Ji Yue hunched her shoulders and shook her head. "Um, no. Not really."
"So what do you want?"
"Um…" She kept her voice low in case Hua Si was indeed listening through the walls. "Do you like candied leechee nuts?"
She frowned. "Candied fruit?"
"Have you ever tasted honey? I did once. My father had it." She closed her eyes in pretend rapture. "It was the most amazing thing I have ever tasted."
"You like sweets?"
Ji Yue felt a blush heat her face. It was shame because this had to be the biggest lie she had ever told. "Would you like to see?" She pulled the dowager consort over to a space behind Hua Si's trunk, then she pulled out a cache of candied sweets.
"But that is Gao Hua Si's trunk."
Ji Yue giggled. "I know. I put it there so people would think it is hers."
Meanwhile the dowager frowned as she leaned back and looked hard at Ji Yue. "You want sweets. That's it?" She didn't sound as if she believed it.
Ji Yue quickly replaced the stash after stealing a couple of pieces. Then she looked at the dowager with calm, honest eyes. "You are right that I am smart. A smart woman understands what she wants and how to get it. Do I want to carry the emperor's son? Of course. Do I know that there are spies and manipulations everywhere in the Forbidden City? Of course. And if I wished to hold the reins of influence, then someone might indeed fear me. But…" She shook her head, and her expression turned genuinely sad.
"But?" the dowager prompted.
Ji Yue thought of Bo Tao, of the things they had shared and done together. The tears that flooded her eyes were genuine.
"But I am working to manipulate one man and already it has cost me. I do not wish to do more." She abruptly leaned forward, wincing as if in great pain. "My lady, I will do whatever you ask. I will use my intelligence to watch and report whatever you want. The only thing I ask is that I become one of your pampered pets—the girls who are always at your side during meals. That I never go without food ever again!"
The dowager pursed her lips. "For a girl who is so hungry, you have missed many meals."
Ji Yue nodded. "Mama said I must. She often denied me at home because she said I would get fat."
The dowager studied Ji Yue's figure critically. "Fat women squeeze their babies."
"I know!" Ji Yue snapped. Was she really that fat that people could so easily believe this lie? "My lady, I am smart enough to know my weaknesses and my desires. I could be a great aid to you."
"Humph," was the woman's only response. She wasn't convinced, but she wasn't unconvinced, either. Ji Yue allowed her gaze to drift back to the secret cache. The candy had been delicious and she had missed dinner. Her mouth was watering for more.
"Go on," the dowager said softly. "Take another. I don't mind."
"Do you…do you want one?" she asked.
"No, no, dear. You go on."
Ji Yue flashed a grateful smile then dashed over to the candy. With her one stolen taste of food, her stomach was cramping in hunger. It was all she could do not to finish Hua Si's entire hoard.
"Careful," the dowager admonished. "There will be nothing left for tomorrow."
Ji Yue reluctantly put back what she had in her hand, then returned the whole cache to its hiding place. "Oh. Of course."
The dowager nodded then pushed to her feet. "Good night, Ji Yue."
Ji Yue had her mouth full and could only scramble to her feet. She didn't dare speak. With a distracted air, the dowager consort waved casually and glided out. Ji Yue barely had time to scramble back to her bed before Hua Si came bursting in.
"What happened? What did she say?"
Ji Yue shrugged, too tired to play games anymore this day. All the deception, all the court politics were giving her a bad headache. So she simply twisted her hair into her sleeping braid and climbed into bed. Behind her, Hua Si huffed in disgust and began to undress. Ji Yue closed her eyes and tried to sleep, but her thoughts would not stop whirling in her mind.
Was this what her life would be like from now on? Would she spend her days pandering to the dowager consort and her nights praying that a child took root in her belly? She winced at the idea of letting the emperor touch her as Bo Tao had. But what would happen to her if he did not choose her? Would she really end up like the concubines in the window? Of course not, she realized. She didn't lust after another woman's touch or even the emperor's caress. She wanted Bo Tao. No one else would do for her now.
How could she have been so stupid? How could she have fallen in love? And with the emperor's best friend? She curled onto her side and cried for real.
SHE WAS WOKEN hours later by a soft finger poking insistently into her side.
"Virgin!" It was a man's high voice. "Virgin Chen Ji Yue, you must wake."
She blinked, then groaned as she rolled over. How could an afternoon of such pleasure create so many aches now?
"Virgin Chen Ji Yue is called."
She blinked in the darkness and finally made out the moon face of a eunuch she'd never met before. "Called where? By whom?"
The man lowered his voice to a dark whisper. "The master of the festival calls you." Then when she didn't answer, he frowned at her. "Sun Bo Tao."
"I know who the master is," she snapped, irritated not by the interruption but by the sudden tightening in her throat, the leap of her heart in her chest and the rapid moistening in her womb. How would she ever be the emperor's wife if the mere mention of another man's name set her entire body tingling?
"You must come now!" he ordered.
It took everything in her to resist the eunuch's command. She didn't know if Bo Tao had truly sent the summons. It seemed an extremely risky way to call her, though he had used eunuchs before. If this was a fake summons, then she was being led into a trap. No virgin could be caught sneaking out at night to meet a man, even if he was the master of the festival. Especially if he was the master of the festival, since he was the one whole man in all of the Forbidden City.
But what if the summons were real? What if Bo Tao needed her? It didn't seem likely, but the fear in her heart burned like truth.
"No," she rasped, though the word hurt like a knife. "No, I cannot be beaten again." She rolled back onto her side and clutched her knees tight to her chest. It was the only way she could keep herself from changing her mind.
"He will be very angry!"
"Then he will beat me again tomorrow. Not tonight."
She waited in tense silence, wondering if the eunuch would bodily drag her from her bed. She half prayed that he would. But after a hundred heartbeats, she heard him sigh and shuffle away. That left Ji Yue to spend the rest of the night in anxious fear. Who had sent the eunuch? Could it truly have been Bo Tao? What would he think? And if it wasn't Bo Tao, then who was testing her?
The questions didn't ease until dawn began to lighten the sky. By then her mind was so exhausted that it sputtered into silent fantasies. As she watched the dawn lightening the sky, she pretended Bo Tao lay beside her, tucking her safely in his arms. She imagined the heat of his body, the brush of his breath in her hair and his organ thick and hard inside her. What would she have to give up to have that for real? she wondered. What could she do to make her fantasies come true?
Nothing, she decided. Nothing could make them come true no matter how much she prayed.
Chapter 15
BO TAO WAS IN TROUBLE. Everybody knew he had spent the afternoon with Ji Yue. And everybody was speculating on whether he'd beaten her or had sex with her. He'd tried to hide away from their speculation. He wasn't at all sure he could fake the angry contempt that would lead a man to beat a woman. Better to hide in his office and work on the things he should have been doing that afternoon.