Lady Cinderella - Chapter 9

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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 9

“I know far more than Your Grace might think. Right now, for instance, the garrisons in the northwest are running short on provisions and keep begging for supplies, while General Eastern, who holds the eastern flank of the Gordon Great Plains, is sitting on a full stockpile of rations and digging in, waiting to win his glory.”
“How could you possibly know that?”
Calaile felt as though he’d been struck across the back of the head. The lady rattled off intelligence that had only reached him yesterday. Ever since he had pulled back from the front, the generals’ competing interests had been pulling apart, and the state of the Gordon Great Plains grew worse by the day.
He was standing at a crossroads, deciding whether to return to the battlefield or not, and he could not dismiss this impudent lady’s memo, if only because every single thing she had predicted had come true.
“Judging by your expression, Your Grace, it seems my predictions were correct.”
“Who exactly are you?”
Faced with Ella’s self-satisfied smile, Calaile drew his sword without a moment’s hesitation and pressed its edge against her slender throat.
He had assumed she was little more than a parrot repeating what some spy had fed her, or perhaps a mere go-between, but the way she spoke now made it clear that was not the case. Even with a blade at her throat, Ella did not so much as blink as she looked back at him.
“Before I tell you, I have one condition.”
Drenched in soapy water that foamed white over her, Ella looked up at the Grand Duke boldly and held his gaze. If he was a lion, the woman before him was a young creature who could hardly pass for a deer. Though he could cut her down in a single stroke should he choose, there seemed to be no trace of fear in those golden eyes. Well, he might as well play along and hear her out. He smirked and asked her.
“And what would that condition be?”
“Get me out of this house.”
Calaile frowned but lowered his sword. The fact that she was in a difficult position was something the Intelligence Department had already uncovered.
“And what do I gain in exchange for rescuing you?”
“Your Grace has been drifting around the frontier all this time, thanks to His Majesty’s restraints on you. With His Majesty holding a grudge against you, a real marriage will be difficult for you. So I’ll become your fake fiancée.”
The way she spoke, as though she were doing him a generous favor, left Calaile genuinely dumbfounded. This plain, or rather, if you looked closely, passably pretty face, with that figure showing through her soaked dress, was somewhat appealing, admittedly. Still, he was taken aback that she would suddenly bring up an engagement.
It had been like this from the very first letter. This woman never once behaved the way Calaile predicted. Above all, he disliked that attitude of hers, as if she were not the least bit intimidated by him and instead knew him far too well.
“A fiancée?”
“Is someone there?”
Perhaps she had caught the sound of a man’s voice, because a maid came hurrying over from somewhere in the distance. Ella quickly pulled the Grand Duke’s arm and tumbled him straight down into the bushes.
“I was just muttering to myself because my dress won’t smooth out properly!”
“Hurry up and get inside!”
The maid snapped at Ella for dawdling and went back into the building. Pretending to smooth out her skirt, Ella looked down at Calaile, who was crouched in the shrubbery and visibly irritated, and giggled.
“You can come out now.”
“Honestly, what a…”
“As you know, Your Grace, once an engagement is made, it’s customary not to send the man to the front lines until the wedding. And you have no intention of marrying for real anyway, do you?”
“So? Are you proposing we pretend to be engaged?”
That he had no desire to marry was a secret that no one but Kevin knew. From the battlefield’s most closely guarded matters down to his bachelorhood, this woman, whom he had never laid eyes on before, seemed to have it all figured out, and that deeply unsettled him.
“I need a fake fiancé to protect me until I turn twenty.”
“Is the age of twenty tied to the Trust Fund?”
“Since you’ve looked into that much, there’s no need to explain. I thought you weren’t interested in me at all, since you never wrote back. I’m so relieved.”
Forgetting that she had just called him a fool, Ella smiled brightly and held out her hand to the Grand Duke. He, still seated in the bushes, pulled her arm with all his strength and got to his feet. Having underestimated a man’s strength, Ella’s body collapsed weakly into the Grand Duke’s arms.
“Eek!”
“A fake fiancée, is it?”
Calaile held the lady, who had just spouted such outrageous nonsense, and fell into thought. With a face that looked like it couldn’t hurt an ant, she had written those memos going on about armies and wars.
Her grasp of the current situation on the battlefield, and her ability to predict what would happen next, could not be dismissed lightly. Setting every other matter aside, he couldn’t shake the feeling that she might do something unexpected at any moment. Ella finally got back on her feet, but she was an absolute mess, her clothes disheveled and a lock of hair sticking up from her bangs. Calaile promptly fired a question at her, though she was clearly sulking.
“What if I refuse? What will you do then?”
“There’s nothing for it. If Your Grace insists on this, then I’ll have no choice but to go see Marquis Osborn.”
“What did you say?”
Marquis Hermann Osborn, the leader of the Third Prince Faction and the older brother of the current Empress, was an acknowledged rival of Grand Duke Wellington. If secret intelligence about him were to leak into Osborn’s hands, then not only the Grand Duke himself but even the Crown Prince could find himself in a tight spot. Ella had no intention of actually doing such a thing, but she pushed the infuriating Grand Duke away with some effort and let out a “Hmph” through her nose.
“Just kidding. Marquis Osborn would never listen to a word I say, after all.”
Compared to that, Ella at least had a certain trust in the Grand Duke: that he judged people by their ability rather than their rank.
Yet that trust had gone unanswered, and for a moment she had concluded, ‘So you’re just the same as the rest.’ Still, now that they had met face to face and talked, Ella was certain that her judgment of him had not been mistaken.
“Then what about me?”
“Because I believed you weren’t that kind of man.”
What could you possibly know about me? Calaile could not bring himself to say it aloud, so he simply looked down at this impudent lady in silence. A fake fiancée. With an engagement as an excuse, he could naturally be excluded from deployment for the time being.
I felt it at the ball as well, but if he publicly claimed to have someone, even an empty engagement, those pests who kept clinging to him would also vanish. Even the Emperor. A nobody like the daughter of the Lloyd Count family was hardly something the Emperor would have any reason to be wary of.
On top of that, this woman defied every expectation he had of a lady, from her manner of speaking to her behavior. Not only did she talk back without the slightest fear even when a blade was pressed to her, she dared to bring up Marquis Osborn’s name right in front of him and attempt to strike a deal.
“They say two peaches are enough to kill three generals. With the question of the Imperial Succession Rights, your current standing must be quite precarious, Your Grace?”
“How outrageous. Just where did you hear all of this?”
“If you’re curious about that, then help me. Nothing in this world comes for free, you know.”
Outrageous. Not just outrageous, but downright insolent. Yet somehow, instead of anger, curiosity stirred in him. She was openly demanding what she wanted from him, while never once giving him the answer to the thing he wanted to know most.
Getting her out of this house by making her his fake fiancée was nothing to him. But he could not grant her wish for free. Calaile offered a bitter smile and asked her in return.
“And if I grant your wish, what then?”
“I shall become your loyal shield, Your Grace.”
“…You intend to become my shield?”
A pipsqueak who wouldn’t even make a decent mouthful. At his scoffing smirk, Ella flared up and yanked at his arm.
“His Majesty is still scheming, even now, to send you back to the battlefield before long, mmph!”
“You’d do well to watch that mouth of yours.”
Marquis Osborn might have let it slide, but speaking carelessly about the Emperor was a crime of lèse-majesté. That she seemed to grasp even the Emperor’s innermost thoughts meant that if he left this woman be, real trouble would surely follow. Ella, too, realized she had gone too far, and she carefully pried his hand away from her mouth.
Compared to the large hand that still rested over those soft lips, Ella’s hand was far too small. Seeing it covered in scars from rough work, he knew that if he left her as she was, the stepmother and stepsisters would keep tormenting her without end. She seemed to be trying hard to stand on her own, but her stepmother was already maneuvering behind the scenes to get her hands on Ella’s Trust Fund. It simply didn’t sit well with him to leave her be.
“So. What is it that I need to do right now?”
“Please, just abduct me as I am.”
“Abduct you?”
“Yes. This false engagement won’t last long. And I have no intention whatsoever of marrying either.”
At Ella’s cheerful declaration, Calaile was dumbfounded, yet his sharp mind was already calculating what would come next. As he thought it over, he realized this was a fine opportunity for him, too, to keep his vow of bachelorhood.
In any case, he would need to keep an eye on this suspicious young lady’s movements. Compared to imprisoning her and torturing her for answers, an engagement was far more elegant. On top of that, it would spare him the nuisance of being dragged to balls, and it could serve as a convenient excuse to fend off the pressure to marry, at least on the surface.
She herself said she didn’t want to stay in this house, so what was there to explain in detail? The Grand Duke of Wellington, besotted with love, slips out of the ballroom and, while the family is away, abducts his beloved lady and announces their engagement. After a period of engagement, the two will go their separate ways the moment she turns twenty.
He hated troublesome matters, yet somehow what this lady said sounded absurd and yet, at the same time, remarkably plausible.
“If you say you’re my former fiancée, there would surely be quite a few men who’d come flocking to you, wouldn’t there?”
“I’m not the type to leave my fate in a man’s hands. If you’ll only protect me until I come of age, I can manage perfectly well on my own after that.”
Watching Ella speak so resolutely, Calaile busied himself trying to hold back the laughter welling up inside him. She was clinging to him, asking him to be her fiancé, yet even that was merely a means to an end, and her conclusion was clearly to make her own fortune. Seeing her body language make it plain she had no intention of being clung to, Calaile couldn’t help the mischief that bubbled up within him.
“So that’s why you started embroidery work?”
Never imagining he would know even that, Ella widened her eyes and stared at the Grand Duke. Calaile smirked and produced the handkerchief of Ella’s that he had been keeping tucked away in his breast pocket.

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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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