Burning Tigress (36 page)

Chapter 14

Ken Jin wasn't home. He was probably still giving over all his money to her father without even realizing that she'd been tossed out on her ear. Charlotte sat down at his door, prepared to wait all day if necessary. She had to see Ken Jin again. She had to know if it had all been a lie. Besides, where else did she have to go?

It was midafternoon before a familiar voice woke her out of a doze. "Miss Charlotte? What are you doing here?"

Ken Jin! Charlotte was on her feet and rushing toward him even before she'd fully opened her eyes. He caught her, of course; he always did. But he was slow to embrace her.

"Why are you here now, when you wouldn't see me at..." His voice trailed away. "You weren't at home this morning, were you?"

She shook her head and buried her face in his shoulder.

"Have they disowned you?"

She could feel the tension in his body. Joanna had once said that disowning a Chinese was worse than murder. No greater insult, no worse punishment could occur than to be disowned.

"No. At least, I don't think so," she said. "They want me to be a nun." She couldn't keep the bitterness from her voice.

He frowned, then slowly pulled away from her. "Let us go inside." He unlocked the door and ushered her in. She moved quickly, fully aware of the differences between yesterday's entrance into his private home and today's. "You should not be here," he said. "Your father will be furious."

"I hardly care what my father thinks," she snapped. "He slammed the door on me, Ken Jin." She blinked away the tears. "No matter what happens now, I will never, ever go back to that house."

He didn't answer. He simply looked at her, his dark eyes giving nothing away.

"You were just there?" she asked.

He nodded.

"How was... how was William?"

"Sleeping. He had a very bad night."

She nodded, chastising herself for feeling a bit pleased by William's unhappiness. She should not be grateful that her brother gave her parents a hard time; but everything would have been fine if she'd been allowed to stay at home. "I've b-been thinking, Ken Jin," she stammered as she tried to clarify her thoughts. "I had a lot of time last night at the mission."

His eyes darkened. "I did not know. If I had, I would have..."

"What?" she pressed when he did not finish. "What would you have done?"

He sighed and rubbed a hand across his jaw. It was an unusual gesture for him. It made him look... lost? The thought was so disconcerting that Charlotte found herself sitting down. There was only one place to sit, of course; all else was bare after yesterday's fight. She sat in the valley of the Dragon chair and tried not to remember how she'd used it before.

"I don't know, Miss Charlotte. I don't know that I could do anything for you."

"Char," she snapped. "You once called me Char."

He merely shrugged, though she thought he looked sad.

"What are you going to do now?" she asked. "Will you look for another job?"

He shook his head. "I would not be hired. Not by anyone in Shanghai. Your father will see to it."

She knew it was true and felt guilt eat at her for what she had done. For what they had done together.

"What will you do?" he asked. "Will you become a nun?"

She looked down at her hands. "No." It wasn't a conscious decision, and yet she felt the truth of it deep within her. Maybe Ken Jin had lied to her, maybe he'd sought her yin essence to the exclusion of morality and ethics. But being with him now, she could not believe it. Nor could she imagine him as an instrument of evil. He was merely Ken Jin—servant, protector, brilliant financial assistant. Her Ken Jin.

She lifted her head. "I don't really know that much about you, do I?"

He frowned, clearly unable to follow her thoughts.

"I mean, I don't know anything about you as a person. Your family. Your history. Your plans or hopes. You know everything there is about me, but I... I never looked beyond the surface of you."

He stared at her. "I am your servant. One does not discuss family with servants."

She felt her lips curl in a soft smile. "But you're not my servant anymore. Can't we share that now? Like friends?"

Clearly, the idea confused him. But eventually he nodded and settled cross-legged on the floor before her. She watched him there, his head slightly bowed. He was still acting like her servant, and the sight irritated her no end. So with a huff, she pushed off the Dragon chair to sit on the floor directly before him. She saw his eyes widen in surprise, and she felt herself smile for the first time since... well, since she last used the chair.

"I want to talk to you as a friend, Ken Jin. Can we please try?"

He nodded, but she could see he didn't truly understand.

"Don't the Chinese have friends?"

"Of course we do."

"So, who is your best friend?" He already knew hers was Joanna. "Who do you tell your hopes and fears and thoughts to?"

He tilted his head slightly. "My mother used to talk with our neighbors over mah-jong. I remember the sound was deafening. It would keep me up at night. But when I left home, I missed it."

"The sound?" she pressed as he fell silent.

"The clack of the tiles hitting together between rounds. It was like thunder. And they would all be talking at once, laughing or hissing—"

"Hissing?"

He said something in Mandarin. She did not understand the dialect, but she could hear the large number of sibilant sounds. The words did indeed sound like a snake's hiss.

"My mother loved lychee nuts," he continued, and his hands lifted as he remembered. "She would eat the meat, then suck on the stones. Always she had one in her mouth, so she talked like this." He spoke again, but with a lisp that had her laughing in delight.

"How could you understand her?"

He shrugged. "I was her child—of course I would understand." Then he abruptly closed his mouth, and his expression shifted. He blanked his emotions out completely, and the sudden return to his servant persona was shocking.

"Ken Jin? Is your mother dead?"

"She died of a fever many years ago, along with my father and grandmother." He lifted his gaze and pinned her with a dark stare. "My brother blames the whites."

She pulled back. "For a fever?"

His gaze was uncompromising. "Whites have brought diseases to China."

"And opium, I know. But we brought ships, housing, and commerce, too."

He did not so much as blink. "I have worked for whites since I was twelve. You do not have to tell me what they have and have not done in my country."

She frowned. He clearly wanted her to understand something, but—

"You wanted to know about my family. Here is all you need to know: They despise the whites. I think one brother may have helped murder missionaries—" She gasped in horror, but he did not stop. "At best, they want you all gone. At worst..."

"Dead. They want us all dead."

He nodded, clearly thinking he'd shocked her. In truth, she was more annoyed than horrified. It wasn't as if the attitude was unusual. Anyone who actually looked would know exactly what the Chinese thought of the ghost barbarians.

"I asked if you had a best friend, Ken Jin."

He blinked. Then she thought he flushed. His skin turned more golden in the harsh afternoon light, but he didn't answer.

"Who do you talk to, Ken Jin? Do you have a confidant?"

He shook his head. "I have work, or I did. I have goals. Why would I invite disaster by telling anyone?"

"You must be very lonely," she murmured. "Even your room is bare."

"That is your father's fault," he said with marked irritation.

"No. It was spare even before."

He didn't answer. In the end, she dropped her head back against the higher slope of the Dragon chair and smiled at him. "Tell me about your fiancée."

He flinched.

"How did you meet her?"

"My younger brother engaged us. She is my cousin on my mother's uncle's side."

"Second cousin?"

He frowned, as he no doubt sorted through the English terms. "My great-uncle's great-granddaughter."

"You haven't met her, have you?"

He lifted his chin. "Once. A few years ago during New Year's celebration." He let his eyes drop slightly. "She has big feet."

Charlotte stiffened. "You don't actually find that attractive, do you—feet the size of a guinea? Ken Jin, that's—"

"Smallness in a female is prized, Miss... Char," he amended.

"But you..." She swallowed, suddenly aware of her large feet, her large breasts, her large... well, everything. She was not small-boned. But then again, neither was he. For a Chinese, Ken Jin was downright huge. "I cannot imagine you with a tiny wife. You would dwarf her—"

"I have no special liking for tiny things," he finally admitted. Indeed, it sounded as if he was ashamed. "I suppose I have spent so much time with whites, I appreciate curves."

She blinked. Was he looking at her breasts? He raised his gaze to hers and a smile tilted his mouth.

"I like your curves very well, Char. And your well-formed feet." He leaned forward. "Truthfully, I understand bound feet smell terrible!"

She giggled, as he obviously meant her to. But then she sobered as she set her intellect to work on what she'd just learned. "So, your fiancée is a distant cousin and she has large feet."

"Her mother died in childbirth. There was no one to bind them."

"Which means she can't be considered a marriage prize. Were your mother's feet bound?"

He nodded.

"And your grandmother's?"

"Yes."

"So that's a bit of a step down for you, isn't it? To marry a woman without bound feet. And for your brother to make the engagement... it's almost an insult." She paused to study his face. "Isn't it?"

His gaze dropped to his hands, which were neatly folded in his lap. Finally he spoke. "As I said, my family despises the whites."

"And you for working for them?"

He remained very still. Charlotte couldn't even tell if he was breathing. Then he spoke, his voice low and emotionless. "They despised me long before that. I was disowned before I came to Shanghai."

"Disowned?" She gaped at him. "But... before Shanghai? You must have been two years old!"

"I was eight."

"My God. How did you survive?"

His posture slumped—not significantly, but just enough for her to realize that these memories were painful for him. Which made her feel doubly honored that he shared them with her. "My grandmother sent me to the Tan family. My grandmother was a Tigress like Tan Shi Po. She begged her sister-in-the-practice to care for me. And Shi Po did."

"The Tans who are in jail now?"

He nodded, his misery obvious.

"I'm so sorry, Ken Jin. But I'm sure you can get them out."

He shook his head. "I am penniless now. The most I can do is pray for Imperial favor, but that will take a long time."

She took hold of his hands. They were cold, Asian smooth, and yet when she touched him, they opened to receive her. She felt the calluses along his fingers and palms, and she felt his strength as he gently gripped her.

"I have a plan," he finally said, his words low. "But I am afraid."

She leaned forward and tried to communicate her faith to him through their hands. "You won't fail," she murmured. "I know you, Ken Jin. You never fail at anything."

He released a short huff of humor. It wasn't a laugh as much as a groan, the creak of a tree when blown too far by the wind. "I fail," he said. "Indeed, I have failed at everything I intended from the day I was disowned." He looked into her eyes. "Charlotte, a Chinese man is nothing without his family, his every effort is doomed."

"Nonsense!" she snapped. "We whites value family as well, but there is much that a man all alone can accomplish. For example, such a man could travel alone from Peking to Shanghai. He could learn English and begin work on the docks. He could find a job as a First Boy and make lots of money doing so. He could... he could befriend his employer's daughter and... and..."