A Bride for Wen Hui Read online

  Though everything inside of her recoiled at the strict conventions of her life.

  When she entered her first mother’s apartments, a cold hand had clutched her heart. Against the backdrop of the richly lavished room decorated in vibrant colors, and ornate furnishings, she saw all of her mothers seated at the kang, the raised, heated platform where most of the activity of the room took place.

  A very bad sign.

  Startled, she met the gaze of Meiling, her beautiful birth mother, whose stoic and pinched countenance told its own story. Whatever it was about to happen, there was nothing her mother birth mother could do about it.

  Pulling her gaze away from her birth mother’s closed expression, she straightened her shoulders and addressed her question to the plump woman on the left of the kang. “You wanted to see me, Da niang?”

  Jingli, the first wife of Li Fuhai, squinted at her. “A husband has been selected for you.”

  Yuping felt all the heat drain from her body. “No,” she said, her voice a thin, reedy whisper.

  “Yes,” Jingli went on as if discussing the finer points of embroidery and not a life-altering event. “Your father has accepted the proposal of one of his acquaintances. An exporter of goods. His name is Peng Jinwei. Peng Jinwei is well connected with the East Dowager Empress as well as high ranking persons with a few of the Western powers.”

  Yuping stared at her first mother, wondering what any of this had to do with marriage to this man. She knew on one level that this man’s connection to the East Dowager Empress, one of the two female rulers of China who currently reigned as regent for the emperor, must be well connected.

  Even in this, her father bore the upper hand as everyone knew the real power of the throne was the West Dowager Empress, the mother of the Emperor.

  Yet, this man’s name meant nothing. His occupation and family name meant nothing. She had no wish to marry a man she did not know.

  But what choice did she have? What choice did she ever have?

  She swallowed the bulge that formed in her throat and asked. “Will I be his first wife?”

  Could she be left with the dignity of being the principal wife to carry his name?

  Did a gleam enter her first mother’s eyes while her birth mother’s eyes dimmed?

  “No,” Jingli answered. “You will be his third wife.”

  Yuping’s heart fell to her feet. Third wife. Her eyes drifted to the plain, less vibrant woman on the right. Her third mother, Shiluo, who averted her gaze.

  “Peng Jinwei is in America. His business interests are such that he is unable to come here to marry you himself. After much deliberation with your father, it has been decided that Peng Jinwei will send over a Dàilǐ zhàngfū.”

  Heat singed the planes of Yuping’s face. Her chest seemed to collapse in on itself while her legs shook with the force of keeping her upright. “Proxy husband?” she repeated, her voice cracking.

  Jingli nodded. “He will perform the ceremony with you as if Peng Jinwei were here. After which, you will travel with him back to America where a second marriage ceremony will be performed.”

  Yuping’s eyes drifted back to her birth mother. “Er niang, you can’t allow this.” An uncontrollable trembling seized her body. “You cannot let this happen to me.”

  With surprising speed, Meiling rose from her seat at the kang and walked over to her. Before Yuping could guess, her mother struck her in the face. “Ānjìng!” Meiling commanded in a harsh whisper. “You will do as your father has said.”

  Though an entire sleepless night had passed, Yuping could still feel the sting of her mother’s discipline along her cheek. Even as the twilight receded, her mother’s face, tight and closed, reflected her inner sorrow that there was nothing, absolutely nothing, she could do about her daughter’s fate.

  A gentle breeze caressed Yuping’s face like silk. She became aware of her surroundings once more. Before her lay a narrow bridge stretched across a body of clear placid water. Seeing the narrow bridge let her know her destination was near.

  As she crossed over, Yuping stroked the stonework as well as the tendrils of vine plants wormed along its edge. The contrast of the hard stone with the pliability of the vines teased her fingers. When she reached the other side, she came to a stone path which curved for two turns until she reached an area densely populated by apricot trees.

  The turmoil within began to ebb away at the sight of the white, pink-hued blossoms. Inhaling their sweet-smelling aroma, she released a gratifying sigh and stepped into the midst of the trees. Loosened petals fluttered around her like snowflakes. She continued her trek until she reached an open clearing.

  Outlined by the ebbing vestiges of night, stood a pavilion, or ting. Her father called it Límíng de yǎnlèi, or ‘Dawn’s Tears’. Flanked on one side by a stone staircase and a narrow wooden pier on the other, the ting rested on the edge of a large pond.

  Within the interior of the ting, she saw a tall, familiar form. Her heart squeezed.

  “Dage!” she cried out.

  Her older brother, Li Guangde, turned at the sound of her voice and she hurried to him. “Xiao mei.”

  His voice carried even though he spoke softly. Little sister, he called her, when his mind was particularly troubled.

  She hurried to him and stared up into his stern, refined features. Though she thought she had swept away all her tears, a few more found exit and trailed down her cheeks. “Father has—”

  “I know.” His sorrowful eyes stared down into hers, catching the glowing rays of the coming dawn. “Father may have agreed to it but it is my mother’s doing.”

  “Why, dage? I have done everything she has ever asked me.”

  “You know why.” He thumbed away a tear. “Our father has never loved her. His heart belongs to your mother.”

  She turned away and they stood together as the dawn appeared. Birdsong permeated the air along with the cacophony of little animals who rushed about behind the cover of shrubbery. A few insects hovered about, the slight hum of their tiny wings a low undertone under the music of another morning.

  In the beauty of the coming day, Yuping’s tears went unheeded down her cheeks as the morning glory seemed to scorch the earth in ribbons of flame.

  Yuping’s shoulders slumped. “Must I be punished for my father’s love?”

  “Yes,” her brother answered kindly. “You are the only one who can suffer for it.”

  CHAPTER TWO

  June 1869

  Yuezhou

  Residence of Li Fuhai

  Warm summer winds blew against the litter that four men carried down the roads of Yuezhou. Within its jostling confines Wen Hui sat in the center of comfort as he made his way to the residence of Li Fuhai.

  Memories, thousands of them, raced around in his mind. As a boy of ten, when he’d first encountered the luxury his benefactor lived in, the opulence had been overwhelming.

  He laughed softly in the small interior of the sedan. He pictured himself as he was back then—scruffy, wrinkled, and awestruck. Peeking through the window to get an idea of where they were, he noted they passed a familiar block. They weren’t too far now from the home of his intended—

  —No, not his intended.

  Wen Hui sighed and rubbed at the curious ache in the center of his chest.

  Well, the ache wasn’t curious as much as constant. It hadn’t eased since months ago when Peng Jinwei charged him with the task of bringing his wife to America.

  The woman Wen Hui had longed to make his own.

  Leaning back against the cushioned seat, he let his mind wander.

  He’d always loved Li Yuping. It wasn’t something he’d ever had to struggle with identifying. One look at her and he’d felt the red thread of fate—the belief that two destined souls should meet—tighten about his ankles. In that moment, he’d been drawn to her immutably.

  Smiling, he recalled the way she looked back then. Seven years of age, carefree, and impish. She’d had the roundest cheeks he�
��d ever seen. Most of the young girls he’d known in the village outside of the city of Yuezhou had narrow, drawn in cheeks. From poverty and hunger.

  This girl, this young child, with the long, black hair, white petal skin, and colorful, vibrant clothing had fat jowls. He’d wanted to reach out and touch them. Were they as soft and pillowy as they appeared? The deep dimples on either side of her mouth called to him to dip his fingers into them.

  But even then, he’d known there were certain boundaries he couldn’t cross.

  Although later on, he’d cross those lines.

  The shaking of the litter stopped and was set on the ground. Peng Jinwei’s servant pulled back the silk curtains and then opened the door.

  Wen Hui’s eyes took in the wooden house in which he’d spend many hours as he exited the litter.

  It had changed very little from the last time he was here six years ago. The gabled roofs of the various outbuildings, the inner hall where he was sure to be greeted in a matter of moments, and of course, Li Fuhai’s famous Garden of Serenity.

  The house was bisected by two courtyards. The first of which the meals were cooked by the servants. His stomach growled in remembrance of the delicious food he’d been served.

  The second courtyard was where the family spent copious amounts of time. Surrounding the courtyards, along the inner perimeter, a number of side rooms specifically for guests that may be entertained.

  Li Fuhai had also built two different wings, each with their own separate entrances. One for his favorite concubine and the other for his third wife. The main building, the largest and most elaborate was reserved for his first wife.

  The doors on the outer perimeter from the sprawling building led to the garden, a place he’d spend many happy hours.

  Back then, he’d been a poor boy given a chance to consort with a family as noble as the House of Li. Now, as Wang, Peng Jinwei’s servant smoothed out his clothes, the derisive thought came that very little had changed. He’d had to accept the luxury of others once more.

  “Borrowed nobility,” he whispered under his breath.

  “Shao ye?” the man looked up inquiringly.

  Young master. What a jest. He long to tell the man to not address him in that manner. He was a fraud. But he remained silent. He came as the proxy husband for a man of means. Surely he could accept the deference due him for a little while?

  “It is nothing.” He clenched his jaw. He was here in all this finery because of Peng Jinwei.

  “I can’t have you go to the house of the ambassador looking like a commoner,” his business partner had remarked. “One look and his wife will drag her daughter back into the house and slam the door. And that,” the man went on, “would displease me to no end. I heard she’s very beautiful.”

  Wen Hui pondered that as he followed the servant to the entrance of the expansive home. As a boy, he’d found himself at times unable to stop gazing at Yuping when she was unaware. Yes, she was lovely but he wouldn’t say she was just beautiful. Many women were just beautiful. The prostitutes at the Hidden Sun were just beautiful.

  No, Yuping’s appeal came from more than just appearance. Even as a young girl, he’d been aware of the inner fire which sparked from the depths of her tawny eyes. Whenever she and he dared to defy the boundaries and dictates of their society, he’d glimpse it.

  Sometimes, he’d felt as if her upbringing as the daughter of an important man like her father had constrained her against her will. Forced to be a tongue of flame, a single flicker of light on the wick of a candle when she was in fact a raging fire. A force of nature longing for release, to forge its own path amidst the barriers that would seek to curtail its ferocity.

  Wen Hui longed for many years to be consumed by that fire. Enveloped by its heat, scorched by its flame, and licked by the blaze until his entire being was reduced to ashes by the essence of her. He would never do anything to quench her spirit so as long as she roared in his life like an inferno.

  Instinctively, he knew Peng Jinwei would not allow a woman to have an identity outside of himself. The man hardly saw women as important. They were the yin, lesser and inferior. Tolerated but never more than that. Meant for a man’s pleasure as he saw fit. Wen Hui knew that as surely as he knew himself. As the third wife, Yuping would amuse Jinwei for a time but then, he’d lose interest in her except when he’d demand the ease of his masculine desire.

  A pensive turn of his lips drew him up short as he started up to the door. Regardless of how he felt, he had an obligation to this wife to Jinwei and he would, even though he now knew she could never be his.

  A sudden thought drew him up short. Couldn’t he pretend, just for a moment, that it was himself coming to claim her? Dressed like a rich man with an entourage at his heel, it would certainly be easy to fall into the role.

  The servants opened the door and showed him in. Instead of being taken to Li Fuhai as he expected, he was ushered out into the second courtyard where the members of the house of Li both stood and sat in high chairs respectively in anticipation of his presence.

  Impeccable in their appearance, elegant in their stature, the looks of astonishment almost comical as they saw who it was.

  Especially Li Yuping’s face.

  Her expression was etched in his head but he would not dwell on it now. Later, in the quiet of one of the guest rooms, he would unroll the memory like a scroll and read each and every detail of her face like finely written characters on parchment.

  “Chen Wen Hui?” Li Fuhai claimed, “You are Peng Jinwei’s representative and my daughter’s proxy husband?”

  “Yes, Gongshi,” he answered formally. He paid his respects bowing appropriately. Though it all, he felt the burn of Yuping’s gaze. He wanted to look at her, too, and acknowledge her presence. Even more, he wanted to go over and touch her as he’d long to do.

  Was her skin still as soft as it had been six years ago? Did she still smell as fragrant as all the lotus blossoms in her father’s garden?

  Li Guangde, the eldest son stepped forward. “Chen Wen Hui.” He’d forgone the traditional greeting and instead shook his hand like a Westerner. “I had no idea that you’d come into a position of wealth in order to represent Peng Jinwei.”

  Did his ears give away the tell-tale sign of deceit? He hoped not. They burned as if lit on fire.

  “I am but a poor man dressed in the cast offs of a great man,” he said.

  From the twinkle in Li Guangde’s eyes, Wen Hui knew the man supposed his statement was simply the customary refusal of their society to accept compliments.

  Little did he know how true his statement was.

  “Your ancestors have blessed you well,” Li Fuhai mused.

  “They have been good indeed.” He’d forego revealing he no longer venerated his ancestors although he would never dishonor their memory.

  “I’m glad to see this.”

  It was true. His former benefactor looked pleased at the image of luxury he paraded before them. “We’d knew you’d gone to America to find gold. You must have.”

  Wen Hui couldn’t possible tell them that the only gold he located in America was in his dreams. “America has been gracious to me,” he lied.

  No need to tell them about the anti-Chinese sentiment on the rise there. Although, as an ambassador, Wen Hui suspected that the man knew the state of how things were in America and was surprised to see his former pupil doing well in a country that considered the ‘yellow aliens’ cheap labor.

  “You, who could have died saving my son’s life.” Li Fuhai gazed over at his first son, “to see you doing well, I am pleased.”

  “You make too much of old rags that have been washed,” Wen Hui parried. Straightening his back, he gave a general nod in the direction of the wives and the rest of the sons and daughters of the great man. “It is good to see the family again.”

  His gaze almost landed on the figure of Yuping, anxious for another glimpse of his beloved until they were trapped by the barely disguised rage of
the ambassador’s second and favorite wife, Meiling. The one person who wouldn’t be pleased to see him and his change of station at all.

  “Have you captured the dawn, Li Yuping?”

  Yuping’s eyes slowly lifted from a silent contemplation as she sat under the awning of Dawn’s Tears experiencing the blush of the coming morning.

  “You should not be here,” she whispered, although her heart fluttered at the sound of the deep, firm voice.

  “Didn’t you know I would come?” The words were spoken in a matter-of-fact tone but she sensed the longing underlying them.

  She half-turned, seeing from the side of her eye the shadowy figure of Chen Wen Hui. “Yes, I knew you would come.”

  Everything inside of her had prayed to every ancestor in her father’s lineage that he would come to her.

  “I am glad,” he said simply. Stepping forward, his figure became less murky as the twilight steadily ebbed away. “I wanted to enjoy your favorite part of the day with you.”

  The growing light detailed the plain but well-tailored changshan he wore. The long robe fell to his feet. Though unadorned in decorative elements, its fine material showed a sign of his means. His black magua, the waist length jacket with its wide sleeves flowed over his rounded shoulders, giving him something of a noble air.

  How different he looked from the poor boy of her memory! The lines of maturity—or was it struggle?—along the planes of his face had given it harsh angles. Unlike her brother’s, Chen Wen Hui’s wide, shaved forehead bore creases. Instead of detracting from his looks, those lines added a ruggedness that appealed to some hidden part of her. His thick black hair, restrained in a long, braided queue the Emperor demanded each male wear to show fealty, swayed back and forth.

  She turned away to focus once more on the placidity of the pond. “You should not be here,” she repeated. Who was she trying to convince—him or herself?

  “I know.” His voice hardened with a distinct edge to it. “But I have wanted to watch the dawn with you for six years. Nothing, not the threat of scandal, nor the need for propriety will keep me from the pleasure.”