Burning Tigress (7 page)

"Yes!"

She shook her head, dumbfounded. "But I learned Chinese with Joanna. From a tutor."

"I know." His words sounded as if they grated his throat.

"And they think—"

"That you are a ghost. Miss Charlotte, please, will you please speak English?"

"Oh!" She shifted languages. "But everyone knows I speak Chinese. I am practically famous for it."

"At home, yes, but this is here."
Here
meant a bare mile or two east of where she lived. But they were in Chinese Shanghai, where no white person ever went. Or at least no white people who spoke Shanghai dialect.

Charlotte pressed her lips together, annoyed with her own stupidity. And yet, her mind still struggled. "You mean, they don't care that you... that you..." Why was it more difficult to say in English? Her father whored. All his friends whored. But she could not say that aloud to Ken Jin in English. It would make it too real, somehow. "That you spend time with white women, but they're terrified I can speak Chinese?"

They were past the commotion now, turning into a street clogged with carts of vegetables and women carrying upside-down chickens. Charlotte stared at one of the poor birds tied by its feet onto a looped line. This particular hen was one of about ten, all still alive, all piled on top of each other as an old woman rushed to market. The chicken didn't move, didn't even cluck, but hung silently upside down like one banana in a bunch, completely unaware that it was destined for the chopping block. Soon it would see stalls that held live scorpions next to a water bin of bulbous squid beneath hanging ducks interspersed with black eels. And in all this chaos, a single white woman speaking Chinese produced screaming horror?

Charlotte sighed. The Chinese made no sense. She turned to Ken Jin. "So, how many white women must you lie with for it to be unusual?"

He stared at her, his normally golden brown skin paling. He opened his mouth to speak, but no sound came out. Then the horse demanded his attention as it shied away from an unusually aggressive rickshaw runner.

While Ken Jin fixed his gaze on the reins, Charlotte could not stop her thoughts from running in a stream from her mouth. For all that she told herself to stop, she simply could not halt the flow. In truth, she had been thinking about this for a long, long time now. It really did not seem fair that Ken Jin would spend so much time teaching her friends about certain forms of man-woman relations without sharing the experience with her. After all, he was
her
servant.

"Would the Chinese be more shocked if you spent your evenings with Chinese women?" she asked. "You are most famous among white ladies, so I know you are unusual to us. But is it common for Chinese men to delight in...? To share company with...? Well, you know what I mean. Do you spend time with Chinese women as often as you do with Europeans? And, my goodness, why aren't you more tired? Of course, Sophie claimed you were indefatigable, but surely she must have exaggerated. You cannot have gone on for as long as she claimed. Unless that is typical for your race. So I want you to show me, too."

She paused to take a breath, barely daring to look at him. But when she did, her breath left her in an embarrassed whoosh. He hadn't moved. His attention was firmly and completely absorbed with driving the cart through the clogged streets. Which meant, she supposed, that he hadn't heard her.

"Ken Jin?" she said a little more forcefully. "I wish you to show me..." She swallowed, knowing she needed to be explicit. "I want you to touch me." She looked down, horrified to see that her hands were fluttering about her bodice. She slammed them down hard into her lap. Except, she didn't hit the soft cushion of her thighs; she cracked the back of her hand on the hard end of a scroll. She winced, but even that pain did not stop her words, especially as her servant still did not appear to have heard. And he had to hear, because she would never again get the chance to be alone with him in Chinese Shanghai where no one else could understand what she said.

"I have scrolls," she heard herself say, "with pictures. I don't understand the words; they're written in Chinese. Joanna would have understood, of course. She read all manner of things, but I will need someone to translate them for me. That will prepare me for what I want. For what you will do." She paused. "Or, is there something I need to do first? Sophia didn't mention anything. Well, actually she talked about all sorts of noises which did not sound at all nice; but then she always is making some sort of sound, isn't she? But are they important? She dwelt most particularly on her
hmmm
and a
whee
and a hiccup kind of thing. At the time I thou—
umph."

Ken Jin clapped his hand over her mouth. It was a large hand, with lovely calluses that tickled her lips. But even more delicious was the way he leaned close and whispered in her ear, his breath warm even as it made her shiver. "The sun has made you ill, Miss Charlotte. When we get home, I will get you a cool glass of lemonade and all this will be over."

She didn't answer. How could she, with his hand still over her mouth? So she sat still, smelling the ink on his skin and a lingering whisper of spicy incense. The smell pervaded his clothing too, she realized, and his thick braid of dark hair that slipped over his shoulder to tease her cheek.

"Do you understand, Miss Charlotte?" he continued. "You have a fever brought on by the heat and tainted Chinese scrolls." She felt him tug at her satchel, trying to remove it from her hands. "Soon you will be home with William. You can take a cool bath and sip a special tea that I will prepare. Then all that has happened today will fade away."

His voice was hypnotic. The heat from his body added to the noise in her mind and soul. There was a crackling, sparking, burning kind of clamor that seemed to grow louder whenever he was near. And right now he was very, very near. Except, he was pulling away, lifting his one hand from her mouth while the other pulled the scrolls away.

She almost did it; she almost gave in to the constraints of moral behavior, to the pressure for obedience and purity and absolute holy ignorance on her wedding night. Ken Jin obviously wanted her to forget everything she had seen and heard this afternoon, to continue as she had been continuing every day of her most boring, moral, sterile life.

"No!" She grabbed the scrolls and hauled them back. "These are mine, and if you will not explain them to me, I will find someone else who will."

He did not release his hold on the satchel, but his brown eyes darkened to pitch, and his words held dangerous authority. "You are not yourself, Miss Charlotte. I believe I shall have your mother call the doctor the moment we return."

She trembled in fear, his threat very real. If her mother discovered these scrolls, she would first burn the parchments, then call the surgeon to bleed the ill humors out of her before paying for a full Mass to pray for Charlotte's tortured young soul. Charlotte could not, not, not have her mother involved.

Charlotte bit her lip then said, "The man is gone."

Ken Jin frowned, obviously confused, so she waved toward the street.

"The man with the bamboo poles," she clarified. "The one who was crossing the street. He's gone. We can keep going."

Ken Jin looked at the street and nodded, slowly refocusing on driving the carriage. Except he did it one-handed. Charlotte had counted on him needing both hands to steer, but he clearly did not. He kept one hand firmly on the satchel while the other steered the horse.

"These are Joanna's scrolls, Ken Jin. I will not give them up to you."

"They are Tigress scrolls, Miss Charlotte, and no barbarian has ever seen them."

She straightened. "
I
have seen them. Joanna has seen them, too. I'd say a great number of barbarians—"

"No!" he snapped, jerking hard on the bag. But he had only one hand on the bag, whereas she had two. She did not release it.

"You will tear them!" she cried. Then she glared up at his hard profile. "If you tell Mother I am ill, I'll say that you took me to a brothel this morning. That I saw your... your... you know. With needles in it! And then—"

"I'll be fired." He turned to look directly at her, his expression as empty as his tone. "Is that what you want? To have me fired?"

She swallowed. "Of course not." She lifted her chin. "I want to know what Sophia knows, what Joanna knows." She felt tears burn her eyes. "What everyone knows but me."

He sighed. It was a quiet sound, more like the creak of a branch in the wind, but she heard it nonetheless, and it made her wonder what exactly went on in his mind when he acted so very, very Chinese. She was so absorbed in scrutinizing his face that she missed his next words. And then, when she realized he'd spoken, she had to forcibly redirect her thoughts.

"What did you say?" she asked.

They were nearing the gate back into the English concession, so she didn't think he would speak, but he did. He pulled the carriage to a stop and twisted to stare at her.

"I said I will teach you." Then he narrowed his eyes to emphasize his next words. "But there will be no talk of this to anyone—not your parents, not Joanna, not even to Sophia. Do we understand one another?"

She swallowed, nodding her head slowly as she agreed to who-knew-what. But as Ken Jin turned back to guide the carriage, she ripped the satchel from his grasp.

"I'm keeping the scrolls," she said, straightening in her seat. "I have to make sure you're doing things right."

* * *

Ken Jin entered his bedchamber and stared at his desk. The old wood was pocked and ink-stained, the drawers stuck, and one corner was frayed to splinters. And yet he had a fondness for the large beast.

For one thing, it was huge. He had lots of space to work, lots of room for papers and ledgers and all manner of clutter; and yet his elbows were never crowded, his abacus was always within reach, and his brushes never dripped on anything vital. Large and serviceable without beauty, that was his desk.

That was Ken Jin too. He was not a handsome man, not by white women's standards, but they certainly seemed to enjoy his size and his serveability. They cared little if he was rough to them; indeed, some seemed to enjoy it. So long as their requirements were met—no penetration—all was well in their eyes. He brought their yin rain to full bloom, drinking up their qi like water, and they got to remain virgins.

An excellent arrangement until the encounters began leaving him exhausted. His yang—so strong at the beginning with Little Pearl—now barely moved despite the stirring perfume of a willing women. Over the last year, his dragon became so weak, he had stopped undressing before Charlotte's friends.

So now Charlotte wished to learn what he had taught her friends. The goddess who had appeared before him so many years ago wished to descend to his chamber and feel what other women felt. He ought to be grateful. His flagging yang responded lustfully to Miss Charlotte. He should be thrilled that she came to him on the very day he regained hope for his weak dragon.

Instead, it made him feel worn, old, and a little sad.

Odd, how this morning had held such hope. His dragon had reawakened, his investments showed promise, and he'd even received an encouraging letter about his nephew's academic progress. But that was this morning. Now, a bare three hours later, his mentors Shi Po and her husband, Kui Yu, were in prison, sacred scrolls were in barbarian hands, and his employer's daughter demanded service that would likely get him fired.

When Heaven turns its back, even the rats perish.

He grimaced in disgust at the reversal in fortunes. He would need to be at his peak to weather the coming storm. Without conscious thought, he stripped off his jacket, shirt, and tie. Why the whites insisted on so many ridiculous layers, buttons, and ties, he would never understand; it prevented full breath in skin or lungs. But the master insisted, and so Ken Jin obeyed. Except, Ken Jin would not accept it now. At this moment, he needed a boost in vitality, so he shut and locked his door—or attempted to lock it. This morning's debacle had proved the mechanism was faulty. Then he pulled out his tools and knelt bare-chested in the tiny space between desk and bed.

He knelt on a rug with a dragon design. He placed his knees on the belly of a cloud dragon, the tops of his feet extending toward the whipping, spiny tail. He had to unbutton the top of his trousers, as he could not afford to rip another pair. Then, once the fabric was rolled sufficiently down his hips, he carefully inserted a great needle into the Sea of Energy point, three finger widths below his navel. Two deep breaths, and then he raised his hands, pressed both thumbs and forefingers into the Gates of Consciousness.

With fire below and openness above, all of Heaven is within reach.

This time, his breath had an echo—a depth that told him his spirit stretched toward the divine. His eyes closed and he began the internal inventory that was his ritual. His mind was more scattered than usual, but he carefully brought it into focus. Starting with his head and flowing down to his toes, he surveyed his body. It was strong with no pains. His energy channels flowed clearly with only one obvious blockage. Wind, fire, water, wood, and metal coexisted within him at an acceptable balance.

He turned his attention to the energy blockage in his pelvis at the gate to his dragon. This morning's work had opened up the channel, allowing some of his carefully stored yang to flow. His dragon lived and breathed again as it had not for over a year. In truth, the problem had begun long ago, perhaps even in early childhood. He did not know the cause, only that as he aged, the blockage became worse and his dragon began to wither.