at matchmaking.’ Dao sat back with a satisfied look and set her brush aside. ‘There.’
Yan Ling peered into the mirror at her new face. ‘I look so different.’
She recalled Lady Min’s reaction when she’d taken her first look at a woman who was her and wasn’t her at the same time. Lady Min had removed all feminine artifices, going so far as to cut off her beautiful hair. Yan Ling had come to take on all that Min had left behind.
Could she really be the lady in the mirror? Staring at her shaped eyebrows and painted lips made the enormity of her task come to light. One sitting before Inspector Tong was nothing compared to the months, the years ahead.
‘I won’t be able to fool everyone,’ she said quietly. ‘Not for ever.’
Dao attempted to reassure her. ‘The Khitans have never seen a Tang princess. Who’s to tell you how to do this or that?’
Yan Ling peered into the mirror again, trying not to compare herself to the little tea girl in her mind. The woman who looked back was elegant and confident. Her secrets were her own. Perhaps they would add to her allure.
Everything that used to feel so hard only weeks ago wasn’t so difficult any more. She could talk correctly and managed to move with some grace. She even remembered not to slouch when she sat.
The tea girl was nothing but a thin shadow in the corner. She’d never had a proper mirror in the back room of the teahouse. All she’d seen of her old self were occasional glimpses in passing, dim reflections in pools of water. Yan Ling had never known what she’d looked like to others. That girl didn’t exist any more. Maybe she had never truly existed at all.
‘Right. You’re right,’ she told Dao, stronger the second time. She grabbed the powder and brushes excitedly. ‘Now let me try on you.’
* * *
Yan Ling paused before the door to the study. She pressed her lips together, resisting the urge to run her tongue over them. She could feel the waxy gloss of the vermilion tint and taste the clove oil in the balm. Dao had re-applied the colour right before her afternoon lessons.
Why did it feel as if it had been an entire age since she’d last been here? She exhaled slowly, collecting herself. All she had to do was concentrate all her energy on appearing natural. And relaxed, too. Gently, she tapped on the door before letting herself in.
Fei Long was at his great cherrywood desk. As always, he was at the end of reading some important note or finishing a last stroke on a letter before shifting his attention to her. His expression was thoughtful and distant, but soon he would look up. For a few heartbeats, his attention would only be on her. She used to hate it so.
He finished scanning the page before closing the book. When his black eyes settled on her, Yan Ling’s stomach fluttered and her pulse jumped. She clasped her hands before her, but then remembered that this made her look too docile. She unclasped them and dropped them to her sides.
‘How are you today, my lord?’ Her greeting came out a little thin.
His gaze swept briefly over her face. The frown line between his eyes sharpened.
‘What is this?’ he asked slowly.
Her face burned so hot that she doubted she needed the rouge on her cheekbones. His eyes narrowed in on her and she wanted to shrink away. The door was right there at her back. He appeared somewhat displeased…but Fei Long often looked that way when really he was just deep in thought.
‘We purchased some make-up at the East Market yesterday. Dao put it on me,’ she added weakly.
And now she was like a little child, blaming someone else.
His lip curled. ‘You look ridiculous.’
Her heart squeezed tight. Then it plummeted, like a crushed and ruined butterfly.
‘Well, we were just trying it out to see,’ she muttered.
In so few words, he had scattered all of her confidence, all of her hopes. Her chest hitched and an alarming pressure gathered at the bridge of her nose. Yan Ling sat down at the writing desk and fumbled for the handkerchief tucked in her sleeve. Keeping her face angled away, she swiped at the offending tint.
There was no pleasing Fei Long. Not looking at him, she scrubbed at the tint until her lips were raw. She wanted it off, all of it. The powders, the perfume and all pretence