chapter 1

After Father left, I looked at the three betrothal cards on the table and snapped my round silk fan in two without changing expression.

The matchmaker had praised all three men to the skies.

First was Li Gongxu, a scholar from a poor family. Father had met him several times and liked him best. Humble, honest, diligent, learned—if he passed the metropolitan examination, he might even enter the Hanlin Academy.

I tossed his card to the floor with a cold laugh.

And if he failed? Was I supposed to spend the rest of my life poor?

Every woman needed rich soil to flourish. By rich soil, naturally, I meant silver.

As a concubine-born daughter, I already pinched every coin of my monthly allowance. If I married as a lawful wife only to pinch every household coin too, what would be the point of marrying at all? Bearing children, managing a home, running the inner household, and caring for a man’s parents already left women with the losing end of the bargain. Why add a penniless husband to the burden?

If Li Gongxu rose in the world, all well and good. If not, would I still be fretting over a few scraps of silver when I was nearly forty? Worse, poverty made men greedy. Once ambition took hold, a desperate man might even pawn his own wife.

I did not care to imagine it.

Second was Zhao Xianzhi, heir to the Marquis of Pingnan.

The matchmaker called him accomplished in both letters and arms, handsome and elegant. The marquis’s household was fabulously rich: only the tender hearts of vegetables, meat from young calves, rose dew at dawn, famed spring water at dusk.

That part was probably true.

But I had attended every gathering of noble young ladies in the capital in my search for a superior match, and enough gatherings produced secrets outsiders never heard.

At a spring banquet, Zhao Xianzhi had stood beneath an apricot tree, all fine bones and brilliant grace. I had not been immune to that face.

I was cautious, though. My eyes and ears missed very little. While every official’s daughter at the banquet watched Zhao Xianzhi, one girl turned slightly away with contempt on her face.

I knew her: Ming Xi, the concubine-born daughter of a deputy director at the Imperial Medical Court. Because she specialized in women’s illnesses, she spent years entering the private quarters of powerful households. If she looked at Zhao Xianzhi that way, something was wrong with him.

So I cultivated her friendship, sending pastries and jewelry on holidays. At the following year’s flower banquet, she finally told me the secret.

Zhao Xianzhi preferred men.

Because he had to inherit the marquisate, he had nevertheless taken a principal wife and several concubines to produce heirs. With women, he preferred the back passage. His wife had summoned Ming Xi more than once to treat the resulting tears.

Tsk.

This was why a woman needed friends.

Had I entered his household as an honored concubine, within days I would likely be lying bare-bottomed on a bed while Ming Xi treated me.

Trading marriage for wealth and rank was acceptable. Trading my backside for them was not.

I dropped Zhao Xianzhi’s card and ground it beneath my embroidered shoe.

Then I picked up the last one.

Shen Yan, a wealthy merchant from Jiangnan who had come to the capital to open a silk shop. His wife had died three years ago and he had not remarried. His rear courtyard held only one concubine, formerly his wife’s maid, whose main duty was caring for the nine-year-old daughter the wife had left behind.

Secondhand goods, certainly, but comparatively clean secondhand goods.

I was not worried that Shen Yan had hidden a lover back in Jiangnan. He was a merchant and my father was an official. The day the truth came out, I could run home crying, and Shen Yan would pay dearly.

Miaomiao, my maid, had watched me break my fan and discard two cards. At last she ventured, “Don’t be upset, my lady. There will surely be better choices later.”

I drew a breath and hugged her.

“I’m not upset.”

Yet I knew the truth. Father was not highly ranked, and I was born to a concubine. Better families would not have me. However hard the matchmaker searched, the choices would remain much the same.

“Tell the matchmaker I want to meet Shen Yan.”

I released the warmth of Miaomiao’s body and lifted my head decisively.

After she left on the errand, I stared at the broken fan, my thoughts in turmoil.

I would meet Shen Yan first, inspect the merchandise in person, and decide what came next.