Lady Cinderella - Chapter 10

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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, Episode 10

The golden butterflies and pink rose vines embroidered on it were unmistakably the very first piece she had delivered to Rose Gold.
“So you’ve been keeping an eye on me since then?”
“I wasn’t sure back then. If there’s anything you need, bring it with you. There’s a carriage waiting outside.”
He had no use for a fiancée, but then again, there was no real reason he shouldn’t have one. Besides, the moment he pictured the Emperor’s face when he heard about a real engagement, his temples throbbed.
She’d been meek and careful, reading his every mood, and now she was treating him as though he were a fool. He didn’t care for that at all. She couldn’t rebel openly without losing her head, so watching her fume and sulk like this wasn’t a bad way to pass the time.
“If this was what you were planning, you should have given me an answer sooner!”
“Stop talking nonsense and go fetch your things.”
The deal was struck. While Calaile waited near the garden wall, Ella hurried into her room and gathered her unfinished embroidery and her belongings. There was her cousin’s black dress, which she would have to return someday, the Imperial Library access pass, and the diary she had filled with notes on how she might be of use to the Grand Duke.
With nowhere else to put anything, she bundled everything into a bedsheet and came back out. The Grand Duke took her bundle himself, then, with one arm, lifted her effortlessly onto his shoulder.
“Eek!”
“Don’t scream. Do you want to advertise this to the whole street?”
“Wait, but! Hold on, what are you doing!”
The Grand Duke took a running start, touched the wall once, and vaulted over the garden wall as lightly as a bird. The moment she hung suspended in midair, Ella finally grasped what was happening. Her skirts flipped up over her head, exposing her underpants, and he handed her bundle to a guard waiting below before tossing her unceremoniously into the carriage.
“Ow! That hurt!”
“Stay put and be quiet.”
“What did you say?”
“Your Grace, what on earth is going on?”
Kevin, who had been keeping watch, came running over in a hurry, but instead of answering, the Grand Duke climbed into the carriage and ordered them to depart at once. Kevin was too astonished to even find words. His master, who had never once caused a scandal over a woman, had just kidnapped a lady in broad daylight. Worse, when she didn’t show up to the ball, he had come to her house in person and lifted her into the carriage with his own hands.
“What on earth has happened to my lord?”
Kevin hurried to mount his horse, unwilling to be left behind. He would have to hear the full story once they returned to the mansion.
* * *
She was exhausted from clearing the mountain of embroidery orders that had piled up ahead of the ball. On top of that, she had been startled by the Grand Duke’s call and soaked through from the laundry water she’d been wringing out. Ella’s body sagged with fatigue, and once she found something to lean on, she dozed off right there in the carriage.
“What is this?”
Gone was the bold talk from before. With a faint scent of soap clinging to her, Ella dozed on and off, hugging her bundle of belongings to her chest like a drenched mouse.
If she was this tired, it would be better for her to lie down properly and sleep. Watching her, Calaile found her so pitiful that he pulled her head, just about to bump against the carriage wall, onto his shoulder. The carriage carrying the Grand Duke and Ella headed straight for the Grand Duke’s Residence. The steward and the retainers welcomed their master’s belated return.
“Welcome home, Your Grace.”
Perhaps the retainers, who had been anxiously hoping their master would finally meet a lovely lady at the ball, had gotten their wish, for he was not alone. Calaile lifted the deeply sleeping Ella in his arms and stepped out of the carriage.
“Your Grace? Who might this be?”
“My special guest. See that she is treated with the utmost care.”
Seth, the steward who managed this household, and Olga, Calaile’s nursemaid, could only stare at the small silver-haired girl in the Grand Duke’s arms, unable to find words.
At a glance her clothes were plain and worn, but on closer inspection, her features were fine and luminous. Moreover, while “special guest” could be interpreted in many ways, to Olga, who belonged to the old school, the meaning was only one: the stern Grand Duke had brought home a woman.
“Oh, what a small, lovely thing she is.”
It seemed the Grand Duke had finally made up his mind to marry. Watching Calaile carry her to the bed himself, Olga flushed with joy. Following his orders to let her rest, feed her, and bathe her carefully, the quick-witted Olga and Seth hurried to begin preparing to attend to the lady.
Compared with Seth and Olga, the couple who would never dream of objecting and would even pretend to die if their master commanded it, Kevin looked at him with a clearly displeased expression.
“What is she? What does she want from Your Grace?”
Calaile himself wasn’t sure where to begin. He couldn’t hide anything from Kevin, who would have to clean up the aftermath.
“Concentrate all our forces on Oberon. There will be an ambush.”
“An ambush? Surely you don’t mean they’ll target the supply convoy carrying the spoils?”
“Yes. If the remnants of the enemy are looking to turn the tide, they’d be perfectly capable of doing exactly that.”
Kevin was half-convinced, but Calaile still had a nagging unease lodged somewhere in his mind. Most of the guesses in the letter he had sent had proven accurate, and indeed, a large shipment of spoils collected from the Eastern Front was scheduled to pass near Oberon.
Since the Emperor had ordered the spoils moved to the capital as soon as possible, the convoy had been set to cross Oberon despite the risk, so even as mere empty words, Ella’s warning was hard to dismiss.
Lady Elladis was said to be just eighteen years old. Still so young. And a girl who had been cast out by her own parents and passed from one menial job to another could hardly possess that sort of insight. Calaile shook his head and turned her words over in his mind once more.
“Let’s say, hypothetically.”
“Yes?”
“If I were to actually become engaged, how would His Majesty respond?”
Kevin was bewildered that a man who had never wanted to speak of marriage, let alone women, was suddenly bringing up an engagement, but he offered an answer all the same.
“First, he’ll likely reduce that woman’s family house to ruins. He’d have to, lest Your Grace ever set his sights on the throne.”
“That’s what I thought, too.”
“Perhaps if you found a woman you liked at today’s ball, or— wait a moment. Your Grace, surely you don’t intend to take that woman as your Grand Duchess?”
At the mention of a Grand Duchess, Calaile scoffed. What Ella had proposed was, after all, nothing more than a temporary and limited “Contract Engagement.” If the two of them became engaged and the Emperor reduced Ella’s parents to ruins, it would also be to Ella’s own benefit.
She was a clever woman. Since neither of them had any real intention of marrying, at least one person ought to know the truth, so Calaile confided it only to Kevin, his right-hand man.
“That outrageous woman made me a deal. In exchange for freeing her from her family, she’d become my fake fiancée.”
“A fake fiancée, Your Grace!”
The Grand Duke, who had always claimed he had no interest in marriage, seemed to have been thoroughly intoxicated today. Even a suspicious woman whose identity he didn’t yet know had clearly managed to win him over. This was dangerous. Kevin looked at his lord, a cold sweat on his brow. The Grand Duke smirked and, counting on his fingers, began to weigh several possibilities.
“That girl knows far too much. If she were to side with Marquis Osborn, the losses on my end would be enormous.”
At the mention of Marquis Osborn, the head of the Third Prince’s Faction, Kevin’s expression turned just as cold. Sensing the conversation was about to veer into something grimmer and more brutal, Calaile hurriedly changed the subject.
“In any case, she asked me for help first. If she had any intention of throwing in with Osborn, she wouldn’t have reached out to me separately like this. I’m simply taking the hand she’s offered me.”
It sounded plausible enough at first hearing, but it wasn’t nearly enough to win Kevin over. Even choosing from the very best, the pickings would be slim, and yet a shabby Count’s daughter had dared to become the Grand Duke’s fiancée. For Kevin, Ella was little better than a maid, and he could not simply accept her presence.
“But a woman as insignificant as that lacks the proper standing.”
“She’s Marquis Ruth’s niece, though.”
Ella’s father, Baron Lloyd, was nothing more than a titled nobleman in name, a man of little consequence. But the Marquis Ruse House had once been one of the most distinguished noble families, its members decorated as war heroes in days gone by. And since they had stayed out of the quarrel over the Imperial Succession Rights, there was little chance they would become a burden to this side.
“But they don’t even keep in contact with her, and by all accounts they’re practically strangers to her.”
“Will they still be so distant once she becomes my fiancée?”
Kevin fell silent at the arrogant words of the Grand Duke. He had a point. She was a Lady currently treated like leftover rice, but the moment she was announced as the Grand Duke’s fiancée, the way people regarded her would turn completely on its head.
“Even so, why of all things an engagement?”
A sacred vow of promise. A token of two people joining together. There were countless ways to dress it up in words, yet Calaile found none of them fit neatly to pin on.
‘Because she wants it.’
It was a simple enough answer, but Calaile knew better than anyone that Kevin would never let it slide so easily. Her silver hair, glinting under the moonlight, had been far more beautiful than he’d expected. Even with her disheveled appearance from doing laundry, the gentle scent of soap mixed with the fresh fragrance of a young girl still seemed to cling faintly to his hands, sweet and lingering.
“Well. Perhaps it was love at first sight.”
“You expect me to believe that?”
Though he was smiling, Calaile’s eyes were not smiling at all. Kevin knew far too much about his master. Since a flimsy tale of love would never get past him, Calaile merely shrugged and unfastened the sword at his waist.
“We’ll have to see for ourselves. Whether she turns out to be my goddess of victory or a thorned vine that strangles my neck, that’s something to keep watching.”
Calaile offered a chilly smile and stroked the letter Ella had sent him once more.

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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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