He kissed her…almost. The movement wasn’t as smooth as usual. He jerked his head down too fast for her to react, but then he stopped before he pressed his lips to hers. She finished the motion for him. She lifted her mouth to his even as he swallowed her words and her promise to give him more of her thoughts in ink.
She kissed him. She let him devour her. And then when he pulled back, she bared it all to him.
“I have only once before given a painting to someone. Only once,” she said, trying to put words to something she had never spoken of to anyone.
He frowned. “Just one?”
“The eldest Zhong son. He was shy, but we had known each other since I came to the household. I knew his fears, and he knew mine. On the night of the moon festival, I gave him a painting of the goddess Yao Ji giving herself to emperor Yu.”
“The man who tempted a goddess from heaven.”
“Yes.”
“And did you draw yourself as the goddess?”
She flushed. “Yes.” Her gaze grew abstract as she thought back to that time. “We were so young. He kissed me and we…” She shrugged. “We kissed. Nothing more. He did not even offer promises though in my mind, I dreamed of such things.” It was all impossible. She saw that now, but what girl of sixteen believes anything beyond the kiss of a handsome boy?
“What happened?”
She shuddered. “His father found the painting. He ripped it up in front of us both, and then he called the English captain. I was shackled that very night on a ship bound for England.”
Daniel’s curse was a dark growl, but she knew it was not directed at her. “Tell me his name. I will kill him.”
“The Zhong father? The English captain?”
“Damned slaver needs to be shot—”
She pressed her hand to his mouth. “Everything changed for me the minute Mrs. Dove-Lyon won me in a card game. A year later, she told me the captain had died of a fever, and we celebrated the end of his life.”
Daniel grunted. “Filthy bastard.”
She could not disagree. “But Bessie was right. I was stuck in London. I lived a life that was limited by choice, stuck because it was safe. Until I came here.”
“You have always been free. At least once you came to London.”
“Free in body is different from free in mind.” She smiled as she looked around his dark, crumbling castle. “Here I have finally allowed my mind to grow again.” She pointed down to the painting. “And so I give a painting to you. Because thanks to you, I am freeing my mind.” Then she gave him a smile. “But I will make you a better one. I promise. One that—”
He kissed her. He pressed his mouth to hers, and she gave herself to that kiss as thoroughly and sweetly as she had once done with a young boy when she was sixteen. Except that this time, she knew more of the world. She knew the cost of loving the wrong man. And even knowing that this man was as much a mandarin as the eldest Zhong boy, she gave her thoughts in ink to him as she gave her body to him in this kiss.
And then she said something that she had not planned, but it was the truth.
“I know I cannot be your wife. Only a sixteen year old girl expects a mandarin to marry her. But you have taught me that there are things to learn between a man and a woman.” She grinned. “I should like to learn them. If you would teach me.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
Daniel wanted togive her everything. Not because she was beautiful and offering herself to him. Of course, he wanted her for that. But also because she understood about his brother. All his life, everyone had praised his brother and passed him over. It wasn’t fair that the simple fact that Peder was first born led everyone to favor him, but it was the way life was in England. Daniel had long since learned that life wasn’t fair.
But it soothed him that she saw the injustice. More important, she saw how he worked for his family and their tenants. She saw him, and that was what he’d wanted.
He kissed her deeply, his hands cupping her face as he plundered her mouth. She met him as he tasted her, twining her tongue around his and teasing him as fiercely as he demanded from her. They were well matched in this game, tongue to tongue. But she was an innocent in other ways, and he ached to teach her.
But this was not what she wanted. Not without marriage. She’d said as much, and he did not want to compromise her even when she’d asked for this. So while he still retained some fragment of his reason, he pulled back to look into her eyes.
“I want you, Li-Na. As I have never wanted a woman, but I cannot promise what you want.”
She blinked twice while her hands caressed his jaw as her eyes focused on his mouth. “I want to know you.”
He chuckled. “This is not the best way.”