To My First Love, With Regret (Libenia) Chapter 47

Through the crack in the tightly closed door—as if blocking Ethan’s path—the church hymn drifted out. It seemed to curse a “black ghost” like him, ordering him to leave, and prayed for the bride’s radiant future.

Truly a holy and noble sight. Worthy of Lady Evelyn.

I wonder what that woman—finally getting the wedding she deserves—is feeling right now. The woman who had once become a poor man’s wife without a single witness, in a borrowed old veil—he could clearly picture her, even with his eyes wide open, in a new dress he couldn’t give her, a long veil, in another bastard’s arms, surrounded by countless blessings.

For noble Lady Evelyn, has everything finally fallen into place? Was I just a dirty puddle in her life—one she accidentally stepped in?

Having washed her dirty clothes, pretending to be an innocent bride—does she feel like some beggar has come back, splattered her with mud, and ruined her “real” wedding?

Whatever the case, his mood was foul—as if he’d been trampled into the mud—not because of some guesses whose truth couldn’t be known, but because of one indisputable fact.

Evelyn Sherwood was now another man’s bride.

Damn it.

Ethan irritably threw his smoking cigarette onto the stone floor and crushed it under his boot.

I could have given her a wedding like that. If you hadn’t abandoned me.

He reached for a fresh cigarette, but unable to contain his anger, he crushed the innocent pack in his hand.

And this is what you left me for? To choose some worthless little doctor?

If it had been some prince, he could have—however disgustingly—accepted that a worthless man like him was no match for a Kentrell maiden, and that the world was fundamentally unfair.

But it was just a servant who had drained her father’s pus-filled boils.

Then why not me? If you were going to end up living with a worthless bastard like me anyway—why throw me away, trampling me into the mud?

Damn it.

He’d deceived himself into thinking he was ready. He’d mistakenly believed that ten years would be a solid dam.

But the moment he saw the face of his betrayer, the dam collapsed without a trace, and all the feelings he’d believed were under control burst their banks and engulfed him.

That was why. He’d delayed and delayed the destruction of the Sherwoods—which he could only complete by meeting Eve—and this was why.

Ethan roughly ran his hand over his face and bared his teeth.

“Maybe I should lock the doors from the outside and set it on fire? Perfect conditions for a mass murder.”

Mikey’s eyes widened. He surveyed the church from all sides, as if seriously considering setting it ablaze, and asked:

“Do we lock you inside too, boss?”

That wouldn’t be revenge—that would be self-immolation. And it would destroy everything Ethan had been building for ten years.

Ethan draped his arm over his invaluable subordinate’s shoulder—the one who had just verbally slapped him—and patted him.

“Mikey, you might be the first person to survive saying they’d kill their boss.”

In the banquet hall of White Cliff Hall, guests waiting for the reception to begin clinked champagne glasses and gossiped about the wedding that had just taken place—extraordinary in every sense.

“And I thought that girl would stay single forever.”

“Thank goodness Eve finally has a family—but how did she end up with a man like that… Tsk, tsk…”

This wedding was impossible not to gossip about. The Kentrell Maiden—who at one time would have been a worthy match even for a foreign king—had become the wife of an ordinary, unremarkable doctor.

Of course, the family’s prestige had gradually declined, and the stain of a scandal devastating to a Lady followed her, so becoming a queen was no longer in the cards. But since she was a maiden with the right to inherit the ducal title, aristocratic families eyeing Kentrell were willing to turn a blind eye to that fatal flaw.

Thanks to that, she seemed to have received quite a few proposals from the sons of aristocrats—but she refused them all, acting as if she intended to stay single forever. So why was she suddenly marrying the family doctor? The gossips immediately suspected foul play.

Maybe she’s expecting a child?

But quite some time had passed since the engagement announcement—so her belly should have been showing—and today they’d seen that Lady Evelyn’s stomach was completely flat. So this was a marriage of her own choosing.

“Is it some kind of aristocratic quirk—falling in love with men who work in your house…”

“What remarkably consistent bad taste.”

“Started with the wet nurse’s son, ended with the family doctor.”

The only topic of conversation at today’s reception should have been this unequal marriage. Until Lady Evelyn’s former man appeared.

“So what really happened with Ethan Fairchild? Did they fall in love and run away together, and now they’re pretending they didn’t? Or did he really kidnap her, and there was nothing between them?”

The truth remained shrouded in mystery. At the time, the testimonies of the Kentrell household and Ethan Fairchild had contradicted each other, and the judge ultimately sided with Fairchild. But there was also much debate about whether the judge had been bribed.

Because of that, opinions on what had happened between the two remained divided to this day, and the rumors never died down.

Lady Evelyn herself had never uttered a single word about the incident. She was an unapproachable Lady—so it seemed no one dared ask her.

But the man…

“Tomorrow at this same time? That’s the very time you’ll be a happy bride? And at such a time, the Lady wishes to meet me in secret… This worthless slave dare not refuse. My condolences in advance to your pathetic groom.”

The scandal’s participant had appeared on the very day she was trying to start a new life—and splattered mud on the holy ceremony.

“Whether he was a lover or a kidnapper, one thing’s clear—he’s a shameless beast. Poor Eve…”

“I don’t know if he was a kidnapper, but he did kill Baron Langdon.”

“And that’s not certain either—but I agree. Frames the grandfather who raised him, escapes justice himself, and immediately latches onto the father who abandoned him to inherit the gang. He must be a naturally despicable bastard.”

“Tsk, tsk,” an elderly lady who had been listening to the conversation clicked her tongue.

“Someone said he was in an Air Force officer’s uniform. How could a criminal become an officer?”

A middle-aged noblewoman participating in the conversation raised her eyebrows in surprise, as if she too was curious about this question. Her husband, who had been silently standing by and listening to the gossip, immediately interjected upon hearing something he knew about:

“If that’s the case, he’s not a criminal. They say his guilt was never proven—so he doesn’t even have a criminal record.”

The elderly lady frowned.

“Of course—his daddy paid a bribe.”

“To become an officer, you need a university diploma. They say he bought that too… There are rumors he bought his rank and medals as well…”

“Good heavens. Both the university and the military sold their pride for pennies.”

“And why did he join the army anyway? A back-alley gangster can’t have loyalty to the country.”

“Well, I can’t say about that.”

The conversation turned to something he didn’t know about, and the man fell silent again. At that moment, the reception hosts entered the hall—and the topic changed.

Before the main guests of the day, the young duke and the “dowager duchess” entered the hall. The guests burst into enthusiastic applause for the duke—but looked at his mother, the “dowager duchess,” with only cold contempt.

That cunning viper.

She’d charmed the ailing duke whose mind was clouded and become a duchess—and when the heir died, she took advantage of the chaos, put her own son in his place, and as an outsider, seized the House of Kentrell. The aristocrats couldn’t look kindly upon this vulgar thief who had stolen a noble house.

It was no wonder there were rumors that the child she’d given birth to wasn’t the duke’s. The rumors only died down because the Kentrell Maiden recognized the child as the heir.

“Thankfully, he doesn’t look like his mother.”

Looking at the young duke, one thought that these rumors would have died down anyway when he grew up.

“He looks like Eve.”

“He looks more like her than her own twin brother, Baron Langdon.”

Lady Evelyn—except for her unique eyes—was the spitting image of her grandfather. Which meant this child was truly of Sherwood blood.

Next, the bride and groom appeared in the banquet hall. The bride looked so composed that it was impossible to believe that just before the wedding, some gangster had accosted her.

Like a swan that doesn’t lose its dignity even in a muddy puddle, Lady Evelyn was a woman with innate, untainted nobility that couldn’t be tarnished no matter how much dirt was thrown at it.

Her flawless Lady-like appearance—as if she’d never made a single mistake in her life—turned all the suspicions the guests had just been voicing into shameful delusions. The moment they met her gaze, they even forgot what they’d suspected her of.