Lady Cinderella - Chapter 23

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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 23

“Please take good care of my fiancée.”
“Do you truly mean to let Ella keep working?”
Mary knew nothing of the Grand Duke beyond his name. Still, a man who had spent his whole life rolling about on battlefields, she assumed, would surely insist that a woman stay at home where she belonged. Worse, for a ruling duke to permit his fiancée to take on work outside the house was not something she could easily believe.
“I’ve promised to grant whatever El wishes.”
Calaile said this and, for no reason at all, pressed a kiss to Ella’s silver hair once more. Ella nudged him away with a look that said he shouldn’t do this in front of others, and shyness colored her expression. Unlike the weary, half-dead face she used to wear when she came in, Ella now glowed as brightly as her hair, warmed through by the Grand Duke’s affection.
“That’s truly kind of you. Ella is a precious member of our shop.”
“Still, I’d hate for her to be worked too hard.”
“Well, Ella is remarkably capable, so if she wishes it, I’m prepared to bring her on as my personal employee at any time.”
At the Grand Duke’s barely concealed possessiveness, Mary puffed herself up as though she were Ella’s elder sister, warning him that if he upset their girl, she would take her home at once.
‘Oh, is that so?’
While the atelier staff trembled, Calaile realized Mary was no easy opponent. Strangely, she was far more formidable than the Count, who had been shouting that Ella was his daughter. Ella, by contrast, was so moved that she slipped out of Calaile’s arm and linked hers with Mary’s.
“Really? You promise?”
Watching her secure a firm promise, anxious about a future after she parted from him, something in his chest ached. Ella was smiling so brightly, so why did his stomach sting like this? He had assumed that granting everything she asked would make him happy, yet today he felt as though he had done something wrong.
Then again, Ella’s wish was, at its core, to escape her family’s grasp until she could claim the Trust Fund. So this reaction wasn’t entirely unexpected. Still, something, something truly, kept gnawing at his composure.
“I’ll purchase all the dresses you’ve prepared. Soon I’ll arrange for you to go out to the shop as well, so let’s discuss the work then.”
“Thank you, Your Grace.”
“Thank you, Cal!”
With the worry she’d carried all along resolved in an instant, Ella couldn’t contain her joy. Partly out of gratitude, and partly with the thought of teasing Calaile, who was always so playful, she wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed his cheek, plainly for everyone to see. He had done the same whenever he was happy, but this was the first time Ella had made the first move toward him. Everyone was startled by the Lady’s bold display, but the one most astonished was Calaile himself.
‘What on earth just happened?’
He had intended to feel hurt, send her off quickly, and have her make him tea while he sulked, but instead he had been ambushed without warning. Watching Calaile startled exactly as she’d meant him to be, Ella smiled sweetly.
“Were you surprised?”
“No, do it once more.”
“No way.”
Ella stuck out the tip of her tongue, then went back to Mary’s side and chatted on about embroidery. When one Lady, who had worn a dress trimmed with lace Ella had made, started gushing about a confession she’d received at the last ball, Calaile couldn’t help feeling a pang of being left out.
A wave of resentment rose in him. He wanted nothing more than to be alone with her, yet the chatter between the two women showed no sign of ending. Ella might not have noticed, but Mary soon did, and watching the Grand Duke’s expression, she began quietly preparing to take her leave.
“Now that the delivery is finished, I think we should be heading back.”
“So soon? At least stay for a meal, or a snack. Right, Cal?”
“Yes. Of course. Any friend of El’s is always welcome.”
“Do you really mean that?”
Before Mary’s cheerful question, Calaile could not bring himself to say no. And so a tea party with an unwelcome extra guest began, and throughout it Calaile could not escape being nothing more than a sack of barley set aside in a corner. Amid the lingering, unaccountable sense of being left out, there was one small mercy: Ella, who until yesterday had been smiling only through effort, was now sharing conversation with Mary with a genuinely warm smile.

‘Can she really be that happy?’

It was good to see her delighted, but at the same time Calaile found himself genuinely envious of Mary. Ella had smiled at him too, but never with that kind of adoration. Perhaps, even once their contract ended, Ella would manage quite well on her own with Mary’s help, living comfortably and happily.
‘That won’t do.’
He had no wish to call off the engagement now. No, even if Ella turned twenty, he still wouldn’t want to end it. If their engagement were broken, people would surely rush to pair Calaile with some other woman by any means necessary.
If he had to marry anyway, Ella was preferable to anyone else. She was skilled at needlework, well versed in etiquette, strikingly beautiful, and admired by those beneath her. Where could he find a bride like that now? The water had been spilled, and there was no gathering it back up. Ella’s expression had brightened considerably, so Calaile brought up the difficult matter.
“El, perfect timing.”
“Hm?”
“It seems word of our engagement has reached His Majesty. He has summoned us to the Palace.”
The smile vanished from Ella’s face, the one that had been laughing as she held Mary’s hand. The moment she had dreaded had finally arrived.
* * *
Though the Grand Duke Welling was thoroughly despised, by Ella’s measure the Emperor leaned far closer to a benevolent sage than to a tyrant. His obsessive lust for power, at least, worked to the nation’s great benefit.
When he was Crown Prince, the former Emperor had indulged in women and games, neglecting affairs of state. As the laws of the land crumbled, the Imperial household grew poorer by the day. Watching the nobles fixated on lining their own pockets, the young Crown Prince sharpened a blade of vengeance.
Thus, the first thing he did after ascending the throne was to draft an entirely new code of laws. He revered the law and watched the nobles’ tyranny with suspicion. The Emperor’s sword never veered away, not even from his own bloodline.
As years passed and age crept in, the Emperor’s sharpness gradually dulled. He came to have several heirs, including the Crown Prince he had fathered late in life. Although Johannes, the First Prince, had received the title of Crown Prince, the Emperor granted him no authority whatsoever.
‘Power can never be shared.’
He faithfully followed the teachings of ancient classics, and it was into that gap that the current Empress and the Osborn Marquisate pressed. The maternal family of the present Crown Prince had eventually fallen out of the Emperor’s favor and been purged, yet the many nobles who upheld legitimacy rallied to defend the present Crown Prince.
The Emperor used those two factions to further strengthen his Imperial Authority. Before him, who feared nothing, the Grand Duke Welling appeared. Hailed as a prodigy who mastered both letters and arms despite his youth, and destined for a brilliant future, his very existence was as irritating to the Emperor as a canker sore on the tongue.
‘My head hurts…’
It was a tiresome tale. Each time he visited the military archives of the Imperial Library, she had heard the whispers in the corridors until she was sick of them. Of course, the law is always far off while force is always close at hand, but the Emperor, at the very least, enforced the rule of law thoroughly, so long as it posed no threat to his own authority.
Yet the Emperor revealed his true colors in the year Ella married. Calaile’s dazzling feats, first the Gordon Great Plains War, then the Second Minette War, and finally the Northwestern Great Expedition, all concluded in barely three months, earned him the Emperor’s full and lasting resentment.
After every newspaper had run headlines praising the Grand Duke, the Emperor openly began a campaign of suppression against him, even breaking the very order he had established. Hidden secrets from that time came to light, one after another, before the public.
‘So he’s been hated for far longer than a day or two…’
Ella climbed into the spacious carriage bearing the Wellington lion and lily crest and stared at Calaile’s face the whole way. The Emperor’s jealousy had grown steadily into madness. Though he took neither side between the Crown Prince and the Third Prince and kept himself neutral, the Emperor had regarded the Grand Duke Wellington as a thorn in his eye all along.
“You look nervous at the thought of seeing His Majesty.”
Elle had only seen the Emperor a few times as a child, and only as a tiny figure from a distance, so the prospect of an audience like this made her nervous. Carlisle, by contrast, was strangely calm. For a man so openly despised, he showed not a trace of tension, and she found that rather remarkable.
“Aren’t you scared, Cal?”
“Why would I be afraid of someone I’ve been looking at for ages?”
“That’s impressive.”
“He’s just a man.”
Carlisle left it at that and said nothing more. Ella had no intention of prying, so she fidgeted silently with the gloves on her hands. For the trip, he had produced a dress from the most stunning batch Rose Gold had delivered, along with a pink diamond necklace, matching earrings, and a small tiara. Who knew where he had gotten them so quickly? The silence grew awkward again, so she touched the tiara on her head, just to have something to do.
“Is it really all right to wear something like this?”
“It’s fine.”
If she was the fiancée of the Grand Duke, she would one day become the consort of the duchy, so the crown was a deliberate gesture meant to elevate her authority. It was a thoroughly political message, but Ella had not yet caught on.
“How are things on the front?”
“I’ll tell you later, once things are a bit more settled.”
He still hadn’t told her anything clearly. Since today was the formal day of the audience with the Emperor, Ella had swept her hair up neatly as well. When Carlisle’s hand crept up toward her hair with a sulky expression, she slapped it away from the knot she had just tied.
“Not today.”
“You look prettier with your hair down.”
“I mean it, not today.”
“Such a strict one.”
Faced with the stubborn resolve of a young fiancée who left not a single gap, Carlisle threw up his hands in surrender. Through the carriage window, the pristine white walls she had only ever seen from the outside drew steadily closer. The gates opened without so much as a cursory inspection, and Ella peered through the front window at the Imperial Palace rising immense before her.
“It’s magnificent…”
“Do you like it?”
“I never imagined I’d ever get to see a place like this.”
She had only visited when she was far too young, so she barely remembered the palace at all. There were white walls everywhere and crowds of people in formal dress. Just as her guard slipped and she was tempted to pull out her hairpins, Carlisle’s gaze settled on the nape of her neck.
The curve at the back of her neck, usually hidden, ran smooth and bare, giving off a faintly alluring air. Carlisle rested a hand on her shoulder as she knelt right down to peer out the window, and with easy familiarity he leaned in to look out beside her.
“What’s so interesting?”

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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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