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know what that means, don’t you?’ He groaned. ‘Dragons are free spirits, powerful, beautiful, fearless, they soar above convention, refusing to be bound by rules and regulations.’
    â€˜That’s the theory, but I never felt it quite fitted me,’ she said, laughing and trying to placate him. ‘I don’t see myself soaring.’
    â€˜But perhaps you don’t know yourself too well,’ he suggested. ‘And you’ve yet to find the thing that will make you soar. Or the person,’ he added.
    The last words were spoken so quietly that she might have missed them, except that she was totally alive to him. She understood and was filled with sudden alarm. Things were happening that she’d sworn never to allow happen again.
    She would leave right now and retreat into the old illusion of safety. All she had to do was rise, apologise and leave, trying to avoid his eyes that saw too much. It was simple, really.
    But she didn’t move, and she knew that she wasn’t going to.

CHAPTER THREE
    â€˜T HE trouble with soaring,’ she murmured, ‘is that you fall to earth.’
    â€˜Sometimes you do,’ he said gently. ‘But not always.’
    â€˜Not always,’ she murmured. ‘Perhaps.’
    But it was too soon. Her nerve failed her and in her mind she crossed hastily to the cautious side of the road.
    â€˜What about your grandmother? What was her year?’
    Tactfully he accepted her change of subject without demur.
    â€˜She was a dragon too,’ he said. ‘With her courage and sense of adventure she couldn’t have been anything else—a real dragon lady. Everything she told me about this country seemed to bring me alive, until all I could think of was coming here one day.
    â€˜We planned how we’d make the trip together, but she became very ill. I’d qualified as a doctor by then, and I knew she wasn’t going to recover, but she still talked as though it would happen soon.
    â€˜At last we had to face the truth. On her deathbed she said, “I so much wanted to be there with you.” And I promised her that she would be.’
    â€˜And she has been, hasn’t she?’ Olivia asked, marvelling.
    â€˜Every step of the way,’ he confirmed. ‘Wherever I go, Iremember what she told me. Her family welcomed me with open arms.’
    â€˜Did you find them easily?’
    â€˜Yes, because she’d stayed in touch. When I landed at Beijing Airport three years ago there were thirty people to welcome me. They recognised me at once from the pictures she’d sent them, and they all cheered.
    â€˜It’s an enormous family. Not all of them live in Beijing, and many of those who lived further out had come in especially to see Meihui’s grandson.’
    â€˜They weren’t put off by your being three-quarters English?’
    He laughed. ‘I don’t think they even see that part of me. I’m one of the Lang family. That’s all that counts.’
    â€˜It was clever of your grandmother to name you and your father Lang,’ Olivia mused. ‘In England it’s your first name, but here the family name comes first.’
    â€˜Yes, my uncles are Lang Hai and Lang Jing, my great uncle is Lang Tao, my cousin is Lang Dai, so I fitted in straight away.’
    A sudden look of mischief crossed her face. ‘Tell me something—have your stepbrothers given you any nephews and nieces?’
    He looked puzzled. ‘Three, but I don’t see…’
    â€˜And I’ll bet they call you Uncle Lang.’
    â€˜Yes, but—’
    â€˜And what do the children of the Lang family call you? It can’t be Uncle Lang, because that would be nonsense to them. So I guess they must call you Uncle Mitch.’
    A glazed look came into his eyes and he edged away from her with a nervous air that made her laugh.
    â€˜Are you a witch to have such second sight?’ he demanded.