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.
