Nameless

CHAPTER THREE | THE UNWANTED CONCUBINE

As they sat down to eat, Sou Hei could see why the Emperor had not wanted to keep her.

It was far from an obvious reason. There was nothing wanting about her manners—they were perfectly refined, as he had assumed they would be—or her appearance. Her dark hair was swept gracefully off her neck, revealing the sharp lines of her collarbone beneath the mandarin collar of her qipao. The red of the garment highlighted the pink in her cheeks and the ruby shade of her lips, making him think thoughts that a widower should not have even entertained.

But here he was, entertaining them as well as her.

What had possessed him to dine with her, he had no idea.

Because now, he knew why the Emperor had wanted to put as much distance between himself and her as possible. There was nothing deficient in her feminine virtues—but she was cunning. She possessed a natural grace and wit that would have threatened any man who wanted a concubine—or any woman, for that matter—to be peaceable, quiet, mousy. There was a keen intelligence shining in her brown eyes when she appraised him, an expression that suggested she was plotting something. That look was one that she did not even have the good sense to try to hide.

Tian, how had this woman survived here for so long? How had she not been eaten alive by the serpents and vultures of the harem and imperial court?

There had to be some other reason the Emperor had kept her in his harem for so long. Or perhaps not. Perhaps the Emperor really was just another spoiled, tyrannical, sadistic dictator who wanted to toy with her and then discard her when it suited him.

"What was your upbringing like?" Sou Hei asked.

A choked cough reached his ears as she looked up from her food. Nai had been sitting with her gaze tilted down toward her bowl of rice and bean sprouts, chewing slowly and taking small bites. Her pretence of demureness and submissiveness did not fool him, however. Somewhere beneath that barest veil, that thinnest mask—there was a dragon in that woman, ready to strike.

"Why are you asking me about my childhood?" retorted Nai, and she caught herself, swallowing before she began her next sentence. That brazen rebellion was almost amusing to witness. "What I meant to say is... Your Excellency, I don't see how my upbringing could be of any interest to you."

"Perhaps it is not, but I will decide that after I have heard about it." Now, he was more intrigued by her sudden refusal to tell him about her past before coming to the Forbidden City. "So please. Tell me about yourself."

"I was raised in Sichuan, the daughter of a fisherman. I learned to spin silk and embroider clothes. When the imperial guard came by looking for women to join the Emperor's harem three years ago, I agreed to go. That is all." Her brown eyes finally met his, and that same glimmer of something more struck him again, like a fish darting in and out of muddy water.

"You had no brothers or sisters?" Sou Hei asked. "No friends, cousins, even acquaintances?"

She pushed her shoulders back, sitting up straighter in the rosewood seat that dwarfed her petite frame. "I have a brother and six older sisters."

"Six?" He arched an eyebrow. "My—"

"Do not tell me what I have heard all my life, that my parents must have desperately wanted a son." That same fire burned in her. It made him bite back a smile. It would not do to have her think he enjoyed her company—worst of all make the spies in the palace think that he enjoyed being here. "Your Excellency, I interrupted you. How rude. Please forgive me."

"There is nothing to forgive." It was far too entertaining to watch her lurch forward, toeing that line between ladylike quietude and full-throated disdain for him. "You have a brother, you said?"