“Celebrating what?”
He shrugged. “Getting rid of their students.”
She chuckled, dropping down onto his bed with a groan. “My feet ache. I have walked across Peking this day. Twice, I think.” She smiled at him. “I got lost twice, but I am finally here.” She grinned.
He couldn’t believe it. After all of his fruitless wishing and planning and praying, how could she be here?
He dropped down to his knees before her, barely daring to touch her. But when he did, she felt solid beneath his hands. As if she was truly here.
“How?” he whispered.
“Li Fei doesn’t want to marry you.”
He started, then abruptly laughed. “I don’t want to marry her either. Shouldn’t you be in the Forbidden City?”
“She took my place. And I am taking hers as your wife.” Her eyes flashed a moment of uncertainty. “That is what you want, isn’t it?”
“More than anything, but…” His voice trailed away. “You were to be empress!”
She shrugged. “I don’t want to be.”
“But you swore on your honor, your family’s honor. Even your beating heart!”
Her expression darkened. “Then I am dishonored. I do not care.”
“Ling Xin,” he whispered, knowing what her decision had cost her. She might make light of it, but she had thrown everything away in coming to him now. “Why have you done this?”
“My father had plans for my brothers—he set out their course from their earliest moments. But they chose a different path. Am I not allowed to do the same?”
“They failed the imperial exam.”
“So, give me the exam. I will fail it, too.”
“Ling Xin,” he said, straightening until he faced her on the bed. “Can this truly be what you want?” Couldhebe what she really wanted?
She touched his face, stroking the hard cut of his jaw. “I am here, aren’t I? I have chosen you.” She pressed a tender kiss to his lips, then drew back. “What do you choose?”
Her. A thousand times, her. “I fear you will regret this. I fear you will regretme,” he said, his gaze landing on his neat pile of inkstone and brush to take with him in the morning. “What if I do not pass the exam?”
“What if my father turns into a monster, finds me at this inn, and drowns me in the Yangtze river?”
He gasped, leaping to his feet as if her father were at the inn’s door. “Is that possible?”
She shook her head, but her words weren’t as reassuring. “I don’t know. You had best ruin me completely before he arrives.”
He gaped at her. She didn’t mean…
She sighed as she got up to stand directly before him. “Take my virginity, Zhi Hao. We can marry in the morning.”
“I must take the exam in the morning.”
“After the exam, then.”
“I am to report to your father the very next morning.” He rubbed a hand over his face. “He will kill me for this.”
“Well, we’ll say our vows between the exam and the killing.” She grinned. “I do not know what is to come, but I have not risked everything, tromped across Peking, and shown up at your door looking like this, just to have you not finish the job.”
He shook his head, completely amazed by her. “Finish the job,” he echoed.