To My First Love, With Regret (Libenia) Chapter 9

Of course, the moment didn’t last long.

The food that arrived quickly dragged Ethan back down to reality.

Lady Evelyn took a single bite of the greasy fish and potatoes, then never touched them again.

Naturally.

This crude commoner food could never appeal to someone raised on meals prepared by chefs hired exclusively from five-star hotels.

He couldn’t let her leave hungry, so Ethan pushed the sandwich he’d ordered for himself toward her.

“Would you like to try some? If you don’t mind it.”

“I don’t.”

She refused without even glancing at it.

Only then did he remember.

High society looked down on salted beef as laborers’ food.

“Let’s go somewhere else.”

“Why?” she asked. “You don’t like it here?”

“…”

“If you don’t have any complaints, then maybe order more beer.”

Apparently, she’d taken a liking to it.

He should’ve ordered bottled beer instead of draft.

But her requests didn’t stop there.

“Do you have cigarettes?”

“You smoke too…?”

A young lady from a conservative ducal family—

Smoking?

He couldn’t even imagine it.

Still stunned, Ethan opened his cigarette pack and handed it over.

She plucked one out and placed it between her lips.

Ethan struck a match and held it toward her. Tilting her head slightly, she lit the cigarette with practiced ease.

Every movement looked smooth and natural.

As though she’d been doing it her entire life.

Despite being the one drawing everyone’s attention, Lady Evelyn kept her gaze fixed lazily on Ethan through lowered lashes while lighting her cigarette.

His throat suddenly felt dry.

Once the cigarette began burning, she leaned back against the cheap leather seat and crossed one leg over the other comfortably.

With a cigarette dangling between slender fingers, she looked utterly relaxed.

The most aristocratic woman he knew somehow blended perfectly into this shabby little pub.

Suddenly—

Ethan no longer wanted to leave.

Lady Evelyn, who’d been silently watching him this entire time, slowly exhaled a stream of white smoke before curling her lips into a crooked smile.

That combination of arrogant beauty and shameless posture was dangerously seductive.

“Who taught you?”

“Probably Becky.”

That chain-smoker had been stealing tobacco from Grandpa’s pipe and rolling cigarettes since she was fifteen.

Apparently, she’d corrupted her lady too.

Or maybe Lady Evelyn had wanted it herself.

A person inevitably drawn toward forbidden things.

That was the Evelyn Sherwood Ethan Fairchild had known since childhood.

Maybe that was why he’d foolishly nurtured the hopeless fantasy that someday, she might also become interested in a “forbidden” man.

“Only Becky knew before.” She tapped ash into the tray. “Now you know too.”

Then she looked at him and asked softly:

“You’ll keep it secret, won’t you?”

“Have I ever betrayed you?”

Back then, she’d often kept secrets from her tyrant father hiding behind the mask of generosity.

Everyone needed somewhere to breathe.

The fact that she still carried that habit meant Princess Kentrell’s life remained just as suffocating as before.

For a completely different reason than earlier, Ethan suddenly wanted a cigarette desperately badly.

Looking thoroughly fed up with everything, he opened his pack, slammed it onto the table, and caught the popped-out cigarette between his lips.

He struck the match sharply.

It ignited instantly.

Ethan was endlessly gentle with Eve.

But toward himself, he was merciless.

Eve never remembered men who didn’t smoke.

Nor the ones who did.

But she would remember Ethan.

This was the first time she’d ever watched a man smoke so closely.

Could smoking really look this captivating?

His fingers were long and elegant, yet because of the prominent knuckles, the cigarette caught between them looked fragile enough to snap at any moment.

The back of his hand was clean like those upper-class boys who’d never touched hard labor.

But beneath the skin, thick veins and tendons coiled like tree roots.

Rough.

Strong.

There was a wildness in him.

An untamed force nobody had ever tried to civilize—

And perhaps no longer could.

He’d been different as a child.

A boy who perfectly embodied his surname: Fairchild.

Beautiful child.

Of course, he’d retained that beauty as a man.

But now it had sharpened into something rougher.

His white linen shirt fit tightly across his shoulders while hanging loose around his waist. Though tailored conservatively, the few undone top buttons gave him a carelessly rebellious look.

And yet he didn’t appear vulgar.

Unlike certain men who managed to look obscene even while dressed in expensive clothing.

Eve suddenly wondered what Ethan looked like at Kingsbridge.

Did he dress like the other elite university students?

Crisp buttoned shirts.

Starched collars.

Cricket sweaters.

That refined, polished style would probably suit him too.

An educated intellectual.

A rebellious man who refused restraint.

Those two incompatible qualities somehow coexisted within the same person.

If she were to describe Ethan Fairchild in the language she understood best—

He was like an elegant pearl painted with rough, bold brushstrokes.

‘Could I paint the version of you who became a man?’

‘I want to challenge myself.’

No.

‘I want you beside me.’

Eve had realized long ago that what she felt toward Ethan was possessiveness.

She disguised it as an artist’s obsession with the perfect subject and buried it deep inside herself because even as a child, she understood it wasn’t pure artistic passion.

It was something far more primitive.

Back then, she was young.

She had no choice but to suppress such inappropriate feelings.

But now she was an adult.

And adults didn’t need to hide perfectly natural desires.

Eve wasn’t old-fashioned enough to condemn women for showing interest in a man first.

Nor was she the sort of lady who coyly waited around to receive something she’d already decided to claim for herself.

“Ethan, can you recommend me a book? As a Kingsbridge student, I mean.”

“That depends,” he replied calmly. “What do you want to read for?”

What do I want to read for?

To start with—

To figure out what kind of man you are.

Eve asked every man who tried approaching her that same question.

A single ordinary question revealed many things.

A person’s intelligence.

Their interests.

Their character.

Even what they thought about women—

And by extension, what they thought about Eve herself.

“I don’t read novels, so I can’t recommend anything.”

One duke had once proudly displayed his belief that women were incapable of understanding anything beyond shallow romance stories.

“You absolutely must read Thomas Reich’s Modern Political History.”

“I recommend Thomas Reich’s Modern Political History.”

“I recently finished Thomas Reich’s Modern Political History…”

Every prestigious university student she’d met at social gatherings gave her the exact same answer despite being asked separately.

Obviously, it was assigned reading for some course that semester.

Which meant they didn’t read unless forced to.

Of course, books weren’t the only way to understand the world.

But no human being could experience everything personally.

Eve believed books were the only way to broaden one’s perspective beyond the limits of individual experience.

Naturally, not everyone who read books was wise.

Some people chose books merely to show off.

Even while discussing literature, they remained trapped inside their own tiny worlds. They ignored the interests of the person before them, rambled endlessly about their favorite novels, then laughed at Eve for “not having read such an important book yet.”

“Princess Kentrell, have you read The History of the Revolution in the Kingdom of Ripon?”

At least the man recommending her a book about overthrowing monarchies and class systems while simultaneously flirting with her had been interesting.

Though her heart hadn’t skipped a beat for him either.

Could Ethan have guessed her true intentions when he asked that question?

What do you want to read for?

He was the first man who’d ever asked her that in return.

“When I’m not painting,” Eve answered softly, “I escape into books.”

“What genres do you like? Or what kind would you like me to recommend? You can tell me which books you’ve enjoyed before.”

He asked so confidently.

Meaning he’d read enough to recommend almost anything.

After that, they naturally fell into a conversation about their favorite genres.

And when they discovered they loved the same book, they began reciting memorized passages to each other, arguing over criticism, and exchanging opinions.

She hadn’t had a conversation this intellectually stimulating since finishing school.

And it was the first time a man treated Eve like an intellectual equal.

At last—

A man had appeared who saw her not as a decorative object for a household nor breeding stock for heirs, but as another human being equal to himself.

No.

He’d been beside her since birth.

She was only realizing it now.

But the fate she’d only now recognized didn’t stop there.

‘I knew something felt strange from the very beginning.’

‘Why does my heart only race around you?’

Obviously—

Eve’s heart had belonged to Ethan from the start.

He had stolen it long ago without her even realizing.

That was why she’d felt nothing before other men, no matter how noble or impressive they were.

Like an empty shell.

Because her heart had never been there with them.

It had always been with him.

“So,” she asked quietly, “what book would you recommend to me?”

“That’s a secret.”

“Why?”