Falling Through Glass (22 page)

“Wait,” Emmi said when the woman pulling up the blanket grabbed a small, tied bundle. Emmi took the cloth packet and opened it. It was her underwear and more bras and panties.

Not modern lingerie, of course. These looked a bit like string bikinis. They were made from silk, the primo silk like her wedding clothes. One set was ivory, another pale blue, one purple and the last cotton candy pink. The panties had little Maeda family crests embroidered on the front that matched the ones stitched into the bra cups just below the ties. The older women were staring, and Emmi wrapped the lingerie and shoved it into one of the tansu drawers. She took her Victoria’s Secret clearance set and muttered that it was part of a “Kaga marriage custom.”

One of the women seemed about to question her, but thankfully another lady came to escort Emmi to the private bathhouse. She felt weird with someone helping her bathe, but was glad for the help when it came time to wash her hair. She didn’t even mind that the woman tugged hard with a wooden comb to get out the tangles. After all, she’d been ordered not to get into trouble or draw attention to herself, and this was all she had to look forward to.

Apparently the sense of perfection that she’d felt last night had been nothing but a fleeting dream.

When she returned from her bath, Emmi tried very hard not to behave like some difficult Hollywood diva. She struggled to follow Kae’s advice and not draw attention to herself.

But the headache was still nagging at her, and she didn’t want to be weighed down in twenty layers of kimono and that ridiculous long skirt. She was certainly not in the mood to get more greasy goop dumped in her hair, or let them totally pluck away her eyebrows and plaster that deadly Goth makeup on her face again.

Even if it was customary for married women to do it, no way would she bring herself to put that stinky black crap on her teeth. The ladies-in-waiting seemed pissed, though they didn’t say anything. They simply bowed and left, quietly muttering among themselves, and Emmi hoped this wasn’t going to cause some great ruckus with Kae.

Yes, this world was very different from the one she was used to, but she couldn’t change who she was. If being stuck here meant having her entire personality crushed, then what was the point? She’d just as well just curl up under a rock and die.

Heaving a defeated sigh, she sank down onto one of the thick floor cushions. Total boredom settled in shortly thereafter with only the painted folding screen and the ikebana flower arrangement there to occupy her attention. She refused to think about the nice, thick futon mattresses and how Kae made love to her. The night before seemed a long time gone, making her more aware of the sudden emptiness surrounding her.

She got up and went to the suite’s main room, where a breakfast tray waited on a low table. Emmi took small bites of the smoked fish and rice and drank the tea in half sips to make the meal last as long as possible, which wasn’t long at all.

The bell tolled the time. It had rung last right after Kae left that morning, and it was ringing again when she finished that last bit of rice on her tray. That was two hours of non-excitement down and way too many of more deadly boredom yet to come. What she wouldn’t give for her cell phone or tablet about now.

Things picked up slightly when a maid came to take the breakfast tray away. She had a letter with her, a letter for Emmi from Takehito.

Emmi opened the letter and groaned inwardly. Takehito and Sadanori were soon heading back to Kaga. They wished her a long, happy life with Kae, and Takehito said he’d try to schedule an audience with her before they left. He had to schedule an audience? Crap. She supposed this meant she couldn’t just go over to Katsura Villa to visit them for something to do.

A long, happy life with Kae. Somehow, she had a feeling that might not be the direction her life would be taking. She tucked the letter away then looked around. This room didn’t have much more in the way of entertainment or distraction from boredom either, so she decided to check out the room on the other side of the bedroom, the one Kae had come from that morning.

“Excellent,” she said when her gaze fell on the floor model Go board in the alcove to the right then found the row of books on the red lacquer cabinet. The thought of playing the chess-like game against herself would normally hold no appeal, but the option felt quite inviting this morning. Fabulous, her life had boiled down to playing games alone, if today was any indicator.

She pushed that depressing thought away and went to check out the books Kae owned. Great. Of course, they were in an old-style writing done by hand, which was much harder to decipher than the modern printed kanji. She leafed through the book anyway.

When she’d first arrived, he had mentioned going through “foreign” books for some governmental agency, so perhaps she’d find one contraband Western book here somewhere… Ancient kanji, ancient kanji, ancient— Oh. This last one was so not ancient kanji or even some boring English or French tome. She’d found a picture book. And what a picture book it was! It was similar to the woodblock porn she’d thrown up on at the Shinsengumi compound.

At least Kae’s book wasn’t totally like the miserable vice-commander’s prints—it didn’t contain any yaoi guy-on-guy sex. It was just good old men and women. And women and an octopus? Emmi laughed. So this was where the whole hentai squid and tentacles jokes in anime and manga came from? She winced. Those were some nasty-looking sea creatures in all senses of the word. She closed the book. Even she wasn’t bored enough to look at babes with obscene seafood fetishes.

Looking at the closed
shunga
book, Emmi wondered if Kae ever sat and masturbated while looking at it. A tingle formed deep inside at the thought of watching him pleasure himself and an even more delicious tingle at the memory of having him pleasure her. True, she didn’t have any experience to compare, but she was sure he would be considered one hell of a skilled lover.

She felt a twinge in her nipples, something like the type she’d get when her hormones were in overdrive before her period. When she scratched herself through her kimono, the action sent one of those electric chills down between her legs. She pressed her thighs together and fought the urge to touch herself and have her own masturbation session. It would be a nice way to pass the time, but it would be better with Kae. Besides, with her luck, one of those ladies-in-waiting would pop in, since she hadn’t seen any latches on the doors.

A chill shot down Emmi’s spine, and it wasn’t one of those exciting sexually charged ones. This one was cold fear. ‘Safe sex’ was not a concept here. Kae hadn’t used a condom or anything like a condom. What if that hooker friend of his had given him some foul, unseen STD? Even if she didn’t get herpes or sores, she wasn’t on the Pill. Pregnant was not good.

Of course, a baby made with Kae would be a cute little thing…

No. She was not going there. It was one night. It was her first time. Maybe, just maybe, nothing would happen.
But what about tonight and tomorrow and…

Emmi screwed her eyes shut and balled her hands into fists. Thinking about all this was not doing her any good. She’d always been one to plan things out, but all she could do now was take a wait and see attitude, and pray to high heaven that she hadn’t contracted anything disgusting.

She needed air. Yes, a walk should be a safe enough thing to do…if only she could remember exactly where outside was. She wished she hadn’t been half drunk last night and concentrating so hard on not tripping over the layers of clothing.

She returned to the suite’s main room and went out the door that the maid had used earlier. Another servant, an elderly man, came scurrying out of nowhere like a mouse coming out of his hole after a piece of cheese. He immediately fell to his knees and begged Emmi to allow him the honor of serving her. She wanted to tell him that he had the wrong Maeda here—that he was her mother’s kind of butler—but of course she couldn’t, so she did her best to tell him she wanted to go out for a walk.

His forehead went to the polished wood floor, he beseeched her respectfully to go back inside so he could fetch the appropriate ladies-in-waiting to assist and accompany her. Emmi touched his shoulder, mostly to get him to just stop rambling and look at her a minute, but from the way he jumped—jumped while still kneeling no less—she’d have thought she’d dumped a stinging scorpion on his back.

“I’m sorry. I want to go outside to take a walk alone. Please, just show me where the door is.”
And please wait to keel over until after I leave.

He was still shocked, but he finally got up and showed her to a long corridor lit only by the light filtered through the shoji panels that led out to the porch surrounding the building.

Freedom. Yes!

Emmi thanked him and bowed, and he scurried away again, backward, bowing the entire time until he disappeared into the shadows. Hearing no thud from him passing out, she picked up the long hem of her kimono and headed for the beauty of the flowering bushes that she could see just through the opened door at the far end of the corridor. Crap. She’d forgotten her shoes and had to go back to where the servant had set them before he took off. She was bending to pick them up when a familiar, sexy voice came from behind her.

“Kuni no miya-sama?”

Emmi stood up and looked around but didn’t see anyone else besides herself and the speaker, Kojima-san. He stood just inside one of the open doors on the side of the corridor.

“Did you mean me?” she asked with a smile. And it was a big smile, because it felt great to talk with an actual person she knew. At least for a little while.

He folded his arms inside the wide sleeves of his haori and smiled. “Indeed I did, Emiko-gozen.”

“Gozen?” A woman of title? The idea still seemed strange.

She felt frozen to the spot when he came closer. He unfolded his arms with a sleek, smooth motion and took his fan from his hakama belt. He smiled that killer smile and touched the tip of the fan to her cheek.

“You are so new to the world of nobility and its endless conventions that you come across as utterly naive. Charmingly so, of course.”

“It isn’t every day a girl marries an imperial prince.”

“Indeed,” he answered simply. He tucked his fan back into his belt and looked at her. “From your simple appearance, I take it that you are not going to any official meetings?”

“No. I wanted to go for a walk and get some fresh air. Getting all done up would make that a bit difficult.”

“Indeed, it would.” He bowed and smiled again. “If it pleases you, I would be honored to accompany you.”

Emmi shivered and told herself it was because she was in a shady part of the corridor and a breeze was blowing around outside.

“I would like that very much. Thank you.”

She went to the open door and dropped her shoes out onto the engawa. She held onto the doorframe to balance herself while she stepped into them.

“Please, allow me,” Kojima said before kneeling beside her. He wrapped his long, strong fingers around her ankle and lifted her foot, slipped on the right sandal, then the left. He stood and gave her a questioning look.

“Is something the matter, my lady? I didn’t quite hear what you said.”

Emmi cleared her throat and shrugged. That whimper a second before had not come from her. That was her story, and she was going to stick with it.

“I didn’t say anything.”

He smiled. “Please, know that I am at your service,” he said softly in that velvety voice that slid over her like a thick blanket. “You have but to whisper a command. Any. Command. And I shall do it at once.”

Emmi bit her tongue. Hard. There was no way she would let that next whimper come out at all.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Kae was exiting the building that housed the Bureau of Books and Instruments with a report for his father when he caught sight of Emmi in the distance, walking with Kojima, the courtier he hadn’t trusted from the moment he’d set eyes on him.

He’d objected to his father’s insistence that Kojima be retained as Emiko’s teacher in composition and ways of court protocol, but he had to agree that the best way to keep track of the man’s potential treachery was to keep him as close as possible. Still, Kae hated the thought of using Emmi in this way.

He tucked the scroll containing the report into his haori sleeve and proceeded to follow his wife and her escort toward the pine field. The secluded wooded area was thought to be the resort of foxes and demons who dwelt there in human form, waiting to prey on the unsuspecting. Kojima would be drawn there, wouldn’t he?

* * * *

“I am surprised, Emiko,” Kojima said a short time after they entered the wooded area.

“Surprised?” she asked, looking around, not quite liking how quiet it was here, how cut off from civilization it seemed. Bits of sunlight poked through the thick canopy of tall trees, but it was still creepy. She would never come out here at night alone.

“I am surprised the prince has left you unattended this morning.”

He took a step into her path so Emmi had to stop. He smiled that smile that made her feel slightly gooey inside then touched the end of his folded fan to her cheek. Correction—he actually slid the edge of the fan down her cheek and the side of her neck.

“I suppose…he had things to do. He’s a busy…man,” she said, hoping her voice wasn’t as shaky as it sounded in her ears.

With Kojima’s piercing dark stare holding hers in place, he slid the fan down until it touched the top of the wide patterned obi, right around the place where the obi mashed her breasts flat.

“We are all busy men,” he said before sliding the fan back up the obi, up along her neck, along the edge of her chin. “Yet, were I to have such a lovely young bride, I would see to it that she was my first priority following our wedding day. Only an event of epic and disastrous proportion could cause me to untangle myself from her arms and leave our marriage bed.”

Emmi could not contain the half whimper that slid out of her mouth as thoughts of being with Kae filled her mind.