The Stepmother Who Stayed - Chapter 1

I arrived in the capital aboard a black-canopied boat.

The journey north from Jiangnan took twenty-eight full days by water.

We docked on the ninth day of the third month, with the peach blossoms at their loveliest.

The marquis’s household had sent servants to meet me. Leading them was a woman surnamed Zhou, in her forties, wearing an indigo outer robe. With a pinched face, she looked at me as though I were another object being delivered to the house.

“This way, my lady,” she said, without so much as a smile.

I wasn’t offended.

Mother always said that people in the capital had their eyes on top of their heads. The more you let it bother you, the more they enjoyed it.

I was a daughter of the Su family of Yangzhou. My father was the richest man in Jiangnan; my mother was the legitimate daughter of the Suzhou Imperial Textile Commissioner’s family. I had no reason to lose my temper over a servant.

Taoxi supported my hand and muttered, “What sort of welcome is this? Where’s our new master?”

Nanny Zhou didn’t even turn around. “At court. His lordship has many official duties. Please understand, my lady.”

Taoxi wanted to argue, but I squeezed her hand.

She was my dowry maid, brought from my parents’ home. We’d grown up together. She was seventeen, three years younger than me.

There was nothing wrong with her except that she was far too protective. She couldn’t bear anyone slighting me.

I didn’t much mind.

Qi Xiuyuan—my husband—was the current Marquis of Cheng’en and Right Deputy Censor-in-Chief, an official of the third rank. He’d only received his promotion at the start of the year. Of course he was busy.

Besides, I hadn’t married him in pursuit of wedded bliss.

That was a long story.

Last autumn, the emperor sent Qi Xiuyuan to inspect the grain transport routes in Jiangnan. Passing through Yangzhou, he stopped at our family’s wharf.

Father invited him home for a drink. He came.

I caught a distant glimpse of him from the embroidery room upstairs in the rear courtyard. He was handsome enough, I thought. Just too cold. His face was a block of ice.

Only later did I learn that he had lost his second wife less than a year before.

That wife, Lady Shen, had been the younger sister of one of his colleagues. She’d been married into the household for three years when she died in childbirth.

Neither mother nor child had survived.

Qi Xiuyuan married me because Father had donated five thousand taels of silver to the court for repairing the river embankments.

Taoxi found that out afterward.

“Miss,” she said, “he married you for our money. Aren’t you angry?”

“Why would I be? If he hadn’t wanted the money, how could a merchant’s daughter like me have married a marquis as his lawful wife?”

Taoxi thought about it and conceded the point.

On the day he sent me off to be married, Father drank too much. He held my hand and said, “Yunxi, my greatest regret in this life is failing you. When your mother gave birth to you, she nearly died. She was never able to conceive again.

“You’re our only daughter. I wanted to bring a husband into our family so you could live in comfort for the rest of your life. But you refused. You insisted on marrying that Qi fellow.”

“Father, I never insisted on marrying him.”

“Who did you want to marry, then?”

“Nobody.”

“Then doesn’t that mean you insisted on him?”

I couldn’t be bothered to untangle that reasoning.

In any case, it was settled.

Qi Xiuyuan sent the betrothal gifts. Father gave me a dowry worth three times as much. When spring came in the third month, I boarded the boat north.

Before I left, Mother held my hand and lectured me for three days and nights. The capital’s rules, the relationships in the marquis’s household, the workings of the inner quarters—she took every last thing apart and explained it to me.

Finally she said, “Remember, Yunxi, there are three children in that house, left by Qi Xiuyuan’s first wife.

“The eldest girl is Qi Ruoyu, twelve this year. The second is Qi Ruolan, ten. The boy is Qi Zhao, eight. You’ll have to be careful with those three.”

“Careful how?”

“You’ll see when you get there.”

Now I stood outside the marquis’s gates, about to find out.

Nanny Zhou led me through three courtyards, around a flower-hung inner gate, and finally stopped outside a small reception hall.

“Please go in, my lady. The young master and young misses are waiting inside.”

I took a deep breath and stepped over the threshold.

Three children stood in the hall.

At the front was a girl in a moon-white outer robe. She looked twelve or thirteen, fair and delicate, with her eyes lowered. A sensible child, to look at her.

She bent her knees in greeting and said softly, “Ruoyu pays her respects to Mother.”

This was the eldest, Qi Ruoyu. Just as Mother had said: she looked sensible.

Beside her stood a little girl in a pale-yellow jacket, about ten, with a round face and almond eyes. Quite sweet-looking.

But she didn’t bow. She only gave me a sidelong look and muttered something.

This was the second, Qi Ruolan. Just as Mother had said: she looked willful.

Right at the back was a small boy in a dark-blue robe. Thin and slight, he hid behind his sisters, peeking at me with half his face showing.

The moment I looked his way, his face vanished again.

This was the young master, Qi Zhao.

Just as Mother had said: he looked timid.

I stood there studying all three of them while they stole looks at me.

Mother was wrong, I thought.

The eldest looked sensible, but I couldn’t tell what was hidden behind those lowered eyelids.

The second looked willful, but that muttering seemed more like an attempt to pluck up her courage.

The boy looked timid, but the bright way he peeked out from behind his sisters didn’t suggest a little menace they’d led astray.

Taoxi gave a small cough beside me.

I collected myself, cleared my throat, and assumed the manner of the lady of the house.

“You may all rise. This is our first meeting, and I haven’t prepared much in the way of gifts…”

I paused and turned to Nanny Zhou. “Where are my trunks?”

She looked taken aback. “What trunks?”

“The trunks I brought from Yangzhou. Twenty in all. They were carried into the house this morning. Haven’t they been brought here yet?”

Her expression shifted. She was about to speak when footsteps sounded outside.

A young servant came running in, drenched in sweat. “Nanny Zhou, there’s trouble! Those trunks—”

He saw me and swallowed the rest of his sentence.

Nanny Zhou turned green.

I smiled.

Understood.

Someone wanted to put me in my place.

I walked unhurriedly to the seat of honor, sat down, and lifted the teacup on the table. I raised its lid and looked inside.

The tea was cold, and the leaves were of the cheapest sort.

I set it down. My voice remained perfectly gentle.

“Nanny Zhou, I don’t have much of a temper. But I do have one fault: an excellent memory. I can remember who carried the trunks today and who changed the tea. What do you suppose I’ll do next?”

Her face went from green to white, then from white to gray.

The three children stood watching me, all six eyes fixed on my face.

Qi Ruolan’s eyes lit up.