“He says I will become empress or I will be nothing. Not his daughter, not anyone he knows.” She sighed. “He doesn’t mean it so harshly. He thinks such words will motivate me to try harder, but I cannot work any harder than I am. I dance for hours every day, I study the Confucian virtues. I even write poetry, though I am terrible at it.”
“And your father thinks that is what will catch the emperor’s eye?”
“Certainly.” She shrugged. “That and my beauty.” She spoke without ego, her shrug dismissing the perfection of her face and body. And that humility was more attractive to him than the body of an angel.
He shook his head, daring to touch her arm. “Virtue is not what attracts a man. And for all that he is the King of Heaven, the emperor is still a man.”
She opened her mouth to argue. Indeed, girls such as her were taught that the emperor was a kind of deity. But she had to know the truth if she was to have a chance where she was going. He was searching for a delicate way to suggest something scandalous when her mind leaped to it before he could voice it.
“What must I learn?” she asked.
She was so earnest in her expression, so beautiful a temptation, that he knew he wouldn’t be able to resist. Only a worm would do what he was about to do, and he was a moral man.
No. He was a worm who pretended to be a moral man because he could not stop himself.
“I can teach you,” he said slowly. “But it is not something you can tell anyone. If we are discovered, we will both be killed.”
She narrowed her eyes in suspicion, and well she should. This was a dangerous game, but it was also her only hope.
“Tell me,” she commanded.
His blood surged at her tone. Only a woman reared to be an empress could sound so sexy as she ordered him to obey.
“Forgive my bluntness,” he said, fighting a grin.
She nodded.
“The way to attract a man is to sensually delight him. Innocence is boring. You must understand what excites the emperor, and you must become that for him in all ways.”
There. He had dropped the breadcrumb, but was she daring enough to pick it up?
“How do I learn that?”
He took a deep breath. How far did he dare tempt her? How much did she know?
He looked around and listened closely. There was no one around. His master was asleep.
“Will anyone come looking for you tonight?” he asked.
She shook her head. “Even Li Fei is asleep.”
“Then I will show you the most basic of truths.”
She nodded. “I will tell no one.”
She’d best not or they would both die—him for corrupting her, her for being corrupted.
Nevertheless, how could he refuse her when she looked so beautiful and so eager.
He adjusted his position beside her on the wall, bracing one hand on a tree branch to prevent himself from falling. Then he smiled at her.
“Do you know anything of a man? Of what makes him interested in a woman? How she can excite him?”
Ling Xin bit her lip, looking adorably intrigued. “My mother says a man is attracted by goodness. My father says my dancing will entrance everyone.”
“And what do you think?”
“That there is a great deal more to learn. Otherwise, every dancer and kind soul would be overrun by lustful men.”