Lady Cinderella - Chapter 14

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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 14

Looking back, my moods have swung with every word he speaks, and I’m acting like a child despite my age. Just having my wrist caught was enough to make me wonder what kind of expression I must be wearing, so I rushed to come up with an excuse.
“Um. Your Grace… I mean, Calaile, you must be busy. I don’t want to get in your way.”
“Hmm.”
He had the information he needed, and all he had to do was call Kevin in to give instructions. Yet the moment Ella started to back away, a mischievous urge took hold of him.
“Since you’re here, brew some tea. The tea has gone cold.”
Calaile held onto Ella’s wrist, hesitant as she was, and sulked for no good reason. Brewing tea well took a certain amount of skill, and Ella had been reduced to a maid before she’d even learned how to do it properly. She fumbled again and again, asking him if he really intended to drink it.
Under the unwavering words of the Grand Duke, Ella brewed the tea with a pained expression. Her heart refused to settle, and the tips of her fingers trembled faintly as she held the teacup.
“It’s bad. And my fiancée can’t even brew tea.”
“Then don’t drink it!”
“Practice so you can brew it better next time. I’ll have to tell Olga to make sure of that.”
Watching Ella grumble that she wouldn’t have any time left for embroidery, Calaile looked on fondly and, in the end, drank every last drop of the bitter tea. Even as he declared it tasteless, he couldn’t bring himself to throw it away, and he himself had no idea why he ended up doing such a childish thing.

3. The Grand Duke’s Fiancée

It was only the day after the ball that the Lloyd Count Family learned Ella had gone missing. The maid who had last seen her fell to her knees before Patricia, sobbing loudly as she confessed what she had witnessed.
“Miss was doing the laundry when I suddenly sensed someone nearby and spoke to her. But she said it was nothing, so I went inside. I’m fairly sure I heard a man’s voice.”
“A man?”
“See, didn’t I tell you? I said that girl Ella would surely cause trouble someday.”
Patricia, as if scolding a child, tossed more fuel on the fire, and Baron Lloyd’s temper flared to its peak. Ever since Ella had attended the funeral, the matter had become a topic of conversation, and several nobles had even asked outright why the youngest daughter hadn’t come along to the party.
No matter how much his maternal uncle chose to turn his back, Ella’s mother’s family was the Marquis Ruse House, so there were those who, in one way or another, wanted to curry favor with them and would now and then bring her up with Baron Lloyd.
Until now, they had hesitated and held their tongues, but now that they’d seized the chance to pester him, he was irritated. Hearing that she had run off with a man, the Baron lashed out at the unlucky maid and struck her across the cheek.
“You dared to make my daughter do the laundry, and on top of that you saw an outside man abducting my daughter and pretended not to notice?”
“My lord?”
“You had the audacity to act as if you were master over the Count’s young lady! Throw this wretched thing out at once!”
“That’s unfair. It’s unfair!”
Patricia was the one who’d had her do the laundry, and there wasn’t a soul in this household who didn’t know Ella was treated like a maid. Yet in the end, Baron Lloyd tried to hide the sky with his palm, pinning all the blame on the unlucky maid.
“How on earth did you manage the household? Ella would never do such a thing. We must report her missing at once and find her.”
“Are you serious?”
“It’s because you treated her so harshly, as if she weren’t your own daughter, that she was taken in by some good-for-nothing and we’ve ended up in this mess!”
Now that the matter had erupted, Baron Lloyd shoved the blame for the whole affair onto Patricia.
Patricia, who had been hoping the nuisance would leave on her own two feet, found her husband turning on her before she could even feel pleased. Her lips twitched with spiteful irritation as she glared at him with displeasure.
“And who was it that stood by and let that happen all this time?”
“What did you say?”
“Now you want to go looking for a girl who ran off with a man? Stop disgracing this family and stay quiet. She’d come crawling back once she’s pregnant, and we’d have to throw her out. Why on earth should we be the ones to look for her first? Do you really want to suffer that kind of humiliation?”
Despite Patricia’s venomous words, the Baron saw some sense in them, and he soon changed his stance and gave up on searching for Ella. Even when the servants whispered that it was cruel to treat her own blood daughter this way, no one dared to say anything to her face.
“They took absolutely everything, every last thing!”
“That Sapphire Necklace of hers, I had my heart set on it! And now who are we supposed to hand the dress embroidery to?”
As Kate and Anastasia complained, a single word caught Patricia’s ear: embroidery. It nagged at her that Ella, who had frequently visited the dressmaker’s shop, had seemed rather lukewarm on the day of the ball.
‘What if…’
If her guess was wrong, and if Ella had truly been trying to take on work from that shop to earn some money, then there was a good chance she would show her face at that same dressmaker’s again. With that troublesome girl gone of her own accord, Patricia’s gaze naturally turned toward Ella’s Trust Fund.
“I’ll handle it myself, so you just go out and say you don’t know anything.”
“Family matters are supposed to be handled by the women. That’s why you should have taken care of this properly.”
The irresponsible Baron scowled and stomped out, saying he had other business to attend to. The Lloyd family’s finances had been sinking more and more in recent times, and that was not nearly enough to satisfy Patricia’s greed.
If she could just get her hands on Ella’s Trust Fund, which was a considerable sum, they could live comfortably for several years. With Ella gone, she felt she had to secure that fortune quickly, and Patricia set to work without a second thought about what her husband might say.
* * *
The Eagle Squadron, which had been waiting in the north of the Gordon Great Plains, slowly encircled the open ground around the shaded Oberon Gorge, following the Grand Duke’s orders. While the squadron commander Miro kept watch, his deputy approached him, uncertain.
“If it were any other position, I could understand. But why here, of all places?”
“It’s the Grand Duke’s order. Complaints are not permitted.”
Miro cut off his subordinate’s grumbling flatly and, staying hidden, studied the situation on the battlefield. Under the high-handed conduct of General Eastern, dispatched directly by the Emperor, Miro and the rest of Grand Duke Wellington’s men were suffering in ways both seen and unseen, from food shortages to being passed over for commendations.
If they truly distinguished themselves in this operation, they would no longer have to read General Eastern’s moods. His heart pounded at the thought of what outcome the order given by Their Grace might bring. As the advance unit, they would set up the first line of defense, while rear units meant to encircle the gorge itself lay hidden here and there. Even if the Grand Duke’s guess turned out to be wrong, they had laid several layers of traps so that victory would be assured as long as an ambush came.
‘Still, I don’t think he’s fond of this sort of approach.’
For Miro, who had worked in steady rhythm with the Grand Duke for some time, this order was a little different from usual. The Duke normally weighed at least three likely points and discussed the various possibilities around them, but this time he had gone straight for one specific location and named it outright.
Having walked the ground beforehand, Miro understood the reasoning behind the Duke’s call, yet something about it still nagged at him. The moment the supply column carrying the spoils came into view in the distance, Miro and the soldiers of the Eagle Squadron tensed up to the breaking point.
‘If they get through safely, the operation is over.’
If the remnants stayed quiet and the spoils arrived intact, that would ultimately serve the Grand Duke best. So they prayed, longing for nothing to happen. Just as the column reached the middle of the pass, the remnants poured out of the gaps in the blind spots beyond the slope as if it had been staged.
“Charge!”
To deal with an enemy who was fast on their feet and knew every contour of the gorge, Miro’s unit also rushed toward the fighting without delay. As though he knew that if anything went wrong the Grand Duke would take all the blame, General Eastern had sent the spoils off without even assigning proper troops to escort them.
Miro’s blade caught the enemy’s Banwoldo.
“Fall back!”
The remnants had expected to find the spoils unguarded, but they quickly realized that far more men were waiting than they had anticipated, and they immediately began scrambling for a way out.
“That way!”
The fleeing remnants along the expected escape route were left to the follow-up units, while Miro and the Eagle Squadron first checked, painstakingly, whether any of the spoils had gone missing. Given the Emperor’s temperament, if even a single item was lost, he would very likely pin every fault on the Grand Duke.
“Everything is accounted for!”
The remnants were tenacious, perhaps aiming for one last twist to win back the spoils. As the follow-up forces pursued them, General Eastern, who had been smugly holding the Northern Army’s occupied territory, ultimately failed to complete the encirclement and committed the blunder of letting the enemy escape across the newly drawn border.
‘The enemy of my enemy can sometimes become my ally.’
Not only had nothing been seized, but General Eastern’s side, which had all along withheld supplies while putting on airs, now bore a serious error on its record. Even if the credit for protecting the spoils didn’t shine, the way things had turned out made it likely that the aftermath at the Gordon Great Plains, including the division of merit and blame, would be settled in the Grand Duke’s favor rather than General Eastern’s.
“How did he know? I never imagined they would really come out from there.”
“That’s what makes him so frightening. How could he know the situation here in such detail from the capital?”
The Grand Duke’s final order was to return to the capital with the spoils convoy, under the pretext of guarding against a possible second raid. Staying here was pointless, since no cooperation could be expected from General Eastern, and once the Eagle Squadron left, the supply problem could be eased by one less mouth to feed.
Since the unit was transporting spoils meant for the Emperor, the local landowners would surely lavish them with hospitality. Miro had heard again and again that the Grand Duke was capable, but faced with orders from a superior who truly was capable, he felt his respect deepen once more as he turned toward the capital. He prayed that this affair would finally secure the Grand Duke’s firm footing in the central political arena, from which the Emperor’s checks had kept him pushed out for so long.

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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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