She couldn’t help gloating. She touched a hand to the gilded hummingbird ornament. “It’s a hairpin. Jinhai had it delivered to me personally.”
“Let me guess: along with a few lines of poetry that he copied from somewhere?”
She sniffed, refusing to let him dim her glow. Baozhen disappeared momentarily into his house to re-emerge atop his wall. They were now face-to-face across the two compounds.
“So, only two days and Liu Jinhai is already introducing himself to your parents and sending you gifts?”
“Nothing as impressive as a slingshot,” she pointed out wickedly.
“I should have thought more carefully about arming you. I don’t think you’ll miss next time, and this handsome face is the only asset I have.”
“Don’t forget the mouth part of that face,” she retorted.
He laughed at that, and a lazy warmth filled her. It was so wonderful, speaking with Baozhen like this. All his attention was focused on her and it didn’t matter what they said. The only thing that mattered was spending time in his company.
“Now that you’ve shown yourself to be so highly sought after...” he began.
She preened accordingly.
“Are you certain you want to limit yourself to only one admirer? You should have an army of suitors pushing their way through the gates.”
“Not everyone needs to surround themselves with a flock of admirers,” Lian scoffed. “Some of us are only looking for one person to make us happy.”
He frowned, confused.
“Liu Jinhai actually thinks I’m pretty,” she added, a little too shyly.
“I think you’re pretty,” he replied, a little too easily.
“You call me ‘alley cat.’ Like all the scrawny strays prowling the streets.”
“I’ll have to come up with a better name. That one hardly suits you anymore.”
He granted her a look that was far from brotherly and her toes curled with delight. He didn’t even have to make an effort to coax every part of her into drawing toward him with longing.
“Are you going to the banquet tonight at the Ko mansion?” he asked.
Ko was the registrar, whose offices recorded and approved all the goods that flowed through the East Market. He was celebrating his son’s civil appointment and had invited all the influential merchants and businessmen of the ward.
“Father and Mother will be attending,” she said.
“And you?”
She shrugged airily. “I have a feeling I won’t be well enough to go out this evening.”
“Oh?” His eyebrow was raised again, but this time it wasn’t in a charming fashion.
Baozhen took all the attention bestowed upon him for granted. He was used to having women sighing at his every word and he had become indifferent. She would be just another lovesick maiden if she fell prey to him.
“My family will be out all night drinking wine and playing the dice. I’m already feeling a bit tired,” she declared, conspicuously adjusting the hummingbird pin. “It’s best I stay home alone and rest.”
“Lian...” he began in warning tones.
She took that opportunity to disappear down the ladder. Her heart skipped with excitement as her feet settled onto the ground. Baozhen’s look of concern had been the last thing she saw before descending. And it had been very far from indifferent.
* * *
It was evening and the neighborhood had cleared. Everyone had gone to attend the registrar’s gathering. Baozhen remained behind—only to find that Lian had already slipped away from home. He’d expected as much from the dreamy look in her eyes that morning. She was a smitten young girl, floating in a world of clouds. With cursed hummingbirds flitting about her.
Liu Jinhai could be a gentleman when he tried. He was capable of being smooth and charming and well-spoken. But he was a wolf at heart. Cads like Liu Jinhai and himself ran in the same pack. It was all in good fun. Flirtation, secret meetings, stolen kisses in the dark—until someone got careless. Until some pretty, passionate flower like Lian, who believed in eternal love, came along and made them lose their heads. The wolves were prey as much as predator in this game.
Baozhen would have been wasting his breath to try to dissuade her. No one since the first dynasty had ever been talked out of a romantic liaison. Certainly not any love-stricken young girl.
It wasn’t hard to figure out the location for their secret meeting. There were only a few places one could sneak away to in the ward. Baozhen returned to the public park. Sure enough, there was an orb lantern bobbing in the trees just beyond the carp pond.
“Were you expecting me?” he asked as he entered the circle of trees.
Lian jumped from her spot on the stone bench. To his relief, she was still alone.
“No,” she said. “I wasn’t.”
He made himself a place beside her. “One wolf is as good as another.”
“You’re more of an old goat than a wolf,” she complained.
Heaven help him, he liked her. He had always enjoyed her company, but now he was forced to admit it. She’d always laughed at him, at what everyone thought him to be. She’d teased him and challenged him as much as he’d tormented her. What they’d shared had become so much more than childish games, but he had never known it until now.
This was a more inconvenient discovery than his sudden realization that Lian was pretty. When Jinhai showed up, Baozhen would simply have to kill him. And with his bare hands, too, though Baozhen had never been violent by nature.
“So, Jinhai slipped you a note telling you to come here?”
She didn’t answer. Instead she folded her hands in her lap and stared into the night.
“And when you saw it your heart began beating faster than it ever had. You read that letter again and again, keeping the precious paper hidden from everyone. Every time you thought of it you could hardly breathe, and tonight you couldn’t come here fast enough. It’s exciting to be desired like that.”
He faced her and willed her to look at him. She finally did.
“You’re probably a little frightened, as well.”
“I never realized the likes of you put so much thought into what happens to their many admirers.”
“I don’t. I never did—” Before.
The word was left unspoken and it was his turn to stare into the night. The rising moon cast silver ripples across the pond and he was stricken by a sense of loneliness. Every new face, every kiss was a novelty, a new adventure, but they all faded away when the slightest wind blew. He’d known too many empty embraces.
“You really believe you and Liu Jinhai are meant to be?” he admonished her.
Baozhen knew what that was like. He’d once thought his first love would be his only love. The only love possible in his overflowing heart. It was everyone’s rite of passage, but Lian was so sensible and Jinhai was such a... The scoundrel just wasn’t enough for her, and Lian should be bright enough to see it.
“Oh, Baozhen, you sound so serious.” She sighed.
“This is serious. We grew up together.” This was exactly the sort of conversation he was not good at. The serious ones. “I’m older than you. There are things I know from experience.”
Lian stiffened. “Are you saying you have a duty to protect me?”
“You have no