Steeped in Blood | TO BE REWRITTEN

XV. WILLIAM FAIRFAX

"I AM TAKING THE TWO OF YOU TO visit my factories today," Charles announced at breakfast.

Elizabeth looked up, her open mouth and wide eyes a clear sign of her surprise as she paused with her ceramic spoon—glazed with a pattern of blue dragons—halfway to her lips. The young ladies with whom he was accustomed to associating in England had more guiles, he thought, but the transparency was charming on her, somehow. "You have never taken me to see your place of work before, Baba."

Her curious tone, with an undercurrent of petulance wavering in it, suggested that she had asked before and had her request soundly rejected as well. He hid a chuckle at her similarity to his sister.

"Such a visit seemed to be unnecessary until now," Charles responded, sipping his tea cryptically as he unfurled his newspaper with a rustle. Steam and newsprint obscured his expression.

Elizabeth let it drop, though from the tense set of her shoulders he thought she might have wished to ask why. William ought to have said nothing, thinking it would be unwise to disturb the already shaky ground he was stepping on in this household, being both a foreigner and an outsider. Yet, there was something in the way that Elizabeth looked--despondent, betrayed--that made him speak up.

"Why is that, sir?" he asked, drumming his fingers on the table. A golden-brown slice of toast and a steaming cup of coffee sat before him, both of them specially imported into Hong Kong along with the governor's choice of foods. "Why have you waited until this very moment?"

Elizabeth's eyes widened as her stare passed between the two of them, as though those few feet of space were an island between two raging oceans. Her fingers tensed and she clutched her teacup, bringing it to her lips and sipping the hot amber liquid. Her father lowered his newspaper by a few inches, his spectacles sliding down the bridge of his nose so that his brown eyes met William's blue ones. "If I do not even give a response to my own daughter, what would cause you to believe that I owe you an answer for anything I do?"

With that, the room fell silent, the tension heavy with anger and unspoken words. Elizabeth hurried to her chambers after breakfast for reasons unbeknownst to him, claiming she needed to finish dressing though she certainly looked fully dressed to him, in a shapeless gown of red silk. As he waited for her, the fraught silence between the two men grew.

William bit into his toast. It was cold now, its buttered grains too salty for his liking. Still, recalling the man's distaste for wasting food, he finished it, and had just dusted the crumbs onto the napkin on his lap when Elizabeth returned, her hair pinned with elaborate gold clips and piled high onto her head. He briefly recalled a painting he had seen once of Marie Antoinette, with an audaciously high wig teased into intricate formations. Elizabeth's head, however, seemed far too pretty to be chopped off in any rebellion.

"Are the two of you leaving now?" Charles's wife—his future mother-in-law, he supposed—asked as she entered the dining room. She glanced between them, something wary in her expression. Wary of William, or something else? Was it what he represented that had her so guarded, her spine stiff and her shoulders pulled back as imperiously as any empress's? 

"We are waiting on Elizabeth," Charles responded.

The surprise in Charle's wife's tone suggested to him that this was far from a regular occurrence. Still, her words betrayed no question, only obedience. "I shall go see what is keeping her, then."

With that, she swept out of the dining room in a flurry of silk and golden embroidery, just as a maid bustled in to clear away the dishes. The two men eyed one another, a battle of wills being waged silently between them until Elizabeth's footsteps clattered against the tiles. His jaw dropped when he saw her. Was she... Was that... But, why...

"You may shut your mouth and quit staring as though you have never seen me before," Elizabeth said tightly, fabric swishing as she walked. He promptly closed his mouth, pressing his lips together in a tight line. She had donned attire of English make, that much was clear. The high neckline and long sleeves of her shirtwaist, tucked and neatly pinned into a skirt that flowed to her ankles. It covered as much as her usual attire, but it was a touch more form-fitting. On her head was perched a wide-brimmed boater hat of straw, soft tendrils of raven hair curling around her face. The puffed shoulders of her gown matched the rest of it, the hue a soft, pale blue. "Are you quite ready to leave, gentlemen?"

Charles broke into a torrent of Chinese, but from the way his daughter responded, his questions were quite clear. "Did you not hear about the new law that was recently passed? The people of Hong Kong are only considered British nationals if they do not wear Chinese clothing." 

That rang a distant bell from conversations with his father, some sort of arbitrary decision that he had not paid much attention to. Everything about colonial law had seemed distant and cold until he'd had to see the consequences of it firsthand. Still, the sight of her was both strange and familiar all at once. If he had seen her from behind, he might have thought her one of the English ladies he had socialized with back home. Yet, she was too slight--her frame too short--to be a proper likeness. The effect was startling.

"Can you walk in those garments?" Charles asked gruffly. 

Elizabeth raised her chin, but her words were far from defiant. "Yes, Father."

"Then, let us be on our way."