Chapter 15
“Ah, aah!”
The moment Penelope’s fingertips touched the glass of water, it slipped and crashed onto the floor.
Thanks to that, Ben—who had been kneeling on one knee right in front of her—ended up with a soaked knee.
‘I don’t get it! Why is it that lately everything I touch falls, breaks, or gets ruined?!’
And now, she had even managed to spill water on someone else!
“M–Mi…!”
Penelope, flustered, was about to blurt out an apology without thinking.
“Oh my goodness! My lady! Are you hurt anywhere?”
Hailey’s typically overblown voice fussed over Penelope. Ben, who had actually been drenched, was completely ignored. Anna even added,
“My lady, if you dislike someone, the water should go on their face, not their knee.”
She even slyly suggested that if the other person happened to be wearing light-colored trousers, pouring a colored drink wouldn’t be a bad idea either.
“R–Right.”
“Yes. Sir Ben is a knight—he won’t mind something like this. So there’s absolutely no need to apologize.”
“Do you remember, my lady? What His Grace the Duke said.”
At Anna’s prompting, Penelope searched her memory.
“Um… that saying thank you or sorry is unnecessary…?”
“Exactly! As expected, our Lady Penelope is so smart!”
Hailey launched into an extended round of praise for Penelope. Meanwhile, the blunt Anna talked about Calix’s shameless mindset and irritatingly arrogant demeanor.
They were all words worth taking to heart.
“My lady.”
At Frederick’s careful call, Penelope clapped her hands together.
“Oh, right! The knights are here, aren’t they? Anna, Haley, could you excuse us for a moment? I have something to discuss with these two gentlemen.”
Once the two maids withdrew, the knights immediately spoke.
“My lady, we’ve been thinking.”
Penelope perked up her ears, curious what clever idea the knights might have brought her.
“You wish to earn a reputation worthy of House Calix, don’t you?”
“Hmm. Something like that.”
Frederick’s face turned solemn.
“So—we went and stole the butler’s diary!”
“…Excuse me?”
Penelope thought of the estate’s butler: an elderly gentleman with neatly slicked-back white hair.
They hadn’t spoken much, but every time they crossed paths he treated her with extreme courtesy—something Penelope had always found a bit burdensome.
“What does doing something bad have to do with stealing the butler’s diary?”
“Well, you see, the butler has served His Grace since childhood. He’s endured his temper… I mean, he’s stayed loyal to him all these years.”
Following Frederick, Ben explained calmly.
“If you truly want to commit misdeeds worthy of a Calix, you shouldn’t be seeking advice from mere low-ranking knights like us. You should take after His Grace the Duke himself.”
“This diary contains the Duke’s childhood, written down in detail. Reading it will surely help you!”
Their eyes gleamed with anticipation, awaiting Penelope’s verdict.
At that sight, Penelope couldn’t help but sigh.
“You two really are… knights of House Calix through and through.”
She had asked them to compile a list of misdeeds, and instead they had stolen someone’s precious private diary. A solution so outrageous that no ordinary person would have dared to even imagine it—let alone carry it out.
“There’s no risk of being caught. It’s from decades ago, so the butler hasn’t looked at it in years.”
“…That’s not really what I was worried about.”
“No one would ever suspect we stole it.”
“Yes, it’s a perfect crime!”
“You did… well, I guess.”
“Think nothing of it. We’re knights of the Black Hawk Order, after all! Slipping into the butler’s quarters was easier than swallowing spit!”
“…Right.”
For a moment, Penelope thought she saw wagging puppy tails sprouting behind the two knights.
With a reluctant expression, she accepted the diary they held out to her.
If it truly contained the Duke’s childhood, time had clearly left its mark.
“I’ll read this later, slowly. And… since I can see you both worked hard, I’ll keep treating you like dogs for a while.”
When she asked what exactly they preferred in that treatment, Frederick and Ben answered brightly.
“You can keep telling us to ‘fetch’ things, or have us dig holes.”
“It’s even better if you flick us on the forehead.”
“We could carry you on our backs all day if you’d like!”
“That’s not really necessary…”
“Not at all! It’s far more efficient than running a hundred laps or doing harsh drills in the training yard! Being by your side keeps us energized!”
She wasn’t sure what “energized” meant in their case, but there was a strange hint of madness in their words.
‘Well… they did put in effort. I can’t just send them away empty-handed.’
Penelope stood up, picked up a leather ball, and hurled it out the window.
The knights’ eyes lit up.
“Go fetch the ball! I’ll flick the nose of whoever brings it back first.”
“Yes, my lady!”
“We’ll be back soon!”
The two vanished like arrows.
Watching their figures shrink into specks in the distance, Penelope muttered,
“…They’re not seriously going to fetch it with their mouths, are they?”
She worried for the social dignity of knights who were all too eager to play dogs.
Penelope pulled the blanket over her head and opened the butler’s diary. The pages smelled of old paper.
The handwriting was more cramped and crooked than she expected—difficult for Penelope’s clumsy reading skills.
So instead of reading it all, she flipped through until she found the word “young master.”
Since this was decades ago, the Duke of Calix would have been referred to as “young master” at the time.
“Hmm… young master, young master… ah, here!”
Tracing the crooked letters slowly, she began to read:
…The young master has finally beaten his philosophy tutor, Baron Kraud, to a pulp and sent him away.
I thought skipping lessons for ten days in a row was the height of his antics, but it seems he had more in store.
Poor Baron Kraud’s nose was shattered into pieces. Luckily, with the swift intervention of our household physician Jonathan, he avoided being left with a hooked nose.
His Grace the Duke instructed me to handle the matter discreetly and gave me money for it—the amount was…
“Wow.”
Penelope exclaimed in awe.
‘He broke the nose of his teacher—an aristocrat, no less!’
It was truly a scandal worthy of House Calix.
The current Duke’s violent temper was one thing, but the way the former Duke buried it with money and influence was something else entirely.
‘The former Duke… that would make him my grandfather, wouldn’t it?’
She recalled the portrait hanging in the hall: the previous Duke in his youth.
A wild mane of black hair, eyes blazing scarlet like fire.
A face like a ferocious lion, very different from the sleek, panther-like presence of the current Duke.
‘Other than their hair and eye color, they don’t look much like father and son.’
According to the maids, the former Duke had shut himself away in the Calix territory decades ago and never came out.
‘And the current Duke only ever stays in the capital estate. So… does that mean they’re estranged?’
‘Well, who knows.’
She shrugged off her curiosity.
After all, it was the Calix family’s private affair—hardly something she should be prying into.
(Not that someone rifling through another man’s diary had any right to say such a thing.)
Penelope scratched her head awkwardly.
“But… it’s impossible to imitate what the Duke did.”
With her tiny hands, there was no way she could break a grown man’s nose with a punch.
She looked down at her small palms.
‘My own bones would break first.’
The blood of a born villain clearly ran strong, but as an ordinary child, there were limits to what she could actually pull off.
“And besides… I don’t even have any lessons to skip!”
Thinking it over, Penelope realized what her life had been like these past few months.
“All I’ve done is eat, sleep, and play.”
A sudden sense of crisis hit her.
At around her age, the current Duke had been studying something as difficult as philosophy—then achieved the grand feat of thrashing his tutor.
By comparison, she had accomplished absolutely nothing!
Clenching her little fist, Penelope came to a decision: she needed to ask the Duke for something.
“If I keep living peacefully like this, nothing will come of it.”
After all, to have incidents—and to commit misdeeds—one first needed something to do.
The Duke of Calix rested his chin on his hand with a languid air.
“Hm.”
Even now, he radiated dangerous charm.
Penelope stiffened her neck, determined not to be cowed.
‘I’m his daughter!’
Even if her position was precarious—dependent on the Duke’s whim and at risk of being cast aside at any moment!
While she nervously swallowed again and again, the Duke spoke.
“So, you say you want a tutor?”
“Yes!”
“And what exactly do you want to learn?”
Since she hadn’t thought that far ahead, Penelope blurted out the first thing that came to mind.
“Uh… I don’t know? Something that would be helpful to you, Your Grace?”
The Duke gave a short laugh. The idea of a mere eight-year-old offering to “help” him was so audacious, it was amusing.
From beside him, his aide Johansson—sorting papers—smiled faintly and whispered,
“This is why they say daughters are special, Your Grace. Isn’t she adorable?”
“Adorable?”
“Isn’t she? She’s so little, and yet she came all the way here, saying she wants to help her father with his work.”
“You find that adorable?”
The Duke promptly piled another stack of documents into Johansson’s arms.
Then he looked down at the tiny girl standing in front of his desk.
