Jeannie Lin - My Fair Concubine

‘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.

‘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.

She swallowed past a sudden tightness in her throat, embarrassed to be thinking about someone so far above her class. Maybe she had spent too much time listening to Fei Long’s lectures. Even hidden thoughts had a proper place and standing now.

‘You’re very brave,’ Dao was saying. ‘Pearl was so frightened about going to Khitan. And all those people you’ll need to convince. I couldn’t do it.’

Her chest grew tighter as she thought of it. The Khitan court would be expecting a well-born lady. ‘I’m a carp trying to leap over the dragon’s gate,’ she muttered.

‘I’m surprised Lord Chang would think of such a thing.’ Dao ducked in close to inspect the arch of one brow. ‘He’s always been so proper and upstanding.’

‘This would be quite the scandal, wouldn’t it?’

‘Quite!’ The servant lifted the thread again. ‘But I think it sounds wonderful. To become a princess. The poets write lovely verses about the heqin brides, about how beautiful and treasured they are.’

Yan Ling pouted. She was neither beautiful nor graceful. In the afternoons, she sat through lessons on etiquette and diplomacy with Fei Long, but she questioned whether any of it was any good. She still felt like the same awkward teahouse girl while she strolled from the front courtyard to the back, trying to flow and glide like a cloud. Or a crane. Or anything much more elegant than herself.

‘There.’ Dao made one more painful yank and then handed her the mirror. ‘See how it brightens up your face?’

Yan Ling stared at her newly shaped eyebrows sceptically. The ends narrowed in what was supposed to be the fashion of the day, according to Dao. ‘So that was all I needed. Now I’m a lady. I thank you greatly.’

‘Monkey.’ Dao snorted and gave her a shove.

One of the attendants from the front of the house came into the sitting room then to announce a visitor.

‘For me?’

The young man nodded. ‘Li Bai Shen, by the lord’s invitation.’

Fei Long had left that morning without telling her anything about a ‘Li Bai Shen’. Old Man Liang wasn’t present either. She didn’t know if she was ready to carry on the deception for an outsider. She glanced once more in the mirror. Her eyes did look different—somehow more intense and focused—but she didn’t feel it inside. She patted a hand over her hair. It had been pinned up on top and then allowed to fall loose in a cascade behind her.

The young attendant led her to the parlour at the front of the mansion. The gentleman was already seated on the couch. His robe was adorned with a brilliant border of maroon brocade and his topknot was affixed with a straight silver pin. He had narrow, handsome features, with dark eyebrows that accented his face in two bold lines.

He poured himself a cup of wine from a ewer that had been set before him and leaned back with his legs crossed at the ankles, taking in the sitting room décor with a bemused expression as if he were master of the house.

She stopped at the edge of the sitting area. ‘Lord Li.’

Self-consciously, she executed a bow, keeping her hands folded demurely within the drape of her sleeves.

He smiled when he saw her. Setting his wine down, he lifted himself to his feet and came towards her with a powerful, yet graceful stride. He was deceptively tall in stature, his build lean and wiry. He circled her, head tilted as if to get a better look. His grin widened to reveal the indent of a dimple against his cheek.

‘Not bad, Fei Long.’ His voice held a hum of approval.

‘My lord?’

He reached to tuck two fingers beneath her chin and she swatted at his hand. He chuckled.

‘Who are you anyway?’ she demanded.

He straightened and pulled back his shoulders dramatically. ‘My good friend has asked for help. Li Bai Shen is here to honour that bond of friendship.’

He spoke his name with authority as if anyone would know it. She wrinkled her nose at him.

He tapped his chest twice. ‘Bai Shen is one of the premier actors of the Nine Dragon theatre troupe and that, dear miss, is not a pretty face you’re making. I can see why Fei Long needs my help.’

‘I don’t understand.’

‘You have two months to become a well-born, well-mannered lady, correct?’

‘Yes.’

Bai Shen made a sweeping gesture with his hand. ‘I am here to ensure your success.’