Prologue
Yue was riding along the country side to get some fresh air and to clear her mind. The cool breeze was spatter across her face and her thin cloak wasn't helping her keep warm, though at the moment she didn't really care. All she wanted was to forget the horrible memory she had with her father. They had a fight. A HUGE fight at that to say a lady of high rank riding a horse, unescorted in the unknown country side of England, with little clothing, no food, no water. Not even a weapon to save herself if something might have happened.
Lucky for her, nothing had happened. After riding for at least three hours and the sun was about to set. Yue decided to return to the house mansion that she loathed with a core. She removed some of her long silky black hair beside her ears and sighed. "I have to tell father that I already love someone." She said with a soft voice. She quickly galloped her horse to a full run back to the house that belongs to her stepfather.
As the familiar lawn came to view. Yue slowed down her horse and turn for the stable. She will get a full scowling from her mother when she found out what she did. What she did was practically suicidal. She sighed again when she gave the rein of her horse to the stable boy. Normally she would tend to her horse personally but today was unexceptional.
With her riding boots on, she make a lesser noise than her normal shoes her mother had force her to wear. She prefer she traditional Chinese shoes, so these boots will do for now when she was here in England. She rubbed her hands together for warmth and walked straight to the salon where her family was surely waiting for her.
Truth enough, they were there. Her mother, with her Oriental beauty wearing those tight fit western clothes carried her half brother, Michael, or her mother sometimes called him Hong, in her arms. Besides her was her stepfather, whom her mother met in China a few years back and that her mother said they fell in love at first sight, he has blond hair with green eyes and a scrawl on his face most of the time. Though it would disappear when he was with her mother, which is good.
He was on medium height, and built but what really standout everything were those thick eyebrows that run in the family, Kirkland. Yue didn't really mind that her mother remarries and had another baby, she loved her brother very much to hate him and she also cared for her stepfather. A little. If you count the times he tried to tell her to act like a proper lady when she's here in England. Then she cared for him. She just didn't get used to the custom being here and almost everything or everyone here was either twice her size or just to busy to notice an Asian girl.
Her approach cause both of parents to looked up and those worried looked were erase from their faces. Her mother came to her first, hugging her softly without waking the baby. "Yue, you made us so worried. Promise you wouldn't do that again." She hugged her back but said nothing. She has become a rebellious daughter recently.
"I'm sorry that I made you worry mama." Yue responded after a while. Though her stepfather was just watching them, he knows he had put a lot of pressure on her when he announced earlier that she was about to be wed by the fortnight. He was also fully aware of the romance that was bloomy between her and his son. Whom it might add was in America for the time being.
Henry cleared his trout and both females turned to him. He was a little nervous but he had to finished this. "As I was saying earlier. Yue, you will be married within the fortnight and you'll not argue about it." Her devastated face hurt him a lot. He has grown to care for her as his own daughter for since the past three years. And planed to give everything for her comfort and this wedding is to protect her from his own son.
"I'm sorry" he lowered his face downcast.
"Is there another way?" his wife said while rocking their child softly. He shakes his head.
"That's unfair."
"Yue!" YueMei had said with a stern face.
"But I don't want to marry a stranger. That isn't fair, you guys married because you fall in love." She put her hand on her chest for dramatic effect. "I also wanted to experience it."
"You will grow to love him soon." Her mother assured her.
"But he isn't the guy I want. I'm already in love with someone, mama." Her mother was shocked at the information. Her quick breath had shown it.
"W-who is it? Is it the boy that raises the horse?" her mother inquired. Yue was disgusted at the idea. She only thought of him as a younger brother.
"No!"
"It's Arthur." Both father, daughter said simultaneously. Yue was wide eye and a little red face. Her mother just stared at both of them. Her husband was looking right back at her and his eyes plead that she wouldn't ask how he knew about this.
"H-how did you now?" Yue said in a soft voice.
"You can't marry him. His your brother." Her mother said that causes Michael to stir and started crying. She smooths him and singed a song that Yue fully know since she was young.
"Not by blood we are not." Yue heard a smacked and her check stings after a while. She touch it and stared at her mother. She never raises her hand at her.
"Don't dare talk to us like that. I raise you better than this." Her mother said in a stern voice.
Tears started to form at her eyes, but she refused to let them down in front of everyone. She had only pride left. "Please stop Yue, we are only doing this to help you see that Arthur is just only playing with you."
"No! That's not true. He promised to marry me when he came back from America. " he sighed and rub his forehead with his fingers. Young and in love was always the hardest to explain.
"Find, let's have it this way." He went around the room and stop in front of the fireplace. After a few minutes of silent he turned around to his family.
"We will meet the Braginski tomorrow. We can't change that since they are on its way here. You will meet their son and you will be nice to them. We can postpone the wedding for Arthur to came back next week to see if he still loves you then I'll see to it want will happened." Yue was jumping with joy by now from the inside.
"Oh thank you—" he raised his hand.
"But, if he isn't faithful to you on his absents, you will in no circumstances disapprove in marrying Sir Braginski. It that a deal?" Yue took his offering hand and shook it with full force and hugged him.
"Thank you thank you."
Henry turned to his wife and said. "My dear wife, you will be the witness in this agreement." She only knob her head and shooed her daughter to bed after she calls a servant to help her. When everyone was in their bed did YueMei asked her husband.
"Why would you agree for Yue to marry Arthur? Will that cause a scandal?" Henry just stared at the celling but pulled his wife beside him.
"I'll take the chances that Arthur will find someone in the America. Yue will marry Ivan Braginski for sure."
"That's not nice of you in tricking my daughter."
"She is also my daughter. That's why I'm helping her. I don't what her to suffer the horrible feeling of your spouse cheating on you." She ceases his body for he was reminiscing his past.
"How will you know that this Braginski will not cheat on our daughter?" YueMei asked after a while.
"I know this because I have already met him when he was young and now I had met him again." His wife knob.
"He is a perfect match for our little Yue." They kissed and went to sleep.
On the other side of the house, Yue was actually awake and writing on her journal about what happened today. She started writing it when they first arrived here three years ago and her stepfather gave her a notebook to write all her worries away. That was at first but for the past two years, almost of her entry was about Arthur. He was the first friend she made here. He might be a little older than her for a couple of years but they shared the same found of horses and tea. What really intrigued each other was that their interest in books and magical creatures. They both loved hearing about it and they would tell each on their own version of stories.
They had fallen in love along the way. Arthur would shyly kiss her on the cheeks and soon they were kissing on the lips under the tree that they shared together. Soon she would see him again when he came back from his trip to America for his research.
Yue wasn't really that angry anymore or even that depressed. She knows Arthur still loved her and that she wouldn't need to marry that Ivan Braginski. Satisfied with her work. She blow out the candle and crawled into her bed with a smile on her face.