The Concubine. Jade Lee
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“You must undress,” he said
Ji Yue recoiled in shock, her heart beating triple time. It was one thing to be the woman caressing Bo Tao, bringing him to a place where he had no control over his body. It was quite another to remove her own attire.
“If you wish to know how to seduce a man,” Bo Tao said softly. “It begins with your body. And your body is very beautiful to me, Ji Yue.” She saw honesty in his eyes, and her heart broke. How had she come to this?
But if her future was in a harem—many women to one man—she would take whatever memories she could. So she put her hands on her buttons and began to pull off her clothes.
“No. Not like you are at a dressmaker’s,” he said. “Slowly, shyly. But with a hunger in your eyes.”
As a virgin, she should not know what he meant, but she felt a longing and a building excitement in what she did. And in what they risked together. She looked at him, letting him see her desire, her fears and her desperate wish….
“My heaven…” he murmured. And if she doubted the desire in his voice, all she had to do was look down. His jade stem was making an appearance….
Dear Reader,
Imagine my surprise when I discovered that network television did not invent contests for finding a mate. I mean, sure, there was Cinderella, but that was just a fairy tale. Who knew that in 1851 the Emperor of China truly did advertise for all the eligible young women in the land to apply to become his new empress? Of course, he wasn’t looking for just one wife. One lucky winner would become his empress, four became primary concubines and then he had two levels of harems below that for when he got bored. Lucky him! And lucky me, too, because I got to explore all the drama, the fear and the excitement vicariously through my heroine.
Now, I’ll be the first to admit that I had to change certain historical facts to make it more dramatic. If you’re curious, I’ve put a brief article up on my Web site about the changes I’ve made. Check it out at www.jadeleeauthor.com. But don’t let reality spoil your fun!
Step now into the sensuous, exotic world of China’s Forbidden City, where the women are beautiful, the men are usually cut and the emperor rules over everything with absolute power. Then see if you can pick the winner in a game of power and love!
Enjoy!
Jade Lee
www.jadeleeauthor.com
Jade Lee
THE CONCUBINE
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Children of mixed races have their own set of rules. As the daughter of a Shanghai native and a staunch Indiana Hoosier, USA TODAY bestselling author Jade Lee struggled to find her own identity somewhere between the U.S.A. and China. In the end, she found her answers in writing fiction about the amazing power of love.
Books by Jade Lee
HARLEQUIN BLAZE
374—THE TAO OF SEX
Thank you, Brenda, editor extraordinaire, for inviting me to explore the sexuality of China.
I had so much fun with this, I feel like I won something way better than the title of Empress!
Contents
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Epilogue
Prologue
1851—Imperial China
A LAND OF SENSUOUS DELIGHTS and grinding poverty. A land of silk and jade, of tiny feet and dark, exotic eyes. The ruler of this vast and opulent land is the newly appointed Emperor Xian Feng, the Son of Heaven. Only nineteen years old, he has inherited a corrupt bureaucracy, the rebellious Taiping of the northwest, and a country slowly losing its mind to opium. The eunuchs who serve him grow more corrupt. The white devils constantly bang on his doors demanding trade for goods he does not want. And yet in all this his first duty is to sire an heir. In fact, he will not receive his full imperial salary until he has the required twenty-eight wives.
To this end, the Festival of Fertility has been declared! Eligible women from throughout the land have been invited to come to the Forbidden City, Xian Feng’s home in Peking. Their virtue and their fortunes will be examined, they will be tested for lucky aspects of mind and body, and if successful, they will never leave the Forbidden City again. The winner will become the empress herself. Second place goes to four favored concubines. Then two other harems will be established for women who will likely never grace Xian Feng’s bed.
A daunting task for any man to oversee, especially one who is simultaneously running a country. And so, in this most difficult hour, Xian Feng turns to his childhood friend and names Sun Bo Tao, former bad boy of the Forbidden City, as master of the festival. Apparently, the emperor does not hear the warnings that he is appointing a fox to run an imperial henhouse.
1
SUN BO TAO GROANED as his bed dropped to the street with a head-splitting thump. He cursed under his breath even as he wondered why he was dreaming about sleeping in the middle of a noisy Peking street. Then the sharp bark of command from a soldier cut through his dream and jerked him upright. Unfortunately, it didn’t change his bizarre surroundings. His bed was still sitting in the middle of a Peking street. He could hear the cry of a hundred hawkers, and the smell of human waste was unmistakable.
He yawned wide enough to crack his jaw, the sound bringing enough awareness that he had to fully open his eyes. He was in a red silk bower surrounded by cushions and hidden from view by tattered silk curtains. Oh, yes, he was sitting in an imperial palanquin and not one of the better ones. He’d woken as the porters dropped the bower onto the city street. But why was he here instead of in his own carriage?
A memory teased at the corners of his mind, but he resolutely pushed it away. There was a reason he had drunk himself into a stupor last night, and he was fairly certain he didn’t want to remember what it was. He did recall that he’d been on his way home—walking because he’d been too drunk to ride his horse—when he’d seen the imperial procession. Two soldiers in front of four porters carried a curtained bower through the city streets. A very small procession. It was headed somewhere in Peking—he didn’t care where—then would eventually wend its way back to the Forbidden City. As that was his destination, he’d waved down the lead soldier, paid the bribe and slipped in while the porters were taking a rest break. This way he’d get a few more hours of sleep before he had to face the day.
He was just lying back down when a female wail cut through the relative peace of