“You don’t understand me,” I said defensively.
Of course, we didn’t understand each other. He stepped out again and now all three of them came in together.
The three of them filled up all the space, and reminded me how small I was. They were all looking at me like each one of them considered himself my husband. Admiring—and a little hungry, too.
They were all speaking and Jie was still a little argumentative with the other two. Finally, he grimaced and said, “Silvus would like to look at your feet.”
“No!” I said.
I gave Jie a look of desperation. He should know that this was a woman’s private business and not something for foreigners to stare at, but I also understood that he was working for them. That was probably what he was just arguing with them about.
Silvus seemed the most gentle of the three. His hands were very clean except for a few ink stains and I could tell he would touch me carefully.
“He wants to try to heal them so they are like an Englishwoman’s,” Jie said.
“No! Don’t touch me.” I shrunk back. I didn’t like the way they were looking at me. They looked both angry and pitying. “I have the most beautiful feet in my village,” I said.
Jie looked like he had no idea how to bridge this. “They are saying they want you to be able to have an English life.”
“I don’t want to go to England.”
“He asks if they hurt you,” Jie said, after Silvus said something else.
“No,” I said, although of course I couldn’t walk that far without my feet aching and there would be no hiding that from them if they made me travel. But I wouldn’t admit it. I thought I was beautiful, but now all I saw was foreign concern like they had found me starving in a cave.
I expected to be overpowered or maybe even slapped but none of them even considered that.
At least.
“Rayner wants to tell you that he has watched you for two weeks,” Jie said. “He knows your husband beat you and forced himself on you. He’ll never do that.”
“Did you kill my husband?” I asked Rayner directly, letting Jie translate between us.
“I kill anyone who hurts you,” he replied, through Jie. But we were looking at each other. “And I protect anyone you love.”
A shiver passed over me that was half terror and half admiration but then it all started to settle, as it mingled with the way they were looking at me, and the words Jie said. He doesn’t like this country.
He thinks he came here to rescue me and make me into a woman of his country, I thought. He thinks I’m Lisbeth and he can erase me.
“I am not your wife,” I said. “I’m a daughter of this country. I don’t want to go to England. I am just a woman and I have no choice in the matter, but I will never love you.”
Jie didn’t translate that. I suppose he didn’t dare.
Rayner looked at me like he had no choice in the matter either. But that was ridiculous. He had come here for me and done these terrible things. I would never love him or forgive him. He was like a demon and we couldn’t even talk to each other. I would be lying if I said I wasn’t afraid of him.
Still, he looked at me like my husband had never looked at me. He looked at me like he was giving me the power over his soul.
A woman’s currency is a man’s admiration, I thought, and in his eyes I saw that this man would do anything to win me. He would never succeed. But I vowed to use all the power he gave me.
Chapter Seventeen
Li Mei
When I was young, my mother often talked of the fortunes of my sisters and brothers, and what the village fortune teller said when they were born, but for some reason she never talked of me that way. She just would say vague things about how I was born in the year of the tiger and so I was too impetuous, and so on.
I wondered, now, what had marked my birth. What it was that she never wanted to tell me.
For many days—nearly countless days, it seemed to me—we traveled across the country to the ships that would carry me to England. They each took turns keeping me with them, and each one of them was gentle and protective of me in their own way. They tried to give me small gifts whenever they had a choice, flowers or sweets. I started to realize that I could ask for anything I wanted and I would get it. They bought me books and clothes, and silks and threads so I could make more later on, since all my possessions had been lost. Rayner saw me looking at jewelry at a street market and purchased it on the spot. As if the price of my heart was a jeweled ornament for my hair. But they couldn’t offer me any words and their eyes were always burning.
They might put a steadying hand on my shoulder or waist but they didn’t try anything more. I expected it to happen at any moment. They looked at me like they were always on the brink of brutalizing me so it was a shock that they never so much as brushed a hand on my hair or breasts. There was no reason for these men to go to all this trouble to find me but I supposed it might be part of Rayner’s religion that he would marry me properly before he made me his wife.
The strange thing was that I felt the same aura with Silvus, as if he was also waiting to make me his wife.
But the only one I found myself wanting was Jie.
All communication with the other two men went through Jie, of course. He tried to teach me their words. He could mimic them much better than I could. Everywhere we traveled, Jie figured out the food and lodgings and explained us to gossiping locals as best he could. He seemed comfortable with every sort of person, of every class, and it seemed as if he could speak every dialect that existed. It wasn’t just the words, it was the ways of each sort of person that he seemed attuned to.
He was nothing like my husband. Not a learned gentleman at all. I was sure he had never been to school, he had only worked all his life. But I had never seen such a clever, dignified man among the servant class.
Rayner and Silvus seemed to let him do everything and treat him like a servant and there wasn’t anything wrong with that, of course, if they had hired him on for that purpose. I had always dreamed of a wise, cultured husband who would exchange verses of poetry with me under the moonlight, and I saw Rayner and Silvus reading and paying attention to all the native flowers and admiring the hills and rivers, pointing things out to one another on our travels.
But they had also killed my husband and I knew they were evil men. I found myself dreaming of Jie and resenting the two other men for giving him orders.
Jie was also good with the horses. I liked to watch him groom them in the morning, and no one stopped me from following him.
I asked Jie if he had any paper and ink and he said that Silvus had some, but… “I can only read a little,” he said. “When I worked on the ships I was learning some, but I don’t suppose I’ll ever be a learned man like that. I’m not from a good family. You don’t get this kind of face from being a scholar!” He gave me a mischievous smile as he pointed at his tanned, prematurely lined face.
“I suppose that makes sense…but I’m not sure I have ever met such a wise man as you.”
He scoffed. “I don’t know anything about poetry or operas…” We had quickly learned, when we did talk to each other, that our lives were different in every way.
“I could teach you to write,” I said.
“There won’t be anyone to read it in London,” he said.
“It would just be…for us…to read to each other,” I suggested boldly. “As you teach me how to speak English, I’ll teach you how to write.”
Jie turned abruptly to glance at me and then quickly turned his attention back to the horse. “You should probably go back to your room. I keep telling you that…”
It made me giggle that he was so good at talking to people but seemed so shy and flustered around me. “You’re afraid you’ll lose control of yourself?”
“It’s—it’s serious,” he said. “When I became a demon I…I stopped being a man. And men are bad enough.”
“I just don’t believe you,” I sa
id. “I’ve been traveling with you so long that the moon has nearly become full again, and you are certainly a man and not a demon even if you do live off of animal blood. I don’t know how that’s any different than eating meat. You won’t eat me.”
He gave me another look and dragged himself away from the horse like I was forcing him. “You must…stop,” he said.
“You’re not like anyone I’ve ever met,” I said. “If I am about to be forced to go to England where I don’t know anyone and can’t speak to anyone, I’m sure it will be impossible to stop how I feel. It already is.”
He put a hand on my shoulder and his teeth sharpened into fierce fangs that made his entire face seem wild and dangerous but I didn’t flinch. He swallowed. “I swore to Rayner that I would not lay a hand on you until…”
My mouth opened in brief shock as I processed these words. “Rayner would allow you to touch me?”
“Lady Li Mei…Rayner expects to make you his wife, and Silvus expects to make you his wife after that, and then…I will be your third husband. Rayner is trying to give you a little time to get used to all of us first.”
“I would have three husbands!? Do they have other wives as well?”
“No, no,” Jie said. “That’s how they like to do things. You’re the only wife. And I haven’t seen their home in England yet, but I think you’ll have anything you ask for there. To be honest…they’re both a little crazy. But they make good on all their promises, so far. I think they’re very rich. I think it might be…an adventure. They’re always talking about parties and entertainments and sights to see back home.” He paused and raised an eyebrow at me, as if we shared a secret. “Did you ever wish you were a man and could see the whole world?”
My husband and father-in-law often got to travel to other parts of the country and they would tell all of us in the family about the sights they had seen. But women stayed hidden away behind the gates of home. I created miniature worlds and far-flung dreams in my head with my gardens and poems.
I nodded.
“I’ve seen more of the world,” Jie said. “But never enough. I think we’ll like it.”
It was still a daunting prospect. To dream was very different than to actually leave home forever. “I’m afraid no one will ever understand me again, except for…you,” I said. “Their religion and festivals and customs and foods…they’re all so different. If a person loses their country, surely they must lose themselves too.”
He put his hands around mine and his hands were so strong, so secure. “I’ll anchor you,” he said. “We won’t forget.”
I lifted my face to him. He bared his teeth. His grip tightened so much that he hurt the small bones of my hands. I flinched and he immediately let go.
“I’m stronger than I was,” he said. “I didn’t mean to hurt you.”
“Jie…if I allow Rayner to take me to bed, and then…Silvus…does that mean…I will get to lay with you?”
His brows drew down almost angrily. “You won’t do that.”
“I want to be with you,” I whispered. “I have already endured a man who takes me without any love. I’m used to it. But I’ve never been with a man…I wished to be close to. I will insist.”
Jie started looking shy again.
“Go and tell Rayner now,” I said.
I think Jie was a little relieved, although he tried not to show it. I knew Rayner wanted me. I could tell that sometimes Rayner was questioning Jie about my feelings toward him, as if he couldn’t read them on my face.
Jie left the stables and a mere moment later Rayner came in alone.
I wondered what I had done.
He took my hand and looked at me, and spoke just a few words I didn’t understand in his low, soft voice. Then he put his big arms around me and suddenly he was holding me close to him, cradling my head, and he was almost shaking.
“Tulip,” he said, which was something he called me a lot—a flower, Jie said. “Tulip…”
He had the voice of a man capable of murder, I thought. Almost threatening. Somehow, he also seemed incredibly fragile at the same time. I felt that if I shoved him away and told him I hated him, I would shatter his heart. He seemed to be thanking me for asking for him. But he also expected it. I was hundreds of miles from home now, so there was no way I could avoid my fate.
The entire situation gave me a sense of terror, as if I was unmoored, but then I remembered Jie’s words. I’ll anchor you.
I’m just doing this to get to Jie.
I don’t think Rayner knew that.
He took my hand and led me back into the inn. I thought we would depart soon. I didn’t realize this would happen now. He said something to Silvus, who looked at me with a note of concern and whispered something before shutting the door on us.
My anxiety spiked. I’ve made a mistake, after all.
He lit some incense that he knew I liked. Then Rayner looked at me, and slowly he reached for my hair. He was going to undo my hairstyle and I shied back because I didn’t want to redo it. I didn’t want him to touch my hair. His hand dropped again and I knew the woman he loved wouldn’t have stopped him.
“It’s only hair,” I said. “But…you’re a stranger. I don’t love you. And you look at me like I’m a stranger too, only you are trying to find something in me that isn’t here.” I could say these things because I knew he really didn’t understand my words at all.
He said something to me in response, and I understood just a little. He said something about love, and hurting, but many other things besides.
Then he started to unfasten my collar. He slowly turned me around and slid my jacket off my shoulders. The layer underneath followed.
And then he sank his fangs into my neck.
I was so shocked by the abrupt violence that I let out a little scream but as he sucked blood out of me I calmed down and started to feel very warm and even lusty. My body relaxed from head to toe and I felt as if I might open for him like a flower, but I still had enough of my mind to run the opposite direction and stay stiffened.
I hadn’t expected this, and even less had I expected that the pain would be incredibly sweet and satisfying, like fingers sliding down an aching muscle. The longer he drank my blood, the less I felt I could fight him off, and I became deeply aware that he could easily kill me. I would certainly not have any defense.
He stopped and licked the wound clean and I still had some strength left, and I was shaking again at the thought of how much power he had.
He turned me toward him again, holding my shaking hands. “Li Mei…” He asked me concerned questions. “I want you,” he finally said. I knew those words. Jie taught me ‘want’ on the first day. “I want you, Tulip.”
I wanted Jie, so I would do this. And right now, my body was not unwilling. I still felt both weak and full of inexplicable lust. I made myself relax.
He looked far more excited for this moment than my husband ever had, like he could hardly bear another moment without me, and at least, I thought, I would have a man who desired me, even if it was for such an odd reason. But it was only because he was thinking of this other woman I had been, and she was as remote from me as he was. We certainly would not be going fishing or composing poems together, but at least I might have Jie. I would have to be so careful not to make Rayner jealous, however, and I didn’t want to imperil Jie within the clan.
Just as I was running through all my troubled thoughts, Rayner took a step back from me and gave me a small, respectful bow. “We will go,” he said, even as he looked like he wanted me with every inch of his skin. In some other way, I felt he was jarred by my appearance. He wanted Lisbeth. He didn’t want me. He left the room abruptly.
I certainly didn’t understand this man at all.
I could tell we were near the sea, because I smelled a uniquely salty aroma that was just what I imagined, but I didn’t realize we would reach the docks that very day. Rayner had made arrangements to smuggle me out of the country on a ship that was returning to E
ngland, and when I saw the masts of the British ships and the crew of foreign men, the money exchanging hands, I was too scared to speak.
I really was going to be taken from my country and everything I had ever known. I would never again see my family. They lived far enough that I rarely saw them anyway, but now even letters would be much more difficult.
I didn’t cry. I knew how to stifle tears. I just went completely numb.
Jie and I were the only ones on the ship who weren’t from the west and I might have died of despair without him. I was seasick and spent most of the voyage in bed. At least I was given the finest cabin on the ship and the men left me alone except to give me food and drink and some medicine. It was still nothing but misery. The only thing I enjoyed was when Jie and I talked and taught each other things, exchanging English words for Chinese characters. I made little jokes of wordplay as I learned, and he took my lead.
“I didn’t realize that the wealthy ladies hidden away were so clever,” he said.
“Not all of them. But maybe you would be surprised.” I smiled. “My father was always happy to teach me things, so I was fortunate.”
“You’re a treasure,” he said. “However strange this life might be, I’m just glad you’re in it.”
“When will we get to be together? Rayner won’t touch me…”
“He doesn’t want to be like your old husband.”
“At this point, there is no fear of that. If he won’t touch me, why can’t we be together?”
“I don’t want to make him jealous,” he said.
“And yet, he allows us to be alone like this…”
“He is my…sire,” Jie said. “I need his trust. He’s the one who makes sure I have blood without hurting anyone and shows me how to make my way in this world now. Rayner and Silvus are both over two hundred years old. They have…different ways of living.”
“Two centuries…,” I breathed. Even though they spoke of my past lives, so I understood they were immortal, Jie had never given me a figure. “How old are you?”
Love Me Madly Page 13
