Temptress (Forbidden Pleasures Book 2), page 1
PROLOGUE
1851 – Imperial China
A land of sensuous delights and grinding poverty. A land of silk and jade, of tiny feet and dark, exotic eyes. The ruler of this vast and opulent land is the newly appointed Emperor Xian Feng, the Son of Heaven. Only nineteen years old, he has inherited a corrupt bureaucracy, the rebellious Taiping of the northwest, and a country slowly losing its mind to opium. The eunuchs who serve him grow more corrupt. The white devils constantly bang on his doors demanding trade for goods he does not want. And yet in all this, his first duty is to sire an heir. In fact, he will not receive his full imperial salary until he has the required twenty-eight wives.
To this end, the Feast of Fertility has been declared! Eligible women from throughout the land have been invited to come to the Forbidden City, Xian Feng’s home in Peking. Their virtue and their fortunes will be examined, they will be tested for lucky aspects of mind and body, and if successful, they will never leave the Forbidden City again. The winner will become the Empress herself. Second place goes to four favored concubines. Then two other harems will be established for women who will likely never grace Xian Feng’s bed.
A daunting task for any man, especially one who is simultaneously running a country. And so, in this most difficult hour, Xian Feng turns to his childhood friend and appoints Sun Bo Tao, former bad boy of the Forbidden City, as Master of the Feast. Apparently, he didn’t hear the warnings that he had just appointed a fox to run an Imperial henhouse.
Chapter 1
Chen Ji Yue struggled to breathe. Excitement pounded in her blood, she was already dizzy with the noise, and yet she still could not draw a full breath. How blessed she was to be of the right age for a Feast of Fertility! Only a few hundred girls every few decades had such an opportunity! To catch the eye of the Emperor was every girl’s dream. But first, she had to escape all these wailing women!
She stood in all her finery outside their Peking home, ready to climb into the palanquin that would take her to the Forbidden City. If everything went well, she would be chosen and never see her family again, but she would have the consolation of knowing that the Emperor would gift her family great riches in thanks.
For some perverse reason, Mama thought that the bigger display of grief here, the better Ji Yue’s odds inside the palace. So she had hired mourners, wailing women to fill the street this early morning, but all it did was give Ji Yue a headache.
“Mama,” she murmured from behind the clattering ivory beads. “Let me go. I cannot be late.”
“Not yet, little heart. Show respect to your father.”
She’d already bowed to her father several times. “Mama, believe in me. I can do it.”
Mama didn’t hear her. She was busy wailing again. And worse, she would not let go of Ji Yue’s hands.
“Mama...” Ji Yue began, but then her mother pulled her close.
“You won’t win the Emperor on beauty, Ji Yue. You must be smart. You must see what others don’t and capitalize on it.”
“I know. You’ve told me...” Ji Yue let her voice trail away. This close, she could see real tears in her mother’s eyes, and her heart lurched with pain. What would it be like to not see her mother’s face every morning? Who would help her father with his poetry or tutor her brothers? Mama, most likely, but Mama already had plenty to do squeezing every penny so they had enough to eat.
“That playboy Sun Bo Tao was named Master of the Feast,” her mother continued. “This is very bad and very dangerous. He is a hanger-on because of his friendship with the Emperor. No title, no education, nothing but trouble. Avoid him, Ji Yue. Avoid him at all costs!”
“I know, Mama. I will stay away from him. I promise!”
“You can’t! He is Master of the Festival! He is in charge of all the Imperial Virgins. Remember what I taught you: follow the Confucian virtues, think pure thoughts, but see what the men do not. I trained you to be a political wife, and the first rule of politics is to not get caught by a man of no virtue.”
“I know,” Ji Yue repeated. “Have faith in me. I will become the Empress.” If she succeeded, then her entire family would be set for generations. They would become royalty and have all the money they needed. All she had to do was catch the Emperor’s eye.
“Go, now. Go before your father unmans himself and cries.” Mama pushed her away. Ji Yue didn’t need prompting. She was anxious to begin her new life even though her fingers clung to Mama’s arm. But it was hard to see through her curtain of beads, harder still to walk on the high platform shoes. Thankfully, this too had been rehearsed.
Her eldest brother ran to her side to escort her with all dignity to the imperial palanquin. It had been an exorbitant expense to get the conveyance, but it was the only pull her father had in the Forbidden City. He had spent a year tutoring a eunuch’s nephew and in return had been promised a single favor. Papa had used it to obtain this beautiful ride to the Forbidden City. A future Empress should arrive like an Empress, he’d said, but that was all he could do. After this, she would have to catch the Emperor’s favor on her own.
The wailers grew louder as she and her brother neared the curtained palanquin. Her brother was to release her hand now and throw open the bower curtains so she could enter. He began to move away, but she suddenly gripped his arm, holding him still.
It was a silly thought, she knew, but she didn’t want her bother’s last sight of her to be one of extraordinary lavishness. They had so little, and even less now that so much had been spent to outfit her. She did not want her brother to see the interior luxury of the palanquin. After she became the new Empress, she would send him exquisite silks as a royal gift. He need not see them now.
“Take care of father,” she murmured as a last good-bye to her brother. “Make sure he drinks his special tea.” Her brother hovered beside her, clearly unsure what to do. “Go back to Papa,” she said. “Study hard so that you can join me in the Forbidden City.” There were jobs as advisors to the dragon throne, but only for scholars who passed the exam. She nudged him back even as she tottered forward to the bower. With one last smile that they couldn’t even see, she ducked inside the palanquin.
It was dark inside and with the beads in front of her face, she couldn’t see a thing. She went by touch, crawling inside with little dignity and much speed. The cushions moved awkwardly beneath her hands until she touched a very hard one that remained stable. She pushed down, levering her weight on it.
The curtains slipped closed behind her, and one of the porters grunted as the palanquin lifted off the street. She slid off the heavy cushion onto something else. Goodness, silk was slippery. And the cushions were bizarre. The palanquin began to sway as it moved away from her family home. She wanted to peer out the curtain, but she didn’t dare do something so vulgar though the tears burned in her eyes.
She would never see her family again. Once inside the Forbidden City, no consort ever came out again. Her father might be able to arrange to visit, but such things were rare even among those more politically astute than her father. Her mother had even less power, and her brothers wouldn’t be allowed unless they gave up their manhood first and became eunuchs.
Ji Yue widened her eyes in the darkness, trying to dry the tears. She didn’t dare cry because it would ruin the white matte that covered her face. Instead, she kicked hard at the cushions that refused to move.
“Ung,” someone grunted. Then she felt a hand grip her ankle hard.
Only years of training kept her from screaming. Ladies didn’t scream. By the time she was ten, she’d faced down rats, spiders, and snakes without a peep. She would not scream now when riding in an imperial palanquin. She simply kicked as hard as she could to dislodge– “Ow! Hold still, damn it. I’m not here to rape you.”
A man. Oh Heaven, a man! “Get out!” she hissed as she tried to scramble backwards. She couldn’t go far without falling out the back. “Get out or I will kick you again!” It was a silly threat. He had an iron grip on her ankle.
“Quit fighting,” he said in a low undertone.
“You cannot be here!” she said as she shoved as hard as she could. He lifted her leg up so that all she did was kick the air above his head. “I will scream!” she hissed.
“Would you really scream? And let everyone know that a man is riding with you to the Forbidden City?”
She bit her lip, then promptly stopped since that would eat off the red paint. Her mother had told her to be smart. It was time she started using her brain instead of her extremely ineffective brawn. “What do you want?” she spat. “I have no money for you. Be thankful if you are not whipped for daring to touch an Imperial Consort.”
He was still holding her ankle prisoner. Worse, he was putting his weight on in now as he maneuvered into a sitting position. “You’re not going to be a royal bride. I’m sorry but it’s true.” Then he yawned while horror chilled her bones.
“You insolent pig!” She kicked again for all she was worth. He was still yawning, his head thrown back with his inhale. Her leg slipped from his grip and caught him square in the ribs. This cut off his breath with a gasp and he doubled over. She didn’t give him time to recover but shifted and planted both feet on his hips and began to shove him right out the side of her bower.
He fought her, of course, but she escaped his grasp. His fists filled with crumpled silk. “If I fall out now, everyone will see it,” he warned. “You do not have enough ivory to silence so exciting a story–a man in a
She paused. One last push and he would go tumbling through the curtains out into the dirt where he belonged. “They already know from the weight,” she said miserably.
“No, they don’t. They carried me here, remember? They only remember your added weight, which is very slight.”
She swallowed, torn between her two miserable options. Did she kick him out and pray that people believed in her purity? Never. Or did she let him stay and hope no one was the wiser? “How did you get in here in?”
“I slipped in when they rested; I can slip out again at the gates. I do it all the time and no one notices.”
Now that her eyes had adjusted to the dim light, she could see more of him. He was not a broad man like those carrying the palanquin, but tall like her father. His clothing was excellent, though the long queue down his back was misshapen from his sleep.
“Who are you?” she asked.
“A lackey for the Son of Heaven,” he said with obvious bitterness.
“Eunuch?” she asked hopefully. It was well known that some of the “cut” men were overly friendly.
He released a sharp bark of laughter at that, and she abruptly shushed him. “No,” he said in a lower tone. “I am not so important as to be cut.”
She frowned. “I thought all minions to the Emperor were eunuchs. Else who would do the things the royals despise?”
“Me,” he groused. “And a few others.”
She shook her head. “I do not believe you.” It was well known that except for a few intimates of the Emperor, all men in the Forbidden City were eunuchs. If this man was an imperial friend, he’d have own conveyance and therefore no need to borrow hers. The eunuchs, on the other hand, would often escape into Peking for pleasure. They would also, therefore, need a secret way back into the Forbidden City.
She narrowed her eyes, inspecting this man more closely. “You dress too fine to be common. You speak too well to be ignorant. And your hands...” She jutted her chin at his long, elegant fingers. “They are used to a brush and ink, not labor. You must be a secretary then, someone who works as an assistant to the Emperor.” She sighed in relief. “Which means you are a eunuch pretending to be whole. There is nothing exciting about an overly friendly eunuch, even if he lands in the dirt.” And with that, she shoved him out of her bower.
He tumbled backwards into the dust. She would forever remember the look of stunned shock on his face as he fell. And when she rolled over to peer after him, she heard the porters laugh. The Insolent One, as she now dubbed him, had landed in some rotting leaves. His fine dark clothing was smeared with grime. She couldn’t see his face, though, as the porters carried her on by.
Then, with a sigh, she deftly removed two strings of ivory beads from her headdress. She would have to bribe the porters into silence. That was a great deal of money to lose before she even reached the gates, but there was no hope for it. She couldn’t risk them speaking, even about an insolent eunuch. All in all, her father’s grand gesture–like all his great gifts–had cost too much money to be worthwhile.
Thankfully, she was about to change all that. When she became an imperial bride, money would flow like water through her family’s door. And on that happy thought, she reclined alone on silk cushions and waited for the first test.
Chapter 2
The Master of the Festival was late. Ji Yue rolled her eyes. Of course, Sun Bo Tao, playboy of the Forbidden City, would ignore his Imperial duties. He was probably in an opium daze in some woman’s bedroom. But why hadn’t there been provisions for that man’s irresponsibility? Why couldn’t they continue the inspection without him?
Ji Yue tried to find out, but no one had accurate information, and she dared not risk appearing unseemly by demanding answers. Virgins were supposed to be docile, so she tried to be patient as she waited in her palanquin. Dozens of girls stood around in the heat, their legs aching and their make-up running into their silks. At least she got to sit, though even she felt like she waited in an oven.
Really, the nerve of the man, making the future Empress of China wait like drying fish! She glanced outside to see if there was any progress. Palanquins clogged the streets while porters squatted on their heels and threw dice. Girls visibly wilted in the heat. One in particular drew Ji Yue’s eye.
She stood nearby, her dowry in trunks around her feet. If a carriage of some sort brought her, there was no sign of it now, and so the girl stood outside on tiny lifted shoes. She looked miserable standing there. And perhaps since Ji Yue felt a creeping loneliness, she called out to the girl.
“Come, come! Sit here with me.”
The girl–for she was quite young–didn’t understand. Ji Yue had to gesture her over.
“Me, Mistress?” the girl said, her eyes widening until they seemed to cover her entire face.
“Yes, yes. Why do you stand there in the heat? Where is your carriage?”
“Gone,” she confessed as she waved vaguely to the west. “They said they could not wait around all day on an Emperor’s whim.”
“Treasonous dogs!” Ji Yue spat, earning a smile from the girl. “Come, sit with me. I will say that we were carried here together.”
The girl shook her head and refused to move from her trunks. “I couldn’t! Not in an Imperial palanquin!”
“Of course, you can!” But no matter how much Ji Yue waved, the girl did not move. Finally, Ji Yue crossed to her. “What is your name?”
“Li Fei,” she answered. Then she leaned forward and confided her difficulty. “Mama says I must not sit or I will crinkle the silk.”
Ji Yue smiled. “I understand. But there will be a great deal of standing to come. Wouldn’t it be better to risk a few creases rather than faint later when the Emperor sees you? And besides,” she added in an undertone. “Your mother could not have guessed that the Master of the Festival would be this tardy!”
That brought a giggling nod from Li Fie. “Then I shall gratefully join you.”
So began Ji Yue’s first friendship within the competition. Ji Yue learned that Li Fie was from an outlying province, that she had many brothers and sisters, but that she was the only one of the right age to apply as consort. And that she was terribly, terribly nervous about life in the Forbidden City.
Ji Yue commiserated with the girl, relaxing for the first time since the call went out for eligible daughters. Then a gong sounded. Loud and clear, it silenced everyone who loitered outside the Forbidden City gate.
“Do you think it is time?” Li Fei asked.
Ji Yue nodded, her own heart beating painfully in her throat. They both peered out, but it was difficult to see, harder still to hear as a eunuch cried out orders. Fortunately, the news was whispered from servant to mistress to porter and beyond. In time, all understood that the girls were to present themselves one by one to the Head Eunuch, the Imperial Dowager Consort Kang Ci, and that playboy courtier Sun Bo Tao, Master of the Festival. The three would decide who was allowed to enter and who would be sent home.
“But that will take hours,” Li Fei murmured. Unfortunately, Ji Yue agreed. So they waited in the palanquin, the reality of the competition weighing on them. Both tried to talk, but their hearts were not in it, their attention turned to the sounds that came from the front gate.
At first, they heard nothing but the paid criers. “Fan Mei Lin is accepted! Fan Mei Lin enters the Forbidden City. Fan Mei Lin!”
Next came the refused, the sobbing, the wretched, even a few who had fainted dead away. No crier announced them, but whispers traveled quickly. One had been rejected for a limp, another for hair on her neck. Some had breasts too shallow to nurse a babe or ill-fated ears or feet too large. The last one struck terror in Ji Yue’s heart. Manchurian women were forbidden to bind their feet; that was a characteristic of the defeated Han people. And yet, after a hundred and fifty years of dynastic rule, the Manchu men liked tiny feet. Always the men looked to see the women’s shoes.
Ji Yue looked down to her shoes. They adorned with jade and pearl drops and were her most expensive attire. Her mother had planned this as her large feet were her most difficult attribute. But with feet surrounded by jewels, any man would see wealth, not size. Just as any man looking at her face would see ivory beads and think beauty without judging the appearance beneath. Or so they hoped.
