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‘Bald as a Shaolin monk,’ he ranted. ‘I must already be dead. This must already be the afterlife because no one alive could be so stupid.’
Several servants from the kitchen and surrounding chambers peeked into the courtyard, only to duck away when Fei Long continued his tirade. Min’s sobbing had receded into the house, but it grew louder once again. She came back into the first courtyard with eyes swollen red and a travel pack slung over her shoulder.
‘On my mother,’ Dao swore under her breath. ‘The scandal.’
‘Stop her before she leaves the house,’ Yan Ling directed, her pulse skipping. ‘I’ll go speak to Lord Chang.’ Maybe it wasn’t her place to be giving orders, but she felt responsible for helping Lady Min.
The servant girl ran in one direction while Yan Ling hurried in the other. She slipped into the front part of the house and wove her way through the hallway. It wasn’t hard to find Fei Long. He had taken to swearing a river of oaths behind a closed door.
‘My lord.’ The door loomed before her. She pressed a hand to her stomach to try to calm it. ‘Are you all right?’
The stomping inside ceased. ‘Miss Yan Ling, this is a private matter. Please return to your room.’ His voice sounded muffled through the barrier.
Private? Not any more when every porter on the street could likely hear him.
‘Maybe I can be of help,’ she began.
The door swung open slowly and Fei Long appeared. There was a slight flush to his cheeks and his eyes glinted with a dangerous light. ‘There is nothing for you to concern yourself with here.’
She could hear the strain at the edge of his voice as he resorted to extreme politeness.
‘Pardon us, miss, for disrupting your morning,’ he continued.
His chest rose and fell rapidly and the muscles of his face pulled tight as he fought for control. Maybe she could help. She was an outsider and he wouldn’t dare yell at her … as loudly, at least.
‘Everyone in the house is frightened. Lady Min is crying.’
The mention of the lady’s name had Fei Long gritting his teeth. ‘She’s lost her mind.’
What would calm him? She tried to think of what little she knew of him and she could only think of one thing.
‘Let me have some tea brought to you.’
Yes, tea. He did all his planning with her over tea. And he had come to the teahouse to ponder over his troubles when she’d first met him. He regarded her woodenly, perhaps thinking that she, too, had lost her mind. But slowly, as if with great difficulty, he nodded once.
A small victory.
They were seated with the tea tray arranged before them in his father’s study. It was his study now, as was everything that had once belonged to his father: this mansion, the servants, all the troubles he’d stirred up like rats let loose in a storehouse.
Like rats, the problems gnawed away at what remained bit by bit. Like rats, they multiplied.
Yan Ling scooped the tea leaves into the special enamel cups. Her hand trembled slightly as she lifted the pot of steaming water. That small break brought him back to himself. These problems weren’t meant for her or the other servants. He was wrong to involve all of them.
‘I apologise for my anger,’ he said.
He had been completely stricken senseless by the sight of his father’s young concubine shaved bald. Even the thought of such foolishness made his pulse rise once more.
Steam rose from the cups and Yan Ling gently placed the lids over them to let the leaves steep. She sat back with her hands in her lap.
Her fingers twined together. ‘Lady Min came to me last night—’
‘We should speak of other things,’ he interrupted.
‘I think her intentions were well meaning.’
He let out a slow breath. She wasn’t going to spare him this shame. ‘How is bringing scandal upon this house well meaning?’ he asked. ‘Lady Min has no reason to complain. She was once a servant in our household before my father made her his concubine.’
Fei Long’s own father had always let his passionate nature get the best of him. Shame soured his stomach once again. It was impossible to hide such personal family matters from Yan Ling while she lived here among them.
‘She isn’t complaining. Lady Min praised your father as a generous and joyful man.’
‘Do you know how this looks? First my sister, Pearl, runs away, then Lady Min shaves her head to become a nun to escape. There is no discipline in this house. No harmony.’
‘It is this woman’s humble opinion—’
He raised an eyebrow at that. It was one of the phrases he’d introduced during their daily lessons and now she was wielding it. He didn’t know whether to be pleased or irritated that she was putting it to practice to placate him.
‘—that the women of this household may have enjoyed a certain freedom under your father’s most generous care.’
He could see how she struggled with the words. How they lingered on her tongue, a bite too large to swallow easily.
‘The lady came to me yesterday and asked for my help,’ Yan Ling blurted out. She looked exhausted from speaking so delicately. ‘I think she didn’t want to be a burden, that was all.’
She was trying valiantly and his heart softened. ‘What do you suggest?’ he asked.
‘Being a nun can’t be the easiest life. Let the lady do as she’s chosen and the good energy from it may come back to you.’
‘Karma?’ he offered.
She looked relieved. ‘Yes. Karma.’
He leaned back, considering her argument. The difficult matter wasn’t that his father’s concubine now wished to become a Buddhist nun or that Pearl had been so devastated by being sent to a foreign lord that she went against duty and honour to run away. What Yan Ling could never understand was that he was responsible for all of them. Min had been utterly devoted to his father, yet she had gone to a stranger first to try to solve her problems. And his sister had become desperate enough to run away after he’d disregarded her plea for help. He was a failure at holding this household together.
‘Will you abandon me as well?’ he asked tonelessly.
She frowned. ‘I don’t understand, my lord.’
His throat closed tight and he had to force out the words. ‘Our arrangement is an unusual one. I have no assurance you won’t decide one day that it’s no longer worth the sacrifice.’
If Yan Ling suddenly ran away like Pearl and Min, he’d be left with nothing. The family name would fall completely to ruin. Fei Long had also put his hopes on an outsider. The uncertainty left him vulnerable and darkened his spirit. The shadow of it had hovered over him during their journey and it clung to him now. This was the closest he’d ever come to admitting this fear to her.
‘Is our arrangement what you truly want, Yan Ling? We have at least been honest with one another. If you have any doubt, tell me now.’
‘I have no doubt, my lord.’
He didn’t believe her. Her voice hitched and she ran the tip of her tongue over her lip before biting into it.
‘Don’t do that,’ he reminded gently. She stopped this time.
‘I have no doubt about this,’ she repeated with more iron behind the words. ‘I’ll see this through to the end. I swear it.’
The tension in his shoulders eased. He’d been right about Yan Ling. She was a practical, logical woman. They were partners in this. Only she was audacious enough to carry out the ruse and she wouldn’t abandon him.
She fidgeted as his gaze lingered. ‘The tea is ready,’ she deflected. ‘Let us drink.’
They enjoyed their tea for a few peaceful moments. The stillness was welcome after all the drama that morning. A careful tap on the door interrupted the silence, but by then the throbbing in his skull had settled.
‘Old Man Liang. Come in.’
His father’s steward entered in a black robe and cap. He carried a thick ledger book, almost larger than he was, with a wooden abacus balanced on top. Liang had always been there at his father’s side, older than time. And he’d always looked the same: same thin nose, same tapered beard hanging down to his breastbone. The widening bands of grey in it seemed to be his only signs of ageing.
Liang paused at the sight of Yan Ling. Fei Long had already explained her role to all of the servants as well as the old steward. That had been accomplished in the morning before his confrontation with Lady Min. They also knew that discretion was most important.
‘Enquire today at the Temple of the Peaceful Lotus,’ he told Liang. ‘Tell the abbess that Lady Min wishes to join them and prepare a donation of alms to the temple.’
Across from him, Yan Ling straightened. Her eyes lit with surprise.
‘I’ll go tell Lady Min.’ She set her tea down and rose to her feet.
Excitement brought a vibrant glow to her cheeks and he refrained from admonishing her for ending the meeting without taking proper leave. At least she remembered to bow to Liang, before rushing out the door.
He still had much work to do with her.
Fei Long got up to move to the desk. He and the steward had planned to go over all of the accounts that morning, without the protective smoothing over of details that Liang had practised with his father. It was poor etiquette to give bad news plainly, but Fei Long needed to know the truth about the family finances.
Old Man Liang seated himself and took his time opening the record book and sliding the counters on his abacus back to starting position. The steward coughed once and cleared his throat.
‘My lord is most generous.’ He stroked his grey beard, a habit that Fei Long had come to recognise as a stalling gesture. ‘However, there may be a problem making a donation to the temple as well as a few of the other payments.’
It wasn’t until that afternoon that Fei Long was able to summon Yan Ling before him again. She was dressed in one of Pearl’s hanfu robes. The cloth hung loose as Yan Ling was thinner than his sister. The embroidered sash accented her slender waist and hips.
He stood in the parlour at the front of the house as she tried to negotiate the layers of yellow silk past the entranceway. This was supposed to be a reprieve from the dire financial figures Old Man Liang had thrown at him, but Fei Long almost wished himself back in front of the cursed ledger book as Yan Ling stepped on the edge of her own skirt. The cloth pooled around her feet as she tried to move forwards, wrapping about her ankles until he was certain she would topple. Fortunately she didn’t. She kicked at the train, much like—heaven help him—one would kick a stray dog. He raised a hand over his mouth.
‘Are you laughing at me?’ she demanded, looping the long sleeves once and then twice about her arms so they would no longer whip about while she moved.
‘No.’
He was most certainly grimacing behind the shield of his hand. He lowered it and held out his arm to catch her as she stumbled into the room.
‘This must be the sort of fancy garment only worn for big festivals,’ she surmised.
He ground his teeth together. ‘This is what Pearl wore nearly every day.’
She shot him a look of disbelief. ‘This is not a robe. This is three robes.’
He was not going to lower himself to untangle her from the net of silk she’d woven about herself.
‘Dao.’
The girl came running from her unseen location in the hallway. ‘My lord.’
He tossed a curt nod in Yan Ling’s direction. Dao rushed to her and worked to straighten out the hanfu, smoothing out the sleeves and rearranging the train. Yan Ling’s face grew red as she stood still for the ministrations.
‘Try walking forwards,’ he said.
She took a few tentative steps toward the opposite end of the room. At the wall, she bent to tug the skirt straight with what she thought was a surreptitious movement. It wasn’t.
‘Again,’ he commanded.
She turned and came back toward him. It was a little better this time in that she didn’t pause to fidget with the clothing, but in truth it wasn’t that much better.
‘I’ll practise,’ she said sharply, cutting off the comment that hovered on his tongue.
Dao looked on in sympathy, eyes lowered.
He ran a hand roughly over his chin. Something was wrong, but on his father’s grave, he couldn’t say what. Her arms were wooden by her sides. Her step was heavy. She didn’t seem to know what to do with her hands. Why hadn’t he noticed anything when they’d travelled together? This was worse than he’d thought.
‘This will take more than practice,’ he replied.
She flinched as if he’d inflicted a physical wound, but he didn’t have time to be gentle with words. He didn’t know how to instruct her in how a lady should act and move. He looked to the servant girl Dao, but it was clear she wouldn’t be able to help either, and Lady Min had the mental focus of a moth.
Yan Ling had to combat a lifetime of subservience. It wasn’t her fault, he tried to tell himself as his head throbbed once again.
He was frustrated at her, but he was angrier with himself. It didn’t matter whose fault it was; he needed to fix this. Yan Ling pressed her lips tight and he could see her reading the displeasure in his face.
‘Let me keep trying,’ she insisted with a stubborn lift of her chin.
A small part of him warmed with admiration, but feminine grace was a virtue while perseverance was not.
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Keep working.’
He dismissed Dao and accompanied Yan Ling as she walked the gardens from the first courtyard through to the second one. Occasionally she looked to him for approval and he’d oblige her with a nod, but he was no longer paying attention to her form. Instead, Fei Long was lost in thought. If Yan Ling was to become a princess, or at least pretend to be one, they would need to transform her. He needed someone who was a master at deception.
Chapter Five
‘Nothing I do is right.’
Yan Ling winced as Dao wound a thread to the hairs at the edge her eyebrow and yanked. She reclined on the day bed in her sitting room with Dao leaning over her. Lady Min had entered the temple earlier that week after a tearful farewell to the household, despite her eagerness to begin her new life. This freed Dao to focus on making a lady of Yan Ling, which she was doing one hair at a time.
‘Lord Chang is only trying to make sure you succeed,’ Dao replied.
‘I don’t stand properly, walk properly. Pearl must have been a model of femininity and—Ow!’
Dao pulled the thread away on the other side. The skin around her brows stung like the bite of a hundred ants.
The mansion was arranged around the two courtyards with the private chambers in the back part of the house and the parlours, kitchen and storeroom arranged at the front. Even with Lady Min and Pearl gone, there were still fifteen people living within the residence. There was the kitchen staff, the hands who tended the stable at the side of the residence, and the various attendants and porters who handled everyday tasks such as cleaning and running errands. Old Man Liang was the eldest and most revered.
Yan Ling wondered why Fei Long wasn’t married already. She would have thought a family such as this one would be eager to produce sons. It couldn’t be possible that anyone would find him unsuitable. Women likely found him handsome enough … not that one needed to be with wealth and education. And not that she necessarily found him so.
