Plucking Joy

Blurb:

When Chu Kuo first met Yun Tan, she was the prospective bride his stepmother had carefully chosen from her own family for his second younger brother.

It was a bitterly cold spring day. She bent forward as she stepped out of the sedan chair.

A slender, delicate girl of sixteen,

elegant and graceful, with a proud bearing that was neither servile nor arrogant, she stood tall and poised.

She looked just like the magnolia blossom above her head, so lovely and pure that it stirred wicked thoughts in him, making him want to pluck her down and claim her for himself.

She bent her knees in greeting, her voice gentle yet distant. "Greetings, Cousin."

Even the vulgar gold bracelet on her slender, pale wrist, revealed as she raised her hand, did not detract from her grace.

Only later, during countless nights when he longed for her and tossed sleeplessly, did Chu Kuo finally understand:

He had wanted to covet and seize her for himself from that very day.

Later still...

His stepmother's three sons died one after another, and Yun Tan's prospective husbands changed again and again...

*

A possessive, cruel young nobleman × a beautiful, proud fallen heiress

Abduction and possession + a long road to redemption. The heroine will run away. I haven't decided whether she'll be pregnant when she does, hmm. It's a very overused trope, so let's see what I can do with it. Maybe it could be worth looking forward to.

Theme: The best relationships are between equals.