And he’s a good kisser. Don’t forget the kissing part
, her brain added on its own.
Emmi wished he’d slow down for a minute, or change his route so she could at least see some of nineteenth-century Kyoto. She’d gotten more of a tour out of Uncle Jake’s quick spin around the movie backlot before they started filming yesterday.
Unfortunately, Kaemon didn’t slow until they were confronted with another knot of people. Emmi caught her breath and massaged her side to ease the stitch she’d gotten from the unaccustomed hike. Looking around, she realized they were on the edge of a bridge that spanned a wide moat.
Emmi shifted and stood tiptoe to see clearly over the heads of the people in front of her. Finally, she saw something familiar. Up ahead was a massive front gate set in the high stone walls surrounding the Nijo castle compound. They’d passed Nijo on the way from the airport to the hotel, and although she’d only gotten a quick glimpse, Emmi was certain that this was the same place.
It seemed to take forever to reach the main gate then pass through to another. Kaemon explained why he was there to the guards and produced some type of identification paper for the men to inspect. Emmi took the time to look around and admire the workmanship of the entrance to the rambling palace complex containing the shogun’s official Kyoto residence and various offices and official meeting rooms.
Incredible barely described it. The dark wood of the gateway’s massive support beams was a sea of majestic decoration. Lifelike carved cranes flew amid intricately carved flowers, all of it surrounded by a myriad of golden chrysanthemums and set into golden scrollwork cartouches. Why the shogun would have ordered so much of the emperor’s chrysanthemum crest to be incorporated, as if it was his own, was beyond Emmi, but she couldn’t deny the beauty or commanding impression it gave.
The bottleneck at the gates eased considerably once they were inside the courtyard. Emmi didn’t have much of a chance to examine her surroundings as Kaemon grabbed her sleeve and propelled her forward.
It seemed as though he led her around and through each of the palace’s interconnected buildings twice. The place was bustling with men rushing here and there, most carrying handfuls of scrolls, stacks of ledger books or wooden boxes. She noticed that the majority of men knew Kaemon. The guards stationed throughout the place waved him through with curt bows, as though his face was the only ID he needed inside.
At last he slowed his quick pace, and her aching feet gave thanks. Emmi noticed the squeaking of the floorboards as they, and the few people that passed them, moved along the corridor.
“What, Tokugawa can’t afford a decent carpenter?” Emmi murmured.
Kaemon stopped short. Emmi almost ran into him and had to grip his waist to steady herself. Her hand seemed to burn from the feel of muscle beneath his silk clothing, and Emmi snatched it away but gave him what had to look like a guilty smile.
“You truly don’t know anything at all, do you?”
“What?”
He glanced down. “You claim to be a Maeda, and yet you don’t know about the floors. Are you so far removed from the main branch of the clan that none of your people have ever been here?”
“It’s been a long time for them, if that’s all right with you.” Stupid nervousness making her spit out the stupid carpenter comment. Of course she knew the floors were supposed to squeak like an old school burglar alarm. She prayed Kaemon wouldn’t press the issue.
He shook his head and surveyed his surroundings. He then stretched as if he too had finally tired of this wild goose chase. He returned the greeting of two men who came out of a side room. Once they disappeared around a corner, Kaemon gave her a hard look.
“Time for your questioning,” he said, grabbing her hand.
A cold chill ran through Emmi when he dragged her to a silk tapestry set into an alcove on the left.
Before she could finish saying “What the hell are you doing?” Emmi found herself pulled behind the tapestry, through a sliding panel, and into another corridor, which was lit only by thin bands of sun coming through slits in the ceiling.
“Do you know every secret passage ever created in Kyoto?”
“No. Only the ones in Shimabara, here and those in the Imperial Palace,” Kaemon said matter-of-factly.
“The Imperial Palace, as in where the emperor lives.”
“It’s also where my father, I and a host of other people live as well.”
“Bu—”
Her words were cut off when Kaemon shoved her against the wall and held her in place with his muscular body.
“You know all that, though, don’t you, Maeda-dono?” he sneered, saying the name and honorific as though it were the biggest exaggeration in the world.
Emmi shivered. Her pulse raced, and a thin sheen of sweat formed on her face following the unmistakable scrape of a weapon being drawn from its sheath. She sucked in her breath when he placed the blade of a long dagger almost against her throat.
“Those men we just saw will be gone for hours, and they’re the only ones in this part of the residence during the day. I could torture you, and no one would hear your screams well enough to know where they came from. And, even if they did investigate, I assure you I can convince them that you tried to kill me first.”
Emmi trembled and prayed that she wouldn’t shake enough to bring her throat closer to the blade in his hand.
“W-what is wrong with you? Why are you doing this?”
He snorted his contempt. “What did you drug me with? What did you put into the sake that I couldn’t detect?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. I swear I don’t.”
Kaemon smirked and tilted the blade so that what light there was glinted off its edge and hit her in the eye.
“I will get the information out of you,” he said in a menacing whisper. “I’m sure such a drug would be useful to my father.”
Emmi clutched her hands into fists so tightly her nails dug into her palms. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I didn’t give you any drug. Maybe it was Yamanami. He gave you tea, I gave you nothing.”
Kaemon pressed the flat edge of the blade against her throat. “Do not play the fool with me,” he ordered. “At the brothel. The sake was drugged. You led me to believe that you were trapped within the mirror and made me think I pulled you free.”
“No, I didn’t—”
“Do. Not. Lie.”
Emmi winced when the very tip of the blade pressed on her neck, and, though she clamped her eyes shut, she could feel the tears slide from beneath her lashes as drops of blood trickled down her neck.
“I didn’t. Kill me if you want, but I swear on my life that I didn’t drug you or trick you.”
Kaemon was again reminded of the courtesan, Koyuki, who had so loved his father and had been like a mother to him. He’d been playing with his cousin and hiding in a chest in his father’s room. Father and Koyuki had come in arguing—she protesting her innocence in betraying him with another man and he insisting that his informant was beyond the reproach of a whore no matter how noble of birth she was. His father had been as close to severing Yuki’s head as he himself was at this moment with this woman.
“Look at me.”
Emmi opened her eyes. More tears slid down her cheeks, but she shakingly met his gaze.
He tilted the blade of the tanto away from her throat and stared into her eyes. He’d killed traitors before, and he’d seen the deceit lingering in the backs of their eyes even as they professed their innocence. The woman who’d lied to his father about Koyuki had had that look of betrayal in her own eyes before his father had killed her.
Even through the sheen of watery tears, Kae knew the look in the depths of Emiko’s eyes was nothing like those of the true betrayers. He put the tanto away then gently wiped away her tears with the pads of his thumbs.
Maybe I am Alice stuck in a topsy-turvy world
, Emmi thought when Kaemon kissed the spot where he’d nicked her throat. First he wanted to kill her, now he wanted to comfort her. It made no sense, but, for the life of her, Emmi couldn’t push him away.
When he leaned in to kiss her, she didn’t even try to make sense of it anymore. All that mattered was the fire that seeped into her blood when his lips met hers. She’d never been kissed like this. This was a man’s kiss, not the kiss of the boys back home who were too intimidated by her father to ever dare take possession of her mouth the way Kae was doing.
He broke the kiss long enough to gaze into her eyes before he captured her lips with his again. He slid his mouth from hers to kiss a trail to her chin then down her neck. He licked the small cut he’d given her.
“Forgive me,” he whispered before teasing her with featherlight kisses up and down her neck.
Emmi breathed a long soft sigh and arched into his touch when he slid his hands along her midriff. He drew back to look at her again, and Emmi melted inside from the intensity of his gaze. She shifted, and the boards beneath her feet creaked softly. They creaked again when Kae changed his own stance and removed the sack holding the mirror.
He set it on the floor beside her and gripped her waist, his hands snaking inside the side slits of the hakama she wore.
Emmi whimpered when he cupped her rear through the soft fabric of the yukata and again when he pulled her hips toward his. She could feel his erection but was too lightheaded from the pleasure to consider the consequences.
“You must be some type of oni,” he said before kissing her neck again. “What magic do you use to make me behave this way?”
“I-I’m not—”
He chuckled, and Emmi felt embarrassment flame her cheeks. The instant he peered intently into her eyes, the heat coursing through her body settled itself deep within her center, and she shivered.
He grinned, and Emmi was certain she heard a muffled growl rumble in his chest. He claimed her mouth with his once more. His tongue sought out hers, teasing her, coaxing her, while he slipped his hands inside the hakama again to part the thin yukata.
Emmi shivered again when Kaemon’s rough fingers glided over her belly and hips. She barely noticed the squeaking of the floorboards as he strummed a gentle rhythm over her burning flesh. He hesitated when his fingers brushed the stretch lace of her panties, but then he slipped his fingers beneath the thin fabric. With slow precision he stroked and caressed, pressed and prodded her sex until she was quaking beneath his experienced touch.
Common sense screamed that this was a bad idea, but she was powerless to resist. Maybe he was the demon who had her under a spell. She barely heard the creaking boards any longer, never paid attention to the sound of the hidden panel sliding open until Kaemon stiffened and stopped dead.
“Why am I not surprised to find my son here?” an annoyed male voice asked from behind Kaemon. “So your taste is running to young pages these days, is it? This is exactly why I told you not to befriend Takeda Kanryuusai and the rest of that Mibu-ro trash.”
Kaemon sucked in his breath and Emmi tried to shrink back into the wall. Her father and brother had had a couple of standoffs like this, and they hadn’t been pleasant.
“My tastes are as they have always been,” Kaemon said curtly before turning. “I don’t understand why you dislike the Shinsengumi. They’ve quelled more disturbances than any other force in Kyoto.”
“They’re nothing but farmers with swords. That will never change, no matter how many rebels they slay or favors they’re granted.”
The low growl that rumbled in Kae’s chest chilled Emmi, and she instinctively grabbed the back of his haori, hoping to stop him from saying or doing something he’d regret. He relaxed, and she rubbed his back a moment before removing her hand.
Kaemon’s father cleared his throat. “Send your playmate back to wherever you found her then meet me in my quarters within the hour.” He left, shutting the sliding panel with a sharp bang.
Kae grumbled and turned back to face Emmi. She looked up at him with a combination of worry and curiosity.
“Why did you do that?” he asked. “Why did you rub your hand over my back?”
Emmi shrugged. “I don’t know. I guess because my parents did that to each other. They didn’t get angry very often, but that was their signal for the other to stop and think before they said or did anything they’d regret later.”
Emmi paused as the awkwardness of the situation engulfed her, making the brief silence uncomfortable.
“So that was your father?”
Kaemon smirked. “Yes. His Imperial Highness Prince Nakagawa.”
Emmi shivered. No wonder he seemed so dictatorial—
“Prince? Your father is a prince?”
Kaemon nodded. “He is an adopted brother to the emperor.”
“The emperor?”
Kaemon smirked. “He’s the emperor as long as the rebel swine never get their way.”
Emmi’s mind spun. For as long as she could remember, there had been a large portrait of the Emperor of Japan above the living room mantel in her grandparents’ house. Even in old family photos it was there.
Kaemon’s father was a prince, the adopted brother of the current emperor and that meant…
Shouldn’t she fall to her knees and bow?
He practically had his hands in your pants
, a sarcastic inner voice said.
Don’t you think you’re a wee bit past the formality stage
?
“You’re an imperial prince?” Emmi asked in a shaking voice, hoping she’d gotten it all wrong.
“Yes. And I’m going to be a prince awaiting his funeral if I don’t get to my father’s quarters in time. Come on.”
He dragged her out of the secret passage and rushed through various rooms and corridors, causing the squeaky Nightingale Floor to sing.
“I can’t go to the Imperial Palace looking like this.”
“No, you can’t,” Kaemon said. “That’s why I’m leaving you here.”
“No!”
Kaemon stopped and glared at her. “I will not leave you to run loose here or through Kyoto. I’m taking you to the wife of the castle warden. I’ll return for you later.”
Knowing that she didn’t have much choice in the matter, Emmi let him lead her to the spacious kitchens of Ninomaru Palace. There a bevy of maids dressed in matching salmon-colored kimonos with dark green obis bustled about preparing food to place on the dozens of
ozen
—meal trays—that sat waiting with small bowls and plates atop a series of long plank tables set against the far wall.