He considered her for a long, drawn-out moment, as if daring her to look away. She didn’t.
“I’ll walk with you,” he offered.
The journey back to the quarter should have been a short one. She was keenly aware of Bai Huang’s presence beside her every step of the way, knew exactly what was happening the moment he turned toward the public park instead of the Three Lanes. Without a word, he slipped beneath the shadow of a bridge and reeled her gently to him, like a dragonfly on a thread.
Yue-ying was no innocent. She had no reason to be coy, so she followed him into the darkness and closed her eyes as he pressed her back against the stone foundation. Then he kissed her until she had no breath left in her.
“We’re all the same to you. Any one of us will do,” she accused, breathing hard while she held on to him. His arms were strong and his shoulders surprisingly broad beneath the embroidered silk robe.
His tongue traced her lips intimately, urging her to allow him inside. He invaded her mouth, tasting of tea and dark, sensual secrets.
“Not the same,” he whispered a little later against her ear. His hands rounded her hips as she shuddered and her knees grew weak. “There is no one else like you. Do you want me to tell you all the ways in which you are only you?”
For all her life, she had been separated out and denied because she was different. She’d been condemned for it.
“No,” she said, pulling him closer. “Don’t say anything.”
* * *
T
HEY
PARTED
WAYS
outside of the park, Bai Huang going north and she headed south. Her heart was still pounding and her lips were wonderfully, pleasantly flushed. If she looked over her shoulder, the moment would shatter, so she didn’t look back.
Oh, she knew who Lord Bai was. He was the sort who found all women beautiful in some way, who liked to play his games of courtship on any willing recipient.
Yue-ying had no reputation to protect and her virtue was long gone. And she had given up so much more to men who had meant so much less to her. Why not someone who was well mannered and well-spoken? Who was handsome and strong and who she was growing fond of?
On some tomorrow, she would be old. Bai Huang would be just a name and a memory. Mingyu had so many admirers, yet she cared little for them. Yue-ying, the girl once cruelly called Half-Moon because of her ruined face, had no such admirers.
So let me have this one
, she thought with an air of defiance as she returned to the Lotus Palace.
Even if it is just a game to him.
But as she reached the North Hamlet the clouds before her eyes began to thin until they were nothing more than wisps easily swept away. She was late, unaccountably late. Yue-ying was short of breath by the time she reached the Lotus Palace.
“Did you forget the time?” Mingyu asked as she entered the parlor.
The question was unnecessary and they both knew it. Yue-ying was never forgetful. She was never careless. She said nothing as she set about preparing Mingyu for the evening. Mingyu said little in response, but a chill was evident in the dressing room.
Unfortunately, an hour before they were to leave for the evening’s engagement, Mingyu insisted on having a bodyguard.
“This banquet is far outside the North Hamlet. After what happened to Huilan, one can never know what dangers lay out there,” she said.
Madame Sun was livid. “Stupid girl! What are you afraid of? Ghosts?”
“I won’t set foot outside the door without protection.”
Madame proceeded to plead and then threaten, but Mingyu would not hear it. She was the most celebrated of the Lotus Palace courtesans, commanding two and sometimes even three times the price of her sisters. It was impossible to send another girl to replace her.
Unlike Madame, Yue-ying didn’t bother trying to convince Mingyu. The truth of the matter was that Mingyu was upset and, as a result, everyone around her had to suffer. Yue-ying left the two women arguing and hurried out to seek out a possible bodyguard. She could choose a laborer and pay him a few coins, but the prospect of entrusting themselves to a stranger struck her as being more dangerous than traveling alone.
On a whim, she ventured toward the magistrate’s yamen and sought out the head constable.
“Constable Wu,” she greeted.
“Miss Yue-ying.”
“If any of your constables are not on duty, may we hire him for the night?”
His expression was severe. “It would be inappropriate for an appointed constable to take payment. It could be seen as a bribe.”
“I apologize. I didn’t mean any insult.” She sighed wearily. “You see, a situation has come up—”
“Are you in danger?”
“No,” she said quickly, seeing how his frown deepened. “But my mistress refuses to go out tonight without protection. She seems to have been deeply affected by Huilan—by the incident at the Hundred Songs.”
“Then the magistrate’s yamen holds some responsibility for that,” Wu said. “The murderer still has not been caught and it is our duty to do so in a timely manner. I will send someone over to assist you in an hour.”
“Thank you, sir.”
She bowed and left the administrative compound to hurry back to the Lotus. Madame Sun was in the main parlor having tea. She was visibly agitated.
“Everything is taken care of,” Yue-ying told her.
Madame sniffed, but nodded. “Good.”
Mingyu was up in her chamber, seated on a pillow with her zither placed before her on a low table. Her fingers plucked ceaselessly at the strings. The tune was a strident one in the martial style that was meant to evoke battle and warfare. There were times when she was subtle in her moods. This was not one of them.
Mingyu had started training in music, dance and calligraphy immediately after Madame Sun had taken her in. She had been twelve years old at the time, older than when many of the other courtesans began their rigorous education. Yue-ying had received no such instruction. Whereas Mingyu was considered
ji
, an artist and entertainer, Yue-ying had been
chang
, nothing more than a vessel, a whore.
“The head constable said he would send someone,” Yue-ying said when there was a break in the music.
Mingyu paused for a moment, then resumed playing. “Why Lord Bai?” she asked over the sigh of the strings.
There was no denying where Yue-ying had spent the morning and she didn’t want to deny it.
Over the past few years together, she and Mingyu had learned each other’s moods to every frown and flutter of an eyelash. The demand for a bodyguard and the entire tantrum with Madame was Mingyu’s way of showing her displeasure with Bai Huang. And Yue-ying had scrambled to accommodate her, driven by her own guilt.
Mingyu was still waiting for an answer.
“Lord Bai is a gentleman” was all Yue-ying could say. He didn’t treat her like a whore. He treated her as someone desirable, someone worthy of being pursued and courted.
“Is it his wealth? His status?” The courtesan’s hands continued to move over the strings.
“It’s not any of that.”
“Then it’s worse than I thought. You’re lured by his beauty and by his promises.”
The melody took on a hint of tension beneath the notes.
“Bai Huang is a young man and idealistic,” Mingyu continued. “He might even fancy himself in love with you, but you can never be more than a servant to him. Outside of the pleasure quarter, you’re nothing to him.”
Mingyu never allowed herself to be attracted to a patron. They courted her with poetry and gifts and she outwardly appeared flattered, but that was part of the illusion of the Pingkang li.
The music stopped abruptly. “He’ll only use you.”
Yue-ying’s pulse pounded. “He won’t.” Her throat was tight. “I won’t let him.”
Mingyu swung around to face her. “I knew.”
Yue-ying remained in the corner, her hands clasped in front of her. To anyone observing them, she was a servant awaiting orders. When Mingyu became like this, it was better to let the storm roll over rather than fight against it.
“I knew from the first time he came to the Lotus and he saw you,” Mingyu said through her teeth.
“You’re making things up now. No one sees me. They only see you.”
“Lord Bai certainly noticed you. I could see it in his eyes. He flatters me because he is expected to, but he was seeking your attention the entire time. I thought you would be indifferent to his charms. That you wouldn’t be seduced so easily.”
Yue-ying remained outwardly calm, though her stomach fluttered with a perverse thrill. Perhaps Bai Huang had indeed noticed her right from the beginning. “I have not been seduced by him.”
“But you want to be,” Mingyu accused.
Maybe she did. Being desired and seduced was better than being bought and sold.
Mingyu stood and went to her. “You have to be careful, Yue-ying. Everyone has two faces in the North Hamlet. Everyone wants more from you than what they ask.”
Bai Huang had claimed Mingyu was jealous of anyone taking attention away from her, but the truth was much more complicated. Mingyu had always been protective of her.
“Tomorrow he will be chasing someone else. This is sport for young aristocrats like him. Their one chance to behave like scoundrels with no consequences. I see it every year—different faces, but the same poems, the same gossip, the same games of courtship.”
“I know this,” Yue-ying said harshly. It was rare that she ever raised her voice against her supposed mistress, but Mingyu’s words stung with the pain of truth. Hadn’t Bai Huang all but admitted it?
I wanted to see what would happen.
“I know this,” she repeated, her tone subdued and brittle now. “I know a great many other things as well.”
Yue-ying could have conceded this battle, like so many other sacrifices she’d made all her life, but something inside her refused. She wasn’t defending Bai Huang. She was fighting for herself, for the small pleasure of being kissed beneath a bridge by someone who was to her liking. Even if Bai Huang had known a hundred other bridges and a hundred other girls.
“You warn me about the dangers of being seduced by a man as if I’m an innocent maiden when you know that I am far from innocent,” Yue-ying challenged. “You just choose to ignore that.”
For a moment, Mingyu looked worried. She looked vulnerable. She looked as she had once looked a long time ago.
“I am still here with you,” Yue-ying said gently. “I’ll be here tomorrow and tomorrow after that.”
“Don’t be taken in by him. By his sweet words or that handsome face,” Mingyu warned, building the walls back up around her. “He’ll hurt you.”
Maybe Yue-ying wanted him to. It would mean that she could still feel something.
* * *
M
ADAME
S
UN
HAD
to send someone up twice before they heeded her summons. The air between them was stretched to the breaking point as they descended the stairs. Mingyu walked with her spine stiff and her head tilted at a haughty angle. The pearl ornament in her hair swung restlessly with each step. Yue-ying followed a few steps behind, obediently carrying Mingyu’s stringed pipa. It was a smaller instrument and easier to transport than the zither.
“You’re going to be late,” Madame scolded.
Being punctual was not something Mingyu ever worried about. Banquets were notoriously laconic when it came to starting and more particularly ending hours—a habit that Madame usually profited from.
So Mingyu breezed past Madame with only a cursory nod. It was the tall figure at the front door that brought her up short.
“Lady Mingyu.” Wu Kaifeng bowed lower than was required. It was an awkward, exaggerated motion that, given his height, seemed almost like mockery.
“Constable Wu.” Mingyu’s bow was considerably less pronounced to the point of being nonexistent. “Yue-ying did not tell me the head constable would see to this task himself.”
“I hope the lady finds this servant acceptable.”
“More than acceptable.” She continued past him.
The carriage was waiting in the street. Yue-ying quickened her pace to come up beside the constable.
“I didn’t mean for you to go to all this trouble,” she whispered.
“No trouble,” he said in a tone that wasn’t exactly unpleasant. Every exchange with him was a battle. He gave away nothing in his voice or expression.
She went ahead to Mingyu, who had already seated herself. The awning had been taken down for the evening and Yue-ying could see the orange-purple sky peeking through the buildings as the sun set. Constable Wu remained in the street to accompany them on foot, his hand resting casually near his sword.
“Come up here with us,” Mingyu invited. “It’s a long way and I would want you to save your strength to fight off any bandits and wrongdoers that might accost us.”
Yue-ying sighed in irritation. Mingyu was the one who had insisted on an escort, but now she was treating it like some sort of joke.