“This face isn’t ruined.”
He cupped her face in his hands and she flinched. He could see the tremor in her lower lip and how hard she fought to maintain her composure. She wanted to look away and hide herself, but she didn’t. And he fell a little bit more for her because of it.
“This isn’t the tale of ‘Master Zheng and the Singsong girl’,” she said bitterly. “Someone like Mingyu would be more suitable for an aristocrat, and even then barely so.”
“Mingyu again. Her beauty is worthless to me,” he said harshly. “It’s worthless to anyone. Beneath her skin, that woman is a fox-demon—”
“Madame Sun does not own me,” Yue-ying interrupted. A spark of anger ignited in her eyes as she twisted out of his grasp. “I own myself. You can’t redeem me because Mingyu has already redeemed me.”
That certainly stopped his tongue. Why would a courtesan buy a servant when she rarely could earn enough to buy her own freedom?
He had Yue-ying’s face in his hands only a moment ago. The fine bone structure, the gracefully shaped nose and cheekbones were not identical, but certainly reminiscent—
“She’s your sister,” he murmured.
Yue-ying smiled a hard, cold little smile and he could see the resemblance even more clearly. “Our faces are actually quite similar, if anyone cared to look.”
He must have been blind. All the pieces fit into place now: Yue-ying’s fierce loyalty, Mingyu’s overprotectiveness.
She reached across him to pour the tea. Her hands were steady and her demeanor utterly calm as she handed him his cup.
“Do you know they used to call me Half-Moon? Only half of my face was worth looking at. It was Mingyu who changed it to Yue-ying. She is really quite clever.”
She poured herself a cup as well, still speaking as if she were a thousand
li
away.
“A stranger came to our village. He saw Mingyu and how beautiful she was and told our father and mother that he was searching for a bride for a wealthy merchant. I thought Father must have been fooled by the man. He must have believed Mingyu would go to a good family, but then Father told the stranger he had a younger daughter as well. One he had little hope of marrying off. They knew.” She looked away as she sipped the tea. “Our father and mother knew what was happening. They were poor and had two daughters and one son. Perhaps if they didn’t have a son to pour all their hopes into, they wouldn’t have sold us. I thought I remembered Mother crying when the stranger took us away, but Mingyu insists that she didn’t.”
Another sip of tea. Huang’s cup remained gripped in his hands. He was stunned into silence. There was some whispered conversation about her past in the Pingkang li, but it was very different to hear such words aloud. These were things not to be spoken of out of politeness. Yue-ying left all politeness behind.
“When we were first brought here, the procurers looked at my face and shook their heads. I was sent to the poorer areas where the lower-class brothels operated. If even they would take me, the trader said. He had paid a bride price for me and had little hope of recovering his cost. I understood that, even as a child of eight.”
“That is all in the past,” he said softly.
“But it’s not. I’ve heard my face described as flawed, ruined, unfortunate. A bad omen. People avert their gazes and move away from me as if it’s a disease they might catch. But after being separated for so many years, my sister was only able to find me because my face was so recognizable. The red-faced whore.” A tear slid down her cheek, but she ignored it. “So you see I don’t consider it unfortunate at all. You can also see why I don’t wish to be owned ever again.”
More tears fell, though she made no sound. She didn’t bother to wipe them away. It was as though she didn’t acknowledge them, then they didn’t exist. He took the tea from her hands and set it aside. They were already close, but he pulled her closer.
“I’m going to kiss you now,” he warned.
Yue-ying blinked up at him. Her lashes were damp, her nose red. She didn’t say yes, but she didn’t say no, so he did, folding his arms around her and pressing his mouth to hers until the tension finally drained from her shoulders. Until he could feel her lips softening and warming against him. Until they found each other once again in the kiss.
* * *
“W
HEN
I
FIRST
came to the Pingkang li, it was like a dream,” Bai Huang said.
They were standing in his study. At some point, they had stopped kissing, but he still did not let go of her. He brushed away her tears and she let her head sink against his chest. She could feel the rise and fall of his breathing and his voice resonated wonderfully beneath her ear.
“Night and day were one and the same. Wine flowed like rivers. I took beautiful women to bed and gambled away all my money. It was as if the world was there for my pleasure and I could never get enough.”
She ran her fingers along the front of his robe, tracing the intricate embroidered pattern there. His outward appearance spoke of luxury and excess, but she had sensed for a long time now that there was something more beneath it.
“What changed?” she asked.
“I went away. Or rather I was forced to leave the city. When I returned, everything looked like an illusion. All that was so beautiful before was no more than a layer of lacquer and paint. Except for you.”
Her chest squeezed tight. An unrecognizable emotion rushed through her, seizing her limbs. The closest thing she knew to it was fear.
“I should go.” Her heart was pounding too fast.
“But—” His arms tightened around her waist. “It’s very late,” he said mildly. “And the ward gates are closed.”
Their gazes locked and once again she felt as if he was not only seeing her, but into her. And for once she wanted to be seen. She wanted to see herself the way he saw her.
There was nothing to do but kiss him again. She raised herself onto her toes and pressed her mouth against his, welcoming the thrill that traveled down her spine and curled wonderfully through her limbs. His hands flattened at the small of her back to fit her against the hard planes of his body. She wanted to close her eyes and melt into him.
He bent until his lips brushed her ear. “Will you stay?”
Such a gentleman, asking like that.
Why shouldn’t she? She had only lain beneath strangers before. At least she liked Bai Huang. At least his hands were gentle and he knew how to hold her so she felt like a woman instead of a piece of warm flesh.
She needed to stop thinking like that. She pulled him close and kissed him harder, letting that be her answer. Her tongue stroked against his and a low rumble sounded at the back of his throat. He tasted of black tea.
His muscles grew taut beneath all that expensive silk. The hard shape of his organ pushed against her with quiet urgency and she was flooded with unwanted memories. The sensations were imprinted onto her skin: sweating shapes merging into the shadows, a man’s weight pinning her, the inevitable intrusion of another body into hers.
She let him lead her to the bedchamber while her pulse skipped frantically. This was Bai Huang, not some stranger. He took a moment to light the oil lamp and the halo of light revealed a plain bed and a few simple furnishings. Suddenly an unbidden image of her pallet in the brothel came back to her and she couldn’t move.
“Yue-ying?”
Bai Huang’s voice was gentle, soothing, with a husky undertone of desire that sent her pulse racing. She was glad he was no longer holding her hand because her palms were sweating. Desire and fear felt the same inside.
She fought past the ghosts to go to him. Her first touch was to the edge of his robe. She skimmed the border of it, not yet touching skin, then pressed her palm flat to his chest. It felt good to touch him like this. It felt good to choose to touch him. His heart pounded beneath her hand.
It was a common saying in the brothel that every man was the same in the dark. It would be different with Bai Huang. That was why she could barely breathe. That must be why.
He reached for her and she thought he would undress her, yet he didn’t. Instead, he pulled the wooden pin from her hair and brushed his long fingers through the length of it. His breathing deepened as it fell about her shoulders. Then he lowered her onto the bed, still clothed. Rather than lying on top of her, he angled himself alongside her, shoulder to hip, anchoring her without trapping her.
Yue-ying closed her eyes and breathed in the scent of his skin, the faint hint of cedarwood and spice. When she opened them again, he was looking down at her. There was that faint, familiar smile on his lips.
“You’re always trying to hide this.”
He stroked her cheek with his thumb and she fought hard not to flinch. People always asked if it hurt.
No, it doesn’t
, she’d answer. But yes. Yes, it did.
“Do you know it was at times fashionable for court ladies to paint their faces with red marks just like this?”
“That’s nonsense,” she snorted. “You made that up.”
“No, it’s true. Sometimes they drew a slash high across the cheekbone.” He demonstrated with the soft brush of his thumb. “Or a sunburst design that curved all along the jawline. It was meant to draw attention and accent their features.”
“That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard.”
He chuckled softly and the sound was both sensual and comforting. He bent to touch her again, but this time it was with his lips.
“This is not a flaw to me.” He feathered a trail of kisses along the side of her face, grazing her ear and neck. Each one sent a tingle through her. “This is a part of you, like your eyes, your lips, your hands. This mark has kept unworthy men away so that I could find you.”
But men hadn’t stayed away. Coldness poured into her. Bai Huang had meant to court her with his words, but they only opened old wounds. Poetry was wasted on her.
Yue-ying took his hand. His gaze darkened as she guided him into the opening of her robe and settled his palm over her breast. Then she held her breath.
At first he remained unmoving, still watching her. The lamplight danced off his eyes as he followed the slope and curve of her breasts with his hand. She wore the simplest of bodices beneath the robe, just a sheath of cloth that wrapped around her bosom. He stroked her through it, his breathing growing deeper with each passing moment.
She tried to relax and accept his touch. She had always shut her eyes in the past, so she kept them open now. Bai Huang must have seen something of her struggle in the look on her face.
“You’re thinking too much,” he chided. He kissed the spot between her eyes, as if to smooth out the crease there.
He continued touching her, soft touches, slow touches. He untied her sash and stroked along her shoulders, her breasts, her stomach. The sensations felt detached from her, as if she were watching Bai Huang treating someone else with such care.
He tried to woo her with his words and the gentleness of his tone, but the more he spoke, the more her ears deafened. She tried to recapture the rush of emotion she’d always felt when they kissed. In the rain and beneath the bridge, while she dug her fingers into his shoulders and her body pressed against him in hunger.
There was none of that same heat or desire now. Finally, she had to close her eyes to block out the room, the bed. Even the sight of Bai Huang leaning over her. It felt like surrender, as if she had lost a battle with herself when she did it.
With her eyes shut, she tried to focus on Bai Huang’s touch on her, but it was no use. He slipped her robe from her shoulders and her mind receded. She had no sense of time or self as he loosened the bodice and peeled away all the layers of her robe.
Once again, he surprised her. Instead of running his hands over her body, he reached for her hand. Her fingers were curled tight as he held them up to his lips. Once more, her eyes flickered open.
His dark brows drew together. “Are you afraid?”
“No,” she said, puzzled. “Are you?”
He laughed at that and the laughter echoed in the hollowness within her, momentarily lifting her spirits. He bent to kiss her lips and she made an effort to wrap her arms around him and return the kiss.
Remotely, she felt his palm curving over her breast once more, but now the bodice was gone and he stroked against naked skin. Her flesh pulled tight beneath his touch, her nipple peaking. Though her blood warmed, her mind remained cold. The two halves of her couldn’t find one another.
She stared at the ceiling when Bai Huang rose to remove his clothing. When he returned to her side, he was completely bared and she quickly fixed her gaze on his face. She saw a question in his eyes that she didn’t have an answer to, so she closed her eyes again.
For a moment, she imagined herself watching from the corner, peeking out from behind the dressing screen.
There were books that gentlemen studied, Mingyu had told her. Books that provided lovemaking instructions for the bedchamber. Yue-ying wondered if Bai Huang had read such pillow books. His attention was painstaking. She found herself clutching at his shoulders, wrapping her legs around him to urge him on—but not because she was burning for him.
Because she wanted to be done with it.