Read The Lady's Scandalous Night for Free Online

inevitable confrontation with Ru Shan would tear out Chen’s soul and leave him gutted. It would be like falling on his own blade—but nothing so clean and quick.
    “Your plan would have worked better if you had put a knife in me while I was sleeping,” he muttered.
    River made a show of scraping at the pot, her back turned to him. “My kitchen skills are quite lacking. I know less about knives than I do about cooking.”
    The conversation dwindled away, but Chen found it hard to leave the kitchen. Other than the pain twisting like a blade in his gut, nothing had changed. He still needed to bring Ru Shan to justice. Yet he had another duty to protect River. Not only because they had been promised to each other in an arranged marriage by her brother. River belonged to him. She’d given herself to him and he’d accepted. Which meant he belonged to her as well.
    If she ever realized that, then he would truly be lost.
    He retrieved more wood for the stove while River started another batch of rice. Together they scrounged the kitchen for odds and ends: cold dumplings, some yams that were easy to boil, salted duck eggs. This time the rice was mushy, but at least edible. They piled everything onto a tray and went to sit at the same table where River had presented him with a feast the night before. A feast neither of them had been able to enjoy.
    Chen positioned himself with the tray between them. River selected a dumpling with her chopsticks and bit carefully into it. He watched her eat, his heart growing heavier with each passing moment. She was wearing the somber robe he’d first seen her in with the collar closed high over her neck. There was no need to tempt him any longer.
    “Why would you give yourself to the man who was going to kill your brother?” he asked.
    There wasn’t as much force behind his question as he’d wanted. He was drained from more than just pushing Yao’s desk through the yard.
    She stared at the center of his chest. “Isn’t it plain enough? Even an impenetrable warrior can be distracted in the bedroom.”
    The dear girl couldn’t lie.
    “Your virtue isn’t worth the sacrifice,” he said evenly.
    “As if my virtue is worth anything.” She met his eyes then. “Look around us. Our home is gone. Our name, gone.”
    He bit savagely into an egg. The saltiness lodged in his throat. He didn’t know if he was angrier at her or for her. “It didn’t have to be this way. Li Tao would have left you alone.”
    “If we had denied Ru Shan and turned him in,” she countered bitterly. “What would warriors like you think of that sort of disloyalty?”
    “You didn’t answer my question. Why did you give yourself to me? I know you weren’t pretending.”
    She blushed. “You had wine. You could be mistaken.”
    “I remember every moment, River.”
    River was no skilled seductress and he wasn’t blind. She had clung to him, cried out his name. But desire and intention were not the same. The room fell silent except for the methodic click of her chopsticks as River became enthralled by their sparse meal. She swallowed slowly, staring into her bowl. He let her have the pause.
    “You were never going to kill Ru Shan,” she said finally.
    “Because of your plan?” he challenged.
    “Because I know you.”
    Her words struck like a blow to his gut. “You don’t know me.”
    She set the chopsticks down. “I know you, Wei Chen,” she repeated, with more hope than certainty. She searched his face with her eyes. “You came here looking for something besides Ru Shan. You were hoping to be dissuaded.”
    “That’s not true.”
    “In your soul, you don’t want to do this.”
    Her voice trembled, but then she stopped cold, embarrassed by her outburst. Chen sat rigid beside her. He could see how much she wanted to believe it; so much that he even doubted himself for a threadbare moment. He was searching frantically, reaching for something he couldn’t name. Was it direction? Was it