Sister-in-law of the Heroine in a Childcare Novel - Chapter 233

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Chapter 233

“Your health has improved quite a bit, it seems.”
“Yes.”
Steam from the hot water filled the entire space.
Valentina watched Elaine, whose toes were submerged in the hot spring.
Had anyone who knew Elaine from the Imperial Palace seen her now, they would never have believed this was the same woman.
Color had returned to the pale, marble-like face, and her listless hair now shone with vitality. She no longer looked like the mother of a grown daughter.
Once, she would faint from soaking in hot water for only a little while. To soak her body while sipping cool water in an open hot spring like this was unthinkable then—let alone anything else.
But now Elaine had recovered remarkably. Her beauty had been restored as well, radiant as silk flowers adorning golden leaves.
“To such a degree that His Imperial Majesty would never forget if he saw you once.”
Valentina’s expression grew briefly troubled at the sight of Elaine.
“You’re saying you’ll meet with people from your family?”
“Yes.”
“…That girl Titania said she was simply hiding away from the palace.”
“Do you believe that?”
Valentina fell silent, regarding the beautiful woman who smiled like a painting.
“When I think about it, my parents never treated me like family. They treated me as something to be sold off whenever convenient. While I was locked away by my own stubbornness inside the palace, only repeating my grief and anger until I resigned myself and withered, I couldn’t have known—”
Elaine looked into the mirror.
Rose-pink paint adorned her lips, and cloth the color of violets was wound in her hair. Her eyes held the light of wintergreen flowers. A color and scent that would make any man wish to possess it.
Elaine had lived her entire life as a beautiful flower. Swayed and trampled in others’ hands, she had never even thought to extend her roots far. She had been resigned to wither away, yearning only for the small measure of sunlight once permitted to her.
Until her young daughter told her that you had no choice but to be this way.
‘Just think about how to live happily.’
No one had ever given her that chance.
So I will give it to you, she had said.
Every time she looked into those clear eyes, Elaine felt regret. And she was grateful for a fate that allowed her to regret.
She was not yet dead.
She was still alive.
So there were still things she could do.
“Why did my friend linger near our family’s estate while wounded?”
…….
One need only trace back one’s thoughts.
Elaine’s friend had been attacked near Elaine’s family home. Elaine had instinctively hidden from others both the meeting and the rescue.
What if she had revealed it?
“Why would they not have sold me off to another family when they surely knew of my beauty—when even a single iron mine, which offers poor returns, was all they gained from their loyalty to the Emperor? Why didn’t they even consider it?”
Perhaps Elaine’s parents would have killed that ‘friend’ instead.
“While I was withering and dying inside the palace, my family paid no attention. They didn’t even bother to look at my face. If they were truly mad with desire for power and desperate to gain the Emperor’s favor, they would have come pestering me to secure his affection—but…”
When she thought about it, it was strange.
If a humble earl’s household had forced their daughter into the palace, shouldn’t they have become even more obsessed with her afterward? Yet they had abandoned Elaine. All the more so after she bore Titania and became damaged.
As if they had confirmed that was all she was useful for. As if willing her to wither and die sooner.
Not long after Elaine entered the palace, her mother died.
But her father and older brother remained alive.
There was, however, one thing they had ever given her.
Elaine remembered the touch of hollow crystal. So bitingly cold that touching it felt as though her entire body would freeze.
“In the end, I could not support my friend.”
…….
“I could not even confirm my friend’s death with my own eyes.”
…….
“The only man I loved in my entire life—I learned of his death through another’s account. Though it may have been false, I have even attended my daughter’s funeral, though I could not attend in person.”
Titania’s funeral had taken place in the Capital, and Elaine, using her still-fragile health as an excuse, could not attend.
One could not force a woman too ill to attend her own daughter’s funeral to come to the palace.
In other words, had she attended the funeral, the Emperor would surely have brought Elaine to the palace.
Valentina had some inkling of the truth behind Titania’s disappearance, but Elaine had fainted once.
Fortunately or unfortunately, the Emperor’s messenger, upon seeing Elaine unconscious and fainted, reconfirmed that her health was indeed poor and departed.
“Even if people from your family come to see you now…”
“Yes, I understand. I’m weak, and all I have is my appearance. I can wield neither sword nor Magic.”
I’m a failed mother who even came to resent and half-neglect the daughter I bore.
Perhaps that is why my family abandoned me. There was no need to dispose of me. I was worth nothing.
“It would be pleasant to spend my life here, relying on your kindness, my lady. You suggested I feign my death and live somewhere far away with a man who satisfied my heart. But… I wonder. Though the outcome was not good, a heart once given remains given. I don’t think I could develop new feelings for another man. In my whole life, there will be but one man, one friend, and… one daughter.”
“I thought I loved you like my own daughter. You wound me by saying such things.”
“I cannot presume to think of you as a mother, but… yes, I have learned much from you.”
Elaine smiled as she finished her preparations.
The final touch was Perfume.
The kind that begins subtle, then makes the nose sting slightly in the middle, and ends with a lingering sweetness that takes your breath away.
“There is no mother in all the world who can live at ease after putting her own child before her. If there is such a mother…”
Elaine gazed intently at the mirror one last time.
“…I suspect she is deceiving herself quite thoroughly about something.”

* * *

A dark corridor within the palace.
“This is confiscated.”
“Ah, just a moment, please! Natalie!”
Debbie wheedled at the cold-faced figure regarding her. Beside her, Bonita trembled from shoulder to shoulder.
“Black market dealings within the palace walls.”
“Ah, but Bonita was saying that, well, everyone keeps a little something secret…”
“Rules are rules.”
Debbie glanced at the pouch Natalie had seized. She had bought it “secretly” while promising Bonita several times the money.
Well, “secretly” was a loose term. At this hour when few people were about, when she knew no one would be on patrol—and yet here came Natalie, that formidable figure.
In other words, someone had informed on her.
Debbie’s mouth pleaded while her mind calculated coldly, her body bent submissively.
An informant?
Why?
Strange medicines and cosmetics had been circulating among palace workers for a long time now.
Tonics, vitality drugs, vigor boosters that allowed one to work through sleepless nights without care—whatever names were given.
The cosmetics were predictable things that supposedly healed old scars and smoothed the skin.
The closer one served to Cleo, the more frequently one obtained these items. Simply approaching Cleo’s quarters brought the scent wafting out.
Palace workers discreetly resold these items outside the palace for several times their cost.
The goods sold madly. The medicines and cosmetics showed signs of Addiction with repeated use.
That is, the small amounts that leaked outside the palace commanded ever-higher prices as time passed. They fetched prices equivalent to gold of the same weight.
Cleo herself had supposedly cautioned against giving them to others…
Debbie was certain even the person saying this didn’t believe it would be honored. If anything, she seemed to be encouraging further spread to some degree.
While supplying items in such abundance that they could be used personally and still have enough to sell to others despite their addictive nature? Merely cautioning in words? Had Cleo truly wanted to prevent it, she would have had anyone killed before an audience or extracted the goods themselves.
Yet she prevented Debbie, known as the dead princess’s right hand, from obtaining these items.
“…Well, there’s not much here, but…”
Debbie casually pushed forward a pouch containing a few coins toward Natalie.
In doing so, she let her hand be seen—the back scarred visibly with burn marks. The opposite figure’s cold, impassive brow twitched slightly.
“If you’d accept it and show me some mercy? It’s just that this works so well on wounds… I’ve only tried it this once. I won’t do it again, I promise. You know better than anyone how hard it is for those of us working in the Rose Palace. The girls from Mary’s side praise it so much that I was tempted to try it too.”
“Should something like this occur even once more, I’ll have you thrown outside the palace walls. Remember that.”
Natalie turned the pouch back toward Debbie without accepting it, then turned and disappeared.
As Debbie followed the receding footsteps with her ears, Bonita glanced back at her before scurrying after them.
“N-Natalie! I’m, I’m on your side! Surely you’re greater than Mary, of course! I didn’t mean to disrespect you—please don’t misunderstand!”
…….
Debbie clicked her tongue and rose from where she’d been left alone. She brushed off the clothes she wore. Rustle-rustle—several small pouches continued spilling out.
“As if I can only buy things properly with money.”
Debbie, formerly—or rather, still—an assassin-turned-maid, snorted sharply. She had mountains of work to do.
“The princess and the prince really ought to appreciate how hard I work for them.”
Debbie grinned mischievously.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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