My Mother-in-Law Was Waiting to Take a Knife for Her Bride. I Turned Around and Married the Regent

I was the lowliest maid in the Marquis’s manor. Because I looked a little like the eldest young lady, they drugged me with a medicine that took away my voice and made me marry in her place: a frail heir rumored to be a bloodthirsty brute who would soon die on the battlefield. On our wedding night, the heir vomited blood and hovered between life and death. The whole city waited to see me, his “stand-in for the dead,” become a widow and join him in the grave. But with his dying breath, the heir clutched my hand and pressed a dragon-patterned jade pendant into it. “Go… find my imperial uncle…” Clutching the pendant, I climbed over the wall under cover of night, only to crash straight into a cold, solid embrace. The man wore a black cloak, and the imposing presence of the Son of Heaven nearly stole my breath away. He lifted my chin, his gaze deep and unreadable. “Are you the new princess consort my imperial brother bestowed upon me?” I looked up and realized he was the regent, the man with absolute power over the court, ruthless and decisive! Seeing the Marquis’s servants chasing after me, I grabbed his sleeve and threw caution to the wind. “Your Highness, your nephew is gone, so you’re not losing out on this deal. Take me with you, and I’ll help you uproot the Marquis’s manor!”