Zhao Meiling went very still.
Not with outrage so much as surprise pinked under her powder.
She had expected a crown or a cage, not a loom. "You place a noble daughter among washerwomen," Zhao Hengyuan objected, his voice fraying.
"I place a woman where she can do something useful," I corrected. "If she cannot manage that, she cannot manage a palace."
"And if she succeeds?" he tried, quick.
"Success would suggest the girl obeys without bringing your voice into my rooms," I said. "If she manages that miracle, I will lend her a different duty nowhere near the beds you hunger for."
He flinched because the words hit home.
Mingyu's attention didn't soften. "You wanted an heir you could own. We have recorded that want," he observed. "If it returns in any other outfit, we will record the outfit and the mouth that chose it."
He didn't have to use the word evidence… Zhao Hengyuan heard it anyway.
