The hardened killer was running, so Huang figured he’d better do the same. The remaining thugs gave chase. One of them was gaining. Huang could hear him. Then he felt the impact of something striking against his side, tearing through cloth.
Damned fool. He’d escaped death before near this very spot. He put everything he had into it; heart pounding, muscles straining. Soon his chest felt as if it would burst, but there were no more footsteps behind him. That last lunge must have set the attackers back.
Gao slowed, but did not halt until they were back in the open streets. The lanterns of a nighttime patrol bobbed on the other side of the square. Huang stopped beside him and doubled over, gasping.
“I see you learned a few tricks, Lord Bai. You better hide that,” Gao said between ragged breaths. At least he was winded as well.
Huang’s knife was still clutched in his fist. He slipped it back into the sheath strapped to his arm, then straightened. He pressed a hand to his side, feeling along the gash in his robe with his fingers.
He hadn’t felt any pain when the knife had sliced into his clothing, but the shock of a wound could push the pain back in his mind so it didn’t emerge until later. He knew this from experience.
Huang held out his hand. It was clean of any blood. “There’s some use to wearing so many layers of silk.”
Gao snorted.
Though Huang hadn’t been wounded this time, he was still in shock. Gao had saved his life. Twice. Well, not quite. The first time three years ago, Gao had just deliberately failed to kill him.
“Who wants you dead now?” the cutthroat asked curiously.
“I don’t know.”
Gao flashed him a smile with too many teeth. “I can find out—unless you’ve gambled away your fortune again.”
What strange company he kept lately.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
B
AI
H
UANG
HAD
stopped coming by. Yue-ying hadn’t seen or heard from him since she had refused his gift. She didn’t mean for him to disappear out of her life and the thought that she had seriously offended him left her heartsick.
There was one night when she’d thought she had seen him. She was high above, looking down from the upper floor of the Lotus. It had been late, long past midnight. She couldn’t be certain it was Bai Huang, but the visitor was of similar height and build. His silhouette had been so familiar it had filled her with longing, but the visitor had only come to the entrance before turning to leave. The next morning, Yue-ying asked the other girls about him, but no one had an answer for her.
Without him, she continued with her daily tasks; all the while she wondered whether Bai Huang was still searching for Huilan’s killer. She hadn’t realized how her days would feel a little lonelier without him. At night, she lay awake for too long, thinking about what had happened. What she had done.
She had made it known to Bai Huang that she didn’t want his attentions. There was no use mourning for something she’d never had, she insisted to herself as she pressed her fist against the growing ache in her chest.
A week went by and she was convinced Bai Huang would never come back. How could he when she’d caused him to lose face?
A few mornings later, Yue-ying had just returned from the market when she passed by the main parlor. Madame Sun was having tea with Mingyu, but the headmistress looked up and waved Yue-ying over excitedly.
“Come! Sit with us.”
Yue-ying stepped tentatively into the parlor and took a seat beside Mingyu on the settee. Madame never asked for her to join them. Most of the time, the headmistress simply acknowledged Yue-ying’s presence with the barest of nods. Today she wore a sly grin and leaned forward, her eyes narrowing with mischief.
“You’ll never guess who I spoke with this morning.”
Yue-ying glanced to Mingyu, who was staring intently into her tea.
“A letter had come yesterday and I didn’t know what to make of it. But first thing this morning, a carriage arrived—”
“Mother, you’re stalling on purpose,” Mingyu scolded, irritated.
Madame was undeterred. “He greeted me very politely and we sat for tea. I hadn’t seen him here in a while and started scolding him about that, but he had more important matters in mind.”
“Who?” Yue-ying asked finally with an impatient exhalation.
Madame Sun grinned in triumph, having properly baited her audience. Yue-ying could see the sort of tone she had set in her days as a courtesan and banquet master.
“Lord Bai Huang.”
Madame enunciated each syllable for effect and then sat back to await a response. Mingyu’s grip tightened on her cup.
Yue-ying found it hard to breathe. It wasn’t fair that just the mention of his name could do this to her. “What did he have to say?”
Madame laughed. “He wanted to redeem you, of all things.”
Bai Huang wanted to buy her freedom?
“That’s not possible,” Yue-ying gasped.
“Foolish romantic scholar,” Madame Sun agreed. “Not even considering how it will look to his family. And not yet married either! What chance does he have of finding a suitable wife once he’s taken a woman of the brothels as a concubine?”
“Mother.”
Only Mingyu could admonish the headmistress in such a way. She then turned to Yue-ying. “He did not mention this to you?”
Yue-ying couldn’t form a reply. She could only shake her head.
“Well, I told Lord Bai we would need to consider it carefully,” Madame said with a wave of her hand. “He looked quite stricken, if you ask me. Choosing his words so carefully, so nervous. And so handsome too. Ah, youth.” Madame Sun seemed delighted to be in the middle of a choice bit of gossip. “I was so afraid he was seeking a contract with Mingyu,” she said bluntly. “I would have had to figure out how to refuse him without angering him. You would never leave me, would you, Mingyu? What would the Lotus Palace ever do without you?”
“I am perfectly content here,” Mingyu said without emotion. “Why would I ever want to leave?”
Yue-ying waited for a lull in the conversation to excuse herself. Mingyu didn’t look at her as she rose from her seat and hurried up the stairs. Back in the safety of their chambers, she tried to occupy herself by dusting the sitting area, though she had just completed that chore the day before. It wasn’t long before she heard the door open behind her, followed by the silken whisper of Mingyu’s robe.
“It’s your decision,” Mingyu said quietly.
“You know that’s not true. There is no decision to make.”
A wealthy patron occasionally offered to pay off a courtesan’s debts to her foster mother. But Yue-ying was already free, or as free as a woman without family or means could be. Mingyu had bought her debt from the brothel to bring her here, something that a nobleman like Bai Huang would never have considered.
“Maybe you should go to Lord Bai,” Mingyu said.
“But you’ve warned me away from him again and again,” Yue-ying replied, puzzled.
“That was before...before he showed his feelings to be of a more serious nature.” Mingyu looked out the window, avoiding her gaze. “I won’t be here forever. I may leave one day, go somewhere far away.”
It was only a fantasy. Mingyu was too deeply indebted to the Lotus Palace to leave Madame Sun. Still, she knew Mingyu stored away money in hopes of one day being free.
“This place will take our souls if we stay too long,” Mingyu went on solemnly. “The Pingkang li never changes. The same girls are brought here, over and over. We have different faces, but we’re all the same. We’ll grow old and new ones will replace us. A hundred years ago, there must have been another Mingyu in a house just like this one.”
“I’m staying here with you,” Yue-ying said firmly. “This is all a game to Lord Bai. He only wants me when the mood strikes him and he has plenty of money to throw around. He and I haven’t spoken in over a week.”
Mingyu looked stricken. A pained expression crossed her face along with something Yue-ying had never seen before: guilt.
“He hasn’t been ignoring you. I sent him away. I refused to let him into the house, but even then he tried to write to you.” Mingyu went to her desk and pulled out several squares of paper, dyed in the vibrant colors that scholars favored for gifting poems of love. “I thought for certain he would lose interest and go away. That he would be done with it.”
Yue-ying’s throat went dry at the sight of the papers. “Done with me is what you mean,” she said through her teeth.
Mingyu’s eyes were full of regret. “I was trying to protect you. There are so many things you don’t know, Yue-ying.”
She faltered and there was an awful silence between them. Yue-ying took in a deep breath, surprised to find that she was trembling. She had assumed Bai Huang had forgotten her, but Mingyu’s deception wasn’t the worst of it. After all of her meddling, Mingyu was now pushing her away. Did Mingyu want her to stay or not? Her changing moods were infuriating.
Yue-ying could have lashed out, but all she could summon was a cold and quiet anger that sank through her skin and into her bones. It was as if she had been thrown into a pool of black water and her very clothes were keeping her under. Any struggle only pulled her down further.
Mingyu held out the stack of letters and Yue-ying took them without a word. What had Bai Huang tried to say? The black lines meant nothing to her.
“The choice is yours,” Mingyu said softly. “I won’t interfere any longer.”
* * *
T
HE
MEETING
WITH
Madame Sun hadn’t gone as Huang had planned. He had expected her to be shrewd, to claim a sudden motherly fondness for Yue-ying and name a price that was two or three times her bond. Then he had expected she would be smug. She would smile at him with a superior air, knowing he had been snared. He was prepared for all of those reactions, as long as he was able to get Yue-ying away from the Lotus Palace. She was nothing but a slave there. But the mistress of the Lotus Palace had simply smiled that secret woman’s smile and told him he would have to wait for an answer.
His other endeavor that day was also a failure. Zhou Dan had reported there were ships being secretly loaded and unloaded at night, but Huang had camped along the docks for hours, staring at the empty canal while a sudden downfall of rain kept him company.
It was late when Huang finally gave in and returned to his residence. As he neared the gate, he spied a figure huddled beneath the overhang. He stopped, muscles tensing in preparation for a fight. The attack outside the gambling den was still fresh in his mind.
“It’s me.”
He raised his lantern and his pulse jumped at the sight of Yue-ying peering back at him. “What are you doing here alone in the dark?”
Her arms were wrapped around herself and her hair hung damp around her face. “It was late and the ward gates were closed,” she said in a small voice, as if that explained everything.
“Why didn’t you come inside?”
He loosened the tie on his cloak and settled it around her shoulders. With one hand, he pushed the gate open while his other arm curved around her shoulders. The rain had come and gone, as summer rains were in the habit of doing, and the evening wasn’t particularly cold, but it was Yue-ying. She was waiting for him and maybe his arms did miss her more than a little.
“I asked for you earlier, but you weren’t home. The old woman said she didn’t know when you would be back,” she rambled. “I didn’t want to intrude and she was looking askance at me as if I were—”
He hushed her, leading her through the courtyard and into his study. Once inside, he lit the oil lamps using the flame from the lantern before extinguishing it. There wasn’t any other place to properly greet guests in this modest-sized house.
“I was going to say a beggar.” Yue-ying was babbling and he could sense the nervous tension all along her spine and rumbling through her like a kettle about to boil. “I considered going back, but I had walked all the way here and then the rain started and it was already getting dark.”
Yue-ying in the rain would always be irresistible to him. She pushed her damp hair away from her face. Her eyes were large and striking and so much emotion flickered behind them that she was impossible to read. He had missed her.
They had just started warming to each other and then she had begun playing these games, keeping him at arm’s length. At first he’d been irritated. He’d tried telling himself she was just a servant while he was noble-born. Maybe it was all a ploy and Yue-ying was aiming high for her station. But he knew in his heart that wasn’t the truth. Yue-ying was different. He’d watched her for so long. She was his and only his.
Of course, every lovesick scholar felt this way about his particular Pingkang beauty. And Yue-ying wasn’t his. But he wanted very much for her to be.
“Tea?” he asked, finding it a struggle to keep his tone casual.
“No, Lord Bai.” She seemed equally nervous. “I wouldn’t want you to trouble yourself.”
“No trouble,” he muttered, heading for the kitchen.
He stoked the fire beneath the stove as a flood of anticipation roared through him. Yue-ying was here. She had to know what he had discussed with Madame Sun. It was a breach of etiquette for Yue-ying to come herself, when financial matters hadn’t yet been settled, but she was here. Damned if his palms weren’t sweating.
She was still standing in the same place when he returned with the tray. He set it down on the desk and motioned for her to sit while he poured the tea. She did so, though with some reluctance.
He realized they hadn’t had a chance to speak since the attack on him. “You need to be careful traveling alone.”
“I can’t be your concubine,” she blurted out.
“Ah.” He had been wondering how he would broach that subject. He was too startled by her directness to come up with anything more eloquent.
She stared at him, wincing as she struggled on. “Please don’t take any offense. Your proposal was quite generous—”
“I didn’t offer it to be
generous
,” he interrupted, setting down the teapot.
What a ridiculous night this was turning out to be.
It would have been ungentlemanly of him to mention his family’s class and noble status in comparison to hers, but the truth was he was a little offended to be dismissed so easily. Mostly he was just confused.
“Why—?” She paused to swallow. “Why did you offer to redeem me?”
He approached her, watching every emotion that flickered over her face. Color rose to her cheeks as he neared.
“Why can’t you be my concubine?”
She gave a sharp laugh. “Isn’t it obvious? Look at you and look at me.”
He caught her gaze and held it. “I’m looking.”
Yue-ying tilted her chin upward in challenge. Not only to him, but to everyone who had ever stared at her. “Why would anyone pay for a concubine whose face was ruined like this?”