by Jeannie Lin
“Do you regret leaving the Lotus Palace?”
Mingyu laid her head against the window frame, statuesque in moonlight and shadow. “I had to go. I can’t seem to be as I was anymore. I don’t know why. Being Lady Mingyu had always suited me so well before, I—”
He waited for her to finish the thought, but it slipped away unheard.
“I’ll miss my sister when I go,” she added. “But Yue-ying has a good life now. I thought of running to her, but that would only upset the balance of things. Why endanger her happiness, as well?”
“The Bai mansion is the second place I would think to go to find you,” Kaifeng agreed. He was trying to introduce a touch of humor, but apparently had no talent for it.
Mingyu frowned. “I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve been outside the city walls since I came to the capital. It was always at General Deng’s invitation and I didn’t see much outside of the banquets he hosted, but I’m certain there are entertainment pavilions in every city. There’s always a place for a song girl or courtesan to use her skills.”
“It sounds as if you’ve been planning your escape for a long time.”
“A dream is not a plan.” She took on a determined look. “The pleasure quarter has ruined me for the villages. I would never fit into a place like the pile of dust my sister and I came from. I wouldn’t know how to return to our family home even if I wanted to. But I can find a place for myself in any city where there’s a demand for music and poetry. I even have money. I brought it with me.” She nudged the sack she’d set down beside her. “Would you be offended if I offered you some of it in gratitude?”
“Yes.”
“I thought you would be.”
Kaifeng settled himself at the edge of the mat to invite her to sit at the opposite end, but Mingyu was not so shy. She placed herself at the center while the words continued to flow from her. “Do you know that Madame didn’t even search my room to take this stash from me? She must have known I had it, but she didn’t believe I would try to run away. All these years, I’ve always been such a sweet and willing captive.”
Somehow she managed to still appear in complete command of herself as well as the entire room. Even if the room was in an abandoned teahouse and the audience consisted of only one man.
“You should rest, Mingyu. I’ll keep watch.”
“I’m not tired.”
Mingyu was tired. He could see she was exhausted, but at the same time Mingyu vibrated with restlessness. Her eyes glowed bright with the thrill of having escaped.
Kaifeng could reach out and take her into his arms. She was all but inviting him to, but he didn’t reach for her. If he did, he would take off her clothes and make love to her. But then it would seem too much like an exchange. His protection for her willingness.
“Sleep,” he insisted, while his mind and body hungered for her. “You’ll need your strength. Tomorrow we’ll think of a plan for you to leave the city.”
She sank onto her side with feline grace, at once languid and defiant. Propping her elbow against the mat, she let her head rest on her hand.
“One night and you’ve already tired of me,” she taunted.
Her tone was accusatory, yet still seductive. He hardened with desire and a fever heated his blood. “My lady, you know that’s not true.”
Making love to Mingyu again would only confuse things even more. Despite all the praise and adoration, all the verses written in her honor, Mingyu was still an indentured servant. Now she was a fugitive and he, head constable of the county, had become her accomplice. They were in dangerous waters and he needed to keep his head clear.
With a soft murmur, deep in her throat, she let herself sink down onto the mat and closed her eyes. Her arm served as a pillow. The lantern light flickered over the room while Kaifeng sat back and let himself be tormented by her silhouette. Save for his own stubbornness, he could be lying beside her, their limbs entwined.
He leaned back against the wall and let the light ebb away into darkness.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
MINGYU DRIFTED TO SLEEP AS soon as she closed her eyes, but her troubled thoughts wouldn’t let her rest. When she opened her eyes again, the room was black. The moonlight through the window revealed only shapes in the darkness, enough for her to see that Wu Kaifeng was still upright, his back against the wall as he watched over her. When she whispered his name, there was only silence.
Had he fallen asleep like that? Sitting up and uncomfortable. His eyes were probably still open. Like some ascetic monk, Wu was intent on denying himself.
With her hands out before her, Mingyu felt her way through the darkness. The space in the loft was small and before long, she brushed against the hard muscle of his thigh. He started, but the hand that wrapped around her wrist was gentle.
“Mingyu.”
His voice was thick, slurred and heavy with sleep. During an interrogation, the deepness of it was chilling, but here, in the dark, it resonated down her spine and warmed her skin.
“Stubborn man,” she purred against his ear as she guided his hands around her waist.
“This isn’t...necessary.” His palms curved around her hips despite his protest.
“It is.” She gripped the front of his robe to urge him down onto the mat with her.
Kaifeng came awake quickly. He worked her sash loose and parted the layers of cloth without a trace of clumsiness, baring her skin to the night air. She was only chilled for a moment before his hands were on her. She loved how broad they were, spanning her body with a single touch. He took hold of her breasts, his thumbs stroking each nipple lovingly until she ached in every muscle.
With the softest of moans, she reached out to him, tugging at his clothes impatiently. If there was any argument, it was gone now. Kaifeng raised himself from her to finish undressing.
Mingyu lay back against the mat and listened to the rustle of cloth above her, the intimate sound itself a promise.
“I was hoping you would leave the city with me,” she confessed.
The rustling stilled. Kaifeng said nothing, but she heard the heavy cloth dropping to the floor a moment before he lowered his body over hers. The familiar weight of him anchored her while his shoulders blocked out the light of the stars and the moon until both of them were enfolded by darkness.
There was a new urgency in his touch. With one hand hooked beneath her knee, he parted her legs and stroked the tip of one finger over the damp part of her sex. Every muscle within her tensed and knotted. Oh, his hands were rough! Perfectly so. She could feel every ridge and callous as he touched her intimately, opening her for him. She dug her hands into his shoulders to tell him not to wait.
Her head fell back as he slid into her, the initial penetration traveling through every pressure point in her body, making her back arch and her lips part through no will of her own. She moaned with abandon as Kaifeng pushed deep into her to complete their union.
It seemed like so long ago that they had been together like this. Another lifetime.
When Kaifeng took her like this, single-mindedly, with no motive but for his pleasure and her own, she finally belonged to herself. Her body was her own and this pleasure—this pleasure was hers for the taking. If Mingyu hadn’t known this abandon with him, she might have never thought to run away. To claim more moments like it.
She closed her eyes at the sweet ache that built inside her, concentrating on the weight of Kaifeng above, anchoring her, driving harder until each thrust stole her breath away. Her flesh yielded around his and his movements created another pulse alongside the hammering of her heart.
Kaifeng crushed his mouth over hers to claim everything. She wrapped her legs around him, her thighs clasping his hips while the throb of pleasure built until she was floating, surrounded by the scent of sweat and skin and by the unending
rhythm of Kaifeng over her, inside her.
Suddenly he took hold of the back of her neck and his rhythm changed, his hips grinding against her to sharpen the sensation. Demanding her release. Mingyu gasped as his organ filled her the same moment his teeth bit into her neck. She cried out incoherently as her release took her. It might have been his name she cried at the height of her climax.
Kaifeng’s own release came immediately upon hers. They clung to each other through it, his grip on her almost painful. He came in complete silence, shuddering, his entire being focused on the act.
Mingyu wished that the darkness didn’t hide them. She wanted to see his face, in that most honest and vulnerable of moments. Such openness was rare, she knew. It never lasted for long.
* * *
THEY STAYED IN each other’s arms for a long time, catching their breath, trying to find some way to fit comfortably together on the hard floor.
“You tried to devour me,” she accused, quite pleased.
“I don’t know what you speak of.”
She showed him with a sharp nip against the side of his throat.
He shifted onto his back and pulled her over him. “I have no memory of doing that.”
Kaifeng sounded contrite, perhaps irritated that she would speak of such a private, intimate thing aloud even when it was only the two of them. But she was still glowing. When one felt like this afterward, every sense alive, Mingyu could understand one’s penchant for poetry and art, and allusions to clouds and peonies and the mist falling on Tai Mountain.
Whenever she had shared a patron’s bed, she had always been aware of herself as a picture of beauty and elegance. And mating was such an inelegant thing really. With Kaifeng, it wasn’t as if she didn’t care about his enjoyment as much as she didn’t have to fear his displeasure. There was no discipline to his lovemaking. What happened simply happened and it was so very good.
“You’re squirming,” he complained as he tried to settle her into the crook of his shoulder, but she refused to be restrained.
Slipping out of his hold, she perched herself on his chest like a triumphant lioness over her kill. Below her, Wu Kaifeng sighed.
“Constable,” she began, the title being relegated to nothing more than a tease now.
“Yes?”
“You should come with me.”
“Where would we go?”
“Suzhou.”
There was a pause. “I can’t go back to Suzhou.”
He said it with cold finality. Their intimacy hadn’t bought her passage into that forbidden territory yet. Perhaps it never would.
“We could go somewhere else, then.” She sank onto his shoulder just as he’d wanted moments earlier. His arms settled around her, but somehow they didn’t seem as warm and welcoming as before. “We’ll leave the city tomorrow once the gates are open.”
“Lady Mingyu.”
His formal address did not carry the same playful intimacy that hers had.
“I think you only ask this because you want something from me,” he finished.
She stiffened. “Well, of course I want something from you. And you want something from me, as well. Isn’t that the foundation of all interaction? The fulfillment of wants and needs. The cycle of favor and debt, in this life and the next.”
Kaifeng was silent as he considered her argument. She could almost hear him thinking in the slow, steady cadence of his breath. It was so irritating; Wu Kaifeng’s strict adherence to logic and his refusal to just let some things be.
“We should sleep,” she said when he had no answer for her.
She settled onto the ground beside him, curling herself against his hard, unyielding form. He softened just a little, turning toward her and letting his hand rest over her arm. His height didn’t make a difference in the bedchamber. All men and women fit together when lying down.
She did need him, she admitted, growing all the more irritable at having to explain herself...to herself.
Mingyu needed Kaifeng with her for protection and for his knowledge of the world, but she also wanted him. She had never allowed herself to want anyone. No man should ever hold such power over her.
The two of them remained so very far apart, even now while lying here, skin to skin. Mingyu drew closer, as close as she possibly could. Kaifeng tightened his hold on her when she started trembling.
“Are you cold?”
She shook her head, but couldn’t answer. Mingyu wasn’t cold; she was frightened. Her chest constricted so tight that it hurt and she could barely breathe. She was a courtesan trained in the art of seduction, but she knew nothing beyond that. It was harder than she’d ever imagined to open her heart to someone. She didn’t even know how to begin.
* * *
WHEN THEY AWOKE the next morning, Wu faced the corner as he sorted his clothes and donned his robe. At the opposite wall, Mingyu did the same. Her peasant’s robe was simple to manage without the layers upon layers of gauze and silk she was accustomed to.
There was no talk of last night. There was certainly no talk of how last night had ended. A question without an answer.
“What is this?”
At her feet lay a stack of books and writings. She hadn’t noticed any of it in the darkness.
“Those are records of the investigation into General Deng’s murder.”
She could hear his approach behind her. Awareness traveled up her spine as he neared. “Why are they here?”
“Inspector Xi has been watching over our shoulders from the beginning. Given his now questionable involvement, I thought it best to take them out of his reach.”
“But removing public records must be a violation of the law.”
“These are my private notes. I keep them for my own purposes, to record the minute details of each interrogation and observation.”
“You must have records of me then, from the investigation last year.”
“You do seem to be the center of scandal, my lady.”
He was beside her now, his presence no longer intimidating, but formidable nonetheless. Her pulse skipped and the back of her neck grew inexplicably warm. What had he recorded from their first meeting?
She remembered disliking him from the start. His gaze had raked over her with cold scrutiny. No, it was incorrect to say that his look had been cold. He had regarded her without desire or admiration or any of the emotion she was accustomed to seeing in a man’s eyes. What she had sensed from him was something else, a sort of interest she did not recognize. For someone who had cultivated her reputation and image so carefully, it had left her unsettled.
Now there was no question of his desire for her or the intensity and fire behind it, but the rest was still a question.
“I didn’t realize there was so much detail on General Deng’s murder.”
“He was a high-ranking military official with many connections. There is great interest in the imperial court for solving this crime.”
There were at least five journals and several scrolls set neatly against the wall. She recognized the rosewood case with the orchid painting among them. No wonder the magistrate relied on him so heavily. Despite his lack of formal education, Wu was meticulous in his work. From the highest born to the low, he discounted no one as suspect.
One of the scrolls had fallen open to reveal a sketch of what looked like a man’s torso from the back. Quickly, Mingyu averted her eyes, but she couldn’t remove the image from her mind. The body was unclothed and the head conspicuously missing. That one glimpse was enough to sicken her stomach, but she forced herself to take another look. Something didn’t feel right.
“This is General Deng?” She reached down to pull at the edge of the paper, still reluctant to pick up the entire scroll. The front view of the chest and abdomen was revealed along with the back view.
>
“The sketch was made prior to his burial. There are those who might consider it disrespectful to record a man’s image in death.”
“You drew this yourself? While...while the general lay before you?”
“Yes.”
The hairs rose on the back of her neck. “You wouldn’t have left out any detail, perhaps considering it insignificant?”
“No. Mingyu, what are you trying to say?”
Kaifeng scowled at her, the effect of it arresting. Her stomach swam and she was suddenly light-headed, so much that it was difficult to put her thoughts together. What she was seeing was impossible.
Wu Kaifeng had drawn the corpse exactly as he’d witnessed it. There was no embellishment here, no attempt to create a particular mood or sympathy as would be seen in a work of art. No liberties of interpretation. There was a scar beneath the ribs, typical of a warrior. Another scar in the leg. Possible old spear wound, the constable had noted in small characters directly on the drawing.
“The body did not belong to General Deng.” She forced the declaration past the tightness in her throat. “He didn’t have those scars. He also had a noticeable birthmark low on his back. It would have been impossible not to notice.”
Kaifeng tensed beside her. The atmosphere in the room shifted.
“Not General Deng,” he echoed, each word like a clang of a gong splitting the morning silence.
For a moment, everything remained still. Mingyu swore that even the crickets stopped chirping. Then, Kaifeng was in motion. He crouched down and unrolled the rest of the scroll so that it lay completely open. She lowered herself beside him, steadying her hand against the floor. They were looking at another man murdered, a different sort of crime altogether. Deception. Intrigue.
“Deng’s widow identified the body as her husband’s,” he began.
“Did you show her the body unclothed?”
“It would have been improper.”
