To Be A Virtuous Wife novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: A Husband by Sword

The prince demands the truth, gives her thirty days to hold the household seal, and the Dowager hands her books that are 4,000 taels short.

Nobody in the tea hall dared to breathe.

The prince crossed the floor without hurry.

He stopped in front of the Dowager and bowed exactly as low as the rules demanded, and not a hair lower.

"Mother. I came home early."

"Chengzhou." Lady Tao's soft voice did not change. "The border is quiet, then."

"The border is quiet enough for me to eat at my own table."

He turned and looked down at Yuwei, still kneeling with a tray in her hands.

"Stand up, wife."

She stood.

Her knees ached, and she kept her back straight.

"Everyone out," he said, without raising his voice. "My wife and I will talk."

The room emptied.

Lady Tao left last, holding her sleeves.

She looked back once, and her eyes rested on Yuwei for exactly as long as a person looks at a stain.

Then the door closed.

The prince walked to the window and stood with his back to her.

He was lean in the way of a man who rode a lot and ate when he remembered.

Up close the scar through his eyebrow was a pale ridge, and there was a gray line of road dust on his collar.

"Dongmei says you were ill for a week," he said.

"I was."

"The physician who attended you said it was a fever."

"It was something like one."

"My wife has never in her life asked a servant to drink before her."

"My wife has never in her life been tired of being poisoned," Yuwei said.

He turned around.

His face did not change, but one corner of his mouth moved a very small amount.

"Poisoned."

"The left cup had powder on the lip. I don't know what it was, and I'm not going to say a word about it that I can't prove. Ask her kitchen."

"You think my side consort tried to poison you at the morning tea."

"I think she handed me a cup and watched which one I took. I think she was surprised I looked."

He studied her.

It was a slow, level study.

"Who are you?" he asked.

Her heart missed a beat.

"Your wife."

"My wife was shy. She stared at the floor. She did not use the word 'prove'."

"She was in a house where she'd been starved of friends. Then she got sick. Sometimes a fever burns the shy out of you."

It was not a lie, exactly.

He let it sit in the air, and she let him.

"All right," said the prince at last.

"All right?"

"You will not tell me, and I will not push. Not today." He walked to the table and set down the unused cup, the clean one, with a small click. "But the household is going to ask whether the new Princess can run it. My stepmother holds the seal. She will say you cannot."

"Can I?"

"You have thirty days. At the end of them, the elders sit and ask if the wife of the Prince of Anbei can hold the house. If the answer is no, you go back to your father's house."

Yuwei thought of her father's house.

She knew it from the old Yuwei's memories: a damp hall with a missing roof tile, and a man in it who had sold a daughter to pay his gambling debts.

"What's the test?"

"Whatever my stepmother decides it is."

"And you're not going to help me."

"I am going to watch." He finally looked her in the eye. "It's the only fair thing I can do. If you win because I stood behind you, nobody in this house will ever respect it."

That was annoyingly sensible.

She nodded.

"Fine. Then I'll need two things. A quiet room, and your permission to say no to people in your name."

"The second one you already have."

"Say it out loud."

"Why?"

"Because paper doesn't help me in front of fifty servants. Your voice does."

The corner of his mouth moved again.

"Anyone who asks, you may tell them I said no," he said. "I will back you."

"Thank you, Highness."

"Chengzhou. We are married."

"On a sword."

"On a sword," he agreed, and she was almost certain he was holding back a laugh.

He left, and the door shut behind him.

Dongmei flew in from the corridor, red-faced.

"He talked to you! He talked to you like a person!"

"He talked to me like an auditor," Yuwei said. "Who told Lady Tao I'd be late?"

"What?"

"Never mind. Find me paper and ink. And the key to the room where this house keeps its numbers."

Dongmei turned pale.

"Mistress, the Dowager keeps that key."

"Then I'll ask her for it."

She asked at noon, in the Dowager's court, with six servants carrying tea and watching.

Lady Tao received her in a room full of white flowers and heavy air.

She did not offer a seat.

"You wish to see the accounts," Lady Tao said. "How very modern."

"I wish to hold the seal in thirty days, Mother. I can't do it blind."

"Of course." The Dowager smiled, and clapped her hands twice.

Two maids brought in six thick ledgers wrapped in red cloth and set them on the floor in front of Yuwei.

"The household books, for the last year. You will find them in perfect order." She tilted her head. "Except the small matter of four thousand taels."

Yuwei felt the cold of it before the numbers came.

"What four thousand taels?"

"The sum missing since your dowry was received and unpacked." The Dowager's voice was tender. "I would hate to think that a girl from your father's house, with your father's debts, could not account for it."

She had not even opened the books, and she was already being accused of stealing from them.

Yuwei looked at the six ledgers on the floor.

She looked at the old woman's soft, patient face.

Then she bent, picked up the first book, and tucked it under her arm.

"Then we'd better start tonight, Mother," she said.

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