The Bride Who Brought Him Luck - Chapter 2
The candlelight flickered. A pair of red wedding candles burned beside the bed.
After lifting my veil, he turned his face away. The thin quilt over him moved with each breath. His voice was low and so faint it barely reached me. “The room next door is empty. Sleep there.”
My spirits sank. “Am I ugly?”
He turned back and studied me with a frown. He really was handsome. I could believe the rumors that before his illness he had been a remarkable figure.
“I must be ugly, or you wouldn’t say that. If my husband sends me away on our wedding night, everyone will laugh at me.”
“They won’t. I won’t tell anyone…” He broke into a deep cough, each fit worse than the last.
Someone knocked anxiously at the door. “Second Young Master?”
Song Yiting barked at the servant trying to come in. “Get out.”
“Second Young Master, please take your medicine.” His coughing seemed to have drawn quite a few people outside.
“It’s your wedding day, Second Young Master. Please take at least a sip.”
The maids and servants urged him one after another. The more they spoke, the darker his face became. Even I was tired of hearing them.
He was coughing too hard to answer, so I spoke up. “Leave the medicine outside the door for now.”
They seized on my words as though on a lifeline. “Second Young Madam, please persuade him.”
“You may go,” I called.
They departed in a noisy rush, and silence returned.
I had never given orders to so many people before, much less servants of the general’s household. I was rather nervous. I craned my neck and listened until I heard nothing outside, then turned to him in delight. “They’re gone.”
Relaxing with a sigh, I asked, “Do you refuse your medicine because you’re afraid of the bitterness too?”
Song Yiting struggled for breath. He looked at me for a while with an odd expression before saying, “No.”
“Then we’re different. I hate medicine because it’s bitter. My mouth tastes bad for half a day afterward, and nothing I eat is any good. But Mother knows all sorts of tricks. She makes me candied fruit. One sip of medicine, one piece of fruit, and it isn’t so bitter anymore.” I grew curious. “Do you have any?”
Song Yiting shook his head.
He was still coughing, with no sign of stopping.
Worried, I leaned closer and stroked his chest the way Mother used to when she helped me catch my breath.
When the fit passed, he caught my hand, his eyes red at the corners. “Stay away from me.”
“No.”
Perhaps my method worked. His coughing eased, and he seemed much better.
The position was awkward, so I knelt beside him. Still unwilling to give up, I asked, “Why won’t you take your medicine?”
He seemed to hate being touched. He raised a hand to fend me off. “Because I don’t want to.”
“Why?”
He grew irritated. Ill as he was, he was still a man, and he had plenty of strength to push me away. “Stop pestering me. I told you to sleep next door. Go. Now.”
After that violent coughing fit he had looked a little better, but as he spoke his face flushed again and sweat beaded at his temples. Something was wrong.
“If you don’t take it, you’ll get worse. You might…” The ill-fated word reached my lips, but I could not bring myself to say it.
Song Yiting clenched his teeth and finished for me. “Yes, I’m trying to die. Better that than lying here for all of you to handle as you please, suffering through this illness and wasting what remains of my life in this lightless room. I’d rather be dead.”
He was handsome, but his anger was truly frightening.
His rebuke froze me in place. For a long while I had no idea how to persuade him.
When his outburst had spent itself and he had calmed a little, he looked at me again. “Stay away from a useless man like me.”
My family was humble beside the generals, but my parents had cherished me all my life. No one had ever spoken to me so harshly.
I felt terribly wronged. “You can’t die.” I gazed at him pleadingly. “If you die, I’ll be a widow.”
The tears came as I spoke. “I’m only nineteen. I don’t want to be a young widow.”
Song Yiting went still. He breathed hard, and the way he looked at me changed.
I had been busy and hungry all day, which only made me more upset. “Mother said that now I’ve married you, I must take good care of you. I’m your lawful wife. I have to be good to you.”
“What else did your mother say?” he asked.
“She said I have to listen to you and manage the household for you, and… and…” I stammered through my tears.
“And what?”
“And bear you children.”
He said nothing. After a long while, he reached out and wiped my tears. “You’ve cried your face into a mess.”
His hand was thin but large enough to cradle most of my face. I shyly tried to turn away and unwittingly dropped another tear into his palm.
“That makes me uglier,” I murmured. “You’ll dislike me even more.”
He watched me gently. After a while, he smiled. “You’re not ugly.”
“Then why are you sending me next door?”
He dried the last of my tears and withdrew his hand. “This room is cramped. You won’t sleep well here.”
“It isn’t. My room at home was much smaller.”
“That isn’t what I meant.”
I twisted the corner of my robe. “I know.” My voice fell almost beyond hearing. “I won’t press you about what husbands and wives do. We can wait until you’re well.”
He looked even more surprised. “Did your mother teach you that too?”
“No… The etiquette matron your family sent taught me.”
He gave a bitter laugh and sank back against his pillow. “Everything in my life has to be arranged for me. They even made plans for my bedchamber. Ridiculous. I really am useless.”
“You’re not.”
