained especially vivid in my memory were inevitably a few particular scenes.

Both the heroine and the male lead had extremely fiery personalities, after all.

That scene between the heroine and the male lead at the ball was really good.

I found myself thinking about the original novel for the first time in a long while.

Come to think of it, this meant that the first original character I was going to meet would be Duchess Harriet.

Unlike Rebecca, who was barely important enough to be called an extra, the Duchess was at least a fairly prominent supporting character.

She was a mentor-like older sister and friend to the heroine, who had come from an illegitimate background and knew little about high society. Whenever the minor villainesses who looked down on and bullied the heroine tried to pick on her, Sarah would effortlessly crush them with her dazzling verbal skills.

She was exactly the kind of cool, confident character I liked, so I had been quite fond of her too.

Her name was Sarah, but in the comments, people called her “Sassy Sister” more often than they called her by her actual name.

“Oh my, I’m worried that associating with such a lowly illegitimate child might damage the Young Lady’s dignity.”

“Indeed. That girl must have shamelessly tried to act familiar with Lady Sarah without knowing her place. As someone who shares the same surname, I would like to apologize on her behalf.”

And so on.

Back before the regression, whenever the young heroine was being bullied by her older sister and the villainous young ladies who followed her around, Sarah would make a dramatic entrance and rescue her.

Perhaps because of that, after the regression, the heroine—who had developed a cold and seemingly impenetrable personality—would occasionally cling to Sarah and act spoiled around her.

“You’re fortunate that you already know how to recognize someone who doesn’t know her place and tries to act familiar. When did I ever give you permission to call me by my name?”

“Pardon? I only wanted to become friends with the Young—”

“The Clifton Young Lady I want to become friends with isn’t you. It’s this lady here.”

There had been a memorable scene where Sarah took the heroine by the hand and led her out onto the balcony.

The chemistry between the two had been so good that the top comment on that chapter had practically been asking whether Sarah was actually the true second female lead of the novel.

Whew.

Suddenly, I felt excited as though I were about to meet a celebrity rather than attend a business meeting.

Even the trembling caused by nervousness seemed to have eased a little.

“All right. I’m at a character fan-signing event right now. A fan-signing event. Fan-signing event. Sarah, you’re so cool.”

After taking a moment to calm myself, I seemed to regain some confidence, because my reflection in the glass looked much more natural.

Now I was ready.

Just then, I heard someone calling for me from outside the door.

It was my turn.

I brushed off the wrinkles in my dress that had formed from sitting down.

Then, adopting the most elegant and confident posture I could manage, I followed the attendant toward Duchess Harriet’s reception room.

After walking through the long marble corridor inside the mansion, I arrived at a room whose very door was on an entirely different level from the reception room where I had been waiting.

So this is the Duchess’s reception room.

While I briefly examined the delicate carvings on the door, the servant who had escorted me here knocked and announced my arrival.

“My Lady, Viscount Felice of the Felice Trading Company has arrived.”

“Let her in.”

The voice granting permission to enter probably belonged to the Duchess’s secretary.

Phew.

I took a short breath and stepped inside.

Holding my dress just enough to keep my ankles covered, I lowered my gaze slightly and quickly took in the layout of the room.

Proper etiquette meant behaving naturally, as though you had visited a place countless times before, even if it was your first time there.

Fortunately, the Duchess’s presence was so overwhelming that I was able to locate her at just the right moment.

“It is a beautiful afternoon, Your Grace. My name is Rebecca Felice of House Felice.”

And then I performed the greeting I had hastily practiced.

The angle of my arm is good. My tone of voice is good, too.

Do I actually look elegant and impressive right now?

Fortunately, I was the type who performed well under pressure.

This should be good enough. Excellent.

I mentally showered myself with praise.

Of course, I maintained my posture the entire time.

When greeting someone of higher status, I wasn’t allowed to move until they acknowledged my greeting.

I focused on keeping my expression under control and counted silently.

In noble etiquette, even a glance or a breath could carry meaning.

One, two, three, four.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Viscount Felice.”

Fortunately, Duchess Harriet acknowledged my greeting sooner than I had expected.

It was slightly longer than an ordinary greeting, yet slightly shorter than the amount of time that, in high society, essentially conveyed the message: I don’t like you, so you’d better conduct yourself appropriately.

“Thank you for your warm welcome.”

It seemed my first impression hadn’t been too bad.

A certain Marchioness had clicked her tongue the moment she received my greeting before.

If I had simply been a merchant from a commoner background, nobles tended to treat me with a condescending kind of kindness, as though they were practicing noblesse oblige.

But someone like me—who actually possessed a noble title yet worked as a merchant—was often treated even worse, as though I were disgracing the honor of the nobility.

“Sit.”

She even invited me to take a seat.

That meant she was willing to treat me as a guest.

As expected of Sarah. Cool as ever.

The secretary subtly indicated where I should sit, and I promptly took my place.

“I’ll have tea brought in.”

As soon as I sat down, the Duchess’s secretary immediately disappeared.

I felt strangely uncomfortable.

If she was the Duchess’s chief secretary, she was probably either an off-branch child of a count’s family or a direct descendant of one of the Duchess’s vassal families.

The fact that I felt uncomfortable having someone of higher status serve me tea meant that I, too, had probably become accustomed to the class system.

After that brief thought, I decided to remain silent for the time being.

At a meeting like this, talking too much was an all-or-nothing gamble.

Unless I had the kind of exceptional conversational skills capable of completely captivating the listener, speaking unnecessarily would only leave the impression that I was trying too hard.

And when I got nervous, I sometimes ended up saying complete nonsense.

If you keep quiet, you’ll at least avoid making things worse.

The Duchess herself looked somewhat tired, perhaps because preparing for her daughter’s engagement ceremony had been exhausting.

After all, there probably wasn’t a single detail—from the food to the decorations in the guest rooms where visitors would stay—that didn’t require the hostess’s attention.

On top of that, she must have had her own responsibilities as a duchess.

Fortunately, the silence didn’t last long.

The Duchess’s secretary returned with several maids carrying trays behind her.

I could already smell the rich fragrance of lilacs.

The servant who had escorted me to the reception room earlier took the tea from them, and they only exchanged a few brief instructions.

The fragrance was remarkably similar to the tea Daisy had prepared.

As expected of the servants of a ducal household. Their standards are high.

I watched the maids place the teacups on the table with a confident expression.

Perhaps because my instructions had been conveyed properly, one of the maids placed the tea canister on the table as though she were displaying it before leaving.

It was positioned directly within the Duchess’s line of sight.

That was the power of a carefully prepared gift—I’d even made sure there was plenty for the servants.

The Duchess’s gaze lingered on the tea canister for a moment.

Her expression was as difficult to read as befitted a high-ranking noblewoman, but I knew.

The Duchess was interested in the tea package’s unusual design.

Nobles in this country liked anything flashy, from their possessions to the people around them.

And yet most of the tea canisters used here had very simple designs.

Their materials were usually limited to things like porcelain or wood.

The reason was simple.

The person who prepared the tea was a servant, not a noble.

But nobles cared so much about displaying their wealth that they went beyond paying attention to their own clothes and jewelry and even put gold buttons on their servants’ uniforms.

So I wondered—

What if we gave them a way to indulge that vanity with their tea canisters as well?

Could that become the beginning of a new trend?

With that thought in mind, I had put an enormous amount of effort into the tea package.

First, I commissioned a craftsman who specialized in making jewelry to design the package.

It was a low, cylindrical box decorated with spring flowers, with a mannequin wearing a lilac-colored dress placed on top.

The box itself was made of wood.

The floral designs were first carved in relief to give them a delicate, three-dimensional appearance before being painted.

The dress worn by the mannequin was especially elaborate.

I had the petals shaped from luxurious fabric normally used for actual noble ladies’ dresses and layered together to create the form of a gown. I even had gemstones embedded in it.

Our customer was House Harriet, the wealthiest family in the country, so I hadn’t even considered a budget limit from the beginning.

If the package failed to catch the Duchess’s attention, the cost of commissioning the design and producing the prototype would result in a fairly substantial loss.

But I considered it a gamble worth taking.

And the finished product was, without exaggeration, so beautiful that I was confident it would be the most artistic tea canister the Duchess had ever seen in her life.

I deliberately gave the Duchess enough time to admire the tea canister before carefully opening my mouth.