Chapter Four #2
Pride surged in his chest, an irrational protectiveness welling through him.
She was a foreign woman offered as a bribe and then threatened by her captors, and yet she had the wherewithal to hold her dignity around her like a shroud.
Good lord, it made him feel like a knight of old, pledging service to a captured queen.
Especially when she smiled at him, hope sparking in her glorious eyes.
Then there was no more time as they climbed Grosvenor Street toward the ducal residence.
He gave her an encouraging smile, then hopped out of the donkey cart before the thing even stopped.
He quickly crossed to the base of the walkway, then directed everyone as they arrived.
The mandarin and the captain came out first. He handed them off to his butler, directing Chiverton to set them in the parlor.
The donkey cart stopped next, and he directed the guards to lift up the litter and carry her into the house.
“She’s the honored guest,” he told Chiverton.
“See that she is treated as such.” Then he glared at the men awkwardly maneuvering the palanquin.
“The guards, however, leave the second she’s set down.
Have the captain instruct them. They must fetch her luggage, but they are not to come inside the house again.
Get some footmen to keep them out if you have to. ”
“I understand, my lord,” Chiverton intoned, and Max had absolute faith that it would be done.
He couldn’t get rid of the mandarin or the captain—yet—but the guards were another matter.
He would not be polite to people who had just moments ago threatened her life, unless, of course, international relations required such a sacrifice.
But until he was so instructed, he would banish them from her presence with the quickest dispatch.
This had the added benefit that if he didn’t see them, he couldn’t order them arrested and hanged for drawing weapons in the palace.
Once that was accomplished, he supervised the awkward lifting and carrying of the palanquin inside. The guards seemed to be getting better at it. There were no terrifying dips and sways. Max never had to rush forward to save her, though he twitched with the need.
Eventually, they made it inside and he turned his attention to the gong bearer and another guard who made to enter his home as if they belonged there.
He blocked their entrance by the simple act of standing in the middle of the walkway and glaring them back.
And he had the pleasure of hearing the other guards grumble as Chiverton got them out of the home.
A few minutes more glaring and pointing saw the extraneous souls riding away in hackneys.
Good riddance.
“Ah-hem.”
Max winced. That sound was his mother waiting to address him. And just how was he to explain that he’d finally become engaged? She’d been planning his wedding to Lady Kimberly since they’d been betrothed when he was four.
“Max, dear,” she called.
“Yes, Mother?” he said as he turned to address her.
She stood in the doorway awaiting his attention with all the regal aplomb of a duchess.
Elegant as usual, but her flushed cheeks and pursed lips showed her displeasure.
Chris stood a half-step behind her, his grin showing unseemly delight at this fiasco.
Far be it for the man to be useful and entertain the mandarin.
Christopher would always be where the action was, a quiet observer who would remember every salacious detail.
His memory was uncannily exact in such things.
“Max, why is there a cage in the middle of my hall? The servants are tripping over the thing.”
He frowned. “Well, get it out of the way. Put it in the stable.”
Her brows rose. “With the girl inside?”
It took him a moment to realize that no one had thought to let Yihui out of the palanquin. That couldn’t possibly be true. Chiverton was not that much of an idiot. But Chris’s nod told him that it was true.
Cursing under his breath, Max pushed his way into the house. Damn it, there she sat—upright, thank God—in the middle of the foyer. Was this normal? Did Chinese women just sit in hallways until they were needed?
“Did no one help her to the parlor?” he demanded, rounding on their butler. “Good God, Chiverton, I would think you could manage the basics of—”
“They said she had to be carried! Said she can’t walk. And I…” He gestured helplessly. “They said it must be their people or no one. My lord, I don’t know anything about greeting a Chinese princess!”
She wasn’t a princess, but he didn’t argue. She had the entourage of one and his normally unflappable butler appeared rather…er…flapped.
“Max—” his mother began. “Lord Christopher has been telling me the most extraordinary tale.”
“It’s all true,” he said. Chris was selective about the details he shared, but they were always accurate. Max stepped past his mother and went to the front of the palanquin.
No one had even opened the door.
With a polite smile, he opened the door and extended a hand to her. “Miss Wong, if you would accompany me to the parlor, I believe some refreshments are on their way.”
Her gaze hopped between him and the Chinese official. She was clearly terrified and working hard to contain it. “You’re safe. I swear,” he said in an undertone.
He saw relief and terror fighting in her eyes, but it was completely locked down when the captain spoke.
“She’s not coming out because she’s not allowed to walk. Not more than a step or two. It’s their custom.”
Or maybe it’s because her feet were broken. He was about to turn on the bastard and speak his mind, when she grasped his hand. “Not yet,” she pleaded. “They fight. Swords.”
He winced. He’d gotten rid of all the guards, but the captain still had his sword and who knew what the mandarin hid beneath his robes.
Even if Max could defend himself—maybe—his mother and sister were here, not to mention a score of servants.
This was not the place for a violent altercation.
And so he nodded to Yihui, swallowing down his fury until a more practical time.
He turned back to the captain. “If she cannot walk, then how is she supposed to function?”
“Their ladies—the highborn ones—got to be carried. That’s why they bring all those guards. They do the lifting and hauling, so to speak.”
“I sent them back to your boat to get her luggage.”
“Aye, my lord. I saw that.”
But he hadn’t seen fit to explain before? “Captain, you are beginning to irritate me. I suggest you fix that immediately.”
The man straightened in outrage, but if he thought to strut about in a ducal household just because he spoke Chinese, then he was sorely mistaken. Especially since Max knew that Yihui spoke English.
Meanwhile, he solved the problem. No one could object to her fiancé carrying her, and so he leaned down and picked her up.
It was awkward, to be sure. The palanquin was so small he could barely fit his shoulders in it.
But she helped him with a surprisingly strong grip.
She took hold of his shoulders and settled into his arms.
His first impression was that there was a solidness to her belied by her small stature. She was slender for a woman, but he felt muscles flex powerfully beneath the fabric as she pulled herself upright in his grip. And damn those clacking beads that dangled between their faces.
And surprise of surprise, her breath was sweet. That was a rarity even among the elite.
Crossing into the parlor, he set her carefully on a cushioned wingback chair. It was his father’s favorite seat, but Max felt it appropriate for her as the seat of honor. The thing made her appear very small, but she sat tall. And when he offered her tea, she took it with small, unsteady hands.
Was it the drugs or terror? Either way, he had to get her out of here as soon as possible.
“Well,” said his mother as she entered the parlor, “now that everyone is comfortable…”
Max looked up to his mother. He hadn’t been seated, so he had no need to rise.
The captain, of course, understood English custom, so he leapt immediately to his feet.
The mandarin, however, did not know he was supposed to stand at the entrance of a lady.
The obnoxious man continued to drink his tea without even looking up.
It was made even worse when his sister entered the room. Her expression was genial. Emmaline was always kind, but her eyes widened at the mandarin’s obvious rudeness. Meanwhile, the captain grew uncomfortable in the growing silence.
“Begging your pardon, Your Grace, but he doesn’t understand. As a general rule, the Chinese women serve. The men don’t stand.”
“Really?” his mother responded, her tone icy. “And if he were meeting with the Empress of China?”
The captain’s eyes widened in horror. “He won’t kowtow to you, Your Grace. Not outside of China.”
“I gather kowtowing is some sort of polite behavior? A bow of sort?”
“Yes, Your Grace. Only it’s done on the knees.”
“I see. But he won’t do it to me because…?”
“You’re not the Empress of China.”
“And because he doesn’t respect our customs or believe that he must perform any type of courtesy to me. Correct me if I’m wrong, doesn’t he serve a merchant?”
“Er, yes, Your Grace. The Wong cohong—”
“And does he carry a title?”
“Not as you mean, Your Grace.”
She nodded slowly. The mandarin at last sensed that he was the topic of conversation. He turned his head slowly, a single eyebrow lifted in query. Max’s mother returned it with one of her own. And when she spoke, her words were chilly.
“Why is he here then?”
The captain shifted awkwardly on his feet. “I believe he must see—”
“Don’t guess. Ask him.”