Blaze Historicals Bundle by Hope Tarr

Author:Hope Tarr
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 2009-12-15T00:00:00+00:00

11

BO TAO DID NOT SEE a single virgin for the next two days. He completely ignored his duties as master of the festival and remained at his home in Peking. He focused on his reports to the emperor, on strategies to outwit rebels or invaders, on anything that would keep his mind completely away from Chen Ji Yue.

It didn’t work. He found himself reading her notations on the Dutch envoy, remarking anew that she had a keen eye for detail and a clear head despite the horror she had witnessed. He read it a hundred times or more, hearing her voice in his head as he did, feeling the touch of her hand and the heat of her body. By the dawn of the third day, he was insane with want. His jade stalk felt like a heavy stone dragging his thoughts straight back to her.

It was ridiculous! She was just a woman. She could not possibly be as beautiful, as sweet, as brilliant as he remembered. He ground the heels of his hands against his eyes. He had to see her again. That much was obvious. He had to prove to himself that he’d built a fantasy in his head. So he stormed from his home, barged through the gate of the Forbidden City, and went in search of a virgin.

He could not find her. The virgins had spent the last two days practicing their talents—whatever they might be—so they could entertain the dowager consort during the artistic display exam. Some painted, others sang or danced and some wrote poetry. Each day had produced a display of some sort for the dowager consort. And each day, someone had been dismissed as unacceptable because of one trifling reason or another.

He had watched the list of unacceptable virgins closely, hoping to see Ji Yue’s name. If the dowager consort dismissed her, then perhaps her family would relent. Perhaps they would accept her back, and he could court her after his appointment—whenever that came. But her name did not appear because—he now learned—she was set to dance before the dowager consort today.

And Bo Tao was set to meet with Han Du Yu, a minor dignitary of a small but wealthy province near Peking. He wanted to give the emperor gifts—bribes—so that his son would pass the civil service exam. It was a ridiculous meeting given to Bo Tao because the emperor could not waste his time on such stupidities. Neither Bo Tao nor the emperor had anything to do with who passed and who did not. But every year desperate parents tried to buy favor where there was none to give.

Bo Tao would have ducked the meeting completely, but Han Du Yu was rich. So rich that the emperor could not afford to slight him. Worse, Bo Tao had been thinking about what Ji Yue said. If peasants followed food and hope, then the emperor needed to know exactly how hungry and how hopeless his people were. Short of interviewing every man, woman and child who slopped pigs, he had to rely on the nobles who oversaw their lands.

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