“Though I am saying this myself, I am what they call a teacher who raises the best ladies in the social world. Could it be that you are saying I taught Young Lady Lilika to be the daughter of the Duke who doesn’t even know the meaning of lead pots and white Lepias?”

That’s right. It must be unfair to be labelled as someone who didn’t teach common sense.
She was none other than a tutor who would teach the duke’s daughter, so how carefully my father would have chosen her. Madam Tiller was a tutor that all families wanted to call.
The lady in front of me had a wide range of social connections even after her husband died, and she was also good at burying the mistakes of the ladies she taught with her unique wit and sense.

However, if she were to be expelled from the duchy for failing to teach the daughter well… Beyond the worry of losing her career as a tutor, it was possible that she would be ignored and ostracized in the social world.

“Why did Young Lady Lilika say that I didn’t teach her… Why…”

Soon, Madam Tiller let go of her dignity and began to cry. Her behavior was understandable.
I looked at her, feeling sorry, then opened my mouth.

“Listening to what you said, I think you deserve to feel injustice. I also wonder why Lilika said that she never learned that.”

Then, I glanced at the butler’s face who had come with me to see Madam Tiller.

‘Even though I’ve said this much to the tutor, the butler won’t interfere.’

He used to be unfriendly to me, but his attitude became more respectful after all the trouble I went through in the kitchen to find the lead pot.
In that case…

“Madam Tiller, I will write you a letter of recommendation so that you can work elsewhere.”

Let’s try attracting Madam Tiller to my side.

“R-really?”
“Listening to the situation, I think Lilika was educated, but it’s a pity that she seems to have forgotten…”

Madam Tiller immediately grabbed my hand. I soothed her and spoke in a gentle tone of voice.

“I’m sorry if it seemed that I was shouting at you. I was worried about Lilika…”
“Not at all. Thank you so much, Young Lady Yuria… How grateful I am for your consideration of me…”

The butler was still quiet. It seems fine so far. It was rewarding to bring him on purpose. Even if this became a problem in the future, it could be a shield if I said I was with the butler.

‘I’ll become the person who was angry with the tutor out of worry for my younger sister, but ended up writing a letter of recommendation after listening to the situation because it was embarrassing.’

Since I would write her a letter of recommendation, Madam Tiller would be able to continue working as a tutor somewhere other than the duchy, and it would look as if she had just changed her workplace rather than having been fired for doing something wrong.
And now Madam Tiller was so embarrassed that she even shed tears…

‘No, perhaps even these tears were aimed at inducing the sympathy of the young ladies.’

It was not an easy thing to make a name for yourself in the social world.

“Since I was only teaching Young Lady Lilika, I thought Young Lady Yuria was a bad person…”
“It’s alright. How can you know a person before having a proper conversation?”
“A proper conversation…”

Madam Tiller chewed on those words and raised the corners of her mouth.

“Yes, it’s easy to misunderstand people. It’s easy to judge.”

She finally said what I wanted to hear, and I smiled contentedly on the inside.
I couldn’t wait to see how Madam Tiller, who had all kinds of connections in the social world, would talk about Lilika.

***

The girl who everyone said was as beautiful as a spring flower, the treasure of Duke Primrose and his successor.
The second daughter of the duchy, Lilika Primrose.

She was not in a position where people would be envious of her from the start.
Even though she was the duke’s daughter, she was not allowed to attend some social gatherings at first.

“It’s because I’m an illegitimate child.”
“Lilika…”

The social world returned to a principle that was slightly different from the status of a noble family.

Why can’t my daughter go to the place where your daughters go? Isn’t she threatened every time?

Even the great Duke Primrose couldn’t go with her to the tea parties that only girls her age could attend.
There was a line that could not be crossed, even if the Primrose family was considered to be the most prestigious from the beginning of the empire.

Lilika worked relentlessly to be accepted by the nobles as one of them.
And found an effective way to do it.
For that part, she was fortunate to have her older sister Yuria, who hated her and couldn’t stand her.
Even if her father and brother couldn’t go with her, Yuria could.
But that didn’t mean that she loved Lilika and tried to have her join her.

The contrast between white and black.
A girl who is an illegitimate child and is looked down on and harassed, and her older sister who torments her.
It was a phrase that people would find interesting.

Yuria, who came right over with just a little provocation, was a really easy opponent to deal with.

“I’m the only Young Lady of Primrose in the world. Who are you to stick your head out!”

Even if she was an illegitimate child and people were cold-hearted to her… The sight of an angelic-looking little child being pushed around roughly stimulated sympathy.

“How can you say such harsh things when you’re her older sister… Young Lady, are you alright?”

Ironically, it was the day someone spoke to Lilika for the first time.
Some of the weak-hearted ladies took care of Lilika’s scratches and stayed with her until the end of the gathering.
Of course, the ladies of the great families were swayed but didn’t say anything. They didn’t even try to make eye contact.
But that was enough for now.

Starting from gatherings on the outskirts, Lilika diligently made an impression to stay in people’s minds.
Of course, she couldn’t be satisfied with just that. Even though she was close to them, they were only lower-class noble ladies who couldn’t be of any help to her.

After establishing her reputation as a ‘pitiful young lady, who is pretty and cute even though she is an illegitimate child’, she secured Madam Tiller, a tutor, and with that, gained a personal connection to regular gatherings.
Of course, it was not without a fight. But Yuria was furious before them.

“Sister, Madam Tiller is going to teach me!”

And it was Lilika who induced it.

“What? But I was told to give her up because she couldn’t make time for me?”
“It seems that she adjusted her schedule with the other noble families because Father gave her a precious treasure. I’m so happy.”
“If she adjusted her schedule, she should have come to me instead of you! Why did she go to you first? I’ve been begging Madam Tiller for years to teach me!”

Yuria was easy to handle. Her situation was different from that of Jiksen, who was relatively older than her.
Yuria had to hand over some of her own things to Lilika because she was the older sister of the same gender.

Yuria raised her voice when Lilika was given the tutor she had been told to give up on.

“Why is Father telling me to concede because I’m the older sister, and giving good things only to you? You and I are months apart!”
“S-sister. Father tried hard to bring her here because I’m lacking manners. Sister has a lot of etiquette… You’re different from my lowly bloodline.”
“That’s right, a lowly bloodline. He’s doing that because he also feels sorry for you! It’s not because he likes you more!”

If you deliberately offended her, she would explode.

“Please stop, Yuria!”
“Brother, are you siding with Lilika now? I’m your sibling, who has been with you all along. Not her!”

Of course, her position both in the duke’s castle, and in the social world, had become stronger.
From some point on, she started attending not only social gatherings for noble ladies, but also events like grand banquets, where she had to go with her father and brother.
If other families ridiculed Lilika for being an illegitimate child, her father and brother wouldn’t let it go.

Though things had been going pretty smoothly since then… it started going wrong from some point on.

“Do you think that Primrose is on the same level as an emerging family?”
“Please, I beg you. Please send an offer of marriage to the Vieira family!”

As Yuria was so adamant and liked him so much, she became curious.
She thought about making her a little angry, so she interrupted the meeting with the excuse that she was curious about her sister’s fiancé.

“Oh my, Sir. You have cream on your mouth.”
“Huh? Where…”

Unsurprisingly, after showing some friendly behavior only in front of Yuria, she saw her spite rising.
Yuria was anxious about whether Sir Vieira and Lilika were together, and was going around doing all sorts of violent acts.
And did she know that from seeing that appearance, Sir Vieira became rather conscious of Lilika, whom he had only considered to be his fiancée’s younger sister?
Of course, normally, he wouldn’t cross the line, but Lilika wasn’t an ordinary girl…

But that was all that was good about it.

‘Is that young man over there making a public confession?’

——