Chapter 2
Unfortunately, my mother-in-law never lived to see me humiliated.
As she talked, she began boasting about herself.
“Baozhen, dear, you must learn to accept these things. It’s perfectly normal for a man to have several wives and concubines. Men like His Lordship are rare. He refused to take a concubine no matter what I said. I had to persuade him again and again before he finally accepted a bedchamber maid.”
My eldest sister-in-law eagerly agreed. “Everyone knows how devoted His Lordship is to you. If it weren’t for the need to continue the family line, he wouldn’t so much as look at Concubine Yang.”
I was staggered.
My mother-in-law had no children. All three of the old marquis’s sons had been born to Concubine Yang.
So… had he been doing the deed with Concubine Yang without looking at her?
Apparently, suffering nobly in the line of duty was a hereditary virtue among the men of this house.
I couldn’t help correcting them. “His Lordship has been keeping the star courtesan at Drunken Rouge House for years. Didn’t you know?”
“He used to keep women at Emerald Cloud Pavilion and Fair Immortal House too, but then he had to cut back on his spending, so he switched to Drunken Rouge House… Oh, Mother, you must learn to accept these things. What was it you just said? Several wives and concubines are perfectly normal.”
Before I had finished, all the blood had drained from my mother-in-law’s face.
The maids around us wore a variety of expressions.
Some drew sharp breaths. Others’ lips twitched as though they had heard about it long ago.
My sisters-in-law’s eyes had initially widened, shining with the excitement of a juicy scandal.
When they heard “cut back on his spending,” they looked rather less pleased.
The household had been running a deficit for years. My family’s gambiered silk was supplied exclusively to the rich and powerful; they could only gaze enviously at other women wearing it.
Now they knew who had been enjoying the money they saved by scrimping on food and clothes. Of course they were unhappy.
My mother-in-law clung to her dignity as mistress of the house and ordered an immediate investigation.
The findings were a shock.
Not only was it true, but the annual expense was roughly equal to the entire household’s spending for a year.
Those pleasure houses weren’t called money pits for nothing.
The star courtesans were longtime customers of our silk shop. They supplied us with quite a lot of salacious news.
My mother-in-law had always been in poor health. She fainted on the spot.
The people she sent caused an uproar at Drunken Rouge House. The old marquis felt she had humiliated him and came home to give her a vicious tongue-lashing.
She took to her sickbed and never rose again.
Before Wei Jue reached home, she was dead.
Control of the household passed to my eldest sister-in-law, who could scarcely keep from laughing even as she kept vigil beside the coffin.
My mother-in-law hadn’t raised the marquis’s sons, and she had tormented their birth mother, Concubine Yang, to death. They wailed a few times for appearances and left it at that.
Still, the rites of mourning had to be observed.
So when Wei Jue appeared at the gate with his arm around a woman,
I was torn.
No one had told him his mother was dead.
The white mourning banners had only just been taken down. The old marquis and his elder sons couldn’t even be bothered to come out to welcome this insignificant third son.
Wei Jue froze when he saw me.
After a servant reminded him that I was the new wife he had never laid eyes on, his expression grew briefly awkward.
The woman was quick-witted.
She immediately released his hand and sank into a graceful bow before me. “Sister, I’ve come to join this family. I want to marry the marquis, even if I can only be his concubine.”
My expression changed at once.
“You can’t—”
“Why can’t she?”
Wei Jue cut me off sharply and pulled the woman to her feet in a show of defiance.
“Shuang’er saved me. Even the position of concubine is beneath what she deserves.”
He gave me a pointed look, then swept off with his beauty.
I stood there, stunned.
The watching maids and servants sighed or shook their heads.
They were all lamenting the future of the lawful wife.
I was worried too.
The woman said she wanted to marry the marquis.
Had she set her sights on my husband,
or on my father-in-law?