Cixi glanced at her bare ring finger and made a mental note. She would buy one herself. Nothing expensive — just something to sit there and stop people from asking questions she could not answer.
She added it to the list of lies she needed to maintain. The list was getting long.
Not long after Tatiana had left, a knock came at the door.
Cixi didn't move from where she stood. She stared at the door and weighed it.
If this was the same twerp coming back for round two, she was not sure she had the patience left to — then a second knock followed, lighter than the first, almost tentative.
No! That can't be that little brat. That girl would not strike one as someone who knocked twice.
"Come in."
Anna stepped inside. The same girl who had earned a butler's reprimand simply for speaking to her like a human being. She stood at the threshold with her hands clasped in front of her. Her posture was stiff, but her eyes carried a gentleness that the other staff had withheld.
