The Villainess Lives Twice: Butterfly's Dream (IF Story) - Chapter 45

It was only natural that Artizea missed her family. While it was necessary to distance herself from Milaira, Cedric couldn’t find a reason to forbid her from meeting Lawrence.

If left alone, Lawrence probably wouldn’t care much about Artizea. He wasn’t sure why he showed up today, but he didn’t expect him to keep in touch regularly. 

In that case, it might be best to just leave things as they were. He had no obligation to guide him to become a better adult.

‘If he does something wrong, he can be punished then.’

In the end, if the Emperor was backing him, there was nothing Cedric could do about it. The only thing he could do was stop Lawrence from misbehaving in front of Artizea and Lysia.

He had made up his mind, but still couldn’t shake the complicated feelings he had. It wasn’t Cedric, but Pavel, who broke his thoughts by asking with a displeased look.

“Where’s the gift?”

“What?”

“Didn’t you bring a gift for Tia?”

Lawrence furrowed his brow, confused by the question. Pavel spoke again.

“Tia is hosting her first tea party, and you’re coming empty-handed?”

“Oh.”

Lawrence’s eyes widened in realization. 

He had never really brought gifts for Artizea before. But since this was the first time he was invited to Grand Duke Evron’s residence, and it was Artizea’s first tea party, it would have been polite to bring something, even if small. 

He noticed a small wrapped gift on the tea table.

Without thinking, he glanced at Cedric, who, like him, was empty-handed. But Cedric calmly pulled out a bundle of silk threads from his pocket, tying them together into a string.

“A gift.”

“Ah, th-thank you.”

Artizea’s face turned bright red. She was used to receiving gifts from Cedric, but she hadn’t expected him to bring something for the tea party specifically.

Cedric carefully tied the string around her wrist as a bracelet. Garnet said smiling,

“I think Lady Artizea will have a lot to deal with because of the Lord.”

“Yes?”

“How lucky. My fiance doesn’t do anything romantic like this. The last time, he brought a tin of cookies as a gift.”

“Those were really delicious.”

Skyla chimed in. Garnet shook her head, dismissing the comment.

“That’s not the problem.”

Lysia blinked and said,

“Isn’t it nice to receive delicious and beautiful cookies as a gift?”

“You guys would think so. Well, it’s not that I mind.”

Garnet sighed, resting her chin on her hand. It wasn’t the cookies that bothered her; she had just turned fifteen, yet her fiance still treated her like a ten-year-old.

As Cedric sat down, a trolley of refreshments arrived. Artizea poured the first tea for herself, took a sip, and smiled contentedly.

Artizea filled everyone’s cups with tea after pouring the first one for herself. She wanted to be the one to serve the first cup.

Since all the guests, except for Garnet, were still young, the tea was a fragrant herbal blend. Along with it, small pieces of fruit cake, cookies, and other desserts were served, and the walnut pie that Garnet had brought was cut into proper sizes and shared among everyone.

“I’m going to give Tia a pony as a gift.”

Pavel, eager to boast about his gift, said loudly. Artizea was taken aback and looked at him in surprise.

“A pony?”

“Yes.”

He said proudly, puffing out his chest. The feeling of reluctance he had earlier was completely gone now.

He was much more of an older brother than Lawrence. Wasn’t that true?

Cedric chuckled. It definitely wasn’t the kind of gift that belonged at a tea party. It was probably just an impulsive comment.

“You’ll regret it later.”

“Why would I regret it? I was always going to give it to Tia. Tia, have you practiced a bit?”

“Uh… well, that…”

“Tia still needs to work on her balance. She’s still small.”

“I’ll grow quickly.”

Artizea responded somewhat defiantly to Cedric’s words.

These days, she had been diligently drinking milk and practicing standing on one foot or hopping up ladders. While she never really thought it was fun, she didn’t skip any of it because she knew she would get praised if she did well. 

One of her favorite activities was walking in the garden while chatting with Lysia.

Skyla spoke clearly.

“My mother said I don’t need to grow up quickly. She says I should learn many things while I’m young, so I can figure out what I’m good at.”

“That’s good advice.”

Cedric replied gently. Artizea’s eyes sparkled as she asked,

“What is Lady Skyla learning?”

“Ancient languages, scriptures, math, geography, and history.”

Skyla answered, ticking off each subject on her fingers.

“And chemistry.”

The last one was an exaggeration. She had done a few fun experiments with her father, but Skyla wanted to show off her intelligence to her peers.

“That’s impressive.”

Artizea said honestly. It felt like everyone was working hard while she just played all day.

She felt both fascinated and a bit strange.

Milaira had never pushed her to study. She had often sneaked into Lawrence’s lessons, but whenever Milaira caught her, she would scold her for doing something unnecessary.

At Marquis Rosan’s residence, Artizea’s time had mostly been empty. There were hardly any people to interact with, and there weren’t many toys to play with either.

After she learned how to read, she would often go into the study and pick up books to look through, but whenever she talked about what she had read, Milaira would look tired and say that the child was picking out strange books to read.

Skyla’s mother had said that one should try to learn various things. And despite being a girl, she was studying subjects similar to what Lawrence was learning.

“I…”

Artizea opened her mouth but wasn’t sure what to say. Cedric seemed to understand what she was trying to express and asked,

“Do you want to study too, Tia? Like ancient languages or history?”

“I…”

Just as she was about to say she thought she could do well in those subjects, Pavel suddenly shouted.

“No!”

Everyone stared at him in surprise. Garnet tilted her head and asked,

“What’s wrong?”

Pavel didn’t respond to her. Instead, he quickly stood up and walked anxiously toward Cedric, whispering in his ear,

“Hey, think about it. If she starts learning that, she’ll be ahead of us in no time!”

“What’s wrong?”

“Don’t you have any authority as her older brother?”

Cedric finally understood Pavel’s feelings and gave a wry smile.

“Authority? Is this a win-or-lose situation?”

“But there’s face involved.”

“Tia’s going to end up ahead of us no matter when she starts.”

Pavel’s face fell. He thought he’d try to find an ally elsewhere and glanced at Lawrence.

Lawrence, who had been listening to the conversation, was casually sipping his tea with an indifferent expression. Pavel walked over and nudged Lawrence.

“Hey.”

“What?”

“Are you okay with Tia moving ahead of you?”

“Tia’s sharp. That might happen.”

Lawrence replied calmly. Pavel was annoyed by the fact that Lawrence, younger than him, didn’t even call him ‘older brother,’ but then again, if he did, it might make him even more irritated.

Then, suddenly, he realized that Artizea was looking at him.

“Is something wrong?”

Unlike Garnet, Artizea understood what Pavel had meant by ‘something being wrong,’ though she didn’t understand why it was.

Perhaps it was better for her not to study, like her mother had said…

“No!”

Pavel swallowed his words and quickly denied them, feeling embarrassed. Then, feeling even more guilty, he added,

“I’ll teach you.”

He had dug his own grave.

Cedric chuckled. If Pavel was worried about his face because he was worse at studying than Artizea, it would be better not to attempt it. He would soon be unable to answer any of her questions.

Cedric thought back to his foolish attempts to teach his second child history in the past. There were people who tried to think and understand many things at once, and if they were a child who asked too many questions, it was incredibly difficult to handle.