The Marquis’s Fake Heir

For twenty-three years, the capital has pitied Eleanor Shen, wife of Edmund Pei, Marquis of Evermere. Edmund kept Serena Su as his mistress and raised her son, Julian Pei, as his own. Everyone calls her weak. They do not know she has been building a trap since her second month of marriage. She learned Serena’s secrets, won over Mr. He, the steward, and turned every payment from Edmund into a deed—a farm, a shop, an estate. By the time Edmund falls ill, Evermere’s richest lands are hers. She has sent her son Henry Pei to study in Jiangnan and gathered proof of Serena’s past. Then, on his deathbed, Edmund makes an announcement: Julian will be his heir, Serena will get his remaining properties, and she will become his legal wife. Eleanor smiles. “My lord, what do you have left?” She unfolds a stack of deeds. Every property he promised is already hers; every debt has a paper trail. He is penniless. Serena refuses to lose. She claims to be pregnant and kneels in the ancestral hall until she bleeds. Eleanor invites Augusta, the Grand Princess, and the imperial physician to witness the performance. It collapses in public. At the banquet, Serena accuses Eleanor of forging a concubine contract and Simon’s farewell letter. Eleanor produces the Prefect of Jinling’s archive: the contract was registered three years late. Then she strikes: Julian is not Edmund’s son. Serena was already pregnant by Simon when the Jian’an era began. Julian was born full-term; the “premature birth” was a lie. Furious, the Grand Princess cancels the engagement. An imperial edict grants Eleanor a divorce, returns her dowry, and honors her family; Henry is summoned to the imperial examination. He places seventh, is named heir, and marries Clara, Princess of Qinghe. Dying, Edmund learns he raised another man’s son and neglected his true wife for twenty-three years. He signs the divorce and dies. Eleanor burns the divorce paper, walks out of Evermere House, and moves into her new home. She does not want revenge. She wants back everything that was hers—and everything her son deserves.