Lady Cinderella - Chapter 15

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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 15

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Ella glared up at Calaile, her lips pouting. It had all started with embroidery. Setting aside her debt of gratitude to the Grand Duke, Ella was itching to go to Rose Gold and collect more work, since they were surely still swamped with orders. But the Grand Duke wouldn’t allow her to leave the estate, not for anything.
“If you’re so desperate to embroider, then sew me a shirt or something. And you’re not going out. Not under any circumstances.”
“But—!”
She had shown up so suddenly, without any warning, that she hadn’t been able to send Mary so much as a word. She’d planned to deliver the last of her orders for the ball, then take a day or two off, so she hadn’t accepted any extra work yet. Still, Mary would worry if someone who came by nearly every day suddenly stopped showing up. Yet she hadn’t expected him to forbid even a message, let alone a greeting.
“Why can’t I go out?”
“The people your parents sent are standing guard in front of Rose Gold.”
“Then at least let me write a letter.”
“I’d like to keep my precious fiancée all to myself, so that’s out of the question for now.”
Being denied even a letter meant he still didn’t trust her. But he tossed out those sugary, teasing words with such ease that Ella glared at Calaile.
“So you still suspect me.”
“If you know that, then keep quiet. I don’t want any pointless arguments.”
He whispered it without changing his expression, and her heart froze solid in her chest. There was still a great wall between them. His lips spoke of love, but his heart remained as distant as the stars. Their engagement was nothing but a lie. Even knowing she was only a fiancée in name, she couldn’t help wanting to be loved. They say the one who falls for the other first always loses, and Ella found herself glaring at Calaile and muttering under her breath for no good reason.
“Liar.”
“You’re the one who started this lie, El.”
Calaile had said as much, but his wish to keep her all to himself was no empty word. Since coming to the Grand Duke’s Residence, Ella had grown more radiant by the day. Nearly every day, gowns from the finest shops in the Capital passed through Olga’s hands and filled Ella’s wardrobe, one after another.
Dressed in pretty clothes, wearing lovely shoes and sparkling accessories, like a doll being played with, the girl who had once been covered in ashes from scrubbing laundry and seething with resentment had become a truly beautiful lady.
Ella swatted away Calaile’s hand as it smoothed her silver hair, glaring up at him with a sullen face. He found it amusing to see her so put out. Calaile tugged gently on both of her cheeks.
“Ugly duckling.”
“That hurts!”
He felt less like he was looking at a woman and more like he was looking at a younger sister. If he’d ever had one, he imagined it would feel exactly like this, which is why he couldn’t help teasing her. Grumbling, Ella finally stormed out of the room in protest, and Olga watched her go with a worried look.
“Will she be all right?”
“Don’t worry. There are reasons.”
The merchants who came and went kept asking Olga who the lady was that had captured the Grand Duke’s heart, but she kept her lips sealed tight. Perhaps because they had been absent from high society for so long, not a single craftsman guessed that the Grand Duke’s fiancée was the unwanted daughter of the Lloyd Count Family. Had Ella’s family been desperately searching for her even now, things might have been different.
Calaile had been tracking the movements of the Lloyd Count Family all along, even at the cost of earning Ella’s resentment.
If they chose to ignore her disappearance, he could step in at that point and it wouldn’t be too late. He had some regrets, wondering whether he’d taken her away too hastily. Still, a shabby sense of justice told him that it was better than leaving her in that house, and that was what justified his actions.
“Your Grace!”
For once, Kevin burst through the door, visibly agitated, and presented a telegram to the Grand Duke.
“An urgent dispatch from Oberon.”
“From Oberon?”
“Remnant forces’ elite troops ambushed the unit transporting the spoils of war, so it’s reported.”
Kevin, his face drained of color, handed over the cipher message from Miro. Just as the Grand Duke had predicted, or more precisely, just as Ella had predicted, an attack had indeed occurred at that very location, but swift action had prevented any casualties. Furthermore, due to General Eastern’s error, the remnants had ultimately fled north. With all of this, every bit of credit would fall to Calaile.
‘So it was true…’
If Ella had truly been a spy sent by someone, then taking advantage of this opportunity to stab the Grand Duke in the back would have been the most effective move. Having come this far through his own strength alone, he had no allies to take his side.
He didn’t ask for much. If the troublesome matter of the Imperial Succession Rights could simply be resolved, he longed to quietly return to the Grand Duchy and sever all ties with central politics. But the times would not let him be.
In a season of such fierce factional strife, if he retreated to his domain now, he would surely be framed for plotting treason in secret. He had no choice but to move in whatever way pleased the Emperor and preserve his life somehow.
―His Majesty dislikes you, Your Grace.
What was the purpose of speaking so boldly about something everyone else dared only whisper about? The Grand Duke now genuinely wanted to know what lay in Ella’s mind. No, it wasn’t only her mind he wanted to understand. With so many questions pressing on him, Calaile bit his lip and glared at the documents. It was still too early to trust her. With so many enemies, he couldn’t easily believe anyone.
“Kevin.”
“…Yes, Your Grace.”
“We’ll keep this matter from Lady Elladis. There’s time before Miro arrives, so I want to confirm a few more things first.”
Kevin, who had once dismissed Ella’s words as nonsense, could no longer take them lightly. That innocent, guileless face, and yet she held his very life in her hands. His thoughts grew tangled. Keeping her close like a dear younger sister, he found it unsettling how precisely she had foreseen the future. Yet treating her coldly as nothing more than a strategic piece felt like trying to handle a stubborn rabbit, and he couldn’t help wanting to tease her.
“Then what do you intend to do going forward? Word of Your Grace’s engagement is already spreading everywhere. Once it reaches the Imperial Family, they’ll surely press you to announce who she is.”
“I’ll have to announce it eventually.”
The engagement was something he had agreed upon with Ella herself. Besides, this suspicious fiancée was far too clever, and even looked a little lovable. That was unfair. Calaile let out a deep sigh and glared side by side at the childhood portrait of Ella and the photograph submitted by the Intelligence Department, both of which had somehow found their way onto his desk.
‘Which one is the real one?’
Though the operation in Oberon had been a tremendous success and things should turn far more favorably from here, the Grand Duke still could not laugh with any peace of mind.
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Ella began embroidering with a sullen expression. Her anger had reached its peak, and she refused to so much as glance toward the door.
“Um, my lady.”
“I told you to just call me Ella.”
“How could I possibly address a lady by her given name?”
No matter how Olga coaxed her, Ella’s anger refused to ease. Her once-gentle manner from when she first arrived was long gone, and now she didn’t even share meals with Calaile, staying shut away in her room all the time.
“His Grace is only worried about you, my lady.”
“Even so, that’s not the point. I haven’t done anything wrong to be locked up here.”
By the calendar, the raid in Oberon should have already happened, yet the Grand Duke hadn’t said a word about it.
Life here was truly like a dream. Every morning the maids changed her bedding, which smelled of sunlight, and her undergarments and gowns were all far finer than anything Ella had worn back when she was properly looked after by her mother.
The meals were lavish, to say nothing of the snacks served between them. Chewy macarons in every color, fruit confits simmered sweet, and pudding so silky it melted the moment it touched her tongue.
It was so happy that it felt strange. Ella found everything she was now enjoying unfamiliar, as if she’d stepped into a palace of glass. But this happiness wouldn’t last long. Like a spell that breaks at midnight, Ella too would have to return to her old life once she turned twenty.
“If there’s anything you find lacking, please don’t hesitate to tell me.”
“No, it’s not your fault, Olga.”
“Please, just call me Olga, Lady Ella.”
Olga’s heart ached at the sight of the pitiful girl. Calaile was at fault for shutting himself away in his study all this time while leaving such a lovely fiancée alone, but this lady, whose hands and feet had grown rough from endless toil, clearly couldn’t enjoy the happiness the Grand Duke offered and was plainly uneasy.
“His Grace always has his reasons for what he does. Since the engagement hasn’t been announced yet, please just be patient a little longer.”
Ella decided not to throw a childish tantrum, weeping and sulking, at Olga’s kind comfort. He had told her she could be sent away, and since she still hadn’t heard the outcome, she was now afraid she might truly be cast out, which made her own state absurd to her.
‘Being doubted is such a painful thing.’
It would be better to hear that she was wrong than to be left hanging. Taking up her needle again, Ella bumped her head against the wall out of sheer frustration. When she had only watched him from afar, he had been a man who made her heart flutter, but now that he stood beside her as her fiancé, he wore the face of a real man, nothing like the one she had idly dreamed of.
Though she had been married, the men around her had all been anything but decent, so Ella knew terribly little about men. She had never once held the hand of her drunkard husband, and Mary had often teased her for still being a child.
By contrast, the Grand Duke’s touches came so effortlessly that Ella couldn’t tell how far she ought to let him go. If she left things as they were, she’d feel like a woman far too easily won, yet if she pushed him away, she feared she might offend him.
“I still don’t know you.”
His touches came without a flicker of hesitation, and yet at times he would coolly put her to the test. She still could not read him at all. Ella only sighed and picked up her needle once more.
* * *
“I haven’t seen Ella around much lately, either.”
Mary, the owner of Rose Gold, a small dressmaking shop in the capital, eyed the stranger who had suddenly come calling with suspicion.
‘Has something really happened…?’
The woman said she was a maid working for the Lloyd Count Family. There had been talk that a maid at the Lloyd household had been dismissed over some absurd reason, and Ella had stopped coming around right after that.
Ella had worked nonstop, hardly sleeping in time, ahead of the ball. Even so exhausted, her embroidery lacked nothing in splendor or precision.
—Thank you so much for the work, Mary. I’ll try even harder from now on.
She was a rare, good-hearted, diligent girl these days. Somehow she carried herself with the grace of a well-bred daughter, yet her hands and feet showed the marks of hardship, which made her pitiable too. Mary soothed her heavy heart by recalling the silver-haired girl, who had been far too pretty to pass for a servant.
“What on earth happened to that dress?”
On the day of the ball, Ella had unexpectedly asked whether she could borrow a gown. Mary had lent one willingly, half-expecting something, but in the end Ella came back to return the brand-new dress she hadn’t even worn on the night of the ball.
A passing thought had crossed her mind that the girl might be some noble, but until the Lloyd Count Family came looking for her by name, Mary had assumed the dismissed maid was Ella. If they were coming to find her, she surely wasn’t dead, but with no information at all, there was nothing to do but wait, and that was simply maddening.

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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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