Little Hong brightened. “Distinguished scholars? Men of high rank?”
“Of course.”
Little Hong leaned over, looking left and right to try to take in the sights around them. They had just left the main section of the Pingkang li, where most of the pleasure houses were located and where the two of them resided.
“Be mindful of the pipa,” Mingyu said gently when she saw how the girl had the strings pressed against the side of the carriage. “The guests will be very disappointed if I cannot play tonight.”
“Oh, yes! I’m sorry, Elder Sister.”
Hong settled back down into her seat, cradling the instrument in her lap. To the girl, this trip must have seemed like freedom. The courtesans of the Lotus Palace were only allowed to leave if hired out for an event or by special permission.
Mingyu had been in her place once, but it seemed so long ago. Now she was part of the cycle, training another girl into the life: bondage and servitude on one side, poetry and music on the other.
Shops and buildings flowed by on either side of them like an endless river. Mingyu closed her eyes again only to be jolted forward when the carriage lurched to a stop. Little Hong yelped beside her and clutched the pipa to her chest. As they righted themselves, Mingyu could hear the driver yelling at someone.
A boy dressed in ill-fitting rags crouched beside the front wheel. He whimpered as the driver shouted.
“What are you doing, boy? Get out of the street!” The driver made a threatening motion with his crop, but the child remained in the dirt with his hands clutched around his knee.
“Uncle.” Mingyu deliberately used the familiar honorific to address the driver. “Uncle, the boy is terrified.”
“Don’t be fooled, Miss. This street scum is just playing the victim.” He glared back at the boy. “Get up, runt.”
“Are you hurt, child?” She rose to step down from the carriage, holding the edge of her robe away from the dirt as she bent down.
“Be careful,” the driver warned from behind her. “He looks ready to snatch your purse.”
The boy looked nothing of the sort. He stared up at Mingyu with eyes as large as quail eggs. There was a smudge of dirt across one cheek and his bottom lip trembled.
At that moment, an ominous shadow fell over Mingyu, engulfing both her and the child.
“The carriage driver is right. The boy is pretending.”
The deep gravel of the voice set the hairs of her neck on edge. Mingyu let her mask fall in place before straightening to greet the newcomer.
“Constable Wu.”
“Lady Mingyu.”
She hated to be seen lowered before anyone, most of all this demon. His skin was bronzed from being out in the sun like a common laborer and his demeanor was darker still, black as night. Wu Kaifeng towered head and shoulders over her, as he did over everyone in the quarter. Most found him intimidating, but her reaction was much more alarming. She had been drawn to him from her very first sight of the constable. Wu was not a man to be ignored and certainly not a man who could be wooed simply by her beauty or reputation.
When Mingyu had been imprisoned over a year ago on suspicion of murder, Wu had been her jailer. Though she was cleared of any wrongdoing, she’d never forgotten his bleak expression as he’d questioned her or his unyielding touch as he’d bound her hands.
Mingyu tilted her chin up to meet his eyes, refusing to show any fear of him now. “Thank you for your assistance, Constable, but it won’t be needed. Unless you wish to arrest this child for being unfortunate enough to be injured by our carriage.”
“The boy is lying,” Wu repeated. “I saw him hiding on this very corner the other day, watching as you drove by.”
She turned toward the urchin. “Can you stand?”
Mingyu offered her hand, but the boy shook his head feverishly and struggled to his feet by himself.
A wagon carrying baskets of produce had to veer to the side while their carriage was stopped in the middle of the road. Mingyu ignored it and focused on the poor creature in front of her.
“Where are your father and mother?”
“You are very kind, Miss,” he murmured.
The driver snorted loudly.
“He’s luring you in,” Wu Kaifeng stated.
Funny that the constable would assume she was naive. Mingyu had grown up in this quarter. It was her domain and she wasn’t sheltered from the realities of the crowded capital. She knew what her life would have been if Madame Sun hadn’t purchased her and provided for her. There was the street or the brothel.
Maintaining her pleasant expression, Mingyu opened the drawstring on her silk bag and fished out a few coins to press into the boy’s hand. “Be careful, little one. Go home now.”
The little rat at least affected a slight limp as he ran off into the alley.
“He’s on the next street over now, begging coins out of another soft-heart.” Wu wasn’t smug or snide or superior as he said it. He was just as he was—hard and without emotion.
“No one has ever accused me of being soft-hearted, Constable.” She faced him to make sure she had his full attention. “I know that boy was watching me the other day. I also know he wasn’t the only one watching.”
Wu Kaifeng started at her insinuation, but recovered quickly. His expression became once again impenetrable.
Indeed, she had also seen the constable at the roadside stand, staring at her with something akin to interest. No, that wasn’t possible. More like a bird of prey sighting a mouse. Her pulse had quickened at the single glimpse.
“Of course, the constable must believe that he’s entitled to stare for as long as he pleases,” Mingyu taunted. “Everyone else seems to think so, as if I were a painting on the wall.”
“It’s difficult to look at you,” he admitted with a bluntness that stole her breath.
“Meaning?” she asked.
His gaze remained focused on her face, but an odd light flickered in his eyes. Reflexively, her hand flew to her throat before she caught herself. It was a bad habit, a show of weakness.
Curling her fingers tight, Mingyu let the hand drop to her side. “If there’s nothing else.”
She didn’t realize until she spoke that her throat had gone dry. She was almost to the carriage when Wu stopped her.
“There is—”
She turned around.
“—something else,” he finished, his speech off rhythm by just enough to make her uneasy.
He was the one who was difficult to look at. His face lacked any refinement. Wu Kaifeng wasn’t ugly—he was more like a puzzle that didn’t quite fit together. There was no harmony to him, no sense of balance. Wu was long in the face, broad in the nose. The eyes were black and hard and unwavering. A sharp jawline framed his hard mouth, a mouth that she had never seen smile. Yet when all of those features were put together, they created a picture that was inexplicably striking.
“Someone wishes to have me dismissed,” he began.
“What could that possibly have to do with me?”
“You do not like me.”
She didn’t disagree.
“Most of the people I deal with are people from the streets—beggars, thieves, the poor stealing from the poor,” Wu continued. “Those who are caught doing wrong do not dare to bear a grudge, but you—”
“I was found