Page 61 of The Cinders
‘Then we have that in common.No friends, that is.Though at least you have the excuse of being a stranger.I am simply unlikable.’He laughed as though being unlikable was an amusing matter.Lim doubted very much that a man so attractive as this was not liked by anyone.
‘I apologise for keeping you.’Lim bowed.‘I should be on my way.’
‘What do you have there?’Without warning, the gentleman flipped back the hessian with milky white fingers.‘Is this the egg of some marvellous creature?’
Lim pulled the bucket out of his reach.‘An egg?Have you never seen lotus seeds before?’
The man stilled, in a way that seemed to stifle the warm breeze toying with the ruffles at his throat.
‘Would I have enquired if I knew what this was already?Careful now, I’ve had a long and trying night, and I can’t seem to sate my appetite.Which makes me a very irritated fellow.’
A chill ran through Lim’s veins, hearing the threat beneath the words, whilst the air hummed with an energy he could not place; the ripple of the onset of a storm.He hurriedly leaned into a deep bow.‘Forgive my rudeness, Master.’
The gentleman’s parasol shifted, sending a rounded shadow over Lim; he half-expected to be struck.
But then there came a sigh.‘Oh how dreary.I hoped you might be a bit more formidable, seeing as you’ve come all this way for the Veiled Prince.’
CHAPTER TWENTY
LIM’S FEARvanished 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.’