He wouldn’t say anything about Ella yet. He would start with her first, before getting the duke’s hopes up. There was no reason to cause trouble until he was completely sure.
Until then, he would pretend everything was the same as it had always been.
Chapter four
Ella
Ella breathed a sigh of relief as she relaxed into the chair in the café with a mug of warm tea in her hands. She could make tea at home, for sure, but for some reason, tea always tasted better at the Cozy Cat Café. She wasn’t sure why, but it did.
It didn’t hurt that her family hadn’t found the café yet, so she always had the place to herself.
Well, not entirely. There were always other people here, but she didn’t have to share it with her stepsisters or her stepmother, which made it a safe haven—somewhere she tried to go as often as she could afford.
She had sold a couple dozen eggs to Thea earlier and had been given a mug of tea, and everything felt right with the world.
To make it even better, once she was done with her tea, she was going to go to the library, see Eugenia, and find a new book to read.
The day couldn’t get any better.
And then the door opened, and Dietrich walked in.
Ella scowled as the man scanned the café and grinned when he saw her.
Of course he had come to interrupt her peace and quiet.
He made his way over to her, pausing to put a fresh log of wood onto the fire for Thea and petting the cat before throwing himself into the chair by her side.
“Fancy finding you here,” he said with a smirk.
“What do you want?” she asked.
“Is that any way to greet a friend?” he teased.
“We’re not friends,” she said. “You are simply my neighbor’s son.”
“Isn’t it a pity that we’re not friends?” he said. “I think life would be much more enjoyable if you and I became friends.”
“What do you want, Dietrich?” she asked again.
He grew more serious, looking around the room as if to see who was near, before turning back to her.
“I have a sensitive question,” he said. “You may not wish to answer, but I hope you will.”
Ella raised her eyebrows at him. What sort of delicate question? “What do you mean?”
“Do you know who your parents are?” he asked.
Ella frowned at him. “Of course I know who my parents are,” she said. “Why wouldn’t I?”
But then her stepmother’s words from the other night appeared in her head, unbidden.
“You do?” he asked when he saw the troubled look on her face. “Or you don’t?”
Ella shook her head. “I don’t know why it matters to you,” she said.
Dietrich paused, waiting for her to say something else. She let out a huff.
“I don’t know who my mother is,” she admitted. “My father never spoke of it, and my stepmother would never talk about something like that to me.”
