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.’
