To My First Love, With Regret - 50

—I am serving our country from the home front as the personal physician to the Duke Kentrell, Mr. Fairchild.

—Saying the Duke is the country is a dangerous sentiment. There are as many doctors in Cliffhaven superior to you as there are pebbles on that beach. Doctor, doesn’t it shame you as a man to dodge the draft when the nation is in this state?

The doctor was of conscription age. But there was no way Chantal would let him enlist. Eve hadn’t known exactly how the two of them had pulled strings to avoid the draft until now, when Chantal—feeling a sense of crisis that her lover might be snatched away by the state—confessed of her own accord.

—Dr. Kallas has a chronic illness.

She had clearly faked the medical certificate.

—What kind of illness? One that forbids drinking?

The doctor couldn’t answer. If he named a disease in front of his friends—who were also doctors—they would immediately realize he wasn’t a patient. It seemed some had already guessed the truth just by his silence. Having cornered the doctor in the midst of his inner circle like that…

—I guess not. Then drink up.

He began to force the alcohol. And the doctor, unable to refuse a single glass thus far, was drinking one after another in rapid succession.

Ethan could hold his liquor, but Eve didn’t know the doctor’s limit. Therefore, she had no idea what kind of drunk he was.

Please, just don’t let him blurt out that Tony is that man’s son.

Chantal, still sitting beside the doctor, would be watching with hawk-like eyes to prevent that if she didn’t want to lose her spot as a parasite. It was while Eve was watching with an anxious heart, despite knowing this.

Her eyes met Ethan’s as he drained his glass, a cigarette tucked between his fingers. He looked straight at Eve and gave a slow, deliberate wink. Exactly the way she had once loved so dearly. A gesture that had seemed only mischievous in those days now felt cruel.

Would she feel this kind of shock if a monster had stolen the body of her beloved? As if she had seen something she shouldn’t have, Eve turned away sharply and hurried away from him.

—I can’t believe I ever loved a man like that.

—Eve, it’s not your fault. The man you loved just changed. The Ethan Fairchild of ten years ago was someone you couldn’t help but love.

That was why her heart had ached for ten years. The man who shone as brilliantly as a midsummer sea, the man who said he would make her fly into that blue sky, no longer existed in this world. Tears streamed down Eve’s cheeks. It was a belated mourning for a dead first love.

Ultimately, Dr. Kallas suffered a crushing defeat in the drinking contest of masculinity against Ethan Fairchild and became dead to the world. He couldn’t even stand, let alone walk, and just as the servants were about to carry him to the second floor on their backs…

—It’s my responsibility, so I’ll see him to his room.

Ethan stepped forward. Responsibility—it was laughable. The man wouldn’t even take responsibility for his own woman.

Eve followed behind him as he carried the grown man over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes. He was her groom in name, after all; if she didn’t show concern, Ethan would find it strange and dig into their relationship. He was an enemy now. Letting an enemy catch wind of her plans was not a good idea.

When they reached the doctor’s bedroom, Chantal linked arms with Eve. Since this wasn’t a noble social gathering, she certainly wasn’t pretending to be close to the Lady of Kentrell.

Are you holding onto me because you’re afraid I’ll spend the wedding night with your lover? How dare you… what do you take me for?

The moment Eve shook Chantal off, Ethan dropped the doctor onto the bed as if he were a piece of luggage. The doctor, who had been sprawled out like a crumpled ball of paper, seemed to regain consciousness and lifted his head. In doing so, he ended up in a posture of kneeling and begging.

As his bleary eyes met Eve’s, they regained focus, and he babbled something bizarre with a twisted tongue.

—I am sorry, My Lady… Your pain is all because I did not serve you… So please… punish me…

At the sudden apology, Eve felt as though she’d been struck. He wasn’t apologizing for deceiving her or helping to steal her family name, but for not serving her. Didn’t the doctor already have a master? It was natural that Chantal’s expression, as his master, turned terrifyingly dark.

Madmen, the lot of them.

She felt that if she stayed any longer, she would only see more unsightly things. She turned and headed toward her own bedroom, but the sound of combat boots followed behind her with a mocking, leisurely pace.

—Lady Evelyn, the bridal chamber is that way.

Eve did not stop walking.

—Ah, look at that…. Since he’s in no state to even stand, I suppose the wedding night is a wash. My apologies.

So that was why he had plied the man with drinks until he couldn’t keep his balance. To ensure the groom couldn’t fulfill his wedding night duties. Not that it should matter to Ethan anymore who Eve slept with.

Slam.

Eve entered her bedroom, shut the door, and called for a maid. She declined the offer of help to undress, instead handing over the jewelry she had been wearing and sending the girl away.

At last, she was alone. Eve sat at the vanity in her dressing room, staring blankly at her own reflection in the mirror. In a single day, her face looked as though it had endured ten years of misery.

—Ha….

She let out a sigh and took a deep breath of the bittersweet solitude, when suddenly, her eyes sharpened like blades. She smelled tobacco. It wasn’t the lingering, stale scent from the banquet hall.

It was a raw, arrogant aroma, as if someone had just lit a cigarette right this second.

Eve instinctively knew its master. Following the scent of tar, she traced the source to her most private sanctuary: her bedroom.

In the darkness, a single red ember glowed, staring at her as it pulsed. Like a beating heart.

The sound of a rough intake of breath scattered through the silent room, and the tip of the cigarette burned brightly, revealing the silhouette of the intruder.

Ethan Fairchild was sitting on Eve’s bed with his legs crossed, waiting for her as calmly as if it were his own.

—Two weddings, two wedding nights, but only one man.

Did he intend to claim the first night of this marriage for himself? By what right? To act with such audacity—like a conqueror reclaiming lost territory—when he was the one who had cast her aside with his own hands.

Eve thought of him with pure disdain. Even a beast would have more sense of humanity than Ethan Fairchild.

She loathed the idea that he might mistake her trembling—which was born of fury—for being overwhelmed by him. Keeping her head held high, she spoke in a voice that didn’t waver an inch.

—No sooner have you cleared your name as a kidnapper than you’re picking locks and breaking into a lady’s room.

The maid should have locked the bedroom door on her way out. Eve recalled something she had heard from a guest today: the reason Ethan Fairchild had managed to rise to the rank of second-in-command in a gang without a single prior conviction.

—Even a bribed judge couldn’t help you escape if you were caught in the act, could they?

The hand moving the cigarette back to his lips stopped mid-air.

Just now, she had sneered at him, suggesting he had bribed his way out of the kidnapping and confinement charges. Of all people, it was Eve saying this.

He had held onto a lingering shred of attachment—the hope that while her betrayal was wrong, it had been an inevitable choice forced upon her by her father’s coercion. A final, foolish piece of hope that Eve, too, had been a victim. Those words of hers, that cold admission, shattered everything.

She hadn’t been a pathetic hostage. She had been a cruel accomplice. Now, he no longer needed to struggle to understand or find a hidden reason for her betrayal.

Ethan rose from the bed. He crushed the cigarette under his combat boot and strode toward her, his footsteps heavy, as if intending to crush her just as thoroughly.

I won’t just stand here and take it.

The moment she grabbed the handle to retreat into the dressing room and lock the door, a steel-like arm reached out from the darkness and ruthlessly snatched her by her slender waist.

—Mmph…!

The sensation of his palm pressing down on her lips was rough. Eve’s suppressed scream echoed hollowly only inside her own ears. There was no longer any way to escape.

His searing body heat flooded the space behind her back; the thick scent of tobacco and the ragged breath pouring onto the nape of her neck whipped her heart into a frenzy.

His lower body pressed against hers. He wasn’t erect yet, but Eve knew from experience that such a thing would be no difficult task for a man like him.

But her knowledge didn’t stop there. This was no longer the Ethan Fairchild she once knew. He was a stranger. A man who clearly had no intention of being gentle with her.

Trembling like a cornered deer, she held her breath as if waiting for a wolf’s fangs to sink into her neck. She almost wished he would just end it in one stroke. But he seemed to have no intention of granting even that much mercy.

His rough hands gripped her shoulders and forced her around. His eyes, now forced to meet hers, told the story: he didn’t want to merely violate her body; he wanted to ravage her soul.

When Ethan finally discovered the trophy he had been searching for in her wavering eyes, he gave a smile of supreme malice.

—The bride kept me waiting so long that I expected something spectacular. But you haven’t even undressed yet.