'One moment please, Chen Ji Yue. The head eunuch wished something from you. What was it?' Then he made a show of trying to remember while the interrogator grabbed his coat and departed, his long queue whipping behind him in his haste.
The moment the door shut behind him, Bo Tao's expression turned harder. 'The truth now, Ji Yue. I swear I will not harm your father in any way, but I must know the truth. You and your mother help him, do you not?'
Ji Yue flushed. 'No!'
'Do not lie to me!' He did not shout the words, but released them as a low growl. He had found that to be much more effective than bellowing, and it worked on Ji Yue. Her eyes widened and she bit her lip.
'My father is a brilliant man!'
'Of course he is,' Bo Tao soothed. 'But no man can do the volume of work that he accomplishes. Someone must help him.'
Ji Yue squirmed. 'Sometimes my father's hand cramps. I write as he dictates.'
'And your mother?'
She bit her lip. 'The same.'
Just as he suspected. 'How many of the Confucian texts have you read?'
She blinked. 'It is helpful to understand the context of what he dictates.'
'How many?'
'All.'
He began listing off all the texts required in a man's education. She had read half and was familiar with all. Then he leaned forward, his eyes narrowing in thought. 'If you were a man…' He let his voice trail away suggestively.
'But I'm not,' she said with some bitterness. 'I am a woman.' She raised her eyes to meet his directly. 'I am a woman who can help a man who lives and breathes politics. I am a woman who understands his frustrations even as she soothes his weary body. I will bear his sons and listen to his problems.' She straightened to her full height. 'I will make an excellent empress.'
He swallowed down a surge of fury at her words. It wasn't rational, and so he suppressed it, but it made his voice hard. 'The emperor could not acknowledge your words last night. No woman should dare to question his rule.'
'I was trying to make an impression,' she snapped.
'You succeeded.' Then he folded his arms. 'You said he must look to the underlying cause of the rebellion. The Dragon Throne needs to know—what did you mean by that? What cause do you see beneath the Taiping uprising?'
Her eyes turned pensive, but when she spoke, he heard conviction in every word. 'My father is honest and so we are poor. Even for a lowly lawyer, bribes are rampant. Surely as master of these festivities, you know of what I speak.'
He grimaced. Of course he knew. As China grew, so did the layers of bureaucracy. And where there were bureaucrats, there was the tendency toward graft.
'My father values his integrity more than his wealth, but others are not so wholesome.' She shifted, then abruptly stepped forward in her earnestness. 'The peasants follow two things: food and hope. Rebel leader Hong Xiu Quan offers both. Why doesn't the government offer its people something so simple? Why do the outlying governors give so little to the people they are sworn to protect?'
He felt his eyebrows rise in surprise. She obviously understood China's problems. 'Does your father share your views?'
She snorted. 'My father is a scholar. He buries himself in texts that are hundreds of years old. It has not prepared him for a country threatened by rebellions and foreign powers.'
'There have always been threats to China's sovereignty.'
She nodded. 'Did those threats have guns such as the white people carry?'
He shook his head, and his eyes grew pensive. 'I saw a drawing once of an English gunboat. I do not know if the picture was real, but if it was…' He sighed. 'I fear what will happen to China if the English become greedy.'
She reached out and touched his hand, hope shining in her eyes. 'You do understand. You agree with me!'
He nodded. 'And China cannot weaken itself by fighting more rebels from within.' The feel of her small hand on his warmed his spirit and stiffened his rod. But his mind was filled with other thoughts that miraculously directed him beyond taking her to bed. 'I must go question the other girls. Since you have passed the family history exam, you must have a meal with the dowager consort.' He slanted her a hard glance. 'She will pick at you, but say nothing that is not…that is not…' How to phrase what he wanted?
'Empty headed?'
'Exactly! Pretend you will follow her direction blindly.'
'She is not that stupid. She will not be fooled.'
'Probably not, but she cannot be sure. After the meal, pretend you're ill. Claim you need to sit in my aunt's garden to rest.' He used his finger to trace the route she would take from the garden lunch to the bower. If she could not remember it from his quick movements, then she was of no use to him.
'I understand,' she murmured. 'What then?'
'I will have someone there waiting. He will take you where I want you to go.'
She nodded, but her eyes grew wary. 'Do you swear on your honor that I will not be harmed by this?'
He winced. She was right to question him. Even now, his cock was large and hungry. 'I swear by my honor that this will not hurt your chances to become empress.' The words were sour in his mouth, but he said them anyway. If she would only give up her quest to become empress, then he could court her without fear from the emperor. He paused, momentarily shocked by his own thoughts. Did he plan to court her? To marry her? The idea was…not unappealing.
'And my father's reputation?' Ji Yue pressed.
'Was never in any danger from me.' He smiled. 'Though I would very much like to meet your mother. She sounds like a most interesting woman. Are your brothers as clever?'
'The youngest is. The older…' She hesitated.
'Takes after your father?'
'He spends much time in his dreams.'
Bo Tao laughed and pushed to his feet. He had a moment's insanity when he dreamed he would pull her into his arms. Her breasts were within reach, and her sweet cream flowed so easily. But the interrogator would return any moment now, and after last night's warning from Yi Zhen, he had to be doubly careful. 'Go now,' he said as he pushed her away. 'Go quickly.'
She hesitated just a moment, and her eyes lingered on his mouth. He knew she was thinking as he was, that she remembered every detail of their intimacy, and the lust that surged through him nearly overpowered his reason.
'Go!' he rasped.
She nodded and fled.
Chapter 9
JI YUE WAITED IN THE GARDEN, fidgeting with her clothing. Lunch with the dowager consort had gone exactly as predicted. Fortunately Ji Yue had kept her head. No matter how the woman picked, Ji Yue had responded with her most insipid thought. It went against the grain, especially since every answer made the dowager consort even more angry. It rarely helped to make the head female upset, but Ji Yue put her faith in Bo Tao's advice and remained as stupid as a bowl of rice.
But the longer Ji Yue waited in the garden, the more she doubted her sanity. Why would she put her faith in a man who clearly disregarded every rule of proper conduct? He had climbed into her palanquin, he had taken her last night to a place that no decent woman should ever see, and the things he had done to her!
