скачать книгу бесплатно
He had publicly insulted the magistrate’s daughter and there was only one way for Tan to save face. All in all, it wasn’t the worst of solutions. It would tie the two of them closer together, and Yang needed a powerful ally. And having the lovely Jin-mei as his wife was hardly punishment. Maybe fortune was still smiling on him.
‘If the magistrate would allow this unworthy servant to make amends...’ Yang took a deep breath, letting the turn of events sink in ‘...may I ask permission to marry your daughter?’
* * *
Jin-mei stabbed the needle into the handkerchief and set it aside. ‘Must we spend all day embroidering?’ She pressed her hands to her lower back and attempted to stretch. ‘We’ve been here for hours. My back hurts. My eyes hurt. Even my fingertips hurt.’
Lady Yi, her father’s wife, let out a pleasant little laugh while her needle continued to fly in and out of the silk. They were in Lady’s Yi’s sitting room. Though they had started at the same time, a hummingbird with green-tipped wings had emerged on her stepmother’s handkerchief along with a vibrant red peony for the little creature to hover over. Jin-mei had only completed one crane in what was supposed to be a pair soaring through the clouds.
‘We can’t stop now. The wedding is only three days away,’ Lady Yi chided gently.
‘Yes, the wedding.’ Why did her chest draw tight whenever anyone mentioned the wedding? Her pulse quickened with what could be either excitement or fear. She was pretty certain it was fear. Jin-mei took a breath to try to calm herself.
The day after their meeting in the park, Bao Yang had brought gifts and sat with her and Father for tea. After that an astrologer was immediately consulted to choose an auspicious date for their union. Between the stars and the moon and their birth dates, a good date just happened to be occurring only a week later. How convenient.
She picked up her embroidery and continued working on the wings of her crane. Though she wasn’t as clever and quick as Lady Yi with the needle, she was competent. She was also meticulous. She hated nothing more than making mistakes and having to pick out the stitches.
The handkerchief was a square of blue silk decorated with a pair of cranes to symbolise love and union. It was meant to be added to the dowry that would be sent to Bao Yang to show off her skill with the needle and thus desirability as a wife.
‘All of this rush is completely unnecessary,’ Jin-mei complained. ‘We were only alone for a moment. It wasn’t as if he had any time to debauch me.’
‘Jin-mei!’ her stepmother scolded lightly.
‘It’s true.’
Though he’d stood so close, almost holding her in his arms. She’d thought of those moments a hundred times over the past days, seeing Bao Yang’s crooked smile and how the light from above had cast his face in dark shadows. If they hadn’t been interrupted, he might have kissed her.
That last part was her own imagination. She had a more vivid imagination for events than she did embroidery designs. Yang seemed to be the sort of man who would know how to kiss. Her heart was beating faster again. This time she was pretty certain it was excitement.
‘Father never seemed so rigid about etiquette in the past,’ Jin-mei pointed out, starting on the second of the cranes.
‘You’re his daughter. His treasure.’
Her heart warmed a bit. She was her father’s daughter and always had been. Mother had been his first wife, but she took sick and passed away when Jin-mei was still young. For years after that, it had been only the two of them while Father was working for the census bureau and making a name for himself. Lady Yi had given birth to two sons much later, but Jin-mei remained his only daughter.
‘You remind him of your mother,’ Lady Yi said gently. ‘The love of his life.’
Jin-mei looked down, embarrassed. ‘Don’t talk like that, Lady Yi.’
‘It’s true. He’s never forgotten her. I don’t mind,’ she assured with a little smile ‘Your father is a good husband. I couldn’t wish for a better one.’
Her stepmother was so good-natured. Jin-mei had always believed he’d chosen Lady Yi to bring balance to their household. Jin-mei had inherited her father’s intense and driven nature, but where could ambition possibly lead in a woman?
Apparently to the pursuit of a husband. Jin-mei had been intent on wooing Yang with her intelligence, hadn’t she? She had dreamed of him since the first time she’d seen him in their parlour when she was fourteen and hopeless to let him know she existed. Years later, nothing had gone according to plan, but he had indeed finally noticed her and they were now betrothed. Yet she couldn’t be rid of this sick feeling in her stomach.
‘Lady Yi, I don’t know how to explain this, but I’m worried.’
Her eyebrows lifted. ‘Worried?’
It was obvious Yang had been coerced into proposing marriage. ‘What if he doesn’t want me?’
Lady Yi set her needle into the cloth. ‘I understand.’
‘You do?’
Her stepmother moved to the trunk in the corner. She tossed a sly look over her shoulder before lifting the lid.
‘This is my wedding gift to you.’ Lady Yi returned with something wrapped in red silk and placed it in Jin-mei’s lap. The object was round and had some heft to it.
‘Shall I open this now?’
‘Well, certainly before the wedding.’ Lady Yi sat back on her stool to watch expectantly.
Jin-mei unwrapped the silk to reveal a bronze mirror. ‘How beautiful!’
There was a gleam in Lady Yi’s eye. ‘Look at the other side.’
The back of the mirror was elaborately engraved. She read the inscription aloud. ‘In front of the flowers and under the moon.’
The design in between the characters wasn’t like anything she’d ever seen. She bent to take a closer look. ‘Oh, heaven!’
Now she understood the reason behind Lady Yi’s sly smile. There were engravings of four different couples on the back; men and women joined together with arms and legs intertwined. Her cheeks heated as she stared at the figures, but she couldn’t drag her eyes away.
‘With your mother gone, it is my responsibility to instruct you on such matters.’
Jin-mei was still examining the explicit images. She had thought herself confused when all she knew of coupling was from poems that alluded to the clouds and the rain. Now she gaped at the mirror, turning it sideways and then back. ‘How is this...possible?’
‘Everything manages to find its place,’ Lady Yi said wisely. ‘Men and women are made to fit together.’
And they seemed to fit in interesting ways at that. Bronze arms and legs writhed over the back of the mirror. In three days, she was to share her marital bed with Yang doing that. Her throat went dry.
A knock on the door made her jump. Hastily, she dragged her embroidery over her lap just as her father entered.
‘Husband.’ Lady Yi stood to greet him. ‘We are nearly finished putting Jin-mei’s dowry together. She is very excited about the wedding.’
Father nodded and laid a hand over Lady Yi’s shoulder. Her stepmother always appeared so delicate next to Father’s heavier build. ‘May I speak to my daughter privately?’
This was worse than the time Father had caught her sneaking out to the Spring Lantern Festival. With her face burning, she glanced down at her lap. The mirror wasn’t entirely covered. An image of a man lying on his back with the woman straddled on top of him peeked out from the corner of the silk. Her stepmother’s delaying tactics as she turned to make a comment to her husband gave Jin-mei enough time to pull the handkerchief over the amorous couple.
Lady Yi then exited the room, and Father pulled the stool beside her before sitting down. ‘How is my daughter?’
‘Well.’ Her voice was pitched a note too high. ‘How was Father’s trip?’
Father grunted. ‘A disaster, but everything is taken care of now.’ With a deep breath, he met her eyes. ‘I left so quickly after the betrothal, I never asked you whether you had any objections to this marriage.’
‘What objections would I have?’ she asked. ‘Mister Bao is a long-time friend of Father’s. He seems a gentleman.’
She’d looked away while saying it. Her father would undoubtedly notice. All of a sudden, she wondered if he could read the events of that fateful afternoon on her face: how she’d tried to flirt instead of walking away, Bao Yang disappearing beneath the bridge with her following like an eager young duckling. Then there was the near kiss—even if that had only been in her own imagination.
‘My only objection is having to leave you,’ she said, as a dutiful daughter should.
‘Dear girl, you can’t stay with this old man for ever.’
A tiny ache grew in Jin-mei’s chest. She would miss him. As excited as she was at the prospect of being wed to someone she found to her liking, this was the end of her childhood. She would leave home to become part of a new family she knew so little about.
‘Bao Yang said something to me that I’ve been wondering about. He told me if he was discovered, his life would be in danger.’
Her father frowned. ‘When did he say such a thing?’
‘In the park. That was why he went to hide beneath the bridge.’
Yang had made it sound as if she had the power of life and death over him. The situation was so startling and exciting that before she knew what was happening, she was beneath the bridge and practically in his arms.
‘Mister Bao isn’t in any danger,’ Father assured. ‘He must have been teasing you.’
It hadn’t seemed as though he was teasing, but she would have to trust her father on this. Yang was a guest in their villa outside the city while awaiting the wedding date. Certainly there was no danger for him there.
Father kissed her forehead. ‘Now I must go to the tribunal, but we’ll have dinner together this evening. Not too many more meals before my daughter is a married woman, hmm?’
She ducked her head shyly. ‘Yes, Father.’
He pinched her cheek, something he hadn’t done for years. She usually hated the gesture, but today she didn’t mind so much. She listened for the door to close before setting the bronze mirror aside.
‘Is everything all right?’ Lady Yi asked when she returned to her stool.
‘Yes, of course,’ Jin-mei said, picking up her embroidery.
They set about once again working on their designs, but Jin-mei couldn’t escape the nagging feeling at the back of her mind.
When she was very young, Father had explained to her that magistrates were trained to read faces in order to discern whether a subject was telling the truth or lying. The discipline was called reading the five signs. The easiest trick was to watch the eyes: look for a twitch to the left or right, rapid blinking, the inability to focus. Father’s skill had made it very hard for her to misbehave during her childhood.
Perhaps because of such training, her father’s gaze was difficult to decipher. Jin-mei had learned instead to watch his mouth. After she’d asked about Yang’s remark, Father’s mouth had tightened for half a count before twitching into a grin. For that one breath, he had been calculating what to say to her, carefully constructing his response. If she were a magistrate, she would have insisted her father was hiding something.
Chapter Three (#ulink_2314bad7-a6d7-5c60-aee9-4a7ef1a60608)
Fate was a funny thing. Five days ago, he had been hiding from the city guards. Today Yang was getting married to the magistrate’s daughter. Such was fate. If it wasn’t such an important occasion, he would have laughed aloud when he arrived by sedan chair at Magistrate Tan’s residence.
It was late in the evening, during the hour of the Dog, which had been deemed auspicious for them by the fortune-teller. More importantly, the sky was dark and the streets relatively empty due to the curfew.
The wedding was to be a quiet one with the festivities to take place far outside of Minzhou at the magistrate’s villa. Though the city’s constables didn’t have his name or face to attach to the earlier attack on the warlord, neither he nor Tan wanted to risk too much attention. It was enough that any rumours of impropriety surrounding Lady Tan would be immediately banished by news of her marriage.
The porters carried an empty sedan chair alongside him for his intended bride while lantern bearers illuminated the way. Attendants bearing wedding gifts lined up at the head of the procession.
Tan Li Kuo had negotiated a long list of demands on behalf of his daughter. There would be a proper bridal procession to the guest villa where Yang was staying. The bridal suite had been laid out there as well as preparations for a respectably sized banquet. His dear daughter would receive the lavish wedding she deserved.
Who would have thought the crafty official would turn out to be so sentimental?
Two red lanterns hung on either side of the gate. Tan emerged just as Yang stepped down from the sedan. The magistrate’s expression was so serious, exaggerated by the shadows of the flickering light.
Yang bowed formally. As he straightened, doubt crept in. The magistrate’s black eyes fixed on to him; judging Yang as if he were kneeling before the tribunal.
‘Honourable sir,’ Yang began, returning the magistrate’s hard gaze without flinching. ‘I have come on this auspicious day to take your daughter as my most precious bride.’
Perhaps the cold stare meant that Tan had reconsidered this hasty marriage, but that was nonsense. The entire procession wedding procession was gathered in the street.
Tan regarded him with the iron look for another heartbeat, then his stern expression cracked into a grin. ‘Why so formal?’ He chuckled, patting Yang heartily on the back. ‘We’re soon to be family.’
The show of cheerfulness was more in line with Tan’s usual demeanour, but something felt out of place about the whole situation. Perhaps that was inevitable given the nature of the arrangement. He and Tan might have been long-time allies, but they were far from friends.
Yang let out a breath as the magistrate escorted him into the courtyard. The entire house was lit gaily with lanterns. All the servants were dressed in their best, their faces bright as they looked upon his ceremonial red robe. A romantic melody played on the pipa.
In the parlour, they shared tea and sweet cakes while speaking of inconsequential things. Tan’s wife was present, a charming and cultured woman with eyes that smiled. The bride herself was nowhere to be seen.
‘I think I know why you’re looking around so eagerly,’ taunted the magistrate.
‘You old goat!’ Lady Yi swatted her husband’s arm. Then she said to him, more politely. ‘I’ll bring Jin-mei out to join us.’
Yang grinned. This was just like a real wedding.
Well, of course it was a real wedding. Jin-mei was to be his wife. He had no particular objections to being married, though it would be difficult to raise a family under the current circumstances. Yang was still a fugitive and one of the most powerful men in the province wanted him dead.
Navigating this situation would take every connection and asset he had at his fingertips. But Yang was nothing if not resourceful. He prided himself on it.
Jin-mei emerged wearing a green-silk robe accented with gold embroidery. Their gazes met and he suddenly forgot all of the schemes and ploys that had brought him to this moment.
He hadn’t had much opportunity to look closely at her before now. Her lips were painted red and her cheeks flushed. The elaborate wedding costume overwhelmed her, making her appear small, but there was a womanly shape to her bosom and a generous curve to her hips. Her look was nervous as she regarded him, but far from timid. Maybe Tan was right. Yang was eager to know her better, this pretty girl who was to be his wife.
He could do worse. Much, much worse.
He gave Jin-mei a smile because she looked as though she might need some reassurance. When she returned it, he felt a hitch in his chest. He’d had lovers and companions in the past, but never anyone who had belonged to him. Never anyone he was bound to care for and protect. Yang found that he was the one looking away, averting his eyes, willing his heartbeat to steady.
When he turned, he saw Tan watching him carefully. Magistrate Tan was a shrewd, calculating man—the most dangerous man he’d ever encountered, aside from General Wang. Aside from himself. Now was not the time to show weakness.
Jin-mei approached in small steps that were mismatched with the bold way she’d first approached him. Her spine was fixed and straight and she looked as if she’d forgotten how to breathe. He was no better when he stood rigidly to bow to her. They were like a pair of wooden marionettes on strings.
It was all the ritual and formality. Once they were alone, they would know how to be with one another, he assured himself. There had been no fear in her when he’d lured her beneath the bridge, after all.
The next time they would be alone would be in their wedding bed. As they performed the rest of the ceremony before the Tan family altar, Yang occupied himself by mentally pulling the pins from Jin-mei’s hair and kissing away the vermilion that painted her lips until she was once again that wild and fearless creature he’d met by the river.
It was their wedding night. He was allowed such erotic thoughts.
Jin-mei met his gaze with a question in her eyes, a question he looked forward to answering later. She still looked so anxious, but there were too many people about for him to reach out to her and reassure her with just a touch against her wrist or a hand on her back.
Ours may be an arranged marriage, he wanted to tell her. But it is the best arrangement I have ever made.
Whether or not that was true was left to be seen, but it was true enough in that moment. Magistrate Tan could have just as easily had him castrated as punishment for ruining Jin-mei’s reputation. Despite the failed assassination plot and the warrants out for him, fortune had smiled upon Yang once again. He had the luck of dragons.
* * *
