“Shoo,” Rosalind chided, smacking the slipper away and biting down on her laugh. “Go attend to your duties.”
Juliette was already walking out, making a rude gesture over her shoulder. As she trudged down the hallway of the second floor, picking at her chipping nails, she paused in front of her father’s office to shake out her shoe, which hadn’t fit right ever since it had gotten caught on a drain covering.
Then she froze, her hand on her ankle. She could hear voices coming from the office.
“Ah, excuse me,” Juliette hollered, kicking the door open with her high-heeled shoe. “The maid said you were both out.”
Her parents lifted their heads at once, blinking plainly. Her mother was standing over her father’s shoulder, one hand rested on the desk and the other placed upon a document in front of them.
“The staff say what we want them to say, qin’ài de,” Lady Cai said. She made a flicking motion with her fingers at Juliette. “Don’t you have a visitor to entertain downstairs?”
Huffing, Juliette pulled the door closed again, glaring daggers at her parents. They hardly paid her heed. They simply went back to their conversation, assuming Juliette would run along.
“We have lost two men to it already, and if the whispers are true, more will fall before we can determine exactly what is causing it,” her mother said, voice low as she resumed speaking. Lady Cai always sounded different in Shanghainese than any other language or dialect. It was hard to verbalize exactly what it was except a feeling of calm, even if the subject matter carried a terrible squall of emotion. That was what it meant to speak your native tongue, Juliette supposed.
Juliette wasn’t really sure what her native tongue was.
“The Communists are beside themselves with joy. Zhang Gutai won’t even need a megaphone for recruitment anymore.” Her father was the opposite. He was quick and sharp. Though the tones of Shanghainese came completely from the mouth instead of the tongue or throat, he somehow managed to make it reverberate tenfold within himself first before re
leasing the sound. “With people dropping like flies, capitalist ventures cease to grow, factories become ripe for revolution. Shanghai’s commercial development comes to an abrupt stop.”
Juliette grimaced, then hurried away from her father’s office door. No matter how hard her father had tried through his letters, Juliette had never cared much about who was who in the government, not unless their ongoings had some direct effect on Scarlet business. All she cared about was the Scarlet Gang, about whatever immediate dangers and tribulations they were facing on a day-to-day basis. Which meant that in scheming, Juliette’s mind liked to gravitate to the White Flowers, not to the Communists. But if the Communists had indeed unleashed madness onto this city as her father seemed to suspect, then they, too, were killing her people, and she had a bone to pick with them. Her father hadn’t been overlooking the deaths in favor of politics this morning after all. Perhaps they were one and the same.
It does make sense that the Communists could be responsible for the madness, Juliette thought as she started down the staircase toward the first floor.
Only how could they possibly manage such a feat? Civil war was no novelty. This country was in political turmoil more than it was at peace. But something that caused innocent people to gouge their own throats out was certainly far from any biological warfare Juliette had studied.
Juliette bounded onto the last step of the staircase.
“Hello!” she shouted. “I am here! You may bow!” She entered the living room and, with a start, found a stranger primly seated on one of the couches. It was not the annoying British merchant, but it was indeed someone who looked very similar, only younger, around her age.
“I’ll refrain from bowing if that’s okay,” the stranger said, an upward tilt to his mouth. He rose to his feet and stuck out his hand. “I’m Paul. Paul Dexter. My father couldn’t make it today, so he sent me.”
Juliette ignored the outstretched hand. Poor etiquette, she noted immediately. By the rules of British society, a lady was always to have the privilege of offering the handshake. Not that she cared about British etiquette, nor how their high society defined what a lady was, but such minuscule details pointed to a lack of training, and so Juliette filed that away in her head.
And he really should have bowed.
“I assume you’re here for the same request still?” Juliette asked, smoothing her sleeves down.
“Indeed.” Paul Dexter took back his hand without any malice. His smile was a cross between that of a Hollywood star and a desperate clown. “My father promises you that we have more lernicrom than any other merchant sailing into this city. You will not find better prices elsewhere.”
Juliette sighed as a few cousins and uncles filtered through the living room, waiting for them to pass. As the group walked by, Mr. Li clapped a hand over her shoulder good-naturedly.
“Good luck, kid.”
Juliette stuck out her tongue. Mr. Li grinned, wrinkling his entire face, then produced a small wrapped candy from his palm for Juliette to take. She was no longer an overeager four-year-old who would eat until she gave herself a toothache, but she took it anyway, popping the candy into her mouth while her uncle strolled away.
“Please sit, Mr. Dexter—”
“Call me Paul,” he interrupted, perching again on the long couch. “We’re a new generation of modern people and Mr. Dexter is my father.”
Juliette barely refrained from gagging. She bit down on the hard candy instead, then collapsed onto an armchair perpendicular to Paul.
“We have been admiring the Scarlets for some time now,” Paul continued. “My father has high hopes of a partnership.”
A visible shudder swept through Juliette’s body at the familiarity Paul had with the term “Scarlets.” As a name, the Scarlet Gang sounded a lot nicer in Chinese. They called themselves hóng bang, the two syllables twirled together in a quick snap of vowels. Such a name curled in and out through Scarlet tongues like a whip, and those who didn’t know how to handle it properly ended up lashed.
This was Paul Dexter’s lashing.