Because You Love to Hate Me(50)
“Well, then,” Lady Jia said. “You’ve made yourself clear, Master Yang. I’ll leave you in peace.” She turned in a flourish of silks and gardenia perfume and retreated down the wide steps into the courtyard below.
The artist dipped his brush into the inkwell, gathering the ink he needed on the brush head, before giving Mei Feng a playful wink.
“Shall we start over, then?” he asked.
Mei Feng wandered the lush grounds of the Jia manor trailed by her two handmaids, Ripple and Orchid, meandering through the estate’s magnificent courtyards. The royal portraitist had taken all morning to paint two likenesses of her. Lady Jia had exclaimed in pleasure when she saw the final pieces, praising the artist. But when the man offered to show Mei Feng, she had declined to see them. Her mother had tilted her chin in disapproval. Mei Feng knew she risked being rude, but she didn’t have the heart. Her fate now rested upon a stranger’s ink strokes on rice paper, and whether or not another stranger found her features pleasing. She wanted to marry well and make her parents proud, but a part of her hoped that the emperor would not like the look of her—for she was not yet ready to leave her family forever.
Spring was in full splendor, and the gardens were a riot of fragrance and color. She passed peach trees, their branches laden with deep pink blossoms, stopping in front of a clear pond; water trickled from the rock-work built above. The two handmaids chatted behind her as Mei Feng fed the orange and silver-speckled fish. A large toad she had named Grouch because of his wide, frowning mouth plopped loudly into the water, in hopes of finding something he could eat, too.
She laughed at the sight of him kicking his fat legs and continued on to her favorite spot among all the courtyards—the Pavilion of Quiet Contemplation. Lifting her emerald skirt, she climbed the stone steps and settled onto a bench, one that offered her a view of the crabapple trees. Wisteria wound their way up the columns of the pavilion in bursts of lavender and periwinkle, dousing the air with its sweet, peppery scent.
Grouch the toad croaked from the pond, deep and satisfied, the noise carrying to her on a soft breeze. Birds hidden overhead twittered and argued. Mei Feng leaned back, releasing a long breath, letting her arms rest heavy at her sides. She was never alone, but at least she was not being presented or observed for a small time—she treasured these rare moments of peace.
A hush blanketed the garden, so subtle that she didn’t notice at first. But suddenly, the sounds of the courtyard had fallen away until even the rustling of leaves had disappeared. Mei Feng froze, the flesh on her arms pimpling. Where had her handmaids gone? Searching the tranquil surroundings with a sweeping glance revealed nothing. The two girls were nowhere to be seen. Ripple was prone to playing jokes, and Mei Feng almost rose, determined to find the errant handmaids, when the appearance of a figure farther down a stone-paved path stopped her.
A young man approached—a stranger—and her pulse quickened. Mei Feng clutched her skirt between damp fingers, not knowing what to do. The Jia estate was immense, and she resided within the inner quarters, where men were not allowed. As an unwed girl, she was meant to be safe here, sequestered, hidden away from prying eyes.
“Ripple?” Mei Feng called out, hoping the handmaid would appear from behind a tree trunk, or from where she had been crouched behind the rocks. “Orchid?”
“They are dozing for a while,” the stranger said. He climbed the steps of the pavilion, stopping at the entrance.
“Dozing?” she whispered.
He smiled at her and bowed formally, elegant and assured. “Do not worry for them.”
“Who are you?” she asked.
The young man looked to be eighteen or nineteen years, dressed in a long deep blue robe, his black hair pulled back in a topknot. At seventeen years old, Mei Feng had only ever met a handful of young men, all family—cousins or uncles. She had not seen many of them, but she knew that this young man was very handsome, with a glow about him that seemed as if he were lit from within.
Without so much as asking, he settled beside her on the stone bench. Shocked, she sidled away from him, filled with both fear and fascination. Inexplicably, the air seemed to waver around them, and for a brief moment, Mei Feng thought she heard the distant roar of the sea, tasted the tang of ocean mist on her lips.
“You can call me Hai Xin,” he said. His voice was warm and pleasant, filling the unseen recesses of her mind and her heart.
“Hai Xin,” she repeated, somehow finding the words, enveloped in his charm. “ ‘Hai’ for the sea, but which character for ‘Xin’? Does it stand for ‘star’ or ‘heart’?”
Smiling, he brushed the back of her knuckles with his fingertips, sending a pleasant shock through her body. It had been unexpected and unacceptable. No man had ever touched her before, much less so intimately. But when he carefully drew her fingers open, one by one, then covered her palm with his own, she didn’t resist. “You are as intelligent and curious,” he said, “as you are beautiful, I see.”
Mei Feng’s breath hitched in her chest. She knew she should leave, but she felt entranced—seduced by the warmth of his hand against her skin. “What are you doing here?”
He didn’t answer for a long moment, concentrating on her hand, sweeping his thumb in slow circles over her open palm, then tracing an index finger across her inner wrist until she shivered, flustered by the tangle of unfamiliar sensations assailing her. “I come,” he said, “because I heard that you are the most beautiful maiden in An Ning Province.” His fingertips trailed up her inner forearm. “The rumors were not exaggerated.”