The car soon slowed, then came to a smooth stop.
“Your residence is still quite a distance away, Your Grace,” the driver said politely.
Leonard did not answer. He opened the door and stepped out of the car. The guards immediately fell in behind him.
Leonard walked toward the little girl and stopped directly in front of her.
“I’m sorry, please forgive me, sir,” the girl stammered. Her voice trembled violently. “I didn’t steal anything from your forest. I swear. I only gathered fallen branches. Please don’t punish me.” She thought the man standing before her was merely a security officer from Arkenvale.
“Raise your face,” Leonard ordered firmly.
The little girl’s body trembled even harder. Fear made her shoulders quiver.
“Lift your head, miss,” another voice called coldly. “Did you not hear His Grace’s order?”
His Grace? The little girl blinked in shock. She grew even more frightened when she realized that the man standing before her was the Duke. Slowly, the little girl raised her face.
For the first time, their eyes met from such a close distance. The girl had clear, deep eyes, like a still lake secretly holding the sky within it.
“I never expected to find a ragged girl like you in my territory,” Leonard said calmly. Coldly.
To the little girl, those words were more than a statement. They were a taunt and an insult.
Ragged? Yes. That was what she was now. A child in dirty clothes, her hands rough from gathering branches, living far from luxury—utterly different from the figure before her, whom people addressed as His Grace.
Slowly, Leonard reached into his coat pocket. He took out several coins and held them out.
The little girl’s eyes widened. She immediately set the branches on the ground, then accepted the money with both hands, her face lighting up at once.
“Thank you... thank you, Duke.”
There was no answer. Leonard had already turned away. He walked back to the waiting car, climbed in, and left for his family’s main residence without looking back.
The little girl was Eleanor. Clutching the money in her hand, she immediately ran home.
Home? Yes, to a simple house. After her father was sentenced to beheading, the world of little Eleanor suddenly collapsed.
Before that tragedy, people had greeted and admired her as Lady Eleanor—a respected nobleman’s daughter. But overnight, the noble title attached to her family was stripped away without a trace. Their magnificent home was confiscated, and all their honor was replaced by utter disgrace.
They were forced to move away and settle in a modest wooden house on the outskirts of town. But even there, the insults never truly disappeared.
On the streets, Eleanor and her mother were no longer treated as human beings. Enraged townspeople pelted them with stones, spat in their path, and showered them with heart-wrenching curses.
“Murderer’s bloodline!”
Those poisonous cries continued to burn in their ears. They were treated no better than animals trudging weakly through the mud.
That morning, the firewood supply in the house had run completely dry. In the cold corner of the room, her mother lay sick. Little Eleanor couldn’t bear to watch her mother shiver. Quietly, she gathered her courage and slipped out of the house.
The little girl wore her most drab clothes and deliberately smeared dirt across both cheeks so the people in town would not easily recognize the face of a former Lady.
She walked a long way along the outskirts of the Arkenvale forest, gathering dry branches, until her steps unknowingly brought her face-to-face with the young Duke Leonard’s luxurious car.
When her eyes met the Duke’s, all her senses froze beneath the cold aura of his gaze. Once, she had seen him standing arrogantly behind a glass wall, watching her kneel in the courtyard beneath the rain. Now, she had held out her hand to receive the Duke’s insult—accepting the coins while burying the humiliation in her heart.
When she arrived home, Eleanor immediately showed her mother what she had brought.
Emillie, who had been sitting down, jolted in surprise. She stared at her little daughter with wide, anxious eyes.
“Where did you get that? Where did you get this, Eleanor?” Emillie asked in a panic.
Eleanor lowered her head, hiding her gaze. “From... Duke Leonard.”
Emillie’s eyes flew wide. A terrible dizziness suddenly gripped her head. With trembling hands, she reached out and seized her little daughter’s slender shoulders.
“Call him His Grace... We’re not nobles anymore, do you understand?” Emillie said shakily, trying to impress that bitter reality upon her daughter.
Eleanor blinked, then slowly nodded. “His Grace, Duke Leonard,” she said.
“That’s right...” Emillie murmured.