Foul Lady Fortune

As soon as Orion finished his phone call, Rosalind started prodding him, urging him to hurry lest they run late for the fundraiser. If they missed the preliminary speech, then their article would be missing its opening remarks, and if they were only doing this to get a higher footing at Seagreen, then they would need to do the job well.

“Hey, hey, don’t frown at me,” Orion said, hurrying out of the bedroom with only one arm shoved in his jacket. “You’re the one trying to break Liza out of the police station, and I’m the one spending precious time finding resources for your plan.”

“You’re sending your sister,” Rosalind returned. She reached for the other sleeve of his jacket, providing her help since he clearly needed it. “It is hardly the royal battalion. Besides, if you hadn’t signed us up for this assignment, I could do it instead.”

Orion lifted his brows. He smoothed his jacket down. “You could single-handedly break into a police station?”

Rosalind didn’t hesitate. “Yes.”

“Beloved…” Orion trailed off with whatever other nonsense was waiting in his mouth. Now that his jacket was on, his next task appeared to be struggling with his cuff links.

Barely holding back her insult, she whacked his fingers out of the way and plucked the links from him. “Every day you come closer to driving me off the deep end. Let me do it.”

Orion offered his wrists without protest. Carefully, Rosalind folded his sleeve cuffs down, then set the link in, delicate with her touch so that she wasn’t wrinkling anything. When she finished, Orion was watching her, visibly holding down a smile.

“What?” she demanded.

He shrugged, but the smile only grew wider. “You’re acting like a real wife.”

Rosalind narrowed her eyes. “No ‘thank you,’ only sarcasm. So ungrateful. What would you say if I were really your wife?”

“That’s easy.” Orion popped his collar, then opened the door for her. “I would kiss before I spoke.”

Rosalind felt her face burn. She marched past him, her shoulders rising to her ears, and stomped out the door.

The fundraiser was being held at a mansion on Bubbling Well Road.

Rosalind took a sip of her drink, reading through the notepad in her hand. The champagne was flat and bitter, leaving a bad taste in her mouth after it went down. She smoothed her tongue along the back of her teeth, grimacing. Maybe it was all the smoking she’d done when she was sixteen, burning out her taste buds. Maybe the fundraiser head, Mr. George, was providing cheap, flavorless champagne because his accounts were running dry and he was only fundraising for this charity so he could embezzle the money away. Both were likely explanations.

“I see another colleague I can talk to. How is the note-taking?”

Orion returned to her side, a new drink in his hand. The fundraiser had finished with its speeches, so the event had turned to socializing. Under the garden lights, his hair looked like it had been brushed with gold. Rosalind passed her drink to him too, freeing her hand to flip through the notepad. A woman was trying to push between them politely, and without looking up, Rosalind stepped aside, opening a path through the grass.

“We have everything we need. Whenever you’re ready.”

They had wanted to kill two birds with one stone: report on the fundraiser and make progress with their mission by talking to the few other Seagreen colleagues who were in attendance tonight. Rosalind had been writing everything they needed for their article; Orion had been doing the people-pleasing.

“Give me a few minutes, then,” Orion said. “I need to—”

Rosalind snapped her notepad closed. A middle-aged man appeared before them suddenly, giving a nod to the conversation partner he had departed from. He was dressed in a Nationalist military uniform. The medals of a general hung from his jacket. It didn’t take Rosalind long to decipher the man’s identity, especially when Orion fell quiet.

“General Hong,” Orion greeted, snapping out of his surprise to fake unfamiliarity. “Fancy seeing you here.”

“A pleasure to see you again,” General Hong returned. They shook hands briefly, a rapid series of questions passing through their frowns: What are you doing here? thrown from father to son and then Business, of course! conveyed in return.

General Hong shifted his attention to Rosalind. “This is…?”

“My wife,” Orion answered. “Remember?” Another unspoken exchange happened over Rosalind’s head. Did his father not know about his mission?

“Ah, yes,” General Hong said in a manner that indicated he had not in fact remembered. “Why have I never seen your lovely wife before?”

Rosalind kept her expression blank. He probably had; she must have walked past plenty of Nationalist generals when she still lived in the Scarlet house.

“You two chat,” Orion said abruptly, prodding Rosalind forward and returning her drink to her. “I have a colleague to greet.”

Before Rosalind could protest, Orion had disappeared. She considered calling him back, but he looked as if he was using the excuse to slip away, unwilling to have a conversation with his father while she was hovering around. She recognized that tone—it was the same one she used to take on when her father started proposing his wild ideas, like moving cities or quitting business. A level volume, careful to signal her displeasure without taking it too far to be a brat. Careful not to rock the boat, even though each word screamed: Why can’t you be better?

“I only returned to the city recently,” Rosalind answered once Orion walked off. She watched him pause near a Frenchwoman from production and launch into lively conversation. “I am yet to completely reacquaint myself with everything here.”

“I remember now,” General Hong said. “An American returnee, is that right? Did you have supervision there?”

Rosalind’s jaw tightened. It was a simple enough question, but there was a thorny reminder laced into the words. Her current undercover persona should have been one of flippancy: some careless girl who had come of age amid the parties and debauchery in New York. But that was too close to someone else she had once known, and she couldn’t play the role thoroughly enough. The real Rosalind thought going to big parties was only fun if you enjoyed getting your pockets picked.

“Plenty of supervision,” Rosalind replied easily. “Where else would I have acquired such nice manners?”

General Hong didn’t laugh.

“You have known Liwen for long?”

“Not long.” Rosalind faltered. She wasn’t sure if he was asking under the guise of their fake marriage, or if he was genuinely asking how long she had known his son. “He is… good at his job.”

It wasn’t a lie. In fact, it was the only entirely truthful thing that she could think to say.

But General Hong tilted his head curiously. “Oh?” he said. “No need for exaggeration, dear.”

“It’s—” Rosalind scratched her wrist. She tried for a smile. “General Hong, it’s not an exaggeration. I do mean it.”

“Then I suppose he has you fooled. He cares little past anything trivial.”

Rosalind held in a sharp breath. “General Hong—”

He was not finished. “You’ll see soon, I suppose. He will jump from girl to girl, embarrass you plenty, and then take boys to bed too. What do you defend him for? I don’t know why he is intent to work this job when he cannot take it seriously.”

So they were talking about Orion as Orion now, not as his cover. Rosalind would be lying if she said she had never doubted his abilities too, but it was a whole other matter to hear it said aloud and from his own father, no less. Almost instinctively, Rosalind’s gaze moved to where Orion stood talking with the Frenchwoman. His father, too, peered over his shoulder to examine the scene a few paces away.

“He has never known how to do anything but play, and we indulged him while he was young. Now he is my remaining heir, and he won’t partake in society responsibly. He has to go be the hero. He has to take covert role after covert role.”

“General Hong,” Rosalind said very faintly. “Why are you telling me this?”

“I warn you out of generosity,” he said. “So that you can protect yourself.”

You warn me for control, Rosalind thought in correction. It was always about control: over the narrative, over what he thought was his to order around. He didn’t think Orion ought to play a covert role when that forsook the role of being the dutiful heir to an elite family, the second son who was his father’s last chance of leaving a legacy after the eldest turned out to be a disappointment.

“Please excuse me.” Rosalind tipped her glass, where there was a mere gulp of liquid remaining. Indicating that she was going to fetch another, she extricated herself smoothly, stepping past the general and walking away.

I don’t need your warning, she wanted to call back, but her eyes were pinned on Orion nevertheless, watching him talk to the Frenchwoman with a heightened sense of wariness. She didn’t walk toward the refreshments. She moved closer to her husband, coming within earshot of his conversation. Orion hadn’t noticed her approach. In fact, he hadn’t glanced over in a while, as he had earlier in the night each time he thought one of their colleagues was acting suspicious, meeting her eyes from afar so that Rosalind could make a note of it with her pen too.

Orion lifted his hand, touching the woman’s shoulder. Rosalind listened harder. It didn’t sound like they were talking about politics or governments or the usual topics that gauged a colleague’s relationship to the terror plot. They were speaking French, discussing… jewelry?

“—these diamonds don’t suit your complexion as well as they could. You need a ruby or two to complement your natural blush.”

His hand moved away. He glanced up at the same moment, making the briefest flicker of his eyes. Though he sighted Rosalind, he did not acknowledge her. Rosalind almost couldn’t believe it. That she had been defending him to his father, and now he was doing precisely what General Hong had accused him of, flirting unabashedly right in front of her. Hot irritation swept down her neck, so intensely that her skin itched.

The Frenchwoman spotted Rosalind too. Unlike Orion, her attention did not immediately swivel away. She turned fully in Rosalind’s direction.

“Isn’t that your wife?” she asked him. Her lips quirked up. “Perhaps you should tend to her.”

“It’s no matter,” Orion replied. His eyes locked with Rosalind’s again. It was only then, seeing the easiness in them, that Rosalind realized what was going on. Orion thought she had no idea what he was saying. The Frenchwoman was smirking because she thought Rosalind was standing there cluelessly, some laughingstock at the mercy of monolingualism.

Don’t say anything, she ordered herself. Ignore it. Turn around and get a drink.

“Rumor has it that you were arranged to be married. Is it true?”

Orion scoffed. “Don’t listen to rumors. We only have an understanding. My wife won’t stop me from admiring others—”

Oh, forget it, Rosalind decided viciously, marching forward. He already knew she spoke Russian. What was one more language on top of that? It was his own fault for assuming she didn’t speak a language that most of the elite in this city learned.

“Sans blague! You should have told me earlier that you were running low.”

Rosalind swept in front of Orion, plucking the champagne flute out of his hand so that the glass clinked against her own. She didn’t know whose eyes grew wider: Orion’s or the woman’s. Rosalind turned to the woman.

“La musique crée une sympathique atmosphère de fête, non? Aimes-tu le jazz?”

There was no chance to respond; nor was it a real question. Rosalind’s tone was laced with venom, hardly hearing the music she was speaking about. She inclined her head. “Pardon. Let me go fetch a refill.”

And with her throat burning with pettiness, Rosalind pivoted on her heel and marched away.

They had one job. One job, and Orion couldn’t pay attention. She slammed the emptied glasses down on the refreshments table. Out of the corner of her eye, she thought she saw General Hong hovering around again, but by the time she turned to look, he was being summoned away to the far side of the garden.

“Janie.”

Rosalind sniffed. She inspected her nails. “Oui?” Now that she had shown her hand, she did not care to soften her blow. Without waiting for Orion, she tucked her notepad close to her chest and turned to go.

“Attendez.”

Rosalind, civilly, halted on his instruction. She watched Orion cycle through a host of expressions, not bothering to conceal a single one as he walked closer. He spun through disbelief to shock to understanding—and settled, at last, on intrigue when he finally stood before her.

“Darling,” he said slowly. He was still using French. Ma chèrie. “What else are you hiding from me?”

“That depends.” Rosalind’s posture had taken on the stiffness of a predator, ready to pounce. “How many foreign women are you going to embarrass me in front of?”

“Am I only limited to women?”

Rosalind reached out, intending to land a slap worthy of his insolent remark, but Orion caught her arm before her palm could strike. He grinned. Across the garden, though the Frenchwoman had been watching before, she now averted her eyes, hurrying away to find another conversation partner. That’s right, Rosalind thought. Flee.

“Unhand me,” Rosalind instructed.

Orion did not unhand her. “Jealousy is a good look on you.”

“It is not jealousy,” she hissed. “You are supposed to be married to me, do not forget. If you insist on public philandering—”

“Philandering!” Orion exclaimed. “I was only speaking to her—”

“And what did you garner?” Rosalind demanded. “Do we think she’s a part of the scheme?”

Orion loosened his grip on her wrist, only so that he could slide his hand along her arm, the movement almost sensual. He leaned in, bringing his lips near her ear, bringing the heat of his breath and the warmth of his skin.

“I apologize,” he whispered. He had switched back to Chinese. “I promise you have my whole heart, until its last beat—”

Rosalind shoved his chest. “It’s time to go. Get the car.” She turned, treading through the grass in the direction of the mansion’s front gates. Though she had a head start over Orion, he caught up easily, striding on his long legs.

“Come on,” he insisted. “Don’t get mad, beloved—”

Rosalind held her hand up, the notepad crinkling under her other arm. “Don’t speak to me.”

“Janie. It meant nothing! It was mere foolishness!”

He continued on and on until they got to the car, though Rosalind didn’t grant him anything in response. His pleas only proceeded to grow more ridiculous. When she slammed the passenger door after herself, Orion went as far as to ask if she would like to hit him to make her feel better. Though she figured hitting him probably would make her feel better, she only tossed the notepad to the floor of the car and folded her hands in her lap, commanding, “Drive, Orion.”

He watched her warily. “Are you truly upset?” he asked, pulling out of their parking space. His tone had switched. As gravel scattered beneath the car, making loud popping noises, it seemed to occur to him that Rosalind might not be exaggerating an act.

Rosalind bit down on her molars. She heard her teeth scrape together. “Your father decided to offer me a warning just then,” she said. “Said that I ought to protect myself from you and your trivial nonsense.”

The car fell into silence. Orion tightened his grip on the steering wheel, watching the intersection that was rapidly approaching. They were driving down a residential block, so the streets were mostly emptied.

“You know”—Orion stepped on the accelerator—“it does get tiring sometimes. That I only joined the covert branch to help my father’s standing within the Nationalists after he was accused of treason, but he thinks I’m doing worthless work and wasting my energy every time I go undercover. And guess what? Now the Nationalists think we’re both Japanese spies! There’s just no winning.”

A pang struck Rosalind’s heart. So he knew that the Nationalists didn’t fully trust him. Much as she didn’t want to relate, she felt a tangible echo of his frustration. An old echo, but an echo nevertheless. She’d spent tireless nights organizing her father’s logbooks, scouring his receipts, trying to keep his affairs in order. She knew how it felt to pull the strings behind her father’s arms so that the Scarlet Gang didn’t think him useless, so that he didn’t get it in his head that he was not needed and move himself and his two remaining children out of the city into the countryside. Rosalind almost wondered what would have happened if she had let him. If she hadn’t been resolute to remain in Shanghai, if she and Celia had packed up their bags obediently and removed themselves from this treacherous urban game. Perhaps they would have been better off.

“And are you?” Rosalind asked, point-blank.

“Am I what?” Orion returned, squinting out the windshield. He paused at a corner, then turned. “A Japanese spy? Darling, I think you have more cause than I do.”

Rosalind jerked back into her seat. The audacity to turn it on her. “I beg your pardon? You speak Japanese. Your father was accused of being hanjian.”

It was a low blow right after he had been truthful, but she needed to say it. She needed to fling out the hit and hear what he had to say for himself. Maybe then she could finally figure out why Dao Feng had been mistrustful enough of Orion to plant her at his side.

The car stopped suddenly, right in the middle of the road. Orion had stepped on the brake, and Rosalind slid forward, narrowly catching herself before she slammed into the dashboard.

“Fine,” Orion snapped. “And yet Janie Mead isn’t your real name. Why has no one in this city heard of you? Why can you speak Russian?”

“I was educated abroad.” Rosalind stuck her nose in the air. “Both of those oddities are perfectly natural.”

“No one is teaching you how to speak Russian in America.”

This was ridiculous. He was derailing the topic intentionally. And perhaps it would have worked… if Rosalind had not learned the exact same techniques in operative training.

“Why are you making this about me?” Rosalind tapped the steering wheel. “In fact, why have you stopped the whole car in an intimidation tactic? I only asked a simple question.”

“And it is insulting that you would even ask.” In a huff, Orion triggered the ignition again. The car rumbled to a start. When he reached up to fix the rearview mirror, Rosalind’s eyes shot up too, then did a double take.

There was another car hovering some distance behind them, at the edge of the road.

“Orion, wait,” she demanded.

“What?” His voice was still acidic, a quiver in his lip and a deep furrow in his brow. Somehow, the genuine anger in his expression made him seem more real. Like a regular person she might have something in common with instead of a covert agent who valued sordid affairs over their mission.

“We’re being followed.”

All the hostility in Orion’s expression dropped. He looked at the rearview mirror properly, his foot coming down on the brake again. “What? Who—”

They weren’t afforded more time to react. Before their very eyes, a projectile flew from the other car and exploded beneath their vehicle with a booming sound, throwing them right off the road.