To My First Love, With Regret (Libenia) Chapter 50

“I serve the country on the home front as the Duke of Kentrell’s attending physician, Mr. Fairchild.”

“The Duke is the country? What grand words. In Cliffhaven, doctors better than you are as common as pebbles on the beach. Doctor, aren’t you ashamed, as a man, to dodge the draft when the country is in such a state?”

The doctor was of conscription age. But would Chantal have let him go to the army? Eve still didn’t know how they’d managed to avoid the draft—but Chantal, terrified of losing her lover to the country, had confessed everything.

“Dr. Callas has a chronic condition.”

It was obvious the diagnosis was forged.

“What illness? One that prevents you from drinking?”

The doctor couldn’t answer. If he named a diagnosis in front of his fellow doctors, they’d immediately know he wasn’t sick. It seemed some, seeing him silent, had already figured everything out. Cornered by the doctor in the midst of his own peers…

“It seems not. Then drink.”

He started forcing him to drink. And the doctor still hadn’t dared refuse—he drank, glass after glass.

Ethan held his liquor well—but Eve didn’t know about Callas. And so she didn’t know what to expect from him when drunk.

Just don’t let him say that Tony is this man’s son.

Chantal, still sitting beside the doctor, should have been watching closely and stopping him if she didn’t want to lose her position as a leech. Eve knew this—but still watched them anxiously.

At that moment, her gaze met Ethan’s—who, with a cigarette between his fingers, was draining his glass. He looked directly at Eve and winked—just as she had once loved. A gesture that had once seemed only playful now looked cruel.

She supposed this was the same shock you felt when seeing your beloved’s body possessed by a monster. Eve sharply turned away, as if she’d seen something she shouldn’t have.

“I can’t believe I loved a man like that.”

“Eve, it’s not your fault. It’s just that the man you loved changed. It was impossible not to fall for the Ethan Fairchild of ten years ago.”

That was why her heart had ached for all ten years. The man who had shone like the sea in high summer—who had promised she would soar into that blue sky—no longer existed in this world. A tear rolled down Eve’s cheek.

It was a belated mourning for her dead first love.

In the end, Dr. Callas suffered a crushing defeat in this drinking contest where manhood was at stake—and passed out. He couldn’t even walk, let alone stand—and the servants were about to carry him upstairs.

“This is my responsibility—I’ll escort him.”

Ethan stepped forward. Responsibility? How laughable. If anyone should talk, it wasn’t the man who couldn’t take responsibility even for his own woman.

She followed Ethan, who had hoisted a grown man over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes. After all, Callas was her nominal groom—and if she didn’t show concern, Ethan might find it strange and start digging into their relationship. Now he’s the enemy. Not the best idea to let the enemy know about my plan.

When they reached the doctor’s bedroom, Chantal took Eve’s arm. This wasn’t a social gathering—so there was no question of her pretending friendliness toward the Kentrell Maiden.

You’re holding me back because you’re afraid I’ll spend the first wedding night with your lover? Who do you take me for?

The moment Eve pushed Chantal away, Ethan—as if discarding cargo—threw the doctor onto the bed. He crumpled like a piece of paper—but seemed to regain consciousness and lift his head. Because of that, he ended up in a pose as if kneeling and begging for forgiveness.

He met Eve’s gaze—his clouded eyes showing signs of awareness—and muttered strange words with a slurred tongue:

“Forgive me, Lady… All your suffering is my fault, I didn’t… didn’t serve you… So please… punish me…”

This sudden apology made Eve feel as if she’d been splattered with mud. He wasn’t apologizing for deceiving her and helping steal her family—but for “not serving” her. The doctor already had a mistress. No wonder his mistress’s face—Chantal’s—immediately twisted with rage.

Madmen.

If I stay, I’ll see even more depravity. She turned and headed to her bedroom—but behind her, as if mocking her, the unhurried sound of military boots followed.

“Lady Evelyn, the bridal suite is in the other direction.”

Eve didn’t stop.

“Ah, what a shame… In that state, he can’t get it up—so the wedding night is ruined. I’m sorry.”

So that’s why he’d gotten him so drunk. So she couldn’t spend her wedding night with her groom. What business is it of his anymore who I sleep with?

Click.

Eve entered her bedroom, closed the door, and called a maid. She refused help with her dress—only handed over the jewelry she’d been wearing—and dismissed her.

Finally alone. Eve sat before the vanity in the dressing room and stared vacantly at her reflection. In one day, her face had aged ten years.

“Ha…”

She sighed, deeply inhaling the sweet solitude—when suddenly her gaze turned sharp as a blade. The smell of tobacco. It wasn’t the stale smell that had soaked into her clothes at the reception.

It was the fresh, insolent aroma of a just-lit cigarette.

Eve instinctively knew who it was. The source of the resinous scent—where she’d walked—was in her most personal space: her bedroom.

In the darkness, a red ember watched her, flickering. Like a beating heart.

A heavy exhale sounded in the quiet bedroom—the cigarette tip flared, illuminating the silhouette of the uninvited guest.

Ethan Fairchild—as if in his own home—sat cross-legged on her bed, calmly waiting.

“Two weddings, two wedding nights—but the man is the same.”

Did that mean he intended to spend this wedding night with her? By what right? What audacity—acting like a conqueror reclaiming lost territory, after he was the one who abandoned everything.

Even a beast, Eve thought with contempt, knows more about honor than Ethan Fairchild.

I’m trembling with rage—but I hate it when he mistakenly takes it for fear. Eve lifted her head proudly and spoke in a firm voice:

“No sooner are you free of the kidnapper label than you break into a Lady’s room by picking the lock.”

The maid should have locked the door when she left. Eve remembered hearing one of the guests today—about why Ethan Fairchild, now the second-in-command of a gang, had no criminal record.

“If you’re caught red-handed, even a bribed judge won’t save you, right?”

The hand raising the cigarette to his mouth froze mid-air.

She just sneered that I bribed the judge to get out of the kidnapping and imprisonment case. Eve, of all people.

That sliver of hope—that her betrayal, even if a mistake, had been an inevitable choice under her father’s pressure. That last foolish shard of belief that Eve too had been a victim.

Just that one admission from Eve shattered it all.

She wasn’t a pathetic hostage. She was a cruel accomplice. No more need to try to understand or search for hidden reasons for her betrayal.

Ethan rose from the bed. He crushed the cigarette under his army boot and walked heavily toward her—as if planning to crush Eve too.

I won’t go down without a fight.

The moment she turned to the dressing room and grabbed the handle to close the door—a steel arm shot out from the darkness and mercilessly grabbed Eve’s slender waist.

“Mmm…”

A rough palm covered her mouth. Eve’s stifled cry echoed dully only in her own ears. No escape route remained.

His hot body pressed Eve against the door. The thick smell of tobacco and heavy breath scorching her neck lashed her heart like a whip.

His pelvis pressed into her lower back. He wasn’t aroused yet—but Eve knew from experience that it wouldn’t take much for this man.

But her knowledge didn’t end there. He was no longer the Ethan Fairchild she’d known. He was a stranger. One who clearly had no intention of sparing her.

She trembled like a cornered deer—holding her breath, waiting for the wolf’s fangs to sink into her neck. She’d rather he just tear out her throat. But he didn’t seem inclined to grant even that mercy.

A rough hand grabbed her shoulders and spun her around. Their gazes—meeting against her will—said: he wanted to trample not her body, but her soul.

Ethan finally saw in her trembling pupils the trophy he’d been looking for—and sneered nastily.

“You kept the groom waiting so long—I was hoping you were preparing something spectacular—but you haven’t even undressed.”