Heart and Soul Read Online Free PDF Page B

often entrusted with diplomatic business and to whom he often confided his more daring plans, she was treated as a power in her own right.
    That status was obvious now, as Third Lady gave her a shy look and an even shyer smile. “Lady Jade,” the woman repeated, the smile belied by a nervous twitching at her lips. “I’ve come to talk to you about my lord…and…” She hesitated. “And about Zhang.”
    Jade merely inclined her head. She could not talk, or not freely. If she told Third Lady that she herself didn’t like Zhang or that she was worried about Wen’s feeble grasp on power, given his addiction, it would be either betraying the internal divisions in the power of the rulers of the Dragon Boats, or else giving her own brother up. She would do neither.
    The formal gesture seemed to inflame Third Lady’s nervousness. She stepped away, her naturally tiny feet appearing to dance a fast step, even though she didn’t go very far. Jade knew that her sister-in-law’s feet were not bound. Jade’s father, like all the other Dragon Boat lords, would neither admit the practice of binding female feet in his household nor contract a spouse who had bound feet. The deformities such practice caused in the dragon form was enough to deter them. But Third Lady’s feet were so small they looked like they should have been twice as large to support her—admittedly slim and small—body. Only the ease with which she moved them, nervously shuffling on the English carpet that covered the floor, was enough to show Jade that they were indeed natural feet.
    “I come from the Fox Clan,” Third Lady said. “Though not from a very important family, and as the fifth girl in my father’s house, I was sold very young to become a singsong girl.”
    Jade nodded. “My father told me,” she said. This earned her a quick, startled look from Third Lady. “He told me almost everything,” Jade said. She did not add that her father had discussed with Jade his decision to purchase Third Lady’s contract from an entertainers’ troupe that often was called in for Dragon Boat celebrations. Jade’s father had decided to buy her contract and to acquire her because he often saw Wen looking at Third Lady. And Jade had encouraged him because she had noticed something that often evaded her father’s notice—that Third Lady was looking back.
    To this day, she noticed that, unlike Wen’s first two wives, Third Lady seemed to devote most of her time to either attracting Wen’s attention or to making him happy. And for this reason alone, she was Jade’s favorite of all her remaining relatives, after Wen.
    “I see,” Third Lady said, and lowered her eyes, and looked upon the embroidered covering of the sofa as though it were the main cause of her visit here. She spoke, matter-of-factly, as if her voice were divorced from her eyes. “I don’t wish to speak ill of someone who has your confidence, and I do not wish for you to misinterpret my interest in the matter. I have only one interest in this, and it is to ensure that my lord is protected and…and in command of that which is his.”
    “There will be no misinterpretation, Third Lady,” Jade said, somewhat wearily. She knew that she’d kept herself too closed into her own impassive facade to serve as a buffer between the emperor and his court, and for that reason, few people knew her likes and dislikes and her unswerving loyalties. She realized that Third Lady was venturing but very lightly onto the thin ice of the politics of the Dragon Boats, and decided to help her. “You mentioned Zhang?”
    To her surprise, Third Lady blushed and gave the impression of suppressing a sigh. “I beg your pardon,” she said, humbly. “I did not mean to say anything about your betrothed.”
    “Betrothed?” Jade said. And something of her shock must have shown in her voice.
    Now Third Lady’s look indicated relief. “You’re not betrothed?” She seemed to become, suddenly, dizzy or weak, and sat