child?”
He nodded. Lady Mori had never seen him look so miserable.
“Oh, no, it isn’t,” Reiko fumed. “No man has ever rejected me. I won’t let you go.” She sounded like a spoiled, petulant girl on the verge of a tantrum. “I’ll show you that you’re mine until I decide we’re finished!”
She yanked the pins from her hair, which tumbled to her waist. She untied her sash.
“No!” Lord Mori was breathless with alarm.
Reiko dropped her robes to the floor and stood naked. Her pregnant belly protruded round and ripe beneath her breasts.
“Don’t. I beg you,” Lord Mori whispered. Desire engorged his face.
“You want me.” Reiko’s smile was tantalizing. “You know you do.” She snatched at his clothes, undressing him.
“Stop!” Lord Mori tried to push her away, but she tore open his kimono; she tugged down his trousers and pulled off his loincloth. His manhood sprang erect.
Reiko caught hold of it. “This belongs to me.” She fondled him while he moaned. “I never give up anything that’s mine.”
Lord Mori seized Reiko’s hands in an attempt to wrench them off him. “Leave me alone,” he ordered.
Yet his voice and his actions lacked force. Reiko knelt. She put her mouth on him. As she licked and teased, he collapsed to the floor. She laughed with triumph as she positioned herself on top of him. “You can’t resist me. You’ll do what I want.”
She spread her legs, took him inside her, and moved up and down. “We’ll be together always. Never mind your wife.”
Although Lord Mori said, “No! Stop. Please!” he heaved and thrust at her. Lady Mori wept because her husband was so enthralled by Reiko that not even the threat of war could break her hold on him.
“You’ll be the ruin of me!” he cried. His hand fumbled under the bed near them; he pulled out the sword that he kept there in case an intruder should attack him in his sleep. He brandished it at Reiko. “Go away, or I’ll kill you!”
Reiko stayed. She moved faster, her body pumping, her breasts bouncing. Her expression turned murderous. She grabbed the sword from Lord Mori and held it to his throat. “If you leave me, I’ll kill you!” she shouted. “If I can’t have you, no one will!”
Lord Mori recoiled in fright, but he uttered wild bellows of passion. Lady Mori knew her plan had failed because Reiko wouldn’t cooperate and he was too weak to defy her. Armies could overrun his provinces, and he would lie with Reiko again and again until they slaughtered him. Lady Mori had lost him forever. Sobbing, she fled to her room, where she drank wine until her grief faded into stupor. She slept until morning, when her maid awoke her and told her that her husband was dead.
6
“You’re lying! My wife and Lord Mori were never lovers!” Sano had forced himself to hear Lady Mori’s tale until the end, but he could no longer hold back his violent denials. “The child she’s carrying isn’t his. And neither is our son!”
He didn’t believe a word she’d said. This was slander of the most outrageous kind. But his inner voice whispered that he must objectively consider each witness’s statement even if it incriminated his wife.
“I apologize for giving you offense, but I have told you the truth,” Lady Mori said sadly. “I swear on my honor.”
“Your honor is worth nothing in this case,” Sano retorted, for here at last was another suspect besides Reiko. “According to your story, you were at your husband’s private chambers last night.”
Lady Mori visibly braced herself against him. “Yes.”
“You saw my wife on the veranda, spying through the window on Lord Mori.”
“No. I was the one spying,” Lady Mori said, nervous but insistent. “She was inside, with him, just as I described.”
Sano countered her with Reiko’s version of events: “You and my wife were friends. That night you invited her to dinner. You had a party.”
Frosty politeness stiffened Lady Mori’s features. “There was no party. And she was not my friend, she was my husband’s mistress. It was he who invited her here.”
Sano speculated on what might have happened that Reiko had been unaware of. “You suspected that she had an ulterior motive for befriending you. When she left the party, you followed her. You watched her watching your husband. Did you think she was spying on him for me, for political reasons?”
Lady Mori shook her head. “I watched her seduce him. I heard her threaten to kill him.”
“Maybe she had too much to drink at your party.” Sano didn’t know how much forethought had gone into framing Reiko, but he was acting on the assumption that she had been framed, and Lady Mori was looking to be the culprit. “You stabbed and castrated your husband while he was asleep. You arranged Lady Reiko to look as if she’d done it.”
“No! That’s not how it was!” Lady Mori cried in horror. “I loved my husband. I would never have hurt him. And I never touched your wife. She murdered him.”
Sano lost his temper because even though her story was ludicrous, many people might believe it. Some would welcome a chance to hurt him by persecuting Reiko. “Don’t lie to me!” he shouted. “I want to know what really happened.”
He seized Lady Mori, yanked her to her feet, and grasped her shoulders. She whimpered in protest. Her attendants gasped in horror at seeing their mistress treated as a common criminal. Hirata moved to restrain Sano.
“Honorable Chamberlain,” he warned.
Sano ordinarily didn’t believe in using force on suspects because it too often produced false confessions and he disliked abusing his power. He hated to intimidate a helpless woman. But he couldn’t let Lady Mori spread her slander about his wife. Not only could it doom Reiko, but it could destroy him. Sano remembered his talk with General Isogai and the two elders. The suspicion that someone connected to him had murdered one of Lord Matsudaira’s chief allies was trouble of the kind they’d warned him to avoid.
“Tell me the truth!” he demanded, shaking Lady Mori.
Her head snapped back and forth; she sobbed in terror. But she cried, “I did!”
She seemed to believe her own lies. That would make them sound convincing to anyone she told. Sano had to make her recant. “You killed your husband. You framed my wife. Confess!”
“No! Please don’t hurt me!”
Anger consumed Sano. He hated Lady Mori for trying to hurt Reiko. He was furious at Reiko for putting him and herself in this disastrous situation. Lady Mori was a convenient target, and he drew back his fist to strike her.
Hirata caught his arm. “Don’t!”
Her attendants shrieked. Marume and Fukida pulled Sano away from Lady Mori. She dissolved to the floor in a fit of tears. The women surrounded her, comforting her. Sano shook off his men. He breathed hard, appalled by his own behavior. Less than an hour into this investigation, and he’d lost control. After so many murder cases, he should be able to discipline himself. But his wife hadn’t been the primary suspect in those other cases. He’d not had to prove her innocence while other suspects heaped guilt upon her.
An angry male voice demanded, “What have you done to my mother?”
Sano turned and saw a samurai at the door. He was tall and lithe, in his mid-twenties, dressed in a cloak damp with rain, his two swords at his waist. His face was strikingly handsome, with sensitive features shadowed by consternation. Lady Mori rose, ran to him, and wept against his chest. He focused his dark, brooding eyes on Sano.
“Honorable Chamberlain. May I ask what’s going on?”
“You must be Enju,” said Sano.
“Yes.” Lord Mori’s adopted son waited in silence for Sano to answer his question. Despite his mother’s
