Evil Duke, Please Be Gentle!

"You can come here sometimes with Eve or with knights if you want to." he had been noticing how her bright eyes had turned dim when the town could not be seen anymore from the window. 

She turned to look at him with surprise but did not think much of his offer. She knew that he was feeling bad for her at this moment, but he would soon forget about it.

"Is your work still left?" Once she turned to look at him, her eyes fell on the files that were lying on the other side of the seat in a scattered way.

He nodded as he leaned his head on the seat for a minute and then picked up the file. He was looking tired! His face was looking a bit pale too. She was not sure if he had eaten properly because he was behaving strangely at both lunch and dinner time.

His face was looking dim and glum too. She felt a bit guilty for spending so much time when they could have left after buying the grains.

"Umm, i am not sure, but can i help you with something?" she asked as she saw that there was a pile of parchments still needed to be attended. 

And here she thought that being a knight only meant participating in the wars and battles and keeping the empire safe! How was it different from any other office work?

His hands halted and his grip on the file tightened.

It was very rare for the commoners to read and write but to calculate and understand the files was only limited to traders and rich businessmen. 

Even Martin had taken more than an hour in calculating the price and he had noticed he was still looking confused after receiving the money. 

Then could it be..?

His eyes flickered as he rummaged the files and took out the one showing the monthly expenditure of last month of the whole training camp.

"Mmm, if you can check the calculations, it would be of great help!" 

For checking the calculations, she must be able to check the price per piece and then multiply it with the quantity purchased and then see if they had paid enough, or more than needed. And then sum up all the expenditure to check if the amount charged by the supplier was right or not.

This task is mostly done by his aide or he asks Eve to do it. Since he finds the work important but at the same time boring.

She nodded and took the file from him and rummaged through the data. When he looked at her frowned brows and with the speed she was turning the pages, he shook his head.

What was he even thinking of giving her the task of calculations? She was just a commoner girl who lived a blessed life.

Though he still could not explain how her house had so many rare gems and jewels. It could be that they belong to her mother or father and they died before informing her.

Or else why would she have given them to him so effortlessly. 

He was suspecting her too much. With that thought, he finally took his eyes away from her face.

But he could not help but feel uneasy! A surge of doubts started to fill his chest and he closed his eyes to curb them. His hands pinched the space between his eyes and took a deep breath.

When he was not able to get rid of those strange feelings, he decided to observe her for a bit longer.

From the moment Evan had been given the file, she did not raise her head or look away. She was browsing through the documents with full seriousness.

After a minute she picked up a nib from the side and a blank parchment. Adjusting her sitting positions, she started to jot down a few points. 

Her whole personality had changed since she had started writing key points. The very bubbly and nonchalant girl, who looked a bit  scared sometimes, was gone. 

She was replaced by a strong woman, who had a serious and concentrated look on her face. Her eyes had turned fierce. She was looking a completely different person than before.

Leo forgot what he was reading as his deep eyes could not turn away from her face that had been lost in its work and she had even forgotten about his presence. 

But what surprised  him more was with the speed she was turning the pages, he was sure even Eve or Arden had taken the whole day in studying the prices yet she was doing it so fast as if it was a child's play.

He had only seen this speed in his parents who had been studying these kinds of documents and keeping track of the expenditure of dukedom all their life. But how was she doing it? 

For a second he felt that it was her mother who was sitting there and noting the points that he had to blink a few times to get that image out of his eyes.

Just when he thought of interrupting her and seeing if she was even doing it correctly or it was just he hallucinating due to the previous shocks she had given him when she was the one who stopped writing and looked above.

She collected all the parchments she had filled with speed as if it was not a human but a person with superpower was writing and handed it to Leo.

"There were so many mistakes in the documents you have given me. I have tried my best to find the changes and write them down for you to compare.

But there might be a chance I have missed a few points.. It would be better if you give it a look later. But I must say that the person who had made the file was very inexperienced as he had done a lot of miscalculations!"