Tempted Tigress (17 page)

And when he had punctuated his last statement with a fist on the table, she blinked and said the first thing that came to mind: "No wonder we developed gunboats first."

The silence that greeted her words pounded against her temples. Eventually, it became so overwhelming that she dipped her chin in a show of true humility. Who was she to tell this man how to run his country? She needed him to survive. She was being worse than stupid to challenge him in this way.

Too late. She had said the words and they continued to hover in the air. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Jing-Li step forward, his hand upraised to strike. She closed her eyes, bracing for the blow. But she did not brace too much. After all, she deserved it for being so stupid.

No blow fell. Instead, she heard the Enforcer speak—a single word that echoed in the room like thunder. "Explain!"

She looked up, completely confused. She had already lost the thread of the conversation. Her words were not important. She had challenged the mandarin in his own country. No good could come of that. Except, apparently, her words
were
important.

"Explain!" he commanded again. "About your gunboats."

She scrambled to answer and came up with nothing but the honest truth. "You are a leader of this country."
The Emperor's Enforcer.
"And yet you insist you're an academic and you spit on tradesmen. You think and you study and you debate, but the rest of us need things—food, machines..."
Opium.
"The whites have scholars, too. But our countries are run by businessmen who understand engineering, crop yields, and weaponry." And opium—the best cash crop in the world, according to Samuel.

"Barbarians!" spat Jing-Li from the side. She glanced at him long enough to see that his hand still quivered with the need to strike. She quickly looked back to the mandarin. How odd that the servant seemed more violent than the Enforcer.

"I am a woman and know little of men's affairs," she lied. "But if you lead only by moral example, then how do you understand the immoral? The barbaric? You cannot. And so..." She shrugged. "The barbarians develop better weapons and overrun your poor country."

"It is not the gunboats that overwhelm China," the mandarin said. From the side, Jing-Li released a loud snort. The Enforcer sighed and shot his friend a dark look. "The gunboats helped, but it is the other that destroys us, woman. It is your opium."

She couldn't stop herself from salivating at the word. She barely restrained herself from leaping forward, so great was her hunger at the moment. But she focused on debating with the mandarin instead. She pushed away her need and looked into his eyes. "Scholarship is a great thing. As a woman, I have little education." True enough, though she had a great deal more learning than any Chinese woman. "But that only means I see what you cannot—the needs of the ignorant and the impoverished." She sighed and admitted the truth: "If a woman cannot have food, she will buy a drug to forget her hunger. If she cannot have hope, she will pay for sleep before she faces another useless day. If there is nothing more than unending horror, why not lose oneself in smoke?"

She looked away, wondering if she had revealed too much. Did he know that she spoke of her own life? Did he realize that she felt more kinship with the lowest Chinese peasant than the men of her own race?

"Come here, wife," he said. His tone was gentle, his face even more so. He gestured to a bench beside his thronelike chair. She complied without demur, not because he ordered it but because his expression promised understanding. It was a lie, of course. What else could it be? She tried to steel herself against it, but the illusion was too beautiful to resist.

She walked to his side, but before she could rest on the bench, Jing-Li pulled it away. He hauled the rough wood back and stared at her with dark, angry eyes. "A wife should sit at your feet," he said to the mandarin.

The mandarin sighed and turned to her. "Forgive him, wife. He is ever aware of my consequence."

She bowed her head and stepped to his side. She tried to look completely demure, especially since another person had just topped the stairs. She had not noticed him at first; she had been too focused on the mandarin. But now as she turned to sit, she saw a man surrounded by four guards enter the room with great dignity. The governor, she guessed. So in order to enhance the mandarin's status, she chose to act as a good Chinese concubine.

She tucked her legs beneath her and began to fold herself at the mandarin's feet. But he was there before her, cupping her elbow before she could drop all the way down. "It is filthy in here," he murmured. "And the floor is very hard."

He shucked his jacket, revealing an ornately embroidered tunic beneath. But it was the jacket that commanded attention as he shook it out, his official emblem flashing in the sun. Then he carefully folded it into a cushion that he lay beneath her knees. In the background, Anna could hear Jing-Li sputter in shock, but the mandarin merely shrugged.

"It has bloodstains on it. What is a little dirt compared to that?"

Jing-Li apparently had no comment, though he managed to look severely disapproving as the mandarin helped her to settle. She was excruciatingly aware of his hand on her elbow, warmly cupping her arm. Like the burn of a brand, even when he released her arm, she still felt the outline of his fingers where they had touched her through the thin cotton fabric.

She tried to close her senses to him, but he sat so close and his presence was so strong. She could not be in a room with him without feeling his personal power. How much more potent was it here, right beside him, as he turned to face a governor? Potent enough to unseat her craving for opium. Potent enough that she could focus on him and not think of sweet, drugging smoke. Potent enough that she knew nothing but him beside her.

"Greetings, Governor Bai," he said. "I appear to have removed a rat in your garden."

The governor bowed in greeting, then seated himself across from the mandarin. His position neatly echoed the mandarin's in that he sat with his legs apart, his weapon—a long ugly sword—dangling from his hip. "Greetings, greetings," he boomed, though his voice was higher and more nasal than the mandarin's. "Yes, that rat was newly come to my home. I had not yet found the time to root him out."

"Of course, of course. Though I am afraid he has been here a great deal longer than you think."

The governor's eyebrows rose in surprise. Anna was startled as well. It was not politic to challenge a man on his own land, but the mandarin did not seem to care. He continued to speak blithely on.

"Ten years, I believe, or more." He leaned forward. "There was a young girl taken from here ten years ago. The youngest daughter of an impoverished scholar. Taken and sold to..." He let his voice trail away. The implication was clear: the mandarin wished to know where this girl had been sold. What brothel did the slaver supply?

Anna repressed a sigh. Though obviously smart, the mandarin was no negotiator. This kind of information was best obtained over good food and wine. What he had just done was reveal exactly what he wanted most—information on this girl—without any pretense or subtlety. And from the canny look on the governor's face, he would pay a high price for such information.

Nevertheless, he was committed now, so all waited in silence to see what Governor Bai would do. While he waited, the mandarin casually reached out and stroked Anna's cheek. It was an unconscious gesture, as if she were a favored pet, and Anna stiffened instinctively at the insult. But she did not draw away. To do so would only weaken the mandarin's position.

All the while, the governor watched, his black eyes narrowing in thought. "An unusual... companion," he finally said.

The mandarin shifted, as if surprised. "Oh! Yes, of course. My concubine."

"A white ghost? Do you not fear for your health?"

"A gift I could not refuse." He shrugged, a slow smile curving his lips. "And I have no fear of the whites."

Anna did her best not to react. She wanted to turn and stare hard at the mandarin who had suddenly become the coldest, cruelest businessman she had ever known. His every word held double meaning, his every caress was a statement that he and whites were as thick as thieves. But what did he mean? What did he want?

Whatever it was, the governor wanted it too. With an abrupt clap of his hands, he shoved to his feet. "Come, come! We cannot talk like this: in the heat of the day with dust in our tea! We will go to my home and discuss the matter like civilized men. I can even arrange for a palanquin for your lovely consort!"

"Aie," the mandarin sighed, in what Anna recognized as a clear ploy. "Unfortunately, your rat has caused us some discomfort. The woman is distraught, and our clothing..." He shook his head in dismay.

"But all that can be mended at my compound!" the governor boomed. "Silk gowns and jade to soothe her rattled nerves. Peking tea, gifted to me from the Emperor's chief eunuch himself." The man was bragging about his connection to the Son of Heaven.

"Yes, Lie-Zi is most generous with the Emperor's tea. I myself prefer the Dowager's special blend." Zhi-Gang meant that he was more closely aligned with the Empress.

"Of course, of course. But I thought I had seen you with the Emperor the last time I was in Peking. In fact," the governor said, his voice slowing with threat, "I am sure of it."

Anna frowned. She recognized the governor's words as a kind of menace. She felt the mandarin's fingers stiffen against her cheek; but she could not understand why. Then she remembered. Not more than a month ago the Emperor had taken ill and now resided in the Summer Palace under the care of numerous doctors. In truth, it was rumored that he had been poisoned by his own mother—the Empress Dowager—who now ruled in her son's name. And every day that passed, another one of the Emperor's modernizing edicts was being countermanded by his mother.

In short, the Empress Dowager had staged a coup d'etat. China's modernizing movement was dead, and now being replaced by a steady push back toward closed borders and an end to all white influence. Anna hardly cared since she wanted out of China anyway. But to these men, allegiance to either the ousted Emperor or the winning Empress made a great deal of difference.

So it was no surprise when the mandarin eventually conceded. In truth, Anna suspected that it was in his head all along to go to this man's compound. After all, where else would he get free new clothes, good food, and a soft bed? But there was more in his mind beyond that, she was sure.

"Very well," the mandarin finally said. "But only for one night. I have an urgent mission for the Empress Dowager."

"Then let me make arrangements with all speed," Governor Bai said as he pushed to his feet. But he paused a moment, his gaze returning to Anna, and she felt his inspection spread like a slow coat of oil across her body. "I will make you most comfortable, honored lady," he murmured. "Most comfortable, indeed." Then he bowed to the mandarin and left.

And at that moment, Anna understood the bargain. The knowledge burst through her consciousness like a crossbow bolt through her chest. She had just been sold. The Enforcer would get all the information he wanted about the slaver and the missing girl. In return, he would allow the slimy governor to spend the night with her.

She twisted her head to stare at the mandarin. It couldn't be true. He wouldn't sell her like that. He had just killed the slaver who intended to do the exact same thing. And yet, even as her heart denied the possibility, her mind knew the truth. The Enforcer had no reason to act faithfully to her. Theirs wasn't a true marriage. Most Chinese thought whites no more than animals, barely more intelligent than a monkey. Of course he would sell her for something he wanted. And she, of course, could do nothing about it, not surrounded as she was by guards and frightened peasants.

"No," she whispered, barely even aware that she spoke at all.

"One night," the Enforcer responded with a congenial smile. "And then we shall see about your escape from China."

From Anna Marie Thompson's journal

December 25, 1881

He came! Samuel came! And he brought me PRESENTS!!!!! Much, much more than anyone else got. He brought presents for all the other children too, but he brought the most for me. Dolls. And dresses. And a big ham for everyone to eat.