From the far end of the banquet hall, Zhu Deming watched with narrowed eyes as Zhao Xinying exited through the tall carved doors, her steps measured, unhurried, and yet fragile enough to draw sympathetic murmurs from the nobles closest to her path. Shi Yaozu trailed behind her like a shadow, silent and sure.
Zhu Deming didn't move. Not yet. He kept his gaze fixed on the remaining players of this staged spectacle. In particular, Zhao Meiling. There was never any doubt in his mind that something was going to happen tonight. He couldn't remember a banquet that didn't have at least one or two scandals attached to it.
Mostly, they were the unwilling kind.
After all, that was how his mother ended up married to the current Emperor and pregnant. She was nothing more than a poor maid who walked into the wrong room at the wrong time when someone had drugged the then Crown Prince.
