White Tigress (42 page)

Then her attention returned to Ru Shan as he shook his head, his tone musing. "I do not think you would find yourself in such a situation. You do not have the weight of five thousand years of tradition upon your head."

"No, I suppose I don't," she reluctantly agreed. And as she watched his bowed head, she began to see him in a different light. Did Ru Shan struggle beneath such weight? It certainly appeared so. And so she reached out, caressing his cheek before gently lifting his mouth to hers. But she did not kiss him. She wanted to, but he was resistant. He was still fighting the words that continued to flow out of him.

"My father rarely spent time with Mei Lan, my mother, but he was not a fool. Happiness such as she had cannot be hidden, and he knew..."

"He wasn't the cause of it." Lydia grimaced, hating that she knew the ending to this terrible tale. Hating that she'd guessed the truth a long time ago. "So one night, he grew so angry that he beat her to death, right? And that's how he got the limp. That's why you're steeped in guilt. Because you didn't interfere. And because your father killed your mother for being happy." She didn't mean to sound so callous, but she already knew these things. Worse, she'd heard a similar tale from some of her father's patients. Too many women in England and China both were brutalized by their husbands, and Lydia had little sympathy for any of the men associated with the crime—father or son.

"No," Ru Shan whispered, his voice thick and hoarse. "That is not what occurred."

She frowned, startled to find herself caught in her own assumptions. "But then..."

"My father did not beat her. It was his right as a cuckolded man, but he did not. I think he had some fondness for her, and so forgave her."

She paused, needing to reorient her thoughts. "But then... what happened?"

Ru Shan looked down at his hands. "She was pregnant. With the sea captain's child." He sighed. "We all knew this. Though she tried, she could not hide it forever."

"She died in childbirth?"

Again, he shook his head. "Lydia, you do not understand the Chinese. We knew she had a lover." He took a deep breath. "We all knew because she was so happy. But only I knew the man was English. Only I knew that she took a white man to bed and that the child..." He swallowed, clearly unable to continue.

"That the child would be half-English, half-Chinese."

"Yes."

She looked at him, seeing the anguish that permeated his entire body, and at last the pieces began to fall into place. "You told him, didn't you? You told your father the truth."

He nodded, obviously struggling to explain. "In such situations, lovers are not... they are not unusual. And if the child is a boy, so much the better. The Chengs have few children. Another son would not have been a burden."

"But a half-white child would be."

"It would proclaim to all a great shame, Lydia. A great and terrible shame." He looked to her then, begging her to understand. "She had no choice, Lydia. She had to kill herself."

Lydia felt a shudder of horror run through her entire body. "She killed herself? But..."

"She could not bring herself to kill the child. And she could not face her family or anyone else once her shame was known." He swallowed. "She hung herself."

"She..." She could not say the words. "But the child..."

"Still died. Yes, I know. But that is how women think in China." He looked up at her, his expression pleading. He wanted her to understand something he obviously struggled with himself. "I believe you English feel it a great shame to kill oneself, but in China it can be thought a great strength. The ultimate honorable act."

She could see that he himself did not believe it, for all that he tried to explain it to her. His body was still rigid, his hands shaking with the strain. And so she did the only thing she could think of. She reached for him, needing to hold him. Needing him to hold her.

He held her away. "You do not understand!" he rasped, his voice harsh enough to make her flinch. "I was not home. I didn't know."

"Of course not," she soothed.

"I know he was trying to help her. He was helping her die with honor, but I cannot forgive him. I have tried, but I cannot!"

She frowned, trying to understand. "The sea captain?"

"You do not understand," he groaned. "She would have had no rope, Lydia. And no knowledge of how to do such a thing. But it is what tradition demanded. To keep the Cheng family pure." He released a strangled sob. "He thought he was being an honorable man, and yet I hate him for it."

"Who?"

"My father!" He gripped her arms in his anger. "Don't you understand? He gave her the rope. He taught her how to do it. And then he sent me away on a task that lasted all week. Out of kindness, he sent me away, while at home he helped her." He swallowed, his whole body shuddering with the effort. "For the good of the Cheng family."

"Oh, my love," she whispered, but again he pushed her away.

"It is not done, Lydia. You must know it all."

She flinched. There was more?

"He found out. The sea captain. He found out when he returned to port."

She nodded, her thoughts struggling to keep up. "Of course, he would."

"And he came to our home. Drunk. Furious. Screaming obscenities." He paused, and his next words came out softer, more in a whisper. "There was such grief in him. An agony such as I had never seen. Certainly none of my own family felt her death so deeply."

She didn't respond. She was too sick at heart to do more than stare.

"He attacked my father. I was home, Lydia. I was there, and yet, I was still so angry. They were brawling in the courtyard, churning up dirt and oil and filth inside my home. And I stood there and watched." He turned away from her, his hands tightened into angry fists. "My father is old, his bones frail. As his son, I should have helped. I should have defended him." He moaned softly, his shoulders slumping with the sound. "But they both killed her, Lydia. Her white lover and my honorable father." He seemed to spit out his words. "And so I watched, not caring who won or who might be hurt." He closed his eyes, and again his head dropped forward and exposed his neck. "I did not interfere."

"How did it end?" she whispered.

"The sea captain died," he said, his entire body shuddering. He choked back a sob. "He simply fell down and did not get up. He just fell down."

She reached forward, wrapping her arms around him, holding him, praying she helped.

"He loved her, Lydia. More than any of us. He loved her with such passion. It almost seemed fitting that two people with such love should die together."

He spoke the words, but she could tell he did not believe them. And yet, part of her did. Part of her understood how a man and a woman caught in this terrible place could find death a release, a fitting end to so terribly twisted a life. "But it is so wrong," she whispered. "Everything about it was just so wrong."

He did not deny it, and he continued, his voice filling the small room with sounds of his pain. "It was then my father called upon me. He had been hurt..."

"His leg."

He nodded. "He needed his son to take care of the body. He called upon my duty as his son. He demanded it as a father demands from his only child."

She closed her eyes, not wanting to hear the rest, but unable to keep herself from asking. "What did you do?"

He shifted to see her more fully, his face echoing the blank confusion of that time so long ago. "The Englishman was already dead. And to refuse my father then would have ended everything between us. Besides, what did I care about a barbarian's honor? If it were not for him, my family would still have been whole. My mother would be alive."

She tightened her grip on him. "What did you do?" she pressed.

"I carried the body to the red garden area. Behind..." He swallowed, his gaze slipping from hers. "Very near to a place where I first found you," he said, clearly uncomfortable with the knowledge that he had found her in a brothel. "I left him there. The stench of liquor covered him. He was in a violent area of Shanghai. No one ever questioned it." He turned to her then, his body slumping forward into her arms. "Even Shi Po does not know the full truth. She believes I defended my father as any filial son would and so killed a barbarian."

He shuddered, his body curling in his pain. "To everyone else, it is over. A barbarian is dead, an unfaithful wife's honor is kept pure, and a son remained loyal to his father."

"Everyone except you," she whispered. "You know it was all wrong."

He did not answer her, or perhaps he couldn't. Instead, he gripped her tighter, speaking to her heart as if that could redeem him. "They haunt me," he murmured. "My mother and her sea captain. They haunt me in the way true lovers haunt those who harmed them."

She leaned down, pressing a kiss onto his forehead. "There are no ghosts, Ru Shan. Only guilt and pain."

He lifted his head, his mouth curved in a sick smile. "There are ghosts in China, my Lydia. Mistreated parents, doomed lovers, even lost children—they all wander my country to torment those who hurt them. How else can they have their revenge?"

"Then perhaps you should leave China. So they cannot find you anymore."

She could tell he was shocked by her suggestion. After all, he was the Cheng mountain, the one his entire family depended upon to be all that was good and proper in this strange land. And a true son of China did not leave his native land.

But what if the true son was dying here? What if his soul sickened every day that he lived in a family twisted by traditions that were completely unwholesome?

"What will happen, Ru Shan? If you stay here, what will happen to you?"

His body shifted slightly, and she knew he was thinking of her words. "I must find a way to make the store profitable."

"So that your father will have gold and your grandmother will have opium?"

"So my son will have something to honor and a place to grow into adulthood."

She nodded, thinking of his son. All she remembered was a small, quiet boy who had watched everything with a seriousness well beyond his years. "You can make another place for him, Ru Shan. You can create a new home. One that isn't—"

"I cannot leave!"

His anguished cry startled her. She had never heard him so desperate. It was as if he truly knew, deep within himself, that he had wanted this from the very beginning.

"What do you want, Ru Shan?" she asked softly, not understanding where the words came from but knowing they were correct. "Do you wish to uphold the honor of a corrupt family? Of a tradition that married you to your father's lover?" He flinched at that, but did not disagree, and so she knew she had guessed correctly again. "Do you wish to struggle hard just to support a grandmother's habit? And all the while, you pursue your own desires secretly. You hide your dragon practices and take a white woman as your hidden lover. Is this how you want to live?"

He looked at her, his anguish raw. She reached forward, pressing his lips to hers despite his stiffness. And when she pulled back, it was barely enough to allow her room to speak, praying that he understood.

"Do you want me to stay with you? To fashion your designs? To be your second wife?" She didn't know if she could do it. She didn't know if she loved him enough to survive such a path, but she had to ask. She had to know if he wanted to be with her as much as she wanted to be with him.

"I love you, Ru Shan." She knew that now, knew that she loved him to the depths of her soul despite the problems between them. "I can try to be your second wife. If you want it."

"You would hate it," he answered, the words rasping. "And I have already hurt you too much. Over and over."

She swallowed, her heart breaking for the words he did not say. Did he love her? Was he denying himself as much as her? "Ru Shan," she tried again. "What do you want?"

He did not want to answer, but she forced him. She lifted his chin, pulling his gaze to her eyes. Only then did she see her answer. Only then could she read the love and pain mixed in his gaze.

"What do you want?" she whispered.

"You," he answered, the one word seeming to come from his entire body. "Only you."

And then there were no more words. Only his lips on hers, his hands on her body.

She went willingly into his embrace, needing his touch, his kiss. But as he quickly pulled her coolie top off her body, she felt a strange difference in him. Gone were the practiced techniques of dragon and tigress. Gone was the steady stroke to raise her yin and control his yang. Instead, his movements were frantic. He touched her breasts, barely pulling them to their peak before his mouth was upon her, sucking her nipple with a hungry desperation.

She began to tense, fearing this new, tumultuous Ru Shan, and yet she was responding as if he had already spent hours preparing her body. As his mouth began to pull at her breast, her yin flowed full and ready, the tingling current already heating her body as it rushed to satisfy Ru Shan. Her nipple actually seemed to crackle with power as his tongue stroked and pulled its peak. Her other breast as well began to pulse with the strokes.

She gasped out in surprise as his other hand began stroking her. It was not the measured circles she was used to, but the caress of a man who could not have enough, who could not touch her enough. His whole hand, spread wide, extended over her full breast, slowly drawing in and up, as if pulling her toward him.