secret wardrobe of the duchess
“Rubica! Rubica!”
As usual, Rubica was going to the river with a bunch of dirty bandages to wash in her arms. She then heard the voice of the man she had been trying to forget but had been thinking of at the same time.
“Ar… man.”
The resentment she’d been piling up quietly melted away at the voice eagerly calling out to her. She called him back only once in a small voice, but Arman could hear her. He ran toward her from afar. He ran into others on his way, but Rubica couldn’t go to him as she was carrying too much.
“Careful! Why are you in such a hurry?”
Rubica scolded Arman as he breathed heavily in front of her. His pants and shirt had stains as if he had just run out of the lab. Even though he was being scolded by Rubica, he couldn’t help but smile. That smile made Rubica’s resentment surface again.
She had been so worried about him for the last two months…
“Rubica, take this.”
Before Rubica could say anything, Arman put something on her hand. Rubica’s heart started to beat fast. Now she wondered that maybe she wanted Arman to present her a ring or something. But at the time, what was put on her hand was something round and grey.
“What is this?”
Rubica tried to hide her disappointment and asked kindly.
“It’s soap.”
“… soap?”
Most soaps Rubica had known had been beautiful and white, but what was on her hand was in a crude shape.
“It’s cheap soap.”
“… cheap soap?”
Her disappointment gradually turned into joy.
“After hearing what you said, I thought cheap soap would be good too, so…”
“Then what you’ve been doing during the last two months…”
“Yes, I didn’t know much about chemistry, so it took me some time to study. It would have been impossible if Priest Lefena hadn’t read the books to me. This is the first soap I made, so… I don’t know if it will make foam.”
The smile slowly disappeared from his face, and he spoke nervously. Had Arman come looking for her the moment he succeeded, even without thinking of testing it?
Rubica couldn’t hold back her excitement and took his hand.
“Let’s test it, now!”
Then, the two headed straight to the river. Rubica dipped the bandages in the water. Arman, meanwhile, started to sweat, worrying that his invention might not work. Rubica put the small soap on the bandages and started to rub.
“Look, it’s making foam.”
“Really? Really, Rubica?”
“Yes, a lot of foam.”
Arman, who had been nervous, started to smile.
Bum!
Rubica still couldn’t forget the heartbeat she heard then. She couldn’t forget Arman’s smile which she saw back then.
She was probably going to remember it for the rest of her life.
The expression beautiful wasn’t enough to describe that smile. If the gods smiled, they would smile like that. Rubica wanted to call that smile sacred.
Wouldn’t the gods gladly let her?
Without Arman’s soap, countless patients would have lost their lives because of dirty bedsheets and bandages.
***
“Ms. Rubica, you don’t like the scent?”
“Oh…”
The maid carefully asked when Rubica stopped making foam with the soap and blankly stared at the water.
“No, the scent is very good.”
Rubica realized she had been in a daze for a moment and smiled.
The maid relaxed and said, “That’s good. I was so worried, that you might not like both scents… oh, and my name is Jenny.”
Unlike other maids’ hands, Jenny’s hands were neither thick nor rough. She appeared to specialize in welcoming guests and helping ladies to dress up. While Rubica washed her face and hand, Jenny brought about eight luxurious-looking containers.
“These are?”
“Creams. We don’t know what kind of cream you normally use, so the housekeeper told me to bring all the creams we had…”
Jenny asked Rubica to tell her which cream she normally used. Of course, in her childhood, Rubica had used creams similar to those in front of her now. The problem was that it was so far in the past, so she couldn’t even remember.
In addition to that, all the creams Jenny brought had been made in the best workshops. Even Mr. and Mrs. Berner had never let Angela use such cream.
“Is the cream you use not among these?” When Rubica kept staring at the creams without saying anything, Jenny asked nervously.
Some people would pretend to have used the creams they have never seen before to keep their pride.
However, Rubica’s curiosity was bigger than her pride. She wanted to find out what kind of texture and scents the creams of famous shops, which she had only heard of, had.
“Can I use them all?”
“What?”
“I’ve never used any of these… would it be okay to just test them all?”
Jenny was rather surprised to hear this. She had been told Rubica Berner was from a baronet’s family, but she didn’t know what kind of life she had led. Then, she spotted Rubica’s hands. They looked even rougher than her own and that gave her the answer.
“Then, would you like me to apply them one by one?”
“Yes, thank you.”
Still a bit surprised, Jenny first opened the closest container and applied the cream on Rubica’s hands. Rubica’s hands were warm, and they absorbed the cream.
“This scent is…”
“It is argan added with rose.”
“Argan? Oh, are you talking about the fruits of argania tree?”
“Yes, to be specific, the seed of the fruit.”
Argania trees only grew in some parts of warm regions in the south, so it was an ingredient very hard to get.
Rubica’s curiosity started to grow even bigger.
“Does it just smell good? Or does it do something else?”
Jenny started to talk faster.
“It is good for the skin. The skin will become moist if you use this cream for some time. I sometimes lightly apply argan oil to the tip of my hair.”
“You apply argan oil on your hair?”
“Yes, just a little bit.”
Jenny glanced at Rubica. She would sometimes use the leftover ingredients on her hair and hands, and she was worried that Rubica might realize it and not like it.
“Oh, it must be why your hair is so smooth,” but her mistress, who was about to become the duchess, said something quite unexpected, “But isn’t this too expensive to be used often?”
“… I normally use olive oil as it has similar effects.”
“Which of them do you think is better, argan or olive?”
No one had asked such a question to Jenny before. At first, she explained calmly.
“It depends on the person’s skin, but my favorite is baobab cream. Argan is more expensive, but baobab is much moister.”
However, her voice started to grow as she started to talk about baobab cream. Then, she picked up the container and started to apply the cream on Rubica’s hand, even though she hadn’t been told to do so.
“Look. It’s been much easier to absorb and it’s moister. The most expensive items are not always the best.”
Then she started to massage Rubica’s hands in a unique way.
Rubica tried to observe and memorize how she did it.
“Doing this makes it absorb even better,” Jenny explained.
“… yes, it does.”
Rubica’s hands started to turn smooth thanks to the baobab cream. Plus, its scent was fresh and not heavy at all.
“Should I choose this for my face?”
Jenny started to really enjoy it when Rubica liked the cream she recommended.
“Yes, I think it fits your skin type, too.”
The two went on talking about various ingredients of creams, their effects, and prices. Jenny softly rubbed Rubica’s face to make sure the cream was absorbed. She was right, baobab cream was for Rubica’s skin type, and she was surprised to see her skin was brighter and smoother than before.
“It’s really impressive.”
“It’s not that much.”
“No, you’re really good at it. How could you choose the right cream for the skin of someone you just met? It’s amazing!”
Compliments delight people. Jenny was proud of herself, and her hands felt itchy.
‘I cannot finish it just here.’
Was it because Rubica hadn’t used cream for a long time? Her skin changing with just one cream touched some kind of desire inside Jenny.
She wanted to do more.
She wanted to make Rubica become even more beautiful.
“Um, miss?”
“Yes?”
“Why don’t you let me massage you?”
“… massage? Oh, but I’m not tired now.”
“No, I didn’t mean a massage meant for relaxing. I meant a massage to apply the cream on the entire body to improve the skin.”
Rubica had been wondering what she was supposed to do on their way to the duke’s mansion. As she wasn’t sure she could endure doing nothing for such a long time, she gladly nodded.
“Good!”
Using cream on the entire body, that was an extravagance she had never imagined, and she started to feel good already.
“As there is no bathtub in this carriage, you cannot take a bath, but if I wipe your body with a wet towel and use tea tree cream, it will be fine as tea tree has an antimicrobial effect.”