CHAPTER NINE
O
NE
DAY
BACK
in the city and Mingyu’s parlor was already well attended. Huang noted that Taizhu, the old historian, was there as usual. There were also several notable scholars, one who had passed the exams in the highest rank, but who was still vying for an appointment. The center of the gathering was a secretary from the Ministry of Personnel. Not a position of any true authority, but he had the ability to mention a name to someone with a bigger name. Appointments were procured in such varied and sundry ways.
There was no talk of appointments at the moment. Mingyu had instigated a drinking game around couplets from popular poems. The party turned to greet him and Huang inserted himself into the gathering with a couple of wrong guesses.
“Penalty drink!” the secretary proclaimed.
Huang took his punishment in good spirit, searching the room as he drank. Yue-ying hovered in the corner of the parlor. She met his gaze only briefly before disappearing behind the screen into the inner chamber. That one look alone set his pulse racing.
After a few more rounds, he’d finished enough wine that Yue-ying finally appeared to bring more. It tormented him not to be able to look at her or even touch her sleeve. Instead, he kept his focus on Mingyu, who was watching him like a hawk.
“Your absence left such an emptiness in the North Hamlet,” he told the courtesan. “The days you were gone were filled with rain.”
“Oh, but surely you exaggerate, Lord Bai. You must have been breaking hearts all over the quarter while I was away,” Mingyu countered readily.
“More like having my heart broken.”
He raised his cup in tribute to Mingyu. She met his gesture with a cool nod that accentuated the graceful arch of her neck. The courtesan was the essence of cultivation and beauty, yet he was more transfixed by the dark shape behind the screen in the corner. Yue-ying had retreated behind it, but he could just make out her silhouette out of the corner of his eye.
“If you could provide the next couplet,” Mingyu prompted.
“With pleasure.”
He selected a couplet from a famous poem by Li Bai, which the secretary was able to match with ease. Huang downed another cup, feeling his blood warm.
It became a maddening game; sipping wine and throwing out careless banter, while each flicker of the shadow behind the screen made his heart pound and his stomach knot with anticipation. One candle burned down to a stub and then another. Each one marked an additional string of cash to be paid to the pleasure house. It was well past midnight when the party disbanded, leaving him alone in the parlor. He propped his head onto his fist to keep it up.
“Lord Bai.” Mingyu returned from seeing the other guests off and slid into the seat closest to him. “I must say, something seems to have gotten into your blood tonight.”
“Only you,” he quipped dutifully.
The courtesan smiled, but like his response it was only perfunctory. “You are certainly persistent.”
Throughout his very public courtship of her, he had never found himself alone with Mingyu. It was time for him to be tactfully dismissed, otherwise he would start to get the wrong impression. Mingyu knew this. He knew this.
“Sometimes I tire of all this rhetoric,” she drawled. “All the effort. All the
cleverness
.”
Her arm dangled over the corner of her chair and she flexed her fingers carelessly as she spoke. As her shapely eyes narrowed on him he felt like a rat being cornered by a cat. A cat who had all the time in the world to play with its prey before ripping out its throat.
He cleared his own throat. “It is because every one of us longs to catch—”
She cut off his rambling reply with her hand against the crook of his arm. “There is something to be said for the simple pleasure of youth and beauty, wouldn’t you agree, Lord Bai?”
His gaze started to wander to the painted screen in the corner, but Mingyu caught his chin between her thumb and forefinger to drag his eyes back to her. It was an impetuous gesture, overtly flirtatious and unmistakably aggressive.
There could be only one explanation. She must have noticed his attention was elsewhere that evening.
“Lady Mingyu, youth and beauty are only two of your many qualities,” he effused.
She laughed. “Lord Bai, I certainly wasn’t speaking of myself.”
On the surface, she really was everything that was feminine and desirable in a woman. Aside from her beauty, she was also sophisticated and intelligent, and most important of all, highly celebrated. Everything a scholar hoping to elevate his own reputation would want in a companion. Yet Huang was unmoved.
Mingyu could be clever, sharp-witted and sharp-tongued. She could even be playful, but she was never warm. He had spied too many moments, like this one, when all her actions spoke of seduction, while her eyes were dead.
She released his chin and let her fingers trail up along his cheek. “You must think me cruel,” she said softly.
“Never.” He swallowed and not entirely for show. What sort of scheme was she plotting?
“What if I told you, my dear Lord Bai, that my indifference all this time has been a ploy?”
He eyed her warily. “Lady Mingyu—”
She was leaning toward him and her red lips parted as she smiled. Damn it, she was provoking him and Yue-ying was behind the screen, listening to every word. What would Bai Huang the fool do? Quote bad poetry—except that none came to mind.
He leaned toward her as if to catch her in a clumsy embrace, swinging his arm wide enough to knock over the flask of wine. Stammering out an apology, he reached out to right the vessel only to fumble with cups and plates in the process.
In a heartbeat, Yue-ying was beside him, nudging him aside as she wiped at the spilled drink.
“We must be in the Hour of the Ox,” he declared. “I seem to have turned into one.”
His laughter rang out a little too loudly. Yue-ying kept her head bowed as she focused on her task. She had pulled her hair over one shoulder, exposing the line of her neck. The sight of it, so vulnerable and exposed, was enough to make his throat go dry with desire.
It was only a neck, he chided himself. There was little more than a hand span of skin showing, pale against the cascade of black hair.
Mingyu stood over them like the goddess of the night. “Yue-ying, if you would fetch a sedan for Lord Bai.” Her tone was smooth. “We don’t want him to meet any misfortune in his current state.”
Yue-ying set the rag aside and stood to do her mistress’s bidding without a glance in his direction. He watched her slender figure disappear through the curtain before rising to his feet.
“Lady Mingyu,” he said with a bow.
“Lord Bai. Take care.”
He thought he detected a devious lift of her eyebrow, but otherwise her expression was serene, as if nothing out of the ordinary had occurred.
Outside, the lanterns of the North Hamlet were still burning. Yue-ying stood out in the side alley, pointedly not looking at him as he came up beside her.
His grin spread a bit wider than he intended. “Little Moon—”
He didn’t think it was possible, but her spine straightened further.
“Miss Yue-ying,” he corrected himself. “I’ve waited all night for this moment.”
“Oh?”
That was it. One single utterance. Her pearl earring bobbed as she looked impatiently to the corner, presumably for the sedan.
“I thought of you,” he said softly, watching for any reaction in the stiffness of her profile. “Every day.”
“Say that when you are not drunk,” she retorted.
He wasn’t, though she would hardly believe it. He had always been able to handle his drink a little bit better than those around him, which was handy for gathering information.
“She was only doing that to make you angry. Apparently, Mingyu is a jealous woman.”
“You don’t know what you’re saying. What does Mingyu have to be jealous of?”
More bobbing of the earring. What he could see of her mouth was pressed into a tight line. He wanted to believe a woman couldn’t be so agitated with him if she didn’t at least care for him a little bit.
“She’s jealous of anyone who takes any attention away from her,” he said. “She can’t stand to have anyone speak to even her maidservant in her presence. Don’t look, but I would wager she is watching us from her window.”
He remained standing beside Yue-ying, his eyes focused ahead. He was regretting not kissing her to his heart’s content when he’d had the chance in the pavilion, but he had promised her the kiss was for her, not for him. Yet he hadn’t been able to forget the sweet restraint in her touch since.
But she was hardly sweet now. “Don’t anger Mingyu. It would only make things more difficult for me.”
“That wasn’t my intention.”
The carrier had arrived to set the sedan chair down before him.
“When can I see you?” he asked.
“This isn’t a liaison between us, Lord Bai.”
If the courtesan truly was watching over them from on high, he couldn’t delay much longer. “Tomorrow morning at the teahouse? I have information regarding our investigation.”
Instead of answering, Yue-ying turned in a flurry of silk to march back into the Lotus Palace.
* * *
“W
HAT
INFORMATION
?”
Yue-ying remained standing as she watched that too-familiar grin spreading over Bai Huang’s face. It was a smile that could charm tigers. Youth and beauty indeed.
“Please sit, Miss Yue-ying. I took care to order your favorite tea.”
“I have no favorite.” When would he stop treating her as if she were another of the puppet goddesses of the pleasure quarter? “Tea is tea.”
“You’re being difficult on purpose,” he pointed out lightly, still smiling.
He stood and gestured toward the empty stool. She hesitated before seating herself. She had debated all night whether or not to come that day, changing her mind several times even within the past hour. Bai Huang poured the tea while she sat and tried not to fidget. The brew was fragrant and rich with layer upon layer of flavor. Such quality, his regard, and all this attention was beyond her. She didn’t know what to do with it.
“The Market Commissioner Ma Jun is taking bribes,” he began.
She was unimpressed. “What official doesn’t take bribes?”
“But if Huilan found out about his associations and he didn’t want the authorities to know, then he might have killed her to keep her silent.”
The investigation wasn’t the only reason Yue-ying had come. She knew it and he must have known it as well. He had chosen a place in the corner where they could talk with some privacy and his gaze was warm on her as they spoke.
But favored sons of noblemen did not meet with lowly servants in the normal course of events. So they forged on with the discussion to maintain the illusion.
“How did you find out about the bribes?” she asked as she considered his theory.
“Apparently it’s common knowledge among the merchants and traders in the city...” His voice trailed away.
“So many people already knew?”
He continued with less confidence. “Commissioner Ma’s position is a low-level one, only able to grant small favors. In return, he seems to thrive off many small bribes.”
“He’s likely paying up to his superior who’s paying up to his superior.”
Bai Huang looked downtrodden. Like most aristocrats, he cared nothing for the details of trade and commerce. The merchant class and anything having to do with them were beneath him.
“It certainly indicates that Ma Jun is an untrustworthy character,” she soothed, like pouring balm over a wounded creature.
“I paid good money for that information,” he grumbled.
“It’s useful information. The commissioner must have been showing off his status by hosting a lavish banquet. So everyone could see how wealthy and influential he was with beautiful courtesans on his arm.”
He sighed. “You don’t need to make me feel better.”
“He was Huilan’s lover. And now we’ve discovered that she had another lover. It can be as simple as that.”
“She was killed because Ma Jun was merely jealous? That doesn’t seem fitting.”
“There’s no need to look for conspiracy. Emotions become easily confused in the Pingkang li.” Her own emotions were in a tangle after their kiss in the park. Yue-ying tapped the rim of her teacup restlessly. “Last night you said Mingyu was jealous of me.”
“She is.” A fire burned in his eyes. “Anyone can see it.”
“You’re mistaken,” she said. “Mingyu is just worried about me.”
Bai Huang waited for her to elaborate, but she refused to say more. What she and Mingyu had between them was a private matter.
“She has nothing to worry about,” he assured her, the corner of his mouth lifting seductively. “Does she?”
His pupils grew dark and her pulse quickened in response. “If there’s nothing else, I must return,” she said, deliberately avoiding the question.