The Cold Minister and the Substitute Bride novel · Chapter 8 of 24
Chapter 8: The Hot Bath
They came home to the Xue mansion at dusk, with the dust of the road still on their clothes.
Biyan said nothing in the carriage.
She said nothing in the courtyard, either.
Steward Qin took her hat and gloves and looked as if he wanted to speak.
She walked straight up the stairs to the bridal chamber and stood at the window with her fists clenched.
Zhiruo came in behind her and shut the door.
"The midwife," Zhiruo said.
"Is eighty years old and knows exactly what she saw." Biyan's voice was oddly flat. "She was paid by my father to hold her tongue. He is dead. The money is spent. Gao will pay her more."
"Then we find her first."
"I have no one to send." Biyan's hands opened and closed. "Every man I trust is a man I have paid, and every man I have paid can be paid again."
It was said as a plain fact, and it hung in the room.
Zhiruo watched the line of the minister's back, rigid under the court robe.
She had never seen Biyan afraid.
She had seen her cold, and careful, and quietly furious.
This was different.
The cold had cracked, and underneath it, Biyan was shaking.
"Come here," Zhiruo said.
"I am perfectly well."
"You are not. Come here."
Biyan turned.
Her face was drawn and gray in the lamplight, and her lips were pressed white.
Zhiruo went to the door and called softly into the corridor.
"Hot water for the bath. A great deal of it. And no one is to come in."
The bathing room behind the bedchamber was small, tiled, and warm from the pipes under the floor.
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