The Duke of Yu's Daughter

Bo Lien was beautiful, desirable, and with no particular interest in men or marriage.
Zhao Hua was much older, notoriously cruel and sadistic, a successful trader and moneylender, and he wanted a wife.

Bo Lien knew her duty, and reluctantly she agreed to submit to Zhao Hua’s bizarre whims and desires for a year, after which – if she proved to be a suitable wife – he would marry her and cancel her father’s huge debt.

Although she knew Zhao Hua’s reputation, Bo Lien was at first horrified at the pain and punishment he inflicted, the way he treated her and what was expected of her, and yet there was something more, something that no one would have expected from the sweet, innocent Bo Lien…

)first published as "The Lotus of Yu")