“I won’t anything happen to you,” he vowed.
“Shi shi,” she said. “Thank you.”
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.”
