‘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.

43

Lydia lay very still. She didn’t want to disturb the darkness.

Everything had changed. Even her pillow smelled different. Her body felt as though she had swapped it for a new one overnight and she had to familiarise herself with it all over again because this body knew things and did things instinctively that her head could only observe with amazement. This body had no shame. In fact it revelled in these extraordinary acts of intimacy. And she was astonished that it knew no bashfulness in its nakedness, not even under the gaze of a man.

Not just a man. A Chinese man.

What would her mother say?

She smiled and a bubble of laughter escaped into the silent room. She pictured Valentina’s face if she walked in now, her eyes and her mouth round with shock, then narrow with fury, but oddly none of it had the power to touch her. Not now, in this wonderful new body. This desirable body. This shameless body. She flexed its limbs, stretched its toes, clenched the newly awakened muscles between her legs and in the lowest part of her abdomen, felt a dull ache down there. Not a pain exactly, just a delicious ache that reminded her of what had happened to her. As if she could forget.

A virgin no more. The thought brought nothing but a shiver of pleasure even though she knew her mother would rant and rave and say that no man would want her now that she was spoiled goods.

That was such rubbish, she couldn’t suppress a grin. She had been transformed from dreary back-of-the-shelf stock into shiny new goods. Glossy and glowing, inside and out. And who cared about what other men might say? She shivered with disgust at the very idea of another man’s touch. It was Chang An Lo she wanted. No one else.

She put her ear close to his mouth to make sure he was still breathing. She didn’t quite trust his gods. They might want him. But she wanted him more.

‘Time for breakfast, my love. I know it’s not even morning yet,’ she laughed and waved a hand at the black window, ‘but I’m starving.’

He felt the warmth of her body disappear from his side.

‘I want to eat only you.’ He smiled.

‘No. Boiled egg and toast for you today. Got to keep your strength up. You never know when you might need it again.’

She abandoned him with a mischievous chuckle, turned on the light, and trotted off to the bathroom. He was impressed by such luxuries in Western houses. He could hear her running a bath and singing to herself. He smiled, but knew he had to prepare her.

‘Tell me about your childhood.’

She was perched cross-legged on the end of the bed eating yesterday’s bowl of something she called trifle. Every now and again she leaned forward and slipped a spoonful of it into his mouth. Secretly he found it teeth-grating in its sweetness and was astonished she could relish it so, but he gave no sign of that.

‘My childhood,’ he said. ‘It was very grand. Tutors, servants, and slaves. My father was a great mandarin. A peacock feather in the hat and gold-coloured tiles on the roof as a mark of superiority. He was a trusted adviser to Empress Tzu Hsi, but after Sun Yat-sen…’

‘My rabbit?’ She grinned.

‘… after the true and noble Sun Yat-sen brought the end to the Ching dynasty in 1911, my family escaped death. Only because the new central government needed my father’s financial skills. But,’ he felt his face grow stiff and expressionless, ‘the warlords slit each other’s throats and came for him.’

‘And your family?’

‘Dead. Each one of them. Beheaded in Peking. By order of General Yuan Shi-k’ai.’

‘I’m sorry. So very sorry, my love. To lose everyone…’

He shook his head, as if he could shake out the image from his mind. ‘I escaped. I had chosen to live with monks to learn a simpler way of life. In a temple up in the mountains north of Yenan.’

‘A temple?’

‘Yes.’

‘But I thought Communists didn’t believe in religion.’

‘You are correct. But it is not a simple task to root out superstition from the human mind.’ He reached over, drew her to him, and let his tongue lick a smear of custard from her lips. ‘Or love from the human heart.’

‘Is that what has happened to us?’ Her eyes were solemn.

‘Escape?’

‘No. Love.’

He stroked her chin and slid his unbandaged hand inside her blouse to where he could feel her heart beating strongly. ‘Can’t you feel? Here.’

‘I feel a pain.’

He laughed gently. ‘I love you, my beautiful fox.’

Her eyes widened and focused on his, a small pulse vibrating at the base of her throat. ‘I love you, Chang An Lo. I won’t let anybody part us.’

A sharp pain erupted in his own chest. ‘Let us live now, my love. Nobody can ever part us from now.’

‘It’s time to move.’

‘What?’

‘To the shed.’

‘Why now?’ she asked. ‘It’s only Friday and not even morning yet.’ The first glint of dawn was fingering the curtain. ‘They’re not due back until tomorrow, so we still have today and tonight to…’

‘I’m sorry. I must move now. Today. Before it grows light.’

‘Why?’

‘To be prepared. To be prepared is to stay alive. If they return early? They will summon police at once.’

‘Please. Don’t.’

‘My precious love, you cannot keep me in a cage the way you keep your rabbit.’

‘But I want you safe, to give time for your body to heal and grow strong again. You are still feverish.’

‘I know I am weak.’

‘Not so weak last night.’

‘No. You see how you give me strength.’

‘Please, Chang An Lo. Wait till tomorrow.’

She moved everything in the last shreds of darkness. Sheets, blankets, medication, bandages, candles, food, and water. Together they made their way down the stairs and out to the shed, his arm across her shoulders, and he was shocked at just how weak he still was. He said nothing, but her face kept turning to him with concern as he dragged his feet over the icy lawn and his nods of reassurance were not as convincing as he meant them to be. The cook and his wife were lazy good-for-nothings while their master was away and were still in bed, so there was no danger of discovery, but his fear was that he wouldn’t even make it as far as the shed.

What then? Could she drag him?

‘You should have waited till tomorrow,’ she said crossly when he at last stumbled through the doorway and collapsed on the floor.

He crawled to the wall and propped himself up next to Sun Yat-sen while she made a rough bed for him on the wooden boards. His head was buzzing and his legs shaking. But he loved to watch her. The way she moved. Efficient and full of energy.