away at wooden surfaces rubbed bare from use. The teahouse crowd had long returned to their homes. Only the nobleman remained, still hoarding his cold tea.
As long as he stayed there, she was supposed to attend to him. Her master had made that very clear while he sat comfortably in the corner, tallying up the cash. The wooden beads of his abacus clicked together, signalling that the day should be done.
Her feet ached and no matter how much she wriggled her toes in her slippers, the feeling wouldn’t quite return to them. The clang from the kitchen meant that the cook and his boy were cleaning their pots. A mountain of cups and bowls and little plates would be waiting for her.
Cook tried to get her to pry information from the man, but of course she wouldn’t do such a thing. He’d suffered enough public scrutiny that day to deserve some privacy. She guessed him to be twenty-five years, with a slight crease between his eyes that she imagined came more from deep contemplation than age.
Gingerly, she approached the table. ‘Does the honoured guest need anything?’
She reached for the clay teapot, only to have him wave her back with an irritated scowl. For a gentleman, he was uncommonly rude, but she supposed wearing silk and jade gave him that privilege. He propped his elbows onto the table, shoulders hunched, to return to his vigil. From the emptiness of his stare, the young woman had to have been someone close to him. His wife? But no man would let his wife escape with a lover after catching them together.
Yan Ling turned to wipe down her already-cleaned table once more when the stranger spoke.
‘I need a woman,’ he mumbled. ‘Any woman would do.’
Her stomach dropped. She swung around, her mouth open in shock. The stranger raised his head. For the first time, his eyes focused on her, looking her up and down.
‘Perhaps even you.’
Any sympathy she might have had for him withered away. If his tone had been leering, or his look more appraising, it might have been less offensive. But the coldly pensive way he’d said it along with the addition of ‘perhaps’, as if to plunge her worth even further—Yan Ling grabbed the teapot and flung the contents at the scoundrel.
The stranger shot to his feet with a curse. With a choked cry, her master jumped up from his table and his wife soared like a windstorm from the kitchen, apologising profusely. Even the cook and his boy were gawking through the curtained doorway.
‘Get out!’ the master’s wife shrieked at Yan Ling before turning to fuss at their precious patron. The front of his expensive robe was stained dark with a splatter of tea.
‘We are so sorry, my lord,’ she crooned. ‘So sorry.’
Yan Ling clutched the teapot between both her hands while she stared.
The nobleman swiped the tea leaves away in one angry motion while his eyes remained fixed on her. He had lost that distant, brooding expression he’d worn all day. The look he gave her was possibly worse than the one she’d seen as he’d charged up the stairs. Heat rose up her neck as she stumbled back.
What had she done?
‘That know-nothing, good-for-nothing girl,’ her master railed.
Her ears rang as she ducked into the kitchen through the beaded curtain. Steam enclosed her, but the clang of the pots couldn’t block the sounds of her master and his wife apologising profusely to the nobleman.
It wasn’t as if she hadn’t been taunted before, but over the last years the teasing had taken on a different tone as her bone-thin figure had curved its way into womanhood. She’d learned to deafen her ears and stare ahead, never meeting any of the not-so-subtle glances thrown her way. Yet to suffer such insult from someone who appeared so refined—it was unbearable.
Ignoring the curious stares from cook and the kitchen boy, she slipped through the back door. Her palms were damp and she wiped them restlessly against the sides of her grey tunic. Fear set her heart skittering.
The teahouse was where she’d lived all her life, but it was not home. The proprietor and his wife were not her father and mother. This had always been clear to her and she’d had to earn her bed, this roof and every meal with service and obedience.
One moment of hot-headedness. She’d lashed out at a well-dressed nobleman, of all people. She wasn’t even a servant when it came to this man. She was the humble servant