Burning Tigress (17 page)

Charlotte smiled as her pronouncement finally made it through Ken Jin's thick head.

"I'm fired?" He gaped at her. Clearly he had expected her to just strip bare on his say-so. She was just a woman, after all, and he had a great deal of experience with women of easy virtue.

Well, he was an idiot if he put her in the same category as all the others. She was not so easily duped. Or at least she wasn't now. Last night she'd been sleepy and surprised, or so she told herself. She was past her moment of feverish curiosity.

A day's reflection brought the certain understanding that something had to change with William. They could not go on this way: living from fit to fit, praying for a change but seeing no real results. She had spoken to Ken Jin in all seriousness about a way to help William. But rather than offer her an answer, he turned it into another sexual game. Did he really think she was that stupid? That desperate?

"M-Miss Charlotte," he stammered, unsuccessfully trying to both step forward and rear back. "I cannot... You couldn't..."

"I can and I have." She stared at him while disappointment crushed the breath from her lungs. "I thought you were different, Ken Jin. I thought I could talk to you about something serious." She straightened slowly and deliberately turned her back on him. "You are fired. Go collect your things and leave. I shall inform my father—"

"Your father will have your head!" he snapped. He sounded very English. Much like her father, come to think of it.

She spun around, undaunted. "I very much doubt that."

"He knows nothing about his business. If I leave, your family will end in disaster!"

His words sent a cold chill down her spine, but that only made her angrier. Her hands clenched as she leaned forward. "My father may be a lecherous beast, but he is not stupid," she hissed. "He understands his business. I know he does."

Ken Jin's color darkened; his body stilled. She could tell he was furious, and the sight was disconcerting. He was so unlike the explosive tempers to which she was accustomed. Her father blustered, her mother wailed; William threw fits, and even Charlotte herself had been known to kick things. Ken Jin just stood there and froze her with a stare.

"I tell you," he said coldly, "your father knows nothing of what I do on your behalf. Without me, you will soon be impoverished."

"And with you, I shall be debauched by morning!" She gasped and clapped her mouth shut. That wasn't at all what she'd meant to say. Especially since Ken Jin seemed amused by her words. He began to smile, and it wasn't a nice expression.

"You think I play games," he said. "You think I am a... a..." He could not find the right English, so he switched to Chinese. "That I am a whoremonger." He sneered. "Why do you English judge everyone by your own immorality?"

"You told me to take off my clothes!"

"I do not do this for my pleasure!" He made a gesture with his hand, fast and lethal like a branch whipped about in a strong wind. "You are the one who plays, Miss Charlotte. You are the bored one who steals sacred scrolls and plays with herself in the darkness, never knowing that it could be more." He shook his head, his disgust clear. "You cannot fire me, Miss Charlotte, and you cannot drag me into your emptiness." He sighed. "I thought to teach you."

"And I believed you!" she cried. "But I am not talking about last night. I want to help William." She released a hiss of disgust at her own gullibility. "But all you want is more..." She stopped, the memory of what they'd done last night fresh, too mortifying for words.

"What, Miss Charlotte? What do I want? To bury my dragon between your milky thighs?" He grunted. "That is what
you
want, not me."

She gasped at his audacity, even as her belly quivered. What would it feel like to have him there? "I want nothing from you," she snapped. She meant to turn her back on him. She was already pivoting, but suddenly he had her. His hand was large and powerful where it gripped her arm. He pulled her back around with such force that she would have stumbled had he not been holding her.

"Never lie, Miss Charlotte. Not to anyone, and most certainly never to yourself. It poisons your yin, it poisons the air, it—"

"Poisons. I understand." She kept her voice excruciatingly dry as she glared at him. They both knew she had enjoyed what he'd done last night, so instead she spoke clearly and with a great deal of force. "I want to help my brother." She lifted her chin. "I have no interest in games of any kind."

He nodded. "Then we are in agreement." She frowned, but he gave her no more time to question. "What I do is not play, Miss Charlotte. It is serious work—harder than anything you have ever done, harder than anything you will ever do."

She narrowed her eyes and canted her gaze in the direction of her brother's room, then returned it to Ken Jin.

He answered her unspoken question. "No, I do not know that this will help your brother. I only know how to refine qi. What you do with that power is up to you." Then he fell silent.

It took a moment for her to realize he was waiting for her to speak. But what did he want her to say? In the end, she shook her head, using body and tone to show her disbelief.

"And refinement requires me to be naked?"

"A sheathed sword cannot be sharpened."

She spent a moment on that image, but couldn't make it fit. "I am not a sword—"

Once again, he moved faster than expected. He gripped her chin and pulled so that she looked him in the eye. He was tall for a Chinese, so she had to tilt slightly upward. When had he moved so near? She stared at the reflected firelight in his eyes.

"Listen closely, barbarian, and try to understand. I will only explain this once more." She shivered at the threat in his tone. He was at the end of his patience. "Qi—energy—is a force, a powerful, awesome weapon. Refined, it can even kill." He moderated his tone. "Or defend."

"Can it heal?"

He nodded, though the motion was hesitant.

"You don't really know," she accused.

"No one knows all. Qi is a thing of mystery. We can only know some aspects of it."

She didn't know whether any of what he said was real or not, but she could tell Ken Jin believed. He believed with a passion that made his entire body tremble. Her skin tingled. She hesitated, trying to understand. "And I have this energy? This qi?"

"Yes, though it is composed of much more yin—the female energy—than the male yang." His voice softened to include a note of awe. "You have a great deal of yin, Miss Charlotte. More than anyone I have ever met."

"I have qi?" She felt her knees weakening beneath an onslaught of power. She had no other Word for it; she felt his intensity—his qi?—and it literally weakened her knees.

"You have
yin,"
he emphasized even as he adjusted his grip on her arm. Soon he was guiding her to her seat.

She shook her head. This was all too much. "I don't understand." Soon she was once again staring into the fire and feeling lost. How to help her brother? Was Ken Jin a liar and a cad? Or was he her last hope? "I just don't know."

He sank to his knees before her. The action was surprising enough that her attention riveted back on him. She'd never seen him on his knees. He almost looked like a supplicant. "I can teach you, Miss Charlotte. I know how to strengthen and refine qi." He took a deep breath and his fingers fluttered before her, but he did not touch. Instead, he withdrew, folding his hands tight to his belly. "I know a great deal, Miss Charlotte, but I cannot tell you how to wield your power once it is pure. And I do not know if it can heal William or divert your mother."

She sighed. "This is so strange. How do you know it is real?"

"I have seen a qi master use one finger to throw a man across a room. I have watched a Tigress bring a man to yang release with just the power of her eyes."

She blinked. "A tiger?"

"A Tigress," he repeated. "A woman who studies yin refinement. I am a Dragon."

She lifted her chin, but caught herself in time. She had almost looked at her hiding place where his precious scrolls were hidden. She had promised them to him last night, but had fallen asleep before she could give them to him. "There were tigers stitched in the silk. The ones that covered—"

"The scrolls. Yes, Joanna Crane was... She is studying to become a tigress."

It took a while for understanding to sink in. It took several long moments, but eventually her own stupidity became clear. "You are a Dragon?" He nodded. "And Joanna is a Tigress?"

He nodded again, though the motion was slower.

"That's why she has the scrolls. Because she was studying them like you study."

He shook his head. "Not like I study. I am a Dragon. My exercises are different."

"But you..." Her voice grew stronger, her tone higher. "You have known all along."

He frowned, clearly not following.

"All this time, I have been sick with worry about where she was, and you knew." This time, she was the one who reached out. She gripped his arms. "Where is she? Where is Joanna? Is she still at that place, that school where you took me? With that woman who hates you? Is she there?"

He was staring at her. His body was still, and he obviously did not understand why she was furious.

"Damn it, Ken Jin, how can I trust anything you say?" She shoved him away from her and stood, not caring that he had to scramble backward to get out of her way. "You've been lying to me from the beginning. Where is Joanna?"

He stood slowly, his voice cold. "She has left the Tigress school, she and her monk. I do not know where she has gone. Her servants believe she is dead—or will be soon."

Charlotte spun around. "Dead?"

He folded his arms. "She and her monk fled from a powerful general, the most powerful in China." He shook his head. "No man or woman can stand long against such a force."

"She's dead?"

"Most likely. With her monk."

Charlotte gripped the mantel to keep herself upright. "My God..."

"There is more."

She looked up at him and trembled. "Worse?" she whispered, afraid of his answer, but more afraid of not knowing.

"Her father followed them, so he will likely suffer the same fate."

"Mr. Crane?" She liked Mr. Crane. He had always treated her decently. He spoke politely, and he never smelled of opium or drank to excess. "Dead?"

"Most likely. Mr. Yi asked me for a job."

She closed her eyes. Her head was spinning.

"Such is the power of unrefined qi, Miss Charlotte. Miss Joanna's flew out every which way, leaving devastation in its wake."

"Joanna?"

"Her passions purified her qi, making it an awesome power. She was learning to direct it when she ran from the school." He shook his head. "She was a foolish, foolish girl." His gaze grew hard. "Many will die because of her."

Charlotte's legs would not support her. She sank to her knees beside the fire, her skirt pooling about her. "Dead?"

"Miss Joanna and her father, her monk, and now the Tigress who thought to teach her and the Tigress's husband who sheltered them." Charlotte didn't know the people, but clearly Ken Jin did. And just as clearly, he was furious. "So you see," he continued, his every word like a thrown rock. "Refining qi is a dangerous process for both student and teacher. Mishandle it and devastation occurs. Treat it without respect—as a game—and you will bring disaster upon yourself and your family. Better to die than do such a thing to those you love."

Intentional or not, his words held a note of challenge, and she felt her spirit blaze in response. "But you are doing it," she shot back. "Playing games. With your needles and naked... naked..." She glanced down at his groin.

"Dragon. Or jade stalk." He spoke in Chinese, which somehow made the words poetic rather than graphic, exotic rather than sinful. "Yes, I refine my qi. But it is practice, not play."

It was too much to comprehend; the concepts too foreign. She pushed away thoughts of her best friend and focused on the meaning beneath the story. Could one person's actions become a devastating force? Of course. That was exactly what her mother thought and the priest taught. They said one's actions resulted in divine reward or punishment.

Ken Jin claimed that Joanna's scattered qi rained havoc on her entire household. Mama believed her own lewdness had caused William's disability. All revolved around sex— Joanna's explorations and Mama's drunken exploits. Were they saying the same thing in different ways? Could sex in the right way—in a concentrated, focused manner—create energy for good and not evil?

She looked at Ken Jin, not daring to hope. "Do you think refined qi can heal William?"

He cursed under his breath, clearly exasperated. "I do not know whether William can be healed. But as you said before, your mother's prayers are not helping."

She lifted her chin. "I said they don't
seem
to be working." She was splitting hairs and she knew it.

"Intention is everything, Miss Charlotte. Do not embark on this path without clear and focused intention. If you want to help your brother, keep that thought foremost in your mind. Do not allow it to waver. That is your only hope."