Lady Cinderella - Chapter 19

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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 19

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He had arrived without any prior notice, but the Grand Duke’s Residence retainers, upon hearing the name Baron Lloyd, asked him no questions and led him straight to the Grand Duke.
‘Well, he’s hardly more than a boy who could be my son.’
Calaile had become engaged to his daughter without so much as her father’s permission, so the baron surely had plenty to say, and he strode into the reception room with a confident gait. Then he waited. Ten minutes, twenty, thirty, and still the Grand Duke did not so much as show his face. By the time he had emptied his third cup of tea and even made a trip to the washroom, the Grand Duke still had not come, and at last his anger boiled over.
“Just when does His Excellency plan to show up?!”
“Well, that is…”
“So you are Baron Lloyd.”
The moment he bellowed at the servants, Calaile appeared. Baron Lloyd, who had been about to roar at the top of his lungs under the creed that the loudest voice wins, was struck speechless by the Grand Duke’s presence.
With broad shoulders and cold eyes, true to his reputation as the master of the battlefield, the Grand Duke kept his arrogance intact even with a man who was practically his father’s age. Having mocked even the Emperor to his face, a mere count was, to him, nothing more than a laughable existence.
“I pay my respects to Your Excellency.”
“Yes. So what business brings you here without an appointment?”
“Why, that’s obvious!”
He had come to fetch his own daughter, yet the Grand Duke had turned the tables so smoothly that Baron Lloyd was left at a loss for words. Still, since face mattered above all, the baron cleared his throat and took a sip from his fourth cup of tea.
“I’ve heard that you became engaged to my daughter.”
“That’s right. I intend to pay my respects to His Majesty soon, as well.”
“Is there any law under heaven that allows this? An engagement without a word to her parents?”
“You never came looking for her, did you? I don’t recall you filing a missing person report either.”
Whatever Baron Lloyd said, the Grand Duke had not an ounce of willingness to yield. Without giving him a chance to get a word in, the Grand Duke pressed him with crisp, orderly precision.
“Not only did Ella live as nothing more than a maid in that household, you even lied to His Majesty, claiming she was ill and could not attend the Emperor’s ball.”
“That is a family matter. It’s none of Your Excellency’s concern.”
“So you forged a death certificate as well?”
At the mention of a death certificate, Baron Lloyd, struck where it hurt, lost all words. If the Grand Duke were to actually bring this matter forward as an accusation, the baron would have no way to escape the charge.
“That, that is…”
“Deceiving the Emperor is a grave crime, and a grave one indeed. Yet what gives a mere count the nerve to raise his voice before a Grand Duke?”
The Lloyd family was a count’s house, but its fortunes had waned so far that even continuing the family line had become a bleak prospect. By rights, a man of his standing could scarcely hope to gain an audience with the Grand Duke at all, yet the only reason he was being received like this was purely because he was Ella’s father.
“I don’t know how far I must yield for the sake of a father of the woman I love. They say a pearl can come out of the mud, and this is exactly that sort of thing.”
In appearance or in temperament, there was not a single trace of resemblance between Baron Lloyd and his daughter. Baron Lloyd himself hated his daughter all the more for that very reason. Calaile’s words, which seemed to deny that the baron was truly his father, crushed the baron’s pride completely. Just as he was about to retort, Ella came rushing into the reception room.
“Cal!”
Having hurried over in a panic upon hearing that her father had barged in and was causing a scene, she had not even caught her breath. Calaile rose from his seat, as if to make a show of it, and pulled her, breathless, into his arms.
“You didn’t need to rush over like this, El.”
“Ella! What on earth do you think you’re doing!”
Baron Lloyd meant to drag Ella out by force if he had to, but the Grand Duke blocked him so that he could not get anywhere near her. Her head rushing with blood from having run over so suddenly and her mind in a whirl, Ella caught her breath while held in the Grand Duke’s embrace.
“Your father seems to have come looking for you. What should I do about that? I have no intention whatsoever of sending my lovely fiancée back.”
The Grand Duke deliberately cast himself as the villain. As though toying with her, he swept Ella’s fine silver hair over one shoulder and lightly placed his hand on the smooth nape of her neck. Faced with the Grand Duke’s blatant manner, Baron Lloyd stared at Ella in utter disbelief and bellowed at her as if she were the one to blame.
“You wretched girl, do you intend to call yourself my child after acting like this?”
In that instant, something surged up hotly in her chest. Ella clenched her teeth and glared at her father. Even while her stepmother and stepsisters tormented her, her father, Baron Lloyd, had watched on like a scarecrow, doing nothing. He had even beaten her for attending her maternal grandmother’s funeral and treated her with open contempt.
And now, to see him carrying on as a father, she felt a bitter sense of injustice. At least Patricia, her stepmother, was a stranger without a drop of her blood, so one could understand it. But her father was different. Surely, if he was her father, her one and only real father, he could not do this to Ella.
“Please go home. I won’t be returning home anymore.”
“Ella!”
“At eighteen, an engagement is possible even without a parent’s consent. Wouldn’t becoming my wife do far more for your daughter’s future than working as a maid in your household?”
“Come home. You are my daughter!”
“No!”
Shaking off Baron Lloyd’s hand, which had been forcibly thrust toward her, Ella clung even tighter to the Grand Duke’s chest. Calaile gladly wrapped an arm around her waist and pushed away the rude baron’s hand. She had rescued him, so now it was his turn to rescue her.
“Grand Duke Your Excellency!”
“If you truly wish to quarrel with me, then come visit after sending a formal notice. My capable legal team is always ready to stand against you.”
Along with the order to leave, the Grand Duke’s Residence soldiers marched out and dragged Baron Lloyd away. Frightened and trembling, Ella could not break free from the Grand Duke’s embrace. Wordlessly, he patted her back, pat, pat.
“Are you all right?”
“I’m so sorry. My father was rude to you…”
“I asked whether you’re all right.”
Her words caught in her throat. She had always been scolded like an unwanted burden, and no one had ever taken her side, so she had always been quick to apologize first. Even now it was the same. Because of Ella, Calaile had been made to hear things he didn’t need to hear and say things he didn’t need to say.
Knowing how weighty the position of Grand Duke was, if this matter became known to the outside world, Calaile’s reputation might be damaged. Yet he looked after Ella first, before his own feelings. She had never had such an experience. Overcome with emotion, Ella could not easily find her voice.
“I…”
“If you want to cry, then cry. If you want to be angry, then be angry. Because you warned me of Oberon’s ambush, I was spared His Majesty’s wrath. So your father is nothing to me.”
“Hic…”
It wasn’t until she’d brought up Oberon’s victory that Ella finally clutched the Grand Duke’s sleeve with trembling hands. A tide of shame and self-reproach tore through her tender heart. Calaile had thought the same last time: what a crybaby she was. Paying no mind to the dampness soaking into his collar, he stroked the cheek of the sobbing girl.
“Have you cried yourself out?”
Ella nodded silently. He tugged gently at her cheek and found himself staring at her lips alone. They had turned red from how hard she’d bitten them, and the sight was pitiful. Without really meaning to, he touched them with his finger. The surface was endlessly soft.
She was a truly unfathomable woman. When she worried over his safety and discussed the war, she pinpointed even the things he had failed to consider, like a seasoned staff officer. Yet faced with a difficult matter, she didn’t dare be frank and simply held back her tears, helpless. Before he knew it, his eyes had lingered on her.
‘I want to kiss her.’
The vague thought made Calaile lean in without realizing it, and then he froze. When had those tear-wet eyes, which had looked so much like a younger sister’s, become this pretty? Unaware of his sinister intentions, Ella lowered her head again, her face anxious.
“Look up.”
“I have no excuse. I should have realized Father would react like this, if I’d only given it a moment’s thought…”
“It’s not your fault.”
Even though he had sent them away like this, there was little chance Baron Lloyd, given his temperament, would simply yield to power and let it go. He would surely throw a tantrum and make all sorts of commotion, but there was no reason for Calaile to fear him. In any case, now that Ella’s parents knew of her engagement to the Grand Duke, the time had come to officially announce their betrothal.
“El, it’s a bit early, but I’m going to announce our engagement officially.”
“But surely that should wait until after the spoils arrive…”
“We have to strike before your father makes his move.”

In truth, Calaile hardly cared what became of Baron Lloyd. He had a feeling that if he left things as they were, Ella might run away, burdened by her obligations to her parents. She wasn’t a child, yet he had even imposed a house arrest on her. That decision had been born partly from concern for the Baron, but it was not only about that.
Now that she was properly dressed, she was lovely enough to be shown anywhere. If he let her out onto the streets like this, surely those who recognized her worth would come rushing toward her without hesitation. Watching Ella about to slip out of his embrace, Calaile suddenly felt a surge of petty displeasure.
It had been fine to be held and cry her heart out by accident, but lately his touches had grown increasingly intimate, and Ella tried gently to push him away.
“You can let go of me now.”
“No, I don’t want to. This is comfortable.”
Deliberately resting his chin atop her round crown, Calaile held her even tighter. What strength did this fragile woman have to be shouted at like that? The Baron’s rough behavior made his blood boil.
“I’m not a footstool!”
“Have you been in the Rear Garden? You smell a bit of hyacinth.”
“How did you know that?”
The Grand Duke chuckled at Ella’s innocent surprise, her eyes widening in wonder. If he left her as she was, she would only go back and sink into gloom alone again. So he deliberately slipped his fingers into her hair and pressed his forehead against hers.
“There’s nothing I can’t know about the woman I love.”
“Don’t tease me.”
At his playful response, as always, Ella pushed him away to hide her crimson face. Even if she tried to dismiss it as a joke, a delicate current already ran between them. By the year Ella turned twenty, the two of them would bring this clumsy engagement to a close and go their separate ways. Had they been truly destined to marry, he might have been plagued by vague pressure; instead, he was gradually growing accustomed to this arrangement, where both their aims and their endpoint were clear.
“Then I’ll be going now.”
“You haven’t toured my study yet, have you? You’ve stayed in the Inner Residence all this time, so you’ve never seen the Main Building. Let me show you around.”
“Aren’t you busy?”
“Now that I’m about to properly make your existence known to the world, I suppose this is a two-birds-one-stone sort of thing.”
When the Grand Duke offered his hand, Ella accepted his escort with considerable ease by now. He was pleased by how she had grown accustomed to standing at his side.
“Shall we go, my Lady?”

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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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