To My First Love, With Regret (Libenia) Chapter 21

“Ughhh… enough…”

He writhed and groaned like a disgusting, pitiful worm.

“The duke’s family? Take that away and you’re nothing. What can you even do besides hide behind your father?”

As if to prove his point, Ethan stomped his boot down hard on Harry’s head — the bastard lying at his feet.

“Your father’s not here. Go ahead — defend yourself with your precious status.”

“Kgh!”

The guy’s head flopped limply.

“How does it feel — getting beaten by the bug you looked down on?”

This time he grabbed Harry by the hair and yanked him up. The guy was a full head shorter than Ethan — he could only look at him when Ethan wrenched his head back. Now the hierarchy was right.

“Hit me! Hit me with your power! You should’ve known even a rat bites when you step on it, you stupid waste.”

The ache in his throbbing knuckles gave way to euphoria. A year’s worth of rage became the fuel for that euphoria. Ethan got addicted to that terrible pleasure — and couldn’t stop.

Just as he drew his fist back for another blow — a crack rang out.

It wasn’t just his enemy’s bones breaking.

His sanity broke right along with them.

---

Learning what happened from Becky, Eve raced straight to the lighthouse.

“Ethan…”

She met him halfway — he was driving a cargo cart. The skin on the back of his hand gripping the reins was torn raw. In the cart bed lay a man beyond recognition.

Harry was secretly transported to the mansion, with orders for the servants to keep silent. Fortunately, their father — ignoring the doctor’s warnings — had indulged in champagne and cake and was deep in an afternoon nap.

Chantal, with nothing better to do, treated Harry’s wounds and left painkillers. Eve didn’t give any to the moaning patient — she took one herself. Her head was splitting.

How do I clean up this disaster…

If she followed her temper, she would have already reported her own brother to the police. But obviously, the police wouldn’t start an investigation — they’d report everything straight to her father.

Harry’s crime would get buried under a few banknotes and gold coins — and Ethan would become a thug who beat someone for no reason. So even without calling the police, once this story got out, Ethan would be the one at a disadvantage.

While she rubbed her forehead in thought, Harry — settled comfortably in a chair — looked in the mirror and spat out a clot of blood.

“That bastard impostor dared touch my face…”

He really had been beaten ruthlessly — his face already swollen, eyes nearly closed, bruises blooming. But wasn’t him not being dead a sign of mercy?

“I’ll tell Father — he’ll kill those bastards.”

“You’re the one who should be killed, you rutting mantis.”

If you really were a mantis, the female would’ve eaten you long ago, and everyone would be happy.

Ah — how I want to kill him.

Until now, she’d only wished him dead. But for the first time, she genuinely wanted to murder him and end this torment.

But Eve had too many dreams to rot in prison.

“Who’s rutting? I just offered Becky a job — and they attacked me with their fists.”

Becky had already told her. Harry had shown up uninvited at their home and asked if she knew that Ethan was working as a nude model in Richmond. Then he’d offered Becky money to strip — promising to pay more than her brother.

And I came from the same womb as this disgusting rapist.

Eve’s life had been shameful from the moment she was born.

Should’ve strangled him with the umbilical cord in the womb.

You shouldn’t do that to any woman — but targeting Becky was shocking too.

She’s the nursemaid’s daughter — the girl you loved like a sister. And you laid a hand on her? Animal.

But if she tried appealing to his humanity, Harry would just laugh and blurt out something in his usual style. ‘If you’re not an aristocrat, you’re not human.’ He genuinely believed commoners were livestock.

Eve grabbed Harry’s arm — the one in a splint — and barely suppressed the nausea of touching that disgusting insect.

“Henry Sherwood Jr.”

“AAAAACK!”

“You dared touch my maid?”

This had to be a fight between the Kentrells — that was her only chance to win on equal ground.

“Crazy bitch!”

The moment she twisted his broken finger, Harry squealed like a rat and yanked his arm back. Apparently forgetting for a second that his finger was broken, he raised it toward Eve’s cheek.

But he didn’t hit her.

Causing harm to the family’s ‘flower’ — reducing her value — was one of the few offenses even Father wouldn’t forgive from his precious son.

“Tell Father you went to town and got into a fight with some strangers.”

As expected, Harry snorted and stared at her suspiciously.

“Why are you defending Ethan Fairchild so much?”

“I’m grateful he did what I’ve wanted to do myself.”

Eve grabbed her brother’s jaw with one hand. There must have been a crack there — because he squealed again.

“If you don’t do as I say — your life is going to get very difficult.”

“Oh — I’m so scared.”

“I’ll tell Helena.”

The moment she mentioned the Crown Princess — Harry’s classmate and Eve’s friend — his nasty smirk vanished.

“What?…”

“Helena, those rumors about you buying grades — the ones that’ve been so unfairly hounding you — they’re because Harry actually did buy grades.”

“Evelyn Sherwood.”

The voice that seeped through Harry’s gritted teeth trembled. Not from anger — from fear.

The heir to the Kentrell house — who feared nothing in this world — stuttered in terror of one person. Her Majesty the Queen.

He must have been twelve. Harry had lost to Helena, the king’s only daughter, in an equestrian competition — and insulted the winner with words that should never have been spoken.

“A horse-face has its advantages.”

Her Majesty graciously forgave him, calling it a childhood mistake — but after that, Harry endured a year of elaborate bullying at boarding school.

Complaining to his father was useless. His enemy was the king — and their father hated getting involved in trouble. When Harry begged him for protection, he just scolded him — told him to act like a man.

Henry Sherwood — you don’t want to relive that nightmare, do you? Now in university?

Harry’s eyes filled with terror at the memory. Eve was sure she’d shut him up.

That a slave to impulse and self-destruction would choose tomorrow’s safety over today’s revenge.

---

But the story still reached her father’s ears.

Hearing that he’d ordered servants to bring Ethan, Eve rushed to Harry’s bedroom. Her father stood before Ethan — who was on his knees. He raised a golf club high.

“Father!”

The club sliced through the air with terrifying speed — and in that same instant, Eve threw herself between Ethan and her father.

CRACK!

She didn’t feel the pain of the blunt strike to her body.

Because Ethan had managed to wrap around her and shield her.

The steel club hit his back — but Eve felt it through her whole body. Her heart stopped, as if she’d been the one struck, and tears welled up. Ethan turned away, avoiding her eyes, and let her go.

“My apologies, my lady.”

Even in a moment like this — he kept up the act. Afraid their connection would be exposed.

“Ivy — leave.”

Eve ran to her father and wrenched the club from his hand.

“Are you trying to kill him?”

“He deserves it. Look at your brother.”

Harry — who moments ago had been sitting up and sniping quite merrily — now lay in bed pretending to be deathly ill, watching from the corner of his eye.

“Wake up. Harry deserved this!”

Could it be that Father was punishing Ethan without even knowing the reason? Eve’s last hope in her father was brutally shattered.

“And this guy used his fists when words could have solved everything.”

…Solved with words? He’s suggesting reasoning nicely with an animal trying to rape his sister?

Eve stopped short — her thoughts grinding to a halt. She’d believed her father, for all his coddling of his son, wasn’t an evil man. That faith — blinding her — crumbled. And she saw what kind of monster the Duke of Kentrell really was.

“I worked so hard to wash the stain of a bandit’s son off him — and in return I get betrayal… I suppose dirty blood can’t be fixed.”

Harry, feeling the backing of a powerful ally, immediately sniped: ‘Want to be king? Follow a murderer into an alley.’ So Ethan’s sin was hubris — daring to stand against a duke.

“I’ll beat the nonsense out of you — since your father won’t.”

“Beat the nonsense out of your son first.”

Eve locked eyes with her father and pointed the club at Harry.

“This is all your fault — you never once hit him or raised him right, so other people have to! Who are you blaming!”