Chapter Five

Ling Xin was no fool. She understood that what she was doing was scandalous. Indeed, her father might truly kill her if she were caught. But she knew that this wonderful man was teaching her things she needed to know.

He was also taking advantage of her. Of course, a man wanted a girl to help his dragon roar. And she, in turn, was delighted to find that she enjoyed such a thing as well. It wasn't just learning about something so basic to men and women. She adored the thrill of it.

She was kissing a handsome man in the moonlight. She was feeling his strength pressed against her, twisting tongues and feeling her belly liquify. Oh, she wanted to feel it all! But she knew this was crazy dangerous.

So she pressed her hand against his chest, pushing him back and felt a moment of panic when he didn't move away.

And then he did.

Her breath was heaving, her heart pounding. And when he looked at her like a man about to take what she so wanted to give… Well, this was the thrill and the danger.

Thank heaven he was honorable.

"I think I have learned enough tonight," she said, her voice rough.

He gave a wry chuckle. "You have learned, that is for certain. But it is not enough."

"It is enough for tonight," she said sternly.

He didn't argue. And she didn't run away. And because she thought him honorable, she pressed him for the truth.

"Will this truly help me catch the emperor's eye?"

Of course, a cad would lie to her and say, "Certainly!" He didn't. Instead, he shrugged. "I don't know. But it will serve you better than memorizing the Confucian virtues." Then he rubbed a hand over his face. "We are both fools to do this."

She grinned. That was the answer of an honorable man. "Thank you for the lesson," she said. Then with a quick twist, she began to scramble away. She had set up a chair for her use, and so she landed easily back in her garden despite her wounded toes.

Then she looked up to see him watching her, his face in shadow but clear enough to her eyes. "Will you come back tomorrow night?" he asked. "There is more to learn."

"There is always more to learn," she whispered back. It was not an answer. Let him wonder whether she would appear tomorrow night. She wasn't sure herself.

She waved to him as she gathered the chair and slipped as quietly as possible back into her house. As she moved, she felt her clothing brush against her sensitive breasts. She felt the liquid tension in her belly, and she ached to know more.

She was so aroused that she didn't see the lump in her bed. Not at first. Her mind was still back in the garden. But then she lifted the covers only to have that lump grumble in annoyance.

"Li Fei!" Ling Xin hissed. "What are you doing in my bed?"

"I came to talk with you, but you weren't here." Her cousin sat up and rubbed her eyes. "How was your conversation with Zhi Hao?"

Thankfully, the room was dark enough to cover her blush. "I learned that he has an uncle who is a eunuch in the Forbidden City."

Li Fei sat up with a grin. "But that's excellent! What's his name? What does he do?"

Ling Xin slipped under the covers, keeping her voice low as she spoke. "I'll ask him that tomorrow," she said.

Her cousin rolled her eyes. "What do you two talk about?" she huffed. "You were gone long enough for me to fall asleep."

A tremor of fear skated through Ling Xin's body. Li Fei could not find out what she'd done. Much as she adored her cousin, she couldn't trust that the girl would keep that big a secret. "Hush! No one can know what I'm doing."

Her cousin rolled her eyes. "I won't tell. It was my idea! But you cannot be a prim miss about this. An empress will have daggers on every side. You must learn to take what you want and not get caught!"

"I begin to fear the Forbidden City."

Li Fei huffed out a breath. "Surely you know that every position of power has enemies. Life in the Forbidden City is very different from out here. Your father must have taught you that."

"Not like you do." Not like Zhi Hao did. What they told her frightened her, and she began to fear her future.

"An empress must be bold. And she must be wary of those who would hurt her. You must learn to take advantage where you can and hide when you cannot."

Ling Xin studied her cousin with new eyes. Two years ago, Li Fei had giggled about laborers with their muscled bodies dripping sweat. The two of them had whispered about what men and women did in bedrooms and wondered what it would be like when it was their turn.

But now Li Fei spoke about daggers and deception as if it were a matter of course. During the day, she practiced singing and discussed the merits of different cosmetics. It was as though the girl had no more interest in men and was completely focused on competing for the emperor's hand. And yet, she already knew she would not be the one to go.

It made no sense.

"Did something happen last year?" she abruptly asked her cousin.

Li Fei pulled back. "What? No! Why would you ask that?" Her outrage was overdone. The girl was not as good at deception as she thought.

Ling Xin leaned forward, her voice dropping into a barely audible whisper. "You can trust me. I won't say anything. You know all my secrets." It was a lie. She would take what she had done this night to her grave.

But her cousin dismissed her with a wave. "You are too good to have secrets. Watching a man sweat in the moonlight is not so terrible a thing." She slanted her cousin a look. "Unless you were doing something else?"

"Something else!" Ling Xin exclaimed. "There is nothing else to do when we are trapped inside all day singing or reading poetry. I am sick to death of this life."

"Which is why I asked the question." Her cousin rolled closer, until they were nearly nose to nose. She'd always had the patience of a stalking cat. Her voice dropped to a serious tone. "What were you doing out there?"

"I was thinking," Ling Xin lied. The last thing she'd been doing was thinking. And yet, the word came out nonetheless. "Day after day, we are taught the Confucian virtues. Every girl set before the emperor will be virtuous and beautiful."

"Not every girl is beautiful."

"But every girl set before the emperor will be."

Li Fei nodded. They both knew it was true.

"So I must find a way to be different. Some way that will pique his interest."

"That is why we are taught how to converse."

Ling Xin nearly gagged. "Ugh. More poetry and the beauty of flowers. Even mother is bored by those topics."

Li Fei flopped onto her back. "What are you thinking?"

Ling Xin sat back on the bed so that she was leaning back against the wall. "What if we need to know how to be courtesans?"

Her cousin opened her mouth to argue. She was the picture of proper outrage at the very idea. But she didn't speak. It was as if the words froze in her throat. And that was when Ling Xin knew that her cousin had indeed done something unexpected.

"Oh, Li Fei, you must tell me."

Her cousin shook her head. "It is nothing." And when Ling Xin began to object, her cousin gripped her hands. "I met a man. That is all. A man who…" She shrugged. "Well, he was very exciting."

Ling Xin bounced on the bed. "Tell me everything!"

But her cousin's expression wasn't eager. It was shadowed and sad. And she wouldn't look Ling Xin in the eye. "We were caught," she said. "That is why I am here. Did you not wonder?"

Ling Xin nodded. "I thought you had wandered to the market alone. That's what Mama said."

"I did. And then I went a great deal further." Li Fei looked away and even in shadow, Ling Xin could see that she was crying.

"What happened?" she whispered.

"I was sent here." The words sounded like a death knell. Then Li Fei shuddered. "After I proved that I was still pure."

Ling Xin bit her lip. She had heard that such an experience was awful. It would be required of her during the Feast of Fertility. All potential brides had to prove their virginity. But that wasn't the worst thing in what her cousin had said. Li Fei had said, "We." As in, they were both caught.

"What happened to him? To the man you were with?"

"Dead."

The word was spoken so quickly that Ling Xin barely heard it. Her heart throbbed painfully in her throat. But it couldn't be true. Her uncle was not a violent man.

"Are you sure?" she asked.

Li Fei nodded. "Father showed me the bloody clothes. Then he brought me here. He did not speak one word to me the entire trip. It was as though I was not his daughter anymore. Maybe not even a person."

"No!" Ling Xin cried. "He loves you still. You are his daughter."

Li Fei shook her head. "You judge my father by your own. It is different in the northern villages. We are by nature more violent."

"More cruel, you mean."

Li Fei shrugged. "It is one and the same."

Ling Xin gently wrapped her cousin in her arms. The girl was openly weeping now, though she made no sound.

"Did you love him?" she asked.

The tears flowed harder then, quickly drenching her thin night dress. Ling Xin took that to mean that yes, the girl had been in love. It was a long time before either of them spoke again. And when they did, it was because Ling Xin's mind was racing with the risks she was taking. After all, it sounded as if her cousin hadn't undressed a man or stroked his dragon, and still her man was dead and she had been banished here.

"Your father sent you here," she finally said. "To do what?"

Li Fei pulled herself together, though it took some time. Eventually she spoke, though her voice was shaky. "Father would not send me to the emperor. He said I was disgraced, and he would not play the emperor false."

"But then—"

"Your father is to find me a husband here where no one knows me. He gave your father ten pieces of jade. He told him to marry me to whomever can stand the stench. He will hear no more of me."

Ling Xin was shocked that her uncle could be so harsh. She had been away at a dancing lesson when her cousin had arrived at their home, and she'd been told nothing except that Li Fei was here to find a husband. Now, she understood why the girl had seemed so depressed.

"I am so sorry," she said, and she meant it with her whole heart. "If I could change it, I would."

"Just do not make my mistake," Li Fei said. "Look all you want over the wall, talk to him and find out what he knows, but do not go further."

Ling Xin wanted to argue, simply because she had already risked more than a simple look. Of course, she had heard tales of fathers killing unlucky suitors. Of girls who strayed when they shouldn't have, and had paid a horrible price. But her father loved her. He would beat her, but he would not…

Marry her off to the lowest bannerman simply to be rid of her taint?

Yes, he might very well do that. Just like her uncle, her father would not risk insulting the emperor with an impure daughter.

"But how am I to entice the emperor?" she finally asked, the words an anguished whisper. And when her cousin looked at her, she struggled to explain, repeating Zhi Hao's words. "He is a man, and no man wants virtue in his bed."

Her cousin shook her head. "I do not know. I only know the cost of becoming impure."

Ling Xin huffed. "You aren't impure. You took a walk."

"And a kiss," Li Fei whispered. "Such a wonderful kiss."

So there had been more. "Tell me about it," she urged. "Tell me everything!"

Li Fei shook her head. "There is no way to describe it. Except that I never wanted it to end."

That told her nothing. When Zhi Hao had kissed her, she hadn't wanted it to end either. But that wasn't love. That was experimentation. That was excitement and learning the ways of seduction.

"I think that is the way with love," continued Li Fei. "One touch, and one is desperate for more. Every moment, every look, every…thing." Li Fei sighed. "I lost all sense because I was in love. It made me careless. I didn't think things through."

"I won't fall in love," Ling Xin vowed. "And I'm very careful." That was debatable, but she renewed her determination to stay vigilant.

"It's hard to think when one's heart is beating as if for the first time," Li Fei said.

Ling Xin's heart was still beating hard, and just the memory of his touch made her toes curl in delight. But that wasn't love. That was the restlessness she always felt surfacing when there was something new to learn, something exciting to discover. She knew this feeling well, though it was certainly more intense now than ever before. Either way, she wasn't in love. And so, she reasoned, it was safe for her to continue. So long as she was very careful not to get caught.

Which was, frankly, a childish and ridiculous thought.

She was fooling herself. She knew it. And so, before she risked everything—including her life—on midnight dalliances, she had to speak to the most logical, practical, and plain-speaking person she knew. Her mother.