To My First Love, With Regret (Libenia) Chapter 22

“I said — leave.”

“How long are you going to cover for Harry!”

“Take Ivy out!”

The large servants who’d dragged Ethan here didn’t dare lay a finger on the filly and hesitated. In the end, they called the maids, who pulled Eve out of the room.

Meanwhile, Harry stood. Leaning on servants — though he didn’t need to — he walked over and stopped in front of Ethan.

“On your knees.”

Ethan just glared at him, unmoving. Someone struck him behind the knees.

“First, you need to learn your place.”

With Ethan forced to his knees, Harry spread his legs.

“Crawl between my legs.”

“So which one of us is the impostor now!”

Eve’s hate-filled scream faded in the distance. Ethan sighed in relief.

He was used to the humiliation of being powerless. This would just be one more insult buried among the others.

But not Ivy… I didn’t want her to see me helpless.

Because he could endure the contempt of the whole world — but not the pity of the woman he loved.

Ethan squeezed his eyes shut.

---

Today’s double date was canceled.

Becky was leaving with Tom at dawn tomorrow, so she needed to pack. And Ethan wasn’t in the mood to see Eve.

Disgusting world. Disgusting aristocrats.

He locked himself in his room, nursing a bottle of cheap whiskey — trying to dilute his hatred for the duke’s family with alcohol.

Knock knock.

He heard tapping at the window. Pulling back the curtain, he met the eyes of the duke’s very daughter — the one he’d just been cursing.

I didn’t really want to see her today.

Ethan reluctantly opened the window and leaned against the frame with a sigh.

“The duke’s family still thinks this is their property, apparently.”

Eve reached for his split lip — but her hand stopped mid-air. She frowned at his comment about why she and her brother kept barging into other people’s homes uninvited — but the reason for her frown was different.

“Why are you lumping me in with those thugs?”

“You’re a Sherwood either way.”

Her gaze turned sharp at the insult, and Ethan sighed helplessly. Even this arrogant anger — proof of her Sherwood blood — looks beautiful to me. Even after that humiliation.

This really is a curse.

“Why the hell did I have to fall in love with you?”

Ethan spread his arms and pulled the woman standing outside the window into an embrace.

“Just think of it as me loving you too.”

Eve wrapped her arms around his neck. The man who — despite all the humiliations her family had put him through — remained endlessly gentle, pulled her inside. It made Eve’s heart ache.

“Why did you come? It’s dangerous with those bloodsucking flies around.”

“All the flies left today.”

Once they saw what had become of Harry, they’d come to their senses — and one by one, making up excuses, they’d fled.

Eve followed the room’s owner to the bed without hesitation. This wasn’t the first time she’d snuck into Ethan’s room.

An ashtray full of cigarette butts sat on the nightstand. Ethan sat on the edge of the bed and reached for the pack. She snatched it away. So he reached for the half-empty whiskey bottle instead.

I won’t let those bastards have the right to comfort you.

She took the bottle away too and held him. Eve stood while Ethan sat, his head resting against her chest.

“Ethan — Harry is jealous of you.”

They’d been close friends as children. Especially when it came to mischief.

But at some point, Ethan left Harry behind and walked the right path alone. Harry probably saw that as betrayal.

And when Ethan got into a prestigious university on his own merit — while Harry had to pour money into it — he must have felt overtaken.

Harry spent a whole month badmouthing Ethan behind his back. Even when no one mentioned him, Harry brought him up himself. Watching this, Eve understood.

It’s an inferiority complex.

“You’re saying I should understand Harry because I caused this?”

Eve held the man who tried to push her away even tighter. More accurately — she clung to him.

“I’m saying you don’t need to feel humiliated. Because you’re better than him.”

Your comfort humiliates me even more. Would a princess understand that? No — better she never know.

She probably didn’t realize her words of support had the opposite effect. Because it was just a reminder that the powerful man would haunt him for life.

“I should’ve thrown him off the cliff after all.”

Shouldn’t have listened to the conscience that said killing makes me like my father.

“Ethan — don’t destroy our future because of one madman.”

Ethan stood up. Without returning the embrace, he pulled away from Eve.

“I’ll walk you out.”

Lately, he’d said this to her every night — but tonight it sounded different. Because he wasn’t looking at her with dream-filled eyes anymore.

Eve’s heart plummeted.

This is the end. You’re going to give up on our future.

To Ethan, Eve was just another despotic, corrupt Sherwood.

I’m different. I’m not a monster like them. I love you.

Eve’s pupils blazed like a solar corona. Just as Ethan sensed madness in her gaze…

“Ethan — do you want me to make the Duke of Kentrell’s title yours?”

He thought Eve had genuinely lost her mind. How could someone not even distantly related to the Sherwoods become a duke?

“Do you know that three years ago, Harry nearly died?”

He knew. They’d been street racing — Harry crashed into a tree due to inexperience, flew from the car, and came within a hair’s breadth of death.

“Father considered taking a second wife — to have another son. Even though he could barely move himself.”

He remembered the adults worrying that if Harry died, the Kentrell line would end. Remembering it now made him laugh. Slaves trembling in fear that their exploiter would vanish.

“But that became unnecessary.”

And not just because Harry survived.

“Because Her Majesty the Queen granted a special dispensation: if Harry can’t produce an heir — my firstborn will inherit the title.”

“What?…”

Ethan had heard of such things but couldn’t believe it. In Mercia, inheritance followed strict male lines. Even if a generation later the title passed through the male line again — granting a woman inheritance rights was an unheard-of privilege, countable on one hand through all of history.

Both Eve’s father and grandfather had only one son. Because of that, the second in line to the title was a fish-processing plant owner they’d never met in their lives.

“The Queen probably didn’t want some herring-stinking fishmonger carrying the crown at her daughter’s coronation — whenever that may be.”

“And she didn’t mind the Kentrell name changing from Sherwood to something else?”

“What does she care if someone else’s title changes names? She has no reason to worry.”

On the other hand — it was also because the Queen favored Eve more than Harry.

“And it was like a cynical joke: whoever I choose would be better than Harry.“

Eve fully agreed with that joke. After all, even Her Majesty knew: the only person who could save the rotting Kentrell line was Eve. Come to think of it — she was the only sane one in the whole family. So saving the line was naturally her duty.

“Shit. If she finds out the princess plans to choose a gang leader’s son — she’ll probably revoke her decision.”

“You’re better than Harry. In every way.”

Eve wrapped her arms around Ethan’s neck, pulling him close.

“And the Queen’s promise can’t be revoked.”

It was already documented and sealed with the royal stamp. Even if the Queen didn’t approve of Eve’s choice — she couldn’t take back her word. The crown’s prestige was at stake. A monarch couldn’t just reclaim what they’d granted a subject.

“That’s why Father tried for a while to marry me off to some branch of the Sherwoods. But it’s not easy finding a man who matches my level and age. And when he’d barely find someone — I refused them all.”

Soon, her father gave up. He was careless, thinking Eve wouldn’t get the title anyway.

“Because Harry’s still alive.”

“‘Still’ — yes.”

One word — and its meaning completely changed. Fire sparked in Ethan’s empty eyes. Eve reignited his dying passion.

Even if this fire wasn’t love for her — but a thirst for revenge against her family — it didn’t matter. Now they hated the same thing. They were in the same boat.

Though — would he steer this boat to the edge of the world?

“Harry will destroy himself soon anyway. And he won’t leave an heir.”

Even the God of Death had limits to the patience he showed that reckless, dissolute creature.

“Ethan — we just need to have a son.”

In that moment, his desire below the waist aligned with his ambition above it. Eve, as if tempting him to taste forbidden fruit, whispered words into his ear that were impossible to refuse:

“Then our son will become the Duke of Kentrell. And from that moment — the Duke of Kentrell’s name will change to Fairchild.”

So that’s what she meant by ‘make the duke’s title yours.’

“But he needs to be legitimate — and the firstborn, so — mmgh—”

Ethan sealed her mouth with a kiss. His hoarse, excited voice broke through their lips:

“You should’ve let me propose first.”

Their lips — pressed into one — curved into identical smiles, like mirror reflections. The perfect harmony of co-conspirators.

“Do you believe I love you now?”

Stories of women who sold out their families for love had been passed down through the ages.

History calls them foolish.