Lady Cinderella - Chapter 1

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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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Lady Cinderella Chapter 1

1. The Tragedy of Lady Elladdis

The day the Lloyd Count’s daughter became the Viscountess of Trumbone, Elladdis relived a dreadful memory. Even as the vows were exchanged in the sacred church, her husband, Trumbone, was dead drunk.
‘I wish all of this were just a dream.’
It was common gossip that Ella, Lady Elladdis, was an unwanted child. From a young age, she had spent most of her days at her maternal family’s house, keeping away from her philandering father.
Everything changed when her frail mother passed away. Before her wife’s body had even gone cold, Ella’s father had begun an improper affair with another woman. Once public attention faded, the two remarried, and so the only daughter, Ella, suddenly gained two older stepsisters.
“From now on, we’re all family, so whatever you have must be shared.”
Before the grief of losing her mother had even faded, her greedy stepmother and stepsisters began coveting everything Ella owned. Her emerald earrings, her sapphire necklace, even her mother’s keepsake, the brooch, were all taken by her older sisters, Kate and Anastasia.
‘Why didn’t I see it back then?’
Ella had been far too young to sense her stepmother’s malice. Her sunlit room was taken from her because Kate had taken a liking to it, and in its place she was given a cramped room tucked away beside the maids’ quarters.
People forgot the existence of the Lloyd Count’s daughter with terrifying ease. Her once-lovely hands chapped from the cold water, and the maids no longer treated her as a lady of the house. Her contact with her maternal family was forcibly severed by her father’s hand as well.
Time flowed quickly. By the time the grief over her mother’s death had faded and Ella herself had grown accustomed to this life, her stepmother brought up the subject of marriage.
“Ella, a marriage proposal has come in for you as well.”
By rights, Ella should have been the last in line, yet before her sisters had even married, she found herself walking down the aisle, arranged by her stepmother, to a husband she had never even laid eyes on.
It was the worst wedding imaginable. Before God, Trumbone, instead of swearing vows of faithfulness, let out a long belch, and soon he was smacking his lips messily. Watching that unsightly display, her sisters could not hold back their laughter. Her father mocked her openly in front of her, to the point that it was hard to believe he was truly her birth father.
“Finally, you’re getting rid of the burden.”
The most miserable bride in the world. Swallowing the surging shame, Ella lowered her head without a word. It was her stepmother, Patricia, who had first arranged the match with Trumbone, a man notorious as a drunkard. Seeing her stepmother’s smile, Ella felt as if she were a cow being led to the slaughterhouse, her feet unwilling to move.
“What a fine match you’ve found.”
The wedding reception was held quite lavishly, and Trumbone drank himself senseless, drinking more and more until his friends finally carried him off to the bedchamber. The wedding night was even more wretched. Beside her husband, who snored loudly in a drunken stupor, Ella stayed awake the whole night.
When morning came, a sheepish Trumbone soon slipped away to drink again. They had taken a precious Count’s daughter and cast her aside. Only much later did she learn that Trumbone cared more for gambling than for women. Patricia had wanted to get rid of her stepdaughter, whom she found irritating, and Trumbone had simply needed the Lloyd Count’s name to borrow money for his gambling debts. Ella only came to understand all of this several years after the marriage.
* * *
Her husband was every bit as wretched as her father. Having been treated like a maid by her stepsisters from the start, she quietly took on the housework herself and kept the household running.
“Don’t do this!”
Whenever her drunken husband tried to force himself on her, she pushed him away with all her strength. If this was what marriage was, if this was what being a wife meant, then being alone would have been better. Her parents had been unhappy together, so she had no illusions about marriage at all. Once she refused him, her husband stopped coming home altogether.
Each morning, Ella sighed as she read the newspaper delivered to the door. Thanks to the embroidery she had learned from her mother, which sold for a high price, she could keep the household going reasonably well, even though her husband never brought home a single coin for household expenses.
The Viscount’s house, an honorary title, owned nothing more than a small two-story mansion on the outskirts of the capital. It had only a handyman who came twice a week to prepare firewood, and two young maids who worked five days a week. Living as a noble in name only, with no servants worth commanding, the household was pitiful in every way.
“This is actually more comfortable.”
Perhaps because her standards had sunk so low, she now found happiness simply in the fact that her drunken husband no longer came home. Savoring the aroma of freshly baked bread, Ella unfolded the newspaper. Once again, it carried news that Grand Duke Carlisle Jeremiah Wellington had won on the front lines.
“What a relief.”
Though the Empire itself was at peace, the frontier faced fierce enemy incursions every year. Smiling faintly at the photograph printed in the paper, she recalled that the former Grand Duke Wellington and his wife, the Emperor’s cousin, had died in an unfortunate accident, and that their only son, Carlisle Jeremiah Wellington, must have inherited the title ten years ago.
The Grand Duke Wellington, called the Lion of the Battlefield, was the Emperor’s second cousin and the same age as the Crown Prince. Blessed with outstanding martial skill and public trust, he had won the people’s affection. Yet because a second cousin of the Emperor marrying a daughter from a powerful house would pose a grave threat to Imperial Authority, the Emperor’s blatant checks on him had kept him unmarried even now, at the age of twenty-eight this year.
It would have been nice to marry someone like him. She had even entertained such a foolish dream. If the woman who became the Grand Duke’s wife were of such lowly status as Ella, the Emperor would have no reason to check him. Her father was a Count in name only, and her maternal family, the Marquis Ruth House, had kept to neutrality for generations. She never spoke of the dream she carried in her heart to anyone, but if she were to dream at all, she would rather dream of a capable husband, even one who had no interest in her, than of one who drank himself stupid and wandered about gambling.
What had drawn her to him was, at bottom, admiration. To learn more about him, Ella had spent the past five years combing through his battle records without missing a single date. When each battle had taken place, what crises had arisen, she read the unfamiliar terms one by one, studying them carefully. Hearing that his hobby was reading the classics, Ella also took up the various books he recommended, such as ‘On the Art of War,’ ‘The Ethics of Battle,’ ‘The Utilization of Soldiers,’ and ‘An Interpretation of Agent Hyle’s Myeongcheolhak in Eighteen Volumes.’
It was the first pastime she had ever pursued purely for herself. Using the last remnants of her noble status, she borrowed books from the Imperial Library, and she had resolved to buy a magic tool that could read books aloud, though it cost her dearly. Piling up knowledge in this way while embroidering had, at some point, become the rhythm of Ella’s days.
‘It’s enjoyable.’
She could not overlook the Grand Duke’s latest news either. Going through the newspapers and the records that appeared at the library, Ella carefully studied his movements, noting where and when each event had happened. Others might laugh and call it a lonely, one-sided infatuation, but for Ella it was her only joy in life.
People cheered, remembering only his moments of glory, but Ella read in those records the sorrows he had endured. The Emperor had driven him to the frontier with an oddity that bordered on the unnatural. There were hardly any records of him returning to his territory or taking a rest, so meticulous was the way the name of Grand Duke Wellington appeared at the head of every major battle in recent years.
The rumors that the Emperor especially disliked the Grand Duke had, by now, ample grounds. Was it only her imagination that his being hated without any fault of his own overlapped with her own days of being abused by her stepmother and stepsisters?
A woman who became the wife of a man like this would surely be happy. Keeping her one-sided love locked away in her heart, she calmly read the articles reporting his victories. The photograph of him in the newspaper was so sleek and beautiful that it made a mockery of the name “Lion of the Battlefield.” Fingering the image of his eyes, full of unwavering resolve, Ella smiled bashfully.
* * *
It was nearly two years and more since her marriage. She had read every one of the Grand Duke Wellington’s battle records until she could recite them with her eyes closed, and going further, she had delved into the strategies, tactics, and even the difficult material, so the time passed quickly.
Though it was a study she pursued alone, Ella learned to pass the tedious hours by reading collections of famous battles from history. At first she could not understand the Grand Duke’s movements, but as time went on, she came to understand them a little. She had never dreamed she had a talent for such things. She had thought she was good at nothing but embroidery, yet once she picked this up, she grew so absorbed that she lost all track of time.
“My lady is so unusual.”
Even when she heard such words, she only smiled. She had long ago given up on living as an ordinary lady. Besides, the content of the classic military texts had lessons she could put to use in everyday life.
For instance: When an opportunity comes, seize it without hesitation. The wisest victory is the one won without fighting. Things like that. At first they seemed like idle, airy fantasies, but they turned out to be surprisingly useful. Once, she earned a great deal of money by working through the night on embroidery for a wedding with a short deadline, and when a merchant refused to pay the full amount, instead of raising her voice, she used the knowledge from her books to coax him with fine words, and afterward she felt a deep satisfaction.
She had believed that no effort was ever wasted, but there was one stain on Ella’s life: her husband. Having never managed to so much as hold her hand, thanks to his stubborn refusals, he, like her father, roamed the streets, and whenever his money ran out he came back to her, struck her, and stole her money before fleeing.
He would show up once every two months and do this, but now the man had not come home for four months. Could something truly have happened to him outside?
Part of her had prayed that he would vanish from Ella’s life forever like that. But tragedy always arrives without warning.
“Open up!”
It was the hour when the evening sun was setting.
With a loud ‘Bang!’ the debt collectors burst into the Trumbone Viscount household. Ella had sent all the servants home and was locking up from the second floor when, not knowing what was happening, she ran down to the first floor.
They were already searching the entrance hall for anything valuable. Nameless men seized Ella by the arms and dragged her out. No matter how wretched her circumstances had become, Ella was still a noblewoman, and a Viscountess at that.
“What is the meaning of this?”
“Is this the woman? Take her!”
“I am the wife of Viscount Trumbone. State your identity.”
“Viscount? Your husband sold off his title three months ago, you know, former Viscountess.”
I had never heard of any sale of a title. The leader of the creditors looked down at Ella, whose face had gone ashen, and let out a cold sneer.
“He’s already run up more than 5,000 gold in debt, so he begged us for another 500 gold, offering his wife as collateral. A count’s daughter, he said, and she’s still a maiden.”
“What is this supposed to mean?”
Selling a noblewoman like a human being, and for money. Ella heard these absurd words as she was dragged limply toward the cart.
Before she could even think of resisting, her mouth and hands were bound and she was thrown into a corner like cargo. The creditor looked down at Ella, who had slumped to the floor, with something like pity.
“Your husband is probably being fleeced at some underground gambling den right about now. We’ve no choice in this. Work hard and earn your keep with that body, former Viscountess.”
No matter how hard she strained, the tightly bound hands would not come loose. The sun sank beyond the horizon, red as blood, and the carriage carrying Ella set off toward some unknown destination. The men licked their lips as they watched her, now that the resistance had gone out of her.

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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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