Lady Cinderella - Chapter 3

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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 3

Clyde unleashed all the rage he had been holding back onto Ella. Not only had he lost his sister, but he resented his niece for driving nails into the very last road his sister would ever walk.
“Your mother begged, with her dying breath, for one chance to see you. And your father refused to the very end, claiming you didn’t want to see her. Yet you have the nerve to show your face here? What kind of shame do you have?”
Because time had turned back, she had assumed everything would go according to her wishes. That was Ella’s miscalculation. Rather than giving her a second chance, the gods took away her last hope: her maternal grandmother.
“Who might that young lady be?”
Unfortunately, the marquis’s mourners had no idea who she was. They didn’t recognize Lady Elladis, the Lloyd Count’s daughter, who had vanished from high society. To hide the family’s disgrace, the marquis quietly led Ella to the rear garden, out of sight.
Despite her grandmother’s desperate plea to leave her some inheritance, the marquis refused, citing the bad blood with Count Lloyd. He lied to his own mother, telling her that Ella no longer wished to see her mother’s family. Unable to overcome her son’s stubborn opposition, the Ruth dowager closed her eyes for good, leaving a will that donated all her land to a foundation for aiding the poor.
Upon hearing that her last hope had passed away this very morning, Ella’s mind went blank.
“I… that is… ”
“What? Did your father send you here to find some inheritance under your name? It’s too late.”
Her legs gave way, and she sank to the ground with a thud. Her last hope was gone. As tears spilled down Ella’s cheeks, the marquis’s gaze upon her was nothing but cold.
“I didn’t come here for an inheritance. Please, just let me see my grandmother’s face one last time.”
Why did it have to be today? Thinking that her grandmother might have paid the price for altering fate, Ella could not bring herself to ask for help. If her grandmother’s life had been the cost of turning back time, then it would have been better not to turn it back at all. Seeing Ella’s pitiful figure with her head bowed, the marquis let out a sigh and called for his wife.
Knowing Count Lloyd’s temperament, they could not get too involved, yet they also could not leave Ella in such a disheveled state. The marquise clicked her tongue and hurriedly fetched a mourning dress that belonged to her cousin Leona.
For the first time in a long while, Ella bowed before her grandmother’s body not as Cinderella of the ashes, but as Lady Elladis. She kissed her grandmother’s cold forehead and placed on her chest the brooch her mother had passed down. It was a family treasure, handed from mother to daughter, meant to bless a daughter’s happy marriage, yet Ella did not deserve happiness. A gnawing guilt wrapped around her small frame.
“I’m so sorry for being so late.”
She had held a faint hope, but miracles never came easily, which was precisely why they were miracles. In truth, her grandmother had grown terribly thin since Ella had last seen her seven years ago.
“It’s too late for regrets.”
Ella wiped away the tears that had streamed down her face and clutched the hem of her skirt tightly. The eighteen-year-old Ella would have been wounded by such a cruel remark, but the twenty-three-year-old Ella could understand, at least a little, her uncle’s feelings.
On the day she lost a precious family member, hearing that her grandmother had waited for her until the very end made shame and guilt crush her heart cruelly. Wiping away the tears welling up, Ella rose from her seat. Regret for not having visited sooner surged over her like waves. Even that was cut short, as she felt the eyes of the endless stream of mourners on her and could not stay for long.
“Go as you are.”
As if it were a disgrace for a noble’s daughter to appear in such shabby attire. The gazes of her uncle, Marquis Ruth, and his retainers stung her.
Showing up dressed like that only after the dowager had passed away led to the misunderstanding that she intended to disrupt even her grandmother’s final farewell.
She could no longer hear the whispers of the crowd. Leaving her grandmother’s body behind, which she had believed without a doubt to be her last refuge, Ella returned to the Lloyd Count family wearing her cousin’s black dress. With her last hope gone, it felt as though the sky was collapsing.
* * *
When she returned home, her face stained with tears, her father, Count Lloyd, glared at Ella as though he had been waiting for her. The news of the former Marchioness Ruth’s death would have reached his ears as well, so he seemed to have pieced together where she had been from the black dress and her swollen eyes alone.
“How dare you, without my permission! Getting mixed up with those people will bring nothing but bad luck!”
What grudge he held against his late wife’s family, Count Lloyd struck his daughter’s cheek with all his might. Ella’s body, weakened from crying so hard, crumpled limply to the floor. Through her tear-blurred vision, she saw Patricia smiling.
‘Why on earth is she smiling?’
Looking back, Ella had done nothing in particular to wrong Patricia, yet her stepmother had always treated her as a thorn in her side. Well, a stepmother who was a complete stranger could be excused, but her own father, Count Lloyd, had done nothing at all, like a scarecrow.
“Patricia was right.”
“What did I say?”
She could not tell what had passed between the two of them, but one thing she understood clearly. Changing fate was never going to be easy. Her grandmother had died calling out Ella’s name until the very end. That she had been returned to the moment of her grandmother’s last breath could not possibly be a coincidence.
Was it a blessing in disguise? Because mourning clothes were considered unlucky, her new sisters-in-law showed no interest in Ella’s dress. She returned to her shabby room as always and lay down on the bed. Now that her grandmother was gone, Ella’s life of ashes was practically beginning in earnest.
‘What should I do from here on?’
Even if she escaped this house, a young woman living alone without a husband could never make it easy. If only she had a husband in name, at least that would give her a good excuse to run from this house.
“…Grand Duke Wellington.”
Just as she thought every ember of hope had gone out, a name that seemed like a dream surfaced in her mind. The man who had given her a hobby she never expected to have, the study of military treatises, was Carlisle Jeremiah Wellington, the Grand Duke.
‘I know it’s a gamble.’
She remembered Calaile, who had been harassed by marriage pressure the entire time he endured the emperor’s restraint. And that was not all. Ella possessed knowledge she had accumulated even before her return.
Above all, she knew every detail of his war records. In her previous life, they would have been nothing more than information released after the passage of time, but now, they were a military secret of tremendous value.
If she sent such secrets directly to Grand Duke Wellington, she felt she might gain the chance to meet him alone, even at the risk of being mistaken for a spy.
Ella dug diligently through her memory. The events that had happened to herself were easily forgotten, but the records of the battles the Grand Duke had fought were nearly all memorized down to the exact month and day.
She reviewed the calendar and refreshed her memory. Now was the moment just after the battle of Gordon Great Plains had ended, the time when he would be returning to the capital after a great victory. Having fought such a massive battle, the duke would have to remain in the capital for roughly the next half year, handling the war situation as well as various reports.
Ella organized the flood of memories by time period. His peace would not even last two months. Though they had subdued the Great Plains, remnants of the enemy nation ambushed them, and most of the spoils headed for the capital were lost.
“Since His Majesty dislikes Grand Duke Wellington…”
No matter how much the emperor despised the duke, it was customary to exempt him from campaigns whenever talks of engagement and marriage arose, at least until the schedule was confirmed. Moreover, if she became his fiancée, the duke could serve as her protector.
Beyond the benefits that would come back to her, she believed the Grand Duke would be the one person who could recognize just how useful the knowledge she possessed could be. He had carried out bold personnel decisions, promoting and employing talented people regardless of gender.
After the Spoils Incident, the Grand Duke had been driven back to the frontier once more and had not returned to the capital for more than two years.
As if a curse had settled over him, every time Grand Duke Wellington returned to the capital, some unfortunate accident occurred, and he was sent back to the battlefield. If only she could be the one to break that chain of misfortune…
“First, I must warn him about the ambush at Oberon Gorge.”
The first task had been decided. What Ella needed right now was a temporary guardian who could stand up to her father, Count Lloyd. The only quick and certain path for an unrelated man to become a woman’s guardian was through an engagement.
But since they should not become obstacles to each other’s futures, she intended to propose a time-limited engagement, using information about what was to come as bait, until she came of age and could receive the Trust Fund.
“Ella! Where are you?!”
Judging by the way Kate was calling for Ella again, her beloved dress must have torn. If the servants handled it, the embroidery would be ruined, so Kate always left the alterations of her dresses to Ella.
“Coming!”
The more things she could do, the better. Ella gathered up her skirts and dashed toward Kate’s room, or rather the second floor, which had once been her own.
* * *
“Ella, come here. We need to talk for a bit.”
Ever since the visit to the Marquis Ruse House, Patricia had treated Ella with exceptional care. Thanks to the Count’s fury, Ella had sunk all the way down to the status of a mere maid. It was also Patricia who had stepped in to restrain her father when he screamed that he didn’t want to see her face.
“Yes, Mother.”
“I only wanted you to learn housekeeping so you could marry into a fine family and become a good wife. Did I hurt your feelings with that?”
Patricia wore a hypocritical smile and dressed up every bit of drudgery Ella was doing now as though it were all for Ella’s sake. As a child, Ella had believed every word of that nonsense.
—No, Mother. I’m fine. I’ll work hard at learning.
Recalling the foolish answer she had once given, Ella replied with a sharp, mocking edge.
“Who would ever think I’m a lady of a noble house, looking at me now?”
“Ella.”
“Mother, you dislike me, don’t you?”
Ella had been far too good. Since her father had chosen the match, she had believed she ought to obey without complaint, and she had quietly endured until she was forced to marry a man who was beyond reason. How could any good word come out of her mouth when she faced the stepmother who had utterly ruined her life?
“How could I possibly? You do say the strangest things. You’re making me look bad in front of my elders.”
“Don’t worry. Once I turn twenty, I’ll walk out of this house on my own two feet.”
Even if her last hope pinned on Grand Duke Wellington crumbled, Ella would reach adulthood once her birthday passed, just over a year and a few months from now.
“You’d leave this house?”
“Yes. Until then, I’ll obediently do whatever you tell me and work diligently. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I still have cleaning to finish.”
Noble inheritance laws were complicated, and the Trust Fund her mother had left to Ella could only be inherited in the year Ella turned twenty. Unfortunately, Ella only learned this after she had passed twenty-two, which is to say, a full year after she had married that damned Viscount Trumbone.
She had belatedly tried to trace the money, but by then Patricia had already disposed of all of it without Ella knowing. The result of not becoming independent even after coming of age was wretched.
If she let her stepmother have her way any longer, there was no telling how deep into the mire she would drag her life. With that, Ella cut the conversation short and left the room at once.

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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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