Yihui didn’t answer with words. Instead, her expression slowly tightened until every part of her seemed to frown.
“Has my brother been awful to you?” Emma pressed. She would welcome a chance to vent righteous indignation.
But Yihui shook her head. When she spoke, her words came carefully. “In China, my life was not happy. I wanted to escape. But there, I knew my place. I knew what to do and how to get what I wanted in small things.” She looked down at her hands. “Here, I am grateful and confused.”
No doubt. Emmaline couldn’t imagine what it would be like to leave everything she knew. Not even the language was the same. “Does Max want you to do something you don’t want?”
Yihui’s eyes widened, and it seemed like she would deny it, but in the end, she said, “Prinny wishes us to wed.”
Yes, she’d heard that command, but she’d forgotten it beneath the weight of her other…experiences. At least she could put Yihui’s mind at ease on that matter. She patted the woman’s hand.
“Don’t worry. Prinny doesn’t really mean it. Everyone knows Max can’t marry you. He will be a duke one day, and he won’t be allowed to marry a foreigner. Even a Chinese princess.” Emmatried to smile reassuringly at Yihui, but the woman looked even sadder than before. “He’s being confusing, isn’t it?”
“He has told me what he wants.”
“Yes?”
“We are to pretend great love—”
“And then you’ll cry off.” She threw up her hands. “I hate all this nonsense. You should not be forced to wed by royal command. He should not have to go through an elaborate pretense just to soothe Prinny’s temper. And you should be able to have a life free of the demands of ridiculous men.”
Emma knew she was speaking of herself more than Yihui. She was so sick of having her life defined by men. Her father’s moods had always dominated the household, even when she was a child. Then, in her adolescence, her mother made every moment about how Emmaline should catch a husband. And now, she’d just come to terms with how many years she’d wasted waiting for Christopher to look her way. Well, now she knew the truth. He would never offer for her, and she had best see to her own amusements.
She had Yihui to thank for that decision. The woman was a model of strength and courage. Characteristics that Emmaline sorely lacked while she pined for a man who’d made his position clear a decade ago. She’d just refused to see it. Honestly, it was embarrassing how weak she was compared to Yihui, and she resolved to be more like their foreign guest.
So she leaned forward until she and Yihui were eye to eye. She wanted both of them to hear her question loud and clear. And give an equally bold answer.
“What do you want?” she asked.
Yihui bit her lip. “He will not marry me?”
“No. You are free of that, but he will see you established however you want.”
She watched as Yihui absorbed the information. If she collapsed a little as she thought, then that was to be expected, wasn’t it? Forging one’s own path was difficult, even for a man. But in the end, her gaze found the jars of herbs.
“I will make medicines for your mother and others like her. I will be an apothecary.” Her words grew stronger as she spoke. “I always thought I’d do it in my father’s shop.”
“And now it will be your own shop.” She smiled as she gripped Yihui’s fingers. “Hold on to that dream, Yihui. If you’re to go through this elaborate charade for Max’s sake, then make sure every moment of your time is paid for with a step toward your own dream.”
“What do you mean?”
She wasn’t exactly sure, but the plan formed in her mind even as she spoke it aloud. “You will have to go to parties soon. You have been seen in public, yes? My maid said you went out on your pony.”
Yihui nodded. “We spoke with several people.”
“That means you’ll be invited to parties. I expect the invitations are already arriving. Everyone will want to meet you. That means gowns, polite conversation, and, well, you won’t be dancing but can you sing or play an instrument?”
Yihui shook her head. “No. Not even Chinese ones.”
Right. She hadn’t thought that the Chinese would have different kinds of instruments than they did, but she supposed that made sense.
“Can you paint? I know you can use a brush.”
“All I have ever done is work in my father’s shop and help my brothers with their studies.” She looked at Emma with a kind of panic in her eyes. “Must all English women sing and dance? Or paint?”
“In our set, yes. Those are the outward graces. Everyone expects you to excel at one or another.” She rolled her eyes. “Thehidden graces are the ones that manage a household and know how to hostess a party. We’re to support our husbands in their endeavors and the height of talent is to appear as if you did nothing at all.” She clenched her hands together. “How I wish I had something to claim as my own! Something that I’m good at.”
Which was to say she was a disappointment in all the feminine graces. Certainly, she danced without tripping, and she spoke French in the usual way of polite conversation, but all the great talents had escaped her. She looked longingly at the array of jars.
