Ever since Ripley’s ‘first night’ with the Duke, nothing has turned out as it was in the original book. Now, she is not a side character as the Duke wants her to take responsibility for that night. She pretends to have lost her memory, to be hurt, and even tries to become a nun to escape further involvement in this fictional world. The cold and feared Duke Zeronis surprises everyone by being warm and sincere despite all of this. Let’s see how Ripley tries to escape from becoming the heroine, and Zeronis remains persistent with his affection in The First Night With the Duke Chapter 10-18.
The First Night With the Duke Chapter 10: Slap of Reality
The First Night With the Duke Chapter 10 begins with Ripley nervously watching Duke Zeronis’s reaction after blurting out that she has a crush on Mr. Wright. She can’t assume the reaction, but she is hoping the Duke will stop this wedding. At the same time, he might behead her.
Fearing the latter, Ripley changes her statement, “Sylvia! She’s the one who has a crush.” Zeronis rolls his eyes, evidently not swallowing it, but for the moment letting it pass. Rather, he inquires rather abruptly, with a disturbingly saccharine grin, how many boyfriends she has had. Ripley is truthful: “None.” But Zeronis is puzzled, and he says that it cannot be so.
When she turns the tables on him, he mentions a painful memory in his past. Listening intently is Ripley, who is already aware of the story as presented in the novel. His father was a mighty Duke who married the mother of Zeronis, his much younger second wife, who was obsessed with status. It was a battleground between her and the first marriage in the house.
Confessions and Cover-Ups
When Zeronis was ten, there occurred a bloody tragedy in which the Duchess and three of the elder sons died in mysterious circumstances. The entire Empire whispered that he was to blame. Ripley gently says to him, “You didn’t do anything wrong”.Zeronis looks at her in shock and tells her, “You told me the same thing that day.”
Flashback: Ripley was drunk at the party, and she had turned down a stranger (who was Zeronis in disguise) and said that other people were waiting for her drink. When she requested him to assist her in locating the Duke, he joked with her, telling her the notorious gossip that he was a murderer. But when they had exchanged a few words, she gave him a good slap, saying, “You are a really rude person!” The First Night With the Duke Chapter 10 ends with Zeronis realizing her words hit him harder than that slap ever did.
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The First Night With the Duke Chapter 11: Truth, Tears, and Temptation
The First Night With the Duke Chapter 11 begins with a fiery flashback—drunk Ripley, still unaware she’s talking to the Duke himself, snaps at him for insulting someone he doesn’t know. And she is confident, declaring, with flashing eyes, that the Duke had had a miserable childhood. Zeronis freezes, wondering how she knows about it. He asks, What would you tell the Duke were he standing in front of you today? Drunkenly yet earnestly, Ripley answers, “It wasn’t your fault, Zeronis.”
Something inside him breaks after that one sentence. He blushes–and he feels warm, for the first time. Something… real. When he questions her on how she knows all that, Ripley simply answers, saying she read in a book and almost face-plants. He picks her up with such ease and playfully says, “Don’t you want to meet Duke Inglid?”
The next thing we know, Ripley sleeps in his bed. He wakes her, and half-awake, she gazes at him in awe. “You’re so handsome,” she murmurs. Then softly adds, “I always wanted to be loved by someone like you.”
Zeronis, voice low, asks if she still feels that way. She nods. He kisses her… and climbs on top of her. At that moment, he makes a silent promise, he will make her fall in love, he will do anything to make her fall in love in love with him. “I’m going to have you,” he whispers. In the present, Zeronis says to Ripley that she was the first person who ever said it was not his fault.
The First Night With the Duke Chapter 11 ends with him softly beginning to say, “Thus, I also…”—leaving her (and us) hanging on his next words.
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Chapter 12: From Villainess to Almost-Nun
The First Night With the Duke Chapter 12 begins with Duke Zeronis finishing his heartfelt confession: “Thus, I also gladly gave you my first night.” Ripley gazes at him with big, flushed eyes and is shocked. Is the cold-hearted male lead talking about something romantic? She can not bear it in her heart.
In bed later, Ripley is thinking about how this Zeronis is not at all like the ruthless duke of the novel; he is superior, more genuine… and seductive. She finds it so charming that she opts that the only way out of this whirlwind romance is an extreme one: she must become a Buddhist nun. Her long-suffering maid Sylvia is completely worn out. Ripley was a villainess-wanna-be, now she is a nun? She is not able to keep up!
Nevertheless, they go to a local abbey where a nice sister informs them about the life of nuns. It does not take Ripley long to be horrified that he has to pray four hours a day, four! She almost fainted again upon hearing about the bland food. No desserts, no wine? She’s out.
In the carriage, Sylvia tells her kindly, Ripley would never make a nun, and the Count, her father, would blow up, were she to take the veil. Ripley decides to use a different strategy: she does not have to be a nun; she only has to pretend. Until the Duke is scared away. They go to the mansion of Duke Inglid, and as soon as they meet, he looks at her with his usual directness. He calls her foolish and says, “You can’t get married to God.”
The First Night With the Duke Chapter 12 ends with Ripley realizing Zeronis might just be immune to all her escape plans.
The First Night With the Duke Chapter 13: Holy Excuses & Heated Tension
The First Night With the Duke Chapter 13 begins with Ripley trying her best to talk her way out of Zeronis’s grasp—again. She tells him she is going to be a nun, to which Zeronis smiles and tells her: the Vestal might have considered her not knowing that she has already given him her first night. Ripley defends that God cannot be that petty to consider her based on her past deeds. But Zeronis, composed and self-satisfied, answers by thinking about the present. He gets close, sits casually on the table, and starts unbuttoning his tie. Cue panic mode. “So… you no longer have a secular mind, hm?” he mocks with a gleam in his eye.
Ripley’s cheek burns as he moves closer. She is ready to be kissed, flushed, and panting–but nothing at all happens. Zeronis smiles, withdraws, and speaks with soft confidence, “In the past and the present, surely, you’re meant to be my bride.”
Ripley later tells Sylvia, and spills the beans: yup, she spent that night with the Duke, and now he wants to marry her. Sylvia wonders why that is bad. However, when Ripley pleads with her to assist them to get out of this situation, Sylvia sighs. How can one learn to make a man not like a woman? That’s when Ripley’s eyes light up with a wicked gleam. The First Night With the Duke Chapter 13 ends with Ripley grinning and saying, believing she just figured out exactly how to make the Duke hate her.
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Chapter 14: Operation Repel the Duke
The First Night With the Duke Chapter 14 begins with Ripley launching her newest genius plan—if she wants to make Zeronis not love her, she’ll just become the worst version of herself. Her logic? Act in the exact opposite of what makes one attractive. She chooses to be lazy, ugly, and stupid.
After three days, the transformation is finished. Ripley is scruffy, unrecognizable with hair awry, smeared with mud, and clothes disheveled. When Duke Zeronis comes in, she welcomes him with false excitement. She asks him: “Do you have a favourite number? We could have our engagement ceremony on that day.”
Zeronis gazes at her with an unreadable expression on his face. But he does not shrink back, but he takes her hand and tells her, “You know the sanctity of hard labor. You truly are worthy of being my wife.” Ripley’s heart sinks again. Plan: spectacularly failed yet again.
They take tea and she does her act, by messing up names and saying dumb things—but even that doesn’t work. At this moment, the Count, her father, comes in and hears the Duke say, “I want to marry your daughter.” The Count is stunned, unable to process what he heard.
Later, Sylvia tells Ripley that she should simply accept it–the Duke is smart, loyal, rich, and ridiculously handsome. Ripley is distraught, and she begins to weep. “It’s just not my place,” she sobs, recalling cruel insults of her past- she was a bad friend, and she was told to get lost. Sylvia, in her blunt attempts, states that the only two choices were either marrying the Duke… or to die. The First Night With the Duke Chapter 14 ends with Ripley whispering, “I should die,” leaving Sylvia utterly horrified.
The First Night With the Duke Chapter 15: Fake Fall, Real Trouble
The First Night With the Duke Chapter 15 begins with a flashback—Ripley hatching her latest (ridiculous) escape plan. Her new policy? Injure herself so badly that Duke Zeronis will rethink marrying her. She thinks he can’t have a wife who is incapable of doing her duties as a duchess. Death was too melodramatic, so a close-death fall will be quite sufficient.
Returning to the present, Sylvia is anxious as to whether Ripley is really doing this. Ripley makes sure that the sheet is correctly tensed between the trees, her safety net, and braces herself. “I can do this,” she whispers. As fate would have it, Zeronis’s carriage pulls up right on cue. Ripley leaps from the tree, lands on the sheet… and then crashes straight onto the ground.
In the pain and panic, lying on the earth, Ripley makes a fast decision to play unconscious to make the drama as much as possible. She waits to see people creep in–but in comes Duke Zeronis, running like a scared man. Soon, Sylvia and others arrive. Ripley’s heart twists. He is gravely worried. Perhaps she has overdone it…
In the bedroom, later, the doctor explains to her that her ankle sprain should be iced. However, as Sylvia had instructed the doc to play it up, Ripley is bandaged virtually head to toe. It is excessive, but it works.
Well, now she has one mission: Zeronis must never learn that she faked it, or their lives (and hers in particular) are toast. At that moment… There comes a knock on the door. The First Night With the Duke Chapter 15 ends with the Duke standing at the door, ready to see his “gravely injured” bride-to-be.
Chapter 16: Scars and a Shattered Past
The First Night With the Duke Chapter 16 begins with Duke Zeronis bursting into Ripley’s room, his face pale with fear, imagining the worst. Ripley continues with her act, feigning unconsciousness. The doctor even attempts to sell it, saying that Ripley may get a scar on her face forever.
“…A scar?” Zeronis is repeating, with eyes wide open. To her surprise, he does not freak out, but instead, he lets out a breath of relief. “At least your life isn’t at stake.” She is shocked that he is indifferent about the scar. Then he says, softly, “I was afraid I might lose you… I wouldn’t be able to move on without you.” And just like that, the heart of Ripley breaks, wondering what she has done. She thinks, seeing now how serious–and sincere–his affections are. The scene evokes a painful memory.
Flashback: In her real life at college, Ripley received a message from the boyfriend of her friend. They texted a lot, and Ripley could not help feeling ecstatic about his attention. She wondered whether heroes of romance novels were real in real life, thinking about Zeronis.
The duo started socializing, gym talks, and other small encounters. One day, Joonsoo approached her and asked if she was really that clueless, and then he admitted, “I like you.” Ripley stood in frozen horror. She had not foreseen that and fled away, wounded and bewildered. Later, Ahyeong, her best friend later stormed in to ask what the commotion with her boyfriend was. The First Night With the Duke Chapter 16 ends with Ripley, haunted by guilt, realizing that trying to manipulate emotions might only lead to hurting others… again.
The First Night With the Duke Chapter 17: Guilt Growing Distance
The First Night With the Duke Chapter 17 begins with Ripley’s past spiraling out of control. She then goes back to the real world and defends herself, explaining to Ahyeong that it was all a misunderstanding. “I rejected Joonsoo,” she insists. Ahyeong does not believe so, however, particularly after being told that Ripley talked with Joonsoo behind her back and flirted with him.
Voices rise. Accusations fly. Ripley observes her friendship break, and she says to herself, “I have spoiled everything.” The aftermath is ruthless- rumors go around like bush fire, peers ridicule her, and gossips trail her wherever she goes. She is turned into a social pariah with the burden of a possible error that may not have even been her mistake.
In the novel world, Ripley sheepishly informs Sylvia, “I believe the Duke really loves me.” It is confirmed by Sylvia with all heart-eyes. He had sent a dozen flowers to her. At this moment, Duke Zeronis comes in with anxious eyes. On his knees by her side, he says, “Wake up, please.” Ripley wakes up and poses a question to him, saying, “Why do you want to marry me? His response is simple: “Because you were my first.”
Ripley turns away in guilt. Flashbacks of her previous regrets come to mind. She comes to a decision that it is time to tell the truth. She admits all that she has done wrong, her ruined relationship, her inability as a friend, and her hurtful actions.
Lies and Losing Control
Zeronis hears, and then deadpans, “Are you bragging right now?” She complains that the cases are not the same, she does not wish to relive the past. But Zeronis heaves a sigh and turns aside. “I can’t understand you.” The First Night With the Duke Chapter 17 ends with her wondering if this is the moment he finally gets sick of her, too.
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Chapter 18: No Longer the Extra
The First Night With the Duke Chapter 18 begins with Zeronis staring at Ripley, frustration in his voice. He asks why she keeps blaming herself. To him, she’s not the villain—she’s the victim. He tells her to be more confident, to quit punishing herself. Ripley is shocked. Nobody has ever told her those words.
Yet she persists that she cannot marry him when he is meant to be the man of another. Then she tells him her secret; he is a character in the novel, and Etoile is his heroine. She tells him that he was supposed to love her. Zeronis calmly responds, “I choose you.”
Ripley cracks, she could never be the heroine, “She is a nameless, obscure, extra no one likes”. But Zeronis takes her hand and kisses it and murmurs, “The most lovely, beautiful Heroine.”
The following day, Etoile goes to see Ripley and cries because she is worried. Ripley lies, saying she is all right by hiding her feelings, but collapses and gives it away that she is in love with the Duke. She asks Etoile to hate her, but Etoile consoles her. “I don’t have any feelings for the Duke.”
Etoile brings out her truth: she was never even meant to be born. Her mother abandoned her in an orphanage and and by sheer luck, she ended up with the Baron. “There’s no such thing as ‘originally’… all we have is the present,” she says, smiling warmly.
Ripley thinks that later on, all that is in the original story is spoiled. However, perhaps that is acceptable. She will now live as Ripley. The First Night With the Duke Chapter 18 ends with someone nearby overhearing her and asking, “What are you talking about?”
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