A Subtle Seduction

[Brazen but Cowardly Little Green Tea×Austere, Abstinent Patriarch]

#Sleep Together, Then Make a Run for It#

Ruoru is delicate and beautiful, with a wicked heart, but she's also a coward: she wants to use her looks to get away with anything, yet has all the nerve of a mouse.

Her stepmother, however, is both wicked and bold. After Ruoru's father died, she became the mistress of a nobleman in the capital and gave birth to his illegitimate son.

There was no shortage of food or money, and the nobleman was young and vigorous.

Her stepmother told Ruoru that sleeping with the nobleman was a better deal than sleeping with her father. That's all men and women amounted to, anyway: if they fancied each other, they got into bed.

But the good times didn't last. When the nobleman's betrothed arrived with a crowd of maids and matrons to confront them, Ruoru's stepmother packed up the gold and valuables and fled.

She left Ruoru clutching the baby who wasn't even her real brother, trembling amid the wreckage of the room.

And so Ruoru was taken to Prince Qin's residence, where she became a temporary guest who was neither a young lady nor a maid.

The nobleman her stepmother had seduced was the cousin Prince Qin valued most, so much so that he kept the young man in his residence and personally tutored him.

Now this scandal had erupted.

Prince Qin was furious.

Ruoru was forced to kneel in the main hall, holding her little brother.

She raised her head timidly. The unfamiliar man seated in the place of honor was imposing as a mountain, his presence as powerful as a thunderclap.

The nobleman whom her stepmother had always served so carefully stood at the man's side, head bowed and barely daring to breathe. He could only murmur,