The Russian Concubine

42

She was aware of being warm. But when she stretched like a cat in the morning sunshine, she instantly realised where her limbs were lying. In his bed. Again. She opened her eyes and found his face only inches from her own, watching her. Again.

‘Good morning,’ he said softly.

‘Hello. How did I get here?’

‘You needed sleep. Not in a chair. You feel better?’

‘Much. And you? Did you sleep well?’

‘Yes.’

She knew he was lying, but it felt so odd to be having this conversation with him while she was flat on her back in bed with him that she didn’t contradict him. He reached across and touched her ear for a brief second. She noticed that the swelling in his fingers was less and she wanted him to touch her ear again. Her ear, her face, anywhere he wanted. This close to him she could see a slight stubble on his jaw but it was only light, not like Alfred’s. Chang’s chest was hairless, and she decided she liked that. That smoothness.

They lapsed into silence, just staring at each other, but the silence was easy, not stiff or stilted. It felt as natural as the sunlight that spilled under the curtain, so that when she leaned toward him after a while and gently kissed his lips, there was no embarrassment, just a sense of wholeness. And a fierce sense of wanting more. The wanting was so strong it made her body ache. But just when she least expected it, he closed his eyes and shut her out. The disappointment made her swallow hard, but she reminded herself he was ill, seriously ill, and needed rest. When she slid out of the bed, he did not try to stop her. He lay there breathing hard, as if his chest hurt, his dark head immobile on the pillow that still bore the imprint of her own.

She gathered together some fresh clothes and went to the bathroom. Gospodi! She must stink. She ran a bath and emptied a stream of her mother’s bright green bubble bath into it, plunged in, and scrubbed herself hard. To scrub the ache away. Afterward she wrapped her wet hair in a towel and put on her other dress and the new lambswool cardigan Valentina had bought her, all soft and primrose yellow.

She looked in the mirror above the washbasin, trying to see what Chang would see, but she couldn’t. There was some flesh on her bones these days, which was an improvement. And it seemed that her mother was right because in the last few months the good eating, which was thanks to Alfred, had filled out not only her cheeks, but her breasts too. They weren’t as good as Polly’s but they were getting there.

She smiled. At the mirror. And was surprised by what she saw. It was a whole new smile.

When the doorbell rang this time, Lydia was half expecting it.

‘It’ll be Polly,’ she said and went down to open the front door.

‘Hello, Lyd, I’ve come to see how you’re getting on. Bit lonely?’

‘Oh Polly, now is not a good time actually. I’m just…’

‘Hello, Lydia, dear. My word, you are looking well. Positively blooming. And that colour really suits you.’

‘Thank you, Mrs Mason. No need to check up on me, honestly. I’m doing fine.’

‘I’m just making sure you are managing all right, as I promised Mr Parker I would. We were worried the bomb might have frightened you yesterday, weren’t we, Polly?’

‘I wasn’t. I thought it was exciting.’ Polly grinned. ‘I told Mummy you wouldn’t be scared.’

‘Have you time for a few of your favourites?’ Anthea Mason held up the cake tin in her hand and smiled enticingly. ‘Macaroons.’

Lydia was not exactly in the mood for macaroons.

‘Mummy made them specially,’ Polly said pointedly and beamed when Lydia stepped back into the hall, allowing them to enter.

She seated them in the drawing room.

‘Isn’t this a pretty room?’ Anthea Mason said cheerily. ‘Adorable colours.’

Lydia gave it a glance. ‘The colours are Mama’s and the furniture is Mr Parker’s.’

The cocktail cabinet and leather chesterfield were a bit dark and gloomy for Lydia’s taste but her mother had already started to soften their impact with her own personal touches, warm textured cushions and curtains. But at the moment Lydia’s mind was on other things. She remained standing, shifting from foot to foot, pushing a toe into the thick Chinese carpet.

‘How’s Sun Yat-sen?’

‘Fine.’

‘And the cook? Is he looking after you?’

‘Yes.’

‘So you’re eating well?’

‘Yes.’

‘But I’m sure you have room for one of these, don’t you, dear?’

‘Yes. Thank you.’

‘A cup of tea perhaps?’

‘Oh. Right. I’ll go and make one.’

‘Ask the cook to do it, dear. I know you’ve dispensed with your houseboy, though for the life of me I can’t understand why.’

‘I won’t be long.’

She headed quickly for the kitchen, made a hurried pot of tea, carried it on a tray back into the drawing room, and froze.

‘Where’s Polly?’

‘Oh, I think she popped upstairs to take a peek at your bedroom, dear. You don’t mind, do you?’

Lydia dumped the tray and ran.

She was too late. Polly was standing in the bedroom. Her cheeks were scorched red and she was absolutely rigid, staring at Chang An Lo. He lay in the bed and was clutching the carving knife in his hand.

‘Oh, bloody hell, Polly, you should have waited.’ Lydia seized her friend’s shoulder and swung her around to face her. ‘Listen to me. You must say nothing. Do you hear? Nothing to anyone. Not even your mother.’

Polly’s eyes strayed back to Chang and regarded him in the same way she would a tiger in Lydia’s bed. ‘Who is he?’

‘A friend.’

Polly’s eyes widened. ‘Not the one from the alleyway? The Communist?’

‘Yes.’

‘What’s he doing here?’

‘He’s injured. Polly, if you tell anyone, it will be dangerous for him. You must keep quiet or he could be caught and killed.’

Polly gasped and ran a nervous hand through her bangs, unintentionally flipping them up in a jerky gesture that revealed an ugly bruise on her forehead. The sight of it made Lydia angry.

‘And don’t ever tell your father about Chang An Lo either, will you? Promise me.’ Lydia put her arms around Polly. ‘It’s all right, don’t get in a flap about it. We’ve done nothing wrong.’

Polly stared at her in disbelief. ‘Don’t you think keeping a Chinese man in your bed while your mother is away is wrong?’

‘No, I’m just nursing him, that’s all. There’s nothing wrong in it. Anyway, he’ll be gone as soon as he’s well enough, I swear.’ Lydia looked hard into Polly’s eyes and saw something there that made her stomach drop.

‘I still don’t think it’s right,’ Polly said quietly.

‘Please, Polly.’

‘But if I told my mother…’

‘No, don’t tell anyone. You must remain silent about this.’ She held on to her friend’s wrist and gave it a little squeeze. ‘For my sake.’ Suddenly she kissed Polly’s cheek and murmured, ‘Please, Polly. Do it for me.’

‘I’ve been thinking,’ Lydia said quietly as she limped Chang An Lo up and down the room. ‘I’ve worked out what to do on Saturday.’

Chang was sweating. The effort was killing him but he wouldn’t stop.

‘Saturday I leave.’

Her throat tightened. It was the first time he’d said it. ‘No, that’s my point. You can stay.’

He turned his head and looked at her with a slow smile. ‘Ah yes, your mother and new father will be happy to welcome me as their guest.’

‘I want you to stay.’

His arm around her shoulders pulled her closer but he didn’t cease his shuffle.

‘You see, I’ve worked out that you can stay in the shed, the one Sun Yat-sen is in. I’ve put a padlock on it, so no one will be able to open it except me. They’ll never know you’re in there. Alfred and my mother will be too busy with each other to notice and I’ve put all the gardener’s things in the back of the garage, so…’

He chuckled. A rich mischievous sound that was so full of life it made her pulse thud with delight.

‘I love you, Lydia Ivanova,’ he laughed. ‘Not even the gods can stop you.’

He hadn’t said no. That was the main thing. He didn’t say yes, but he didn’t say no. She held on to that.

By the evening he was exhausted and seemed to fall into a deep troubled sleep. He moaned and muttered in his dreams, but it was in Mandarin. They had both been severely rattled by Polly’s intrusion, but Lydia had assured Chang that her friend would say nothing. She was pleased her own voice sounded so confident and wished she could be certain of it herself. Polly had been shocked. No telling how she’d react when she’d had time to think about it.

‘Polly,’ she murmured to herself, ‘don’t let me down.’

As the night rolled in, she gazed out the window before she closed the curtains and, considering the precarious position she was in, she felt extraordinarily safe. She knew it was absurd. So absurd it made her laugh out loud. A known Communist in her bed, her mother about to return and a prickly new stepfather coming to turn her world upside down, yet… still. She felt good.

She watched a bedraggled pheasant pick its way over the snow on the back lawn, scratching for grubs, and for the first time in her life it dawned on her what it was like to be on the inside. No longer a hungry creature out in the snow. She turned her head away from the cold wintry scene outside and studied her room. It was warm. It was softly lit by the green lamp. There was food on a tray and a white nightdress waiting on a chair. This is how people were supposed to live. But she knew it wasn’t the nightdress or the tray that was making her feel so good.

It was having Chang An Lo in her bed.

He woke her in the night.

She was lying on the bed. Like the night before, under the eiderdown but on top of the blanket. She had cleaned her teeth, put on the pretty nightdress, and taken up her position beside him in the bed while he was asleep. The lamp was off and in the silent mix of shadows in the room her senses slowly grew more alert. She could hear his breathing and smell the male scent of his skin. She did not hurry to fall asleep.

‘Lydia.’ His hand was on her arm, the grip strong.

Instantly she was awake. ‘What is it? Is the pain worse?’

He was shaking. She could hear his teeth. She sat up.

‘No,’ he said. ‘Just the pain of the dreams.’

She lay on her side and wrapped an arm over his chest, holding him tight to her. Even through the blanket she could feel the pounding of his heart. He rested his damp cheek against her forehead, drew a deep breath, and released it slowly. For a long time they lay like that.

‘You never asked,’ he said at last into the darkness of the room.

‘Asked what?’

‘What happened?’

‘I thought if you wanted me to know, you’d tell me.’

He nodded.

‘But maybe if you tell me now, it will be released and leave your dreams in peace.’

He breathed deeply again and when he spoke his voice was flat and hard. ‘There is not much to tell. It was simple. They stripped me and put me in a metal crate. I survived. Three months, perhaps more. I’m no longer clear. A box with air holes. An arm’s length square, the same high. They fed me when they felt like it, so most of the time they didn’t. They only took me out of the box for amusement. Finger cutting. Chest branding. Other things. I don’t want your ears to hear.’

Lydia lifted a hand and stroked his cheek, his throat, long slow strokes. But she didn’t speak.

‘One day they grew careless. They left knives too close while they played their games with me. They believed I was a dead rag. No threat to them. But they were wrong. My hand still knew how to sink a blade into a well-fed stomach.’

His words stopped. The shaking had passed. She could feel the anger in him, like a coat of steel under his skin.

‘I escaped. But I could go to no one who was known to be my friend. It was too dangerous.’

‘So you went to Tan Wah.’

‘Yes. Nobody knew of him. The hovels are used by opium addicts. No one goes there. I thought he was safe.’ He let out a low-throated groan. ‘I was mistaken.’

‘No, Chang An Lo, no. You were right. He died only because of me. Because of my stupid coat and somebody else’s greed. I’m sorry.’

‘We are both sorry, Tan Wah,’ he whispered.

The silence in the room was short-lived because Lydia’s own anger was swirling up in her.

‘Who did these things to you? Who are they? The Black Snakes? Or the Kuomintang? Tell me.’

He moved his head on the pillow and looked at her. It was too dark to make out his expression but her fingers touched his face and she was amazed to feel a smile curving his lips.

‘Why do you need to know, Lydia? Will you rush out and kill them for me?’

‘It’s what they deserve.’

He gave a soft laugh and moved closer.

‘Is it hard to kill someone?’ she whispered.

‘Lydia, you would kill a man if you had to.’

Then he kissed her lips and it wasn’t gentle this time. It was a fierce hungry kiss that made the ache flare throughout her body.

‘Who was it?’ she asked again when she drew breath.

‘You never give up.’

‘Who?’

He sighed. ‘It was Feng Po Chu. His father, Feng Tu Hong, is the leader of the Black Snakes and the president of the council.’

‘Po Chu? The one who stole the explosives? Why did he do this to you?’

‘Because I did something. It made him lose face.’

‘What kind of something?’

Chang was silent at first and she thought he was going to keep his secrets from her, but slowly he started to speak. ‘I walked him naked and bound to his father and made him beg. I thought I had the protection of Feng Tu Hong but…’ He paused and traced a finger around the curve of her ear. ‘I was wrong.’

Lydia abruptly recalled what Mr Theo had told her about Chang making a deal with Feng, and she nodded. ‘Thank you. Now I know.’

After a moment of thought she rolled away from him out of the bed, felt her way over to the small green lamp on the table, and switched it on. When she returned to the bedside, she stood quite still for a moment, gazing down at him intently. Slowly she slid the nightdress up over her head.

She saw his black eyes fill with desire.

She lifted the sheet and lay in the bed next to his naked body. He was warm. Like silk all down one side of her skin. She stroked a hand gently over his bandaged chest and down his thin ribs to his hips. She knew his body so well, each bone and muscle of it.

But suddenly, stupidly, she felt awkward. She didn’t know what to do next. Her heartbeat was thudding in her ears and she was frightened he would hear it, but just when she was thinking she’d made a complete fool of herself by climbing into his bed like a common slut, he lifted himself up on one elbow and studied her face with a dark, serious gaze. So intense it stripped away her fears.

Slowly his lips found hers. Tentative at first. Small lingering kisses on her mouth, on the tip of her chin, the corners of her eyes and the sweep of her cheekbones. They made her whole body surge with something that felt almost like pain, it was so fierce, a burning heat. It swept from her lips to the tips of her breasts and rushed down between her legs. Her nipples ached. She heard herself moan in a soft mewing sound she had never heard before.

‘Lydia,’ he murmured as his mouth claimed hers again. His hand caressed her naked breast and slid in slow teasing circles down the slope of her slender stomach.

It was as if her skin became something other than skin. It grew so alive it leaped out of her control, rubbed itself against his body, her hip pressing against his, her hands touching, searching, stroking, seeking out each bone of his back, his flat wide shoulder blades, the curve of his buttocks. Her lips opened to his and the unexpected sensation of their tongues entwining sent such a shiver of delicious shock through her body that it made him stop, lift his head, and gaze at her with concern.

But she laughed, almost a purr, and wrapped her arms around his neck, drawing him back to her once more. His lips explored her throat with open-mouthed kisses, as if he would eat her up, and his tongue started to lick her breasts, tasting her, discovering her, making the lines of her body melt until they moulded perfectly to his. It amazed her that two bodies could do this. Become one.

As he bent his dark head over her breast she let her own tongue trail along the back of his neck, twirling the short hairs and nuzzling each bone of his spine. His skin. It smelled of herbs. But the salty taste of it set her loins throbbing. When he took her nipple into his mouth the heat inside her seemed to explode in her chest and the need for him became unbearable. Her hand reached down to where she could feel his penis thrust hard against her thigh but when her fingers curled around it, it startled her. This was not the penis she recognized, the one she had cradled in her hand before. This was different. Big. Too big. How could anything be so hard and yet so soft?

He moaned the moment her hand touched it. It twitched between her fingers as if electric shocks were sweeping through its blue veins and she felt a fierce choking desire to hold it, keep it, protect it, own it forever. It was as if it were a part of her. As he was a part of her.

Abruptly she could hold back no longer and she took his good hand, placed it between her legs. Instantly he lifted his head so that his mouth and his tongue could merge with her own, and his fingers started to caress the moist heart between her legs, gently at first, then firmer, harder. She moaned, and under it she heard a low breathless growl that was him. She lost track of time. A minute or an hour, she had no idea. She wrapped a leg up over his hip and felt his penis tight against her cleft, the pulse of it hot and needy.

And suddenly he was above her. His lips kissing her eyelids until she opened them and found his dark gaze looking down at her with an expression so tender and so full of longing that she knew she would carry it with her till her dying day. His mouth moved against her own.

‘My sweet love,’ he breathed. ‘Tell me this is what you want.’

For reply she bucked her hips so that the tip of him slid inside her and she heard his quick intake of breath. His teeth bit down on her lip. Slowly, gently, with infinite care he entered her. At one point a sharp pain made her cry out but he held her close, murmuring, whispering, eating her up.

She could barely breathe. All thought ceased. Her whole world became this one moment. A fierce pounding heat that crashed over her body, burning new pathways through her flesh. Through his flesh. Through their flesh. Moulding it into one flesh. And when the final shuddering climax tore through them both, she thought she was dying. Literally dying. And that Chang An Lo’s gods had carried her to a new afterlife.

No nightmares. Not that night. She had banished them.

Chang An Lo could not take his eyes off her, even in the dark. Her head lay curled on his shoulder as she slept and he brushed his cheek against her hair, just to feel it again, to touch its flames. His mind kept rushing ahead, twisting and turning around the hidden coil of the future, but he drew it back. Back to the present. To this moment. This now. This perfect point of time.

He struggled to centre his mind. Focus his senses. But all he could feel was the joy of her, the physical wonder of her, the sweet smell of her. His fox girl. He relived each second in his head as he lay awake in the hours before dawn. Heard again the little yips of pleasure. Felt her teeth on his collarbone. The strong muscles inside her. That moment of certainty when…

No. He dragged his mind away and forced it to be in the now. Not in what had passed. Nor in what was to come. But now. To breathe each breath completely and not think about the next. The gods had granted him a treasure few ever come close to experiencing in this life. He would not waste it by fearing that some thief would come and steal it from him tomorrow or tomorrow’s tomorrow. He touched her forehead with his lips and kept them there against her skin. It was warm and musky with sleep. His eyes held on to the shadowy tangle of her hair, and he listened to her breathing. He had to clear his brain. To think what was right for her.

‘Are you tired?’ Her eyes were huge. Great amber pools of light.

‘No.’ He smiled at her as she lay beside him on the pillow in the darkness. ‘I feel better. Much better. Strong inside again.’

‘Good.’

He kissed her ear. ‘You have perfect ears. Priceless curls of porcelain.’

She laughed and wrapped her leg lightly over his body. Instantly he was aroused. He touched her breast and felt the muscles spring to life under her skin. This time she made it easy for him. She sat astride him, rocking with an urgent rhythm while his hand caressed the soft swell of her breasts, firm and taut and infinitely inviting to his tongue. He watched her face. It was so mobile. It showed so much. He painted the picture of it into his head the way an artist paints a delicate portrait on a porcelain plate.

The freedom of her passion as she threw her hair forward and seized his lips with hers, arching over him with open longing, was something new to him, and it fired his need for her to even greater intensity. But it moved him too, deep down inside where no one else had ever touched before. And he wondered, as he danced his fingers down her sides and saw her tremble, whether he was the one who was the virgin.