A Bride for Wen Hui Page 4

  But when his brown golden eyes met her own, something happened.

  Could it be she’d fallen in love then, a child of seven? Perhaps. All she knew the boy had her interest and curiosity.

  A few months had passed before she dared to invite him to meet her at dawn.

  “Wen-Wen,” she’d said, calling him by a nickname for the first time that fateful day when the ancestors orchestrated that all the adults had been elsewhere with their own pursuits. He’d been in a small room dedicated for studying when he glanced up and saw her.

  “Miss Li Yuping,” he’d said, his eyes wide at her intrusion. He hurried and stood up in deference to her position, head bowed.

  “I want you to come with me,” she’d said.

  “Come with you?” His head jerked up in surprise but then he quickly cast his eyes down again.

  “Yes. I want you to share the dawn with me.”

  Until then, she hadn’t known what she was going to say to the boy that had saved her beloved dage’s life. They’d rarely spoken to each other, men and women more or less restricted from each other. Rarely did the boy look at her, except for when, at her father’s decree, the family sat together to eat. Then, she’d become aware of his eyes upon her.

  “Why?”

  “Because I want you to,” she’d replied with hauteur.

  “But…but…we can’t.”

  “We will,” she said.

  Looking back, Yuping wondered at her boldness. Her birth mother once said she would tempt the gods themselves with her willful ways but back then, she didn’t believe any of it. Through wearing Wen Hui down in the way that only women could do, she’d been able to get him to agree to the insane idea the very next day

  Her servant girl had been tasked to keep an eye out. Then, her heart thudding in her chest but wildly exhilarated, she ran down the paths in the still quiet twilight of her father’s garden until she came to Dawn’s Tears.

  She stood on the pier, gazing out at the changing colors. Transfixed by the sight of the coming dawn, the colors as they bloomed, and her own personal desire to capture it all, she never heard Wen Hui arrive until he called her name.

  A smile curved her lips.

  “Why are you smiling?”

  Wen Hui’s voice interrupted her trek down memory lane. Shaking her head slightly to rid herself of the past, she turned back around. “I was remembering the first time you came and shared the dawn with me. You were so frightened. Certain we’d be found out.”

  His face somewhat hidden by shadow, seemed to soften from what she could see. “I remember. I thought any moment your father was going to come and drag me away. And I’d never be able to learn again.”

  She laughed, covering her mouth to quiet the sound.

  “How different you are now,” she replied slowly once her mirth had subsided. “Now—”

  “Yes…now.”

  There was no need to say more. She knew what he meant. Now, he would risk even this much for one more day.

  Preparing the ink as she usually did, she stopped in her ministrations when she felt the hair along the nape of her neck stand erect.

  He’d drawn closer.

  Far too close, crossing the unspoken barrier they had established between themselves.

  Yuping’s pulse beat like the wings of a caged bird. Trepidation mixed with something more volatile surged inside of her veins. Her breath hitched in her throat.

  What was he going to do?

  What did she want him to do?

  She sat as a statue, for once, her attention not held captive by the scene before her but by the man behind her. Gulping, she struggled with herself. If she told him to not come any closer, he would do it in an instant. All she had to do was say it.

  Her mouth opened. “Wen Hui, what are you doing?”

  Swiftly she turned around. He’d moved faster than she supposed he could in the short amount of time. He stood less than two feet from her. This close, she could feel that which was him, his essence, his masculinity as tangible as a brush of wind. Gentleness mixed with firmness. His clothes still carried the impeccable taste. Her eyes lifted up to stare into his. They reflected the gold of the dawn.

  “I…simply wanted to be nearer to you,” he said.

  Perhaps her mother was right. That she and Wen Hui played too dangerous a game. The society they lived in would have cast them out if it was discovered they were together in this place, alone.

  Such temptations were powerful. She could feel the strange compulsion to rise up and walk over to him. To be so close that their breaths mingled.

  “May I touch you?”

  The words were spoken very softly, so soft, she wondered if he really wanted her to hear him.

  “I belong to another.”

  “I am well aware of it.” He sounded gruff. “But he is not here. No one is here but you and I and the dawn as our witness.”

  “Witness to what?”

  Her capitulation?

  “That I will not dishonor you by any means but, I must, just for a breath, touch you.”

  There was a deep longing in his voice, one that she was sure he couldn’t have hidden if he tried. He asked her, though. If she refused him, no matter how much it would hurt him, he wouldn’t do so.

  The only men who had ever touched her were her father and her brothers in familial ways. The next man to do so would be her husband or her sons. It was how she had been raised in any case. The Three Obediences: obey her father in childhood, her husband when married, and her sons in widowhood.

  It was said, “A woman's duty is not to control or take charge.”

  An instinctive recoil, one she’d felt many times in her life, churned in her. She’d obeyed all her life. The only time when she didn’t obey…

  …was with the man before her now.

  The boy she loved.

  The man she desired.

  “Love is meaningless,” Meiling’s voice resounded in her head.

  Maybe in the full light of day, it was. When the sun was at its zenith and the world was awake and alert. Maybe then, love was meaningless because duty and filial piety outshone its brilliance.

  Yet, here in the dawn, love mattered.

  At least to her.

  “Wen-Wen.”

  Just the utterance of her nickname for him and he knew. He gave an audible gasp. He fell to his knees before her. She stared into his strange, craggy face. Saw the intensity of what he felt but could never say. Those long-fingered hands trembled as they reached out to her and cupped the side of her face.

  Muted lightning shot through her so sharp she gave a little start. His palm against her cheek was rough, a sign of his humble beginnings. A broad thumb caressed her cheekbone. One. Two. Three swipes and then he stopped. A shaky breath rushed out of him.

  “I remember when you held my hand that first day,” he reminisced. His voice shook. “I knew you shouldn’t have touched me in any way. But I couldn’t let you go. Your hand was so soft, I didn’t want to let go. I feel that way now,” he admitted. “Only, there’s an agony within me. The thought that another man will—”

  His voice trailed off.

  “What is he like?” she asked.

  “I do not know.” His eyes averted from her.

  “You must have some idea, Wen-Wen.”

  His fingers contracted on her cheek and she knew he’d been affected by the use of her nickname for him.

  “You told Father that you and he have been acquainted for some time.”

  “Yes, but that is in business, Li Yuping. I am not aware of how he treats his women.” And yet, a pensive look appeared on his face.

  “You must have some idea,” she insisted. Suddenly, the beast of curiosity made a meal of her barriers she’d put up. What kind of man had her father given her to? “Will he let me enjoy the dawn?”

  Wen Hui returned his gaze to her. “I am sure he wouldn’t.”

  She sucked in a hard breath. “I see.”

  The shackles of marr
iage and womanhood tightened their grip on her. The end of her precarious carefree life. Now the beginning of what she had to endure. Her gaze swept over the pond, seeing the brighter light of day glow.

  Without thinking, her hands reached out and grasped his free hand, clutching it with desperation.

  Wen Hui gazed down at their entwined hands.

  So did she.

  Then, as if their bodies were connected together, they lifted their heads at the same time. Silence abounded around them except for the dawn. Within the depths of his golden-brown eyes, she saw a fire lit within them. A groan escaped his lips and then he bent his head and pressed a kiss to the back of her hand. Lightning streaked again, more potent.

  Her senses exploded, became more acute. She reveled in each sensation and her eyes drifted close on a wave of pleasure. The warmth of his lips, the feeling of the moisture from his mouth on her dry skin, the hot burst of his breath that stirred the tiny hairs.

  “Release my daughter, now.”

  They broke apart as if cold water had been doused on them. In a way it had. Yuping’s heart dropped to her feet to see the burning rage in Meiling’s eyes.

  “Er niang, please, let me explain—”

  “Ānjìng!” her mother commanded. Her narrowed eyes glared at Wen Hui. “I warned you, didn’t I? I warned both of you.”

  She had and now, they would have to pay the consequences for their actions.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  August 1869

  SS Golden Lady

  Pacific Mail Steamship Company

  En route to San Francisco

  The silver sphere of the moon shed its diamond-like light over the calm waters. Sparse clouds marred the otherwise clear indigo skies. Wen Hui’s eyes focused on the slight waves of the water that lapped against the ship but he didn’t actually see them. He saw instead the cold rage of Meiling’s eyes.

  Her words haunted him since the day before the wedding. At the time, he resented her interference. Now she seemed a wise sage who had spoken with the accuracy of an oracle. How easily he had retorted, “It is a pleasant torture.” To which she had replied, “It is until it is no longer.”

  How could she have known he would come to regret his arrogance?

  Because, he answered his own question as he stared out at the serene waters, she’s experienced it for herself.

  The ship swayed gently under his feet, rocking him like a lullaby. The torture of fantasy and dreams. They threatened to overwhelm him with a nebulous cruelty.

  In a week and a half, they would arrive in San Francisco and he would be free of the torture.

  At least he hoped so.

  His hands tightened on the rails. Was Yuping asleep? He prayed she was. He’d been away from their cabin for the better part of an hour. A state of circumstances he’d maintained for the majority of their trip. He only spoke to her if he needed to.

  Of course, he ensured her comfort to the best of his ability. It was his duty after all. Yuping hadn’t acclimated to the voyage well. The rocking of the ship had made her ill for almost a week until she became accustomed. Even then, she preferred to stay in their tiny cabin to being on deck.

  Which gave Wen Hui ample time to brood over his loss of restraint. He should have never succumbed and taken a forbidden taste of her flesh. If he hadn’t, he wouldn’t be married to the woman who should have belonged to another man.

  He’d been caught in Meiling’s furious gaze while his mouth pulsed with the contact of Yuping’s skin against it. His nostrils locked in the sweet, intoxicating fragrance that was uniquely her own.

  Meiling’s retribution was harsh and swift. With simple words, as he and Yuping stood before Li Fuhai like a pair of criminals, she told the ambassador what she observed. Whether it was an act of kindness or not, he’d never know, but she’d at least omitted the fact that there had been previous meetings.

  As it was, Li Guangde came close to striking him. Only his father’s sharply spoken command restrained him.

  Guangde’s lip curled in disgust and a flat look entered his eye. “This is how you repay fuqin’s kindness? You violate my sister?”

  Wen Hui rubbed at his chest, feeling the threads of shame knot around his heart.

  He had allowed his love for Yuping to overcome his sense of honor. He should have stayed away when Meiling had ordered him to. Yet, the agony of thinking of her as the wife of Peng Jinwei had been gut-wrenching. When he’d gone to the ting, he’d only wanted to see her again and share the dawn with her one last time.

  Yuping had never looked more lovely than that moment. Golden light from the dawn had caressed her, basking her white skin with a shower of gold and turning her hair into burnished silk.

  Things spiraled out of control from there. Those unspoken wants and desires had been given voice. His needs revealed.

  “Please forgive me, Honorable Li Fuhai.” He fell to his knees, head bowed to the floor. “I am willing to take any punishment even if it is my life.”

  A curious note had entered Li Fuhai’s voice. “Stand, Chen Wen Hui.”

  He did as commanded, waiting for whatever would come.

  Li Fuhai simply stared for a long while. Then, his eyes shifted to Meiling who stood on his side. The older man’s features softened as he kept his gaze locked on his second wife. “It seems we have a dilemma on our hands. “

  “As you say, shao ye,” Meiling agreed.

  Wen Hui winced.

  “You were to be the third wife of a wealthy man, my daughter. But it seems as if I will have to make you a first wife of another man.”

  A collective gasp filled the room.

  “Shao ye!”

  “Fuqin!”

  “Ānjìng.” He ordered everyone with a sweep of his hand.

  His eyes peered into Wen Hui’s. He longed to look away but the direct gaze wouldn’t allow him.

  “Although I perceive you did not violate my daughter and take her chastity, you’ve besmirched her honor.” His eyebrows drew in. “If this indiscretion was to reach ears of the public, or even worse, the West Empress Dowager, it would affect our house. I cannot allow that. You will marry my daughter tomorrow. Then, you will reveal your transgression to Peng Jinwei. Due to my negligence as a father who failed to protect his daughter, I will offer him compensation.”

  What he had always wanted had come to pass but its attainment had come at a costly price.

  Shame on himself and dishonor on Yuping.

  The ceremony happened the next day. They stood at the family altar, paying homage to earth, heaven, and the ancestors who, most assuredly, were sorely disappointed in his conduct. In addition, they prayed to the Kitchen God, Zao Jun, the deity who protected both hearth and family.

  Through the long wedding feast that followed, he’d dealt with the overpowering sense of guilt. He had irrevocably besmirched the pearl he valued so much.

  Although he could have taken his conjugal rights, he had no wish to do.

  Well, that wasn’t quite true.

  He wasn’t a proxy husband for another man anymore.

  She was a bride for Wen Hui. His and his alone.

  The knowledge beckoned to him like pollen must to a bee. Whenever they were in the tiny cabin together, the walls seemed to close in on him. All of his senses remained attuned to her although he tried very hard not to let her know this.

  He would present her to Jinwei as he’d been charged to do—pure and intact.

  Though he knew it was the right thing to do, he found the idea of giving his wife to another man distasteful. Particularly a man like his business partner. In affairs of commerce, he excelled with a shrewdness that surprised many among the Western merchants because he didn’t adhere to their biased view of what these ‘yellow aliens’ should be. As a man though, Jinwei view women as nothing more than possessions.

  Yuping wasn’t some sort of commodity, a bolt of silk to be handed over. She was a woman of fire, of intellect, and a passion for living he’d seen in very few others.r />
  An unearthed memory from their childhood entered his mind.

  They had stolen away to the ting and together, had sat in a companionable silence to behold the beauty and majesty of a dawn made all the more astounding by the aura of the forbidden surrounding them.

  “Wen-Wen, do you think I will ever capture the dawn?” Yuping had whispered that morning, her childish voice still as crisp and clear as the first day he’d heard it.

  “What do you mean?” he asked in the same low voice. It seemed wrong to speak loud in the wake of such serenity.

  “Many men have come here because the view of the dawn is said to be unlike any other. I once overheard Father speaking to another man and he said that it is impossible to put into words how lovely it is.”

  Her arms had stretched in an all-encompassing gesture. She turned to him then, and the light from the morning sun had entered the depths of her eyes, igniting her inward fire. “Do you think I can?”

  He hadn’t known what to say. Such ideas were foreign to him. Before he had met the family of Li Fuhai, he’d been content with his lot as the second son of a silk merchant. Not a very prosperous one, as his father had said more than once, but at least he was able to put food on the table for his family.

  Entering into the world of these people had opened his eyes to a whole new way of thinking and comprehension. Like wading in the deep end of a pond, his feet hadn’t yet touched the ground of this kind of life.

  Before then, the dawn had been a part of nature. Once or twice, he noticed it as any child would. In a rather aloof way, he recognized the variety and depth of colors. He’d take in a grateful whiff of the fresh breeze. The dew on the grass resembled beads of rainbows in the sunshine, but those things were simply a part of nature. Nothing more significant than that.

  When he’d sat with Yuping that day, the dawn had changed into something more than a passage of time. It had become an entity. A kind of being with invisible hands and feet. Adorned in flamboyant robes of shifting, brilliant light. One who chortled with glee at the idea that mere mortals could ever capture its spirit.

  “Well?” Yuping had asked with an impatient note in her voice as his silence had gone on too long for her liking. “Do you think I can capture the dawn?”