“And my father’s reputation?” Ji Yue pressed.
“Was never in any danger from me.” He smiled. “Though I would very much like to meet your mother. She sounds like a most interesting woman. Are your brothers as clever?”
“The youngest is. The older…” She hesitated.
“Takes after your father?”
“He spends much time in his dreams.”
Bo Tao laughed and pushed to his feet. He had a moment’s insanity when he dreamed he would pull her into his arms. Her breasts were within reach, and her sweet cream flowed so easily. But the interrogator would return any moment now, and after last night’s warning from Yi Zhen, he had to be doubly careful. “Go now,” he said as he pushed her away. “Go quickly.”
She hesitated just a moment, and her eyes lingered on his mouth. He knew she was thinking as he was, that she remembered every detail of their intimacy, and the lust that surged through him nearly overpowered his reason.
“Go!” he rasped.
She nodded and fled.
But the longer Ji Yue waited in the garden, the more she doubted her sanity. Why would she put her faith in a man who clearly disregarded every rule of proper conduct? He had climbed into her palanquin, he had taken her last night to a place that no decent woman should ever see, and the things he had done to her!
Her face heated, but not with shame. The things they had done had been incredible, and she desperately longed to do them again. Then she shivered in true fear. He was teaching her the delights of physical congress. What if she did not become the empress? What if the emperor was not a frequent visitor to her bedroom or, worse, not even remotely as skilled as Bo Tao? Would she end up like those women in the dead emperor’s harem? Would she stretch herself out for all to see while she ordered someone to pleasure her?
The thought was horrifying, but it was also a real possibility. Having tasted ecstasy with Bo Tao, she wanted more. She wanted a lot more. Thankfully, she was saved from further thoughts as a young eunuch approached, bowing deeply before her.
“Chen Ji Yue? Are you ill?”
She nodded and pressed a silk handkerchief to her lips.
“Sun Bo Tao worries for your health and asks that you follow me. He has found some medicine to strengthen your health for the festival ahead.”
She nodded and smiled. “I would be most grateful.”
She started to move, but he pressed a cloak into her hands. “The sun might damage your skin and make you feel worse, Chen Ji Yue. Perhaps this would help.”
She frowned and wrinkled her nose at the perfume stench that rose from the cheap garment. It was the kind of thing that merchant wives wore or…She swallowed. Or prostitutes. He was dressing her as a prostitute.
At her hesitation, the eunuch nodded again. “Many women come and go in these garments, and no one sees.”
No one was trained to see the whores who visited, he meant. Clearly the emperor and his friends had a regular habit of entertaining such ladies. And just as clearly, she would be safer moving about the Forbidden City in one of these cloaks than as Virgin Chen Ji Yue.
With a reluctant grimace, she drew the cloak around her and covered her head. Then she followed the eunuch through what seemed to be little-used pathways behind and around buildings. She saw workers—eunuchs and servants of all kinds—but no dignitaries and none of the other virgins. And though she peered from under her hood at the washer women and eunuchs, all cast their eyes discreetly away from her.
Until one woman did notice her. An older woman—a concubine by the looks of her gown—spat and cursed the whore that polluted the emperor. Her words were loud and vicious, and an ugly reminder of what would happen to Ji Yue if she lost her virgin status.
As a disgraced virgin, she could not go home. Even if her parents wanted her, it would damage her father’s honor so much that he would not get further work. Certainly nothing from the imperial court. Without that income, the entire family would starve.
So if she could not go home, she would be forced onto the street with only one way to survive. From pampered aristocrat to street whore in one fatal step. She could not do such a thing. She wouldn’t! She would strip off this hateful cloak and return to the virgins’ palace and pray that no one noticed her absence. She would—
“Inside here, please,” said the eunuch indicating a doorway.
Ji Yue frowned. “What is to happen—”
“Please,” the eunuch whispered, his eyes darting around. There were men talking somewhere down the hall, and from their deep voices, Ji Yue knew they were not eunuchs.
She slipped into the darkness. The door shut behind her, and she shivered at the now total lack of light. A flint sparked. Sharp and bright, it lit a single candle wick. The light grew steadily, expanding its glow until she saw Sun Bo Tao, his angled features looking like stroked gold.
She stepped forward, relief making her breath loud. His eyes widened and he quickly pressed a finger to his mouth. She abruptly stilled. With the candlelight, she was able to see more. Bo Tao stood next to a writing table on which rested brush, ink stone and paper. Then he raised the flame higher. The room was tiny, with no decoration at all, but she could hear echoing noises from the near wall. It felt as if a great room stood on the other side.
Bo Tao came close, snaked an arm around her waist and pulled her tight. Her mind trembled in fear, but her body went willingly into his arms. And then he leaned close to whisper into her ear.
“I meet with a Dutch envoy today. Can you speak their language?”
She shook her head no. “But I have seen a Dutch child’s book,” she whispered. “I think I can learn their language.”
“Excellent,” he breathed, truly sounding pleased, “but of no help today. There will be a translator, in any event. I wish you to listen to our conversation and record it as best you can. But you must do so without candlelight.”
She smiled. “My memory is excellent. It is how I have learned so much from helping my father.”
His grip on her waist tightened in approval. Then he guided her to the wall, lifting her hand until she touched a latch over a bamboo shutter. “Extinguish the light, then open this shutter,” he said. “There are peepholes in the tapestry. Listen and look, but do not make the tapestry move!”
“My mother does this behind the women’s screen for my father.”
He grinned as he turned back to her. “Your father was most wise in his choice of bride.”
She smiled, flushing in pleasure. Most men would roundly damn her father for allowing a woman into men’s affairs. That he understood her mother’s value made her blood flush hot. Then all thoughts of her parents fled as Bo Tao tightened his hold on her.
“If you are discovered, I cannot help you. It would go worse for you if I claimed knowledge of your presence here.”
She swallowed, beginning to understand what she risked in this. But she had never seen a white man before and was most anxious to view her first. Plus, when Bo Tao held her like this, when she felt the strength in his arms around her, she could think of nothing but staying close to him no matter what the cost.
“I will not disappoint you,” she whispered.
“I know,” he said as he dropped his forehead against hers. She could feel the tension grow in his body. This tight against her, she could feel his dragon organ push into her belly while her woman’s petals grew moist. Never before had she felt so much, so fast.
He groaned, low in his throat. She heard the sound and echoed it as she lifted her mouth to his. His kiss was deep and possessive, but she had learned much last night. She knew how to toy with his tongue, to suck it deeper into her mouth, and to nip whenever possible at his lips.
His hands slipped to her bottom, cupping her there as he pulled her roughly against his groin. His thickness was hot and hard, but there were too many layers of clothing between them. Then his hands slid upward, over her breasts, pinching through the fabric. She rubbed her hands over his chest, slipping them beneath his court coat, but he had a tunic on below. No flesh, no access, only layers of silk over hardened muscle.
“No,” he gasped as he abruptly broke away. “The emperor has noticed. He is watching me. And you,” he added. “He watches you, as well. It is why the dowager consort hates you. She knows his interest is piqued.”
Ji Yue froze and pulled slowly back, thoughts tumbling through her head like heavy stones. The dowager consort hated her? And the emperor watched her? The very idea was incredible. But if they saw her, if Emperor Xian Feng watched her, then being here was madness! She should leave immediately! And yet she did not stir from Bo Tao’s arms. Why did she not leave?
She had no explanation except for lust. She wanted Bo Tao’s lips on hers. She wanted his hand inside her body. And she wondered—oh, how she wondered—what it would be like to have his jade stalk planted deeply inside her.
“Do you want me to take you back to the virgins’ palace right now?” he whispered. “We can stop this madness here.”
“No,” she whispered. “No, I want to…” She couldn’t finish. No virgin could admit those things aloud. So she waved to the inkstone and brushes. “I want to be of help to you. I was raised to be a political wife, helping my husband in this manner.”
He nodded. “Then so be it.” He stepped away, moving quickly to the door. But then he paused, his expression earnest. “I am not a hanger-on, Ji Yue. I understand these foreigners as no other in China. One day, the emperor will make my position official. I will be the advisor on foreign affairs, perhaps an ambassador, but he likes having someone unofficial to meet with these people. Someone smart who can arrange things unofficially.”
She smiled. “I am a woman. I understand how things can be arranged without the men officially knowing anything at all.”
“Soon things will change for me. Perhaps very soon, but—”
“But not just yet,” she said. “I understand.”
Then their time was up. At his gesture, she extinguished the candle. He waited in the darkness a moment longer, and in that time she heard his breath exhale with such longing that tears sprang to her eyes. Except that it could not be true. She could not hear longing in a man’s breath. Perhaps it was her own need that she felt, her own anguish.
He had not even left the room, and yet she ached for the loss of him. Her body felt cold without him beside her. And her womb cried at its emptiness. She took a step forward to say…she didn’t know what. But before she could form a word, he was gone. He slipped out of the room, leaving her alone.
It was just as well. Her thoughts were impure, her virginity in danger. She knew better than to think of anything but becoming an empress. Her mother had said she was not beautiful, so she needed to be smart. A smart woman would tuck her feelings away, put aside her memories as well as her wishes. She did it with a firmness that would please her ancestors.
Then she went to the shutter and pulled open the latch. Very soon, she would see a white man for the first time in her life. Would he look like a monkey, as she had heard? Would he truly have a stench like a pigpen in August? She could not wait to see.
But as her eyes scanned the receiving hall on the other side of the hidden room, she looked not for the white envoy but Sun Bo Tao. What would he say to the foreign devils? How would he treat their insolence? She held her breath in anticipation.
She didn’t have to wait long. The Dutch group was ushered inside—six men in all. She took careful note of their attire. She knew that distinctions in color and insignia were important in China, so they could be equally vital to these foreigners. As they grumbled and argued in their strange tongue, she had time to make rough sketches of their faces and attitudes.
One was obviously their leader. His gestures were more refined, and he had a habit of stroking his beard or his coat lapels when he spoke. The others fawned upon him in subtle ways. They maintained their arrogance as all men must, but they kept their chins just a bit less pronounced and their eyes shifted left and right more often.
Then Bo Tao appeared. He was magnificent. From his gestures to his sneering lip, he moved to impress. He brought his own retinue of underlings—double the Dutch envoys—and all bowed and scraped as Bo Tao sat in the throne chair. It was not the Dragon Throne, of course. This was a lesser hall, but Bo Tao wore the auspices of power with a majesty that must match the emperor himself. The sight of him stole her breath away.
The preliminaries had begun. A Dutch underling offered a gift: a metal timepiece, she thought, but it was hard to see. Bo Tao accepted it with casual neglect, waving it aside as merely his due. Tea and dumplings were served and the Dutch ate. Bo Tao did not. After a polite interval, the Dutch turned and began the true purpose of their meeting.
But then the oddest thing happened. The one who she thought led stepped back as if unimportant. The one who stepped forward was the man she thought most apelike with his dark curling hair and his wide nose. Surely this was a subordinate, but he spoke in their bizarre tongue, and a ship’s captain translated his words into guttural, dockside Cantonese.
Bo Tao, of course, did not speak such dialect. It would be far beneath his dignity, but Ji Yue did. Her old nurse had been raised in Canton and used to sing songs in that tongue. While another translator changed the Cantonese words into Mandarin, Ji Yue wrote down both what was said in Cantonese and what was passed on to Bo Tao.
And so it went with negotiations back and forth until Ji Yue thought her hand would break from the strain. The Dutch wished for more treaty ports—cities on the ocean where they could sell their wares. Bo Tao refused. China had no interest in Dutch goods, he said. The envoys brought more delightful presents—strange fabrics of string woven in interesting patterns, crockery and machinery of bizarre colors and shapes. How Ji Yue wanted to inspect them all, but from her angle, she could only see tiny sections.
Bo Tao yawned. Then with a sigh he glanced at the window and promised to discuss their proposal with the emperor, but he made no move to leave. At first Ji Yue did not understand why, but then his craftiness became obvious. The real gift had not yet been offered.