Chapter Twenty
LIM’S FEAR vanished beneath his shock.
‘What did you say?’ He wished he still had sight of Xian’s window, but the slender Englishman and his parasol blocked his view. ‘I’m here for my own endeavours. And plan no meeting with anyone in particular.’
‘Stop now. You are embarrassing yourself with all this blustery protest, Mister Shoemaker.’
‘How do you know my trade?’
The man lifted his shoulder in a lazy shrug, spinning his parasol in an equally languid move.
‘I am smart, for an Englishman, I suppose. Aside from that you were talking to yourself of a slipper just now, and have that furtive air about you that suggests ulterior motive. I just made a wild guess, and now your reaction tells me I was right. Though honestly why you are being so delicate about it, I do not know. Does it embarrass you, that you are a mere shoemaker, and he a prince?’
His smile was indecipherable, both taunting and beautiful at once.
Lim nearly choked on his own spittle, staring at the arrogant stranger who had peeled back his secrets with the ease of a kitchen maid peeling her onions.
‘My trade is no embarrassment.’ He spoke through clenched teeth, insulted and furious.
‘If not for my skills and those like me you’d be walking this courtyard in bare feet.
And I do not think such a fine gentleman as yourself would find it agreeable to have his soles bloodied by the pinch of stones. ’
Lim’s heart stuttered a beat. What in the Jade Emperor’s name had he just done?
With one shout from the Englishman, a guest in Lord Feng’s court, Lim would be seized and tossed from the grounds.
If he were lucky. He may find himself thrown into a cell, left to rot.
His pitiful attempt at rushing to Xian’s aid was about to be ruined by his own arrogance.
The elegant stranger fluttered his fingers over the curve of an unexpected smile. His laughter was soft and sensual, and unnerving, but Lim did not trust that the Englishman’s amusement wouldn’t evaporate — quick as steam rising from fresh buns — to be replaced with fury.
‘Oh goodness me, you’re an excitable fellow aren’t you?
’ the Englishman said. ‘No wonder you bring such a blush to his face. But good luck at making that boy red and breathless otherwise.’ He leaned in conspiratorially, a hand to the side of his mouth.
‘Not one for fucking, our prince. I hope you know that? If I stood no chance,’ he ran his hand down the length of his body, ‘then it doesn’t bode well for you, dear chap.
Can you imagine denying yourself a chance to feel me inside you?
He’s lucky I saw fit to spend any time on him at all. ’
Lim stepped forward and grabbed at the ruffle around the man’s neck. ‘If you touched a hair on Xian’s head, I’ll break that fine nose of yours.’
The stranger’s eyes flared, their green intensifying like sun caught in an emerald.
A low sound came from him, unsettling in how intimate it was.
‘Oh my, aren’t you wonderfully rousing. Do you think you could leave my nose intact and pound my arse instead?
We could have such fun, you and I.’ His tongue flicked over his lip, his breath shallow and cheeks flushed.
The man was appallingly and clearly aroused.
Lim released him quickly and stepped back, speechless with disgust.
The Englishman grunted with disappointment, slipping his fingers over his displaced ruffles.
‘Shame,’ he sighed. ‘I’d like to have discovered what other talents those thick fingers of yours have, aside from saving our feet from monstrous pebbles.
I hope you convince the little fox to find out.
What point of this world but for losing oneself in a decent fuck, and with so handsome a man, too? ’
‘Stop,’ Lim shouted. ‘You speak of a prince. The Emperor’s son, no less. Have some respect.’
His blood felt as though it boiled in his veins. To hear Xian spoken of in such a way made him what to scratch at the stranger’s beguiling face, and make it as ugly as his tongue.
‘Respect for the hierarchy?’ The Englishman chuckled, as though Lim truly amused him. ‘For royalty? An institution that is little more than a prison for its sons, and we her gilded trapped butterflies.’ He sighed. ‘Or rather trapped daemons and foxes.’
This man was unnaturally fascinated by foxes. But what of daemons? Lim suspected this fellow spent too much time with his head upon an opium pillow. The people of the British Isles were as fond of the pipe as any others. They’d begun wars to ensure its trade.
‘You are not talking any sense.’ Lim glowered. ‘I had best not find out you have troubled His Highness.’
Another giggle. ‘I didn’t defile your precious prince, shoemaker.
In fact I came out of the encounter less benefited than he.
I spent too much time with him and not enough taking my fill of nightly pleasures.
’ He glanced over Lim’s shoulder, down the alleyway.
‘Fucking in broad daylight is infinitely easier in the servants’ quarters.
They are fond of a stab in the stables, or a tussle behind the tavern.
I don’t suppose you’d be up for a dalliance?
Fine man like yourself would make a decent feed, I’m sure. ’
Lim shook his head in wide, certain sweeps, wondering if this entire area was filled with strange madmen. Between his encounter with Master Ren and now this, Lim had to consider that he might still be asleep upon his horse.
‘I am not, as you suggest, up for a dalliance.’
‘Pity. Working men always have decent arses.’ The Englishman fell into a subdued silence, his shift in mood as heavy as summer’s humidity.
‘I thought China would be far more amusing, Margaret promised me delights in these lands, but even the panlong was rather dry, not what I expected at all. I may as well have eaten burned chicken.’
Lim blinked. ‘Panlong?’ This strange man had just spoken of eating a legendary dragon.
‘Yes, have you tried it?’
Lim shook his head. ‘No one has. The creature does not exist.’
One slim eyebrow raised. ‘Is that what you really think? You have a lot to learn about the truth of the world around you. But I’m sure your prince shall be a decent teacher of the ways of the Naturals, once he’s found his own place among them.’
Shouts and cries filled the air behind Lim, and he jumped, certain he’d been spied in a place where he clearly should not be. But at the far end of the narrow passage, life swept on; the to and fro of merchants and workers bringing the festivities to life.
‘You have truly met with Xian?’ he whispered.
The Englishman leaned in again. ‘Yes, I truly have.’
Swallowing against the urge to give the patronising fellow a black eye, Lim asked, ‘Did you find him well?’ He hesitated. ‘Were you kind to him?’
The Englishman’s head lifted, and Lim startled to see the flicker of flame; somehow obvious in the green of his eyes. He blinked, and the hint of orange was gone.
‘Kind?’ he repeated the word oddly, as though it did not fit in his mouth well.
‘I’m not sure you’d call what I’ve done for him kindness.
I hope not, it would not be like me at all to do such things, and I have a reputation to uphold.
’ He raised his finger, one of the lotus seeds impaled on his nail.
Lim had not seen him reach for the bucket.
‘Do you know, these would make a wonderful suppository once rolled in opium.’
All at once, Lim’s temper overcame him. He snatched the seed from the man’s fingertip.
‘Tell me of Xian,’ he demanded, glancing up at the window where there remained no sign of the prince. ‘What did you do to him?’
Another deep sigh, another twirl of the parasol.
‘I made his life a damned sight more complicated I dare say.’ The Englishman’s grin was entirely wolfish.
‘But he knows more now than he did before, so that can’t be all bad, can it?
’ He gave Lim no chance to answer. ‘But what he does with his new knowledge is entirely up to him. And you, likely. If you ever get to him. Are you going to hide in the shadows here all day or do you intend to make your way to his rooms at some point?’
‘I cannot just walk through the Mandarin’s palace at will.’
The pale-faced stranger cocked his head. ‘A resourceful man like you, with a pouch full of enchantment hanging from your trousers, will find a way I’m sure. Give me another of those now. I’ve told you plenty.’
Wordlessly, Lim offered the bucket. The man stabbed at a seed with the long nail of his forefinger.
‘Why would you say that…about the pouch?’
The Englishman made a dismissive sound. ‘I’m sure you know.
You’re not the stupid egg you pretend to be.
’ He sniffed the lotus seed and popped it into his mouth.
All at once his eyes widened, his head fell back and his groan was lewd and utterly unrestrained.
Lim cringed to hear it; disturbed by the stirring it brought down low.
‘Fuck.’ The Englishman ran his fingers up and down his alabaster throat. ‘Why have we wasted so much time with boring chatter? Give me those.’ He grabbed the bucket, scraping it over the stone towards him. ‘You’ve been denying me, Mister Shoemaker. I don’t like to be denied.’
He clasped the bucket against his fine clothes, cradling it with one arm like a mother with her child.
‘William!’ A woman approached from across the courtyard, her gown clearly in the Western style; wide in the skirt and tight at the waist, with her breasts barely covered by a thin slip of lace. ‘I’ve been searching forever for you.’
She spoke in her own tongue, English, which Lim had not used since his days in Shanghai, but found it surprisingly well remembered here.
‘Hardly true, Lady Margaret,’ William returned, digging into the lotus once more and turning his back on Lim. ‘You’ve likely only been off your knees a moment or two.’
The woman laughed, her high cackle drawing a wince from the attendant who held her parasol; a young woman who shuffled along on dreadful wooden clogs that threatened to twist the ankle at any moment.
‘I expected to find you in the same position,’ Lady Margaret said. ‘What on Earth are you doing out here in this beastly sun?’
She reached the Englishman, William, and sought to touch at the bucket, only to be met with a slap upon her wrist and a curt admonishment.
‘Don’t think to take a single one, you cow.’
‘Watch your mouth,’ she called him something Lim could not decipher, ‘I’m a bloody lady, don’t you know?’
William’s laugh was succinct and dismissive. ‘Someone only told you that to get you on your back.’
The woman suddenly turned and looked at him, eyeing him up and down in such a way that Lim took a quick look at himself to ensure his clothing lay correctly.
She turned to William. ‘Have you been fucking the peasants again?’ She said it in a staged whisper, drawing nervous glances from the attendant, who was wide-eyed with confusion.
Lim suspected she couldn’t understand a word of the conversation, and he thought her lucky for such ignorance.
‘He’s handsome enough, but darling must you be out here where the air smells like mackerel that have been left in the sun too long? ’
They strolled as they talked, moving out of the shadows where Lim stood and into the sunshine. Carrying the bucket that Ren had been so insistent Lim keep hold of.
‘Wait!’ he said in a hissed whisper. ‘Those are mine. You cannot take them all.’
William dismissed him with a limp wave over his shoulder, not even bothering to turn around. ‘Carry on there, shoemaker. You have more interesting endeavours to attend to. Go on, seek your heart’s desire, but find him before the clocks strike midnight…or you may miss your chance.’
The lady’s laughter scattered like sparrows, rising just as high. ‘I adore when you play at being wonderfully dramatic, William.’
Lim scowled at their backs but dared not call out. ‘What is he talking about? What shall happen at midnight?’
The lady and gentleman carried on at a decent pace, and Lady Margaret exclaimed in delight, ‘How delicious!’
‘The tastiest thing you’ve had in your mouth all week, I bet.’
Lim eyed the low fence, thinking how easy it would be to leap over and race to snatch back his bucket.
But he admonished himself. He was already inside the residence.
Let the bucket and the odd Englishman with talk of midnight and heart’s desire be on his way.
Lim had made it this far with barely anyone giving him a second glance.
All this time speaking with the gentleman, it was as though they stood upon an island, alone, drawing no attention.
Lim glanced up at the window. He knew where Xian lived. Let that be his destination.
‘You there! What is your business?’ The stern shout came from behind.
Back down the alley, where Lim ought to be.
A guard clad in a uniform—sky blue cross-fold jacket and trousers with white trim—pointed the very sharp tip of his spear, the gold tassel dangling from the base of the arrowhead shaking as he did.
His shout had already drawn attention; workers passing by had halted, eager for distraction from their tasks, murmuring amongst themselves as they peered into the shadows of the thin corridor.
Lim doubted they could even see him from where they stood out in the bright afternoon.
The guard had been keen-eyed to spot him.
Lim raised his hands, his mind thinking up a storm of excuses. A storm his tongue couldn’t seem to handle, for he said, ‘Fine courtyard…lovely place, isn’t it?’
The guard shook his spear, sending the tassel swinging wildly. ‘And no place for the likes of you. Step out. Now.’
So much for his whimsical idea of invisibility. Lim was plain to see, and an utter fool for letting that blasted bucket out of his possession.