“That is certainly a forward question.” She sought the elaborate architecture across the street.
“We know each other enough where we can be friends and skip formalities.”
“It’s not for lack of suitors. Generally, I find most men boring. They have nothing to say and half of them seem like complete idiots. And don’t tell me they improve with age. I won’t fall into that illusion.”
“Financial?”
In the sunlight, she glanced at him over her shoulder, her voice holding an unusual edge. “Of course not. My suitors lack depth. They have been weaned on trust funds. Shallow. Self-indulging. Selfish. And stupid.”
“I see.”
The topic was too personal to continue. “You mentioned Chen has trained you in Chinese disciplines. Can you elaborate?”
“He has trained me in ‘Qi’, an inner life force that animates living beings.”
She picked a chrysanthemum and sniffed its delicate scent. “What is ‘Qi?’”
“Qi is complicated and difficult to grasp through the senses. Qi comes by thought or intuition.”
She huffed. “Enlighten me.”
“I can discharge power exclusively channeling my life force, discharging it at close range in an explosive and powerful blow.”
“Sounds brutal.”
“Important when I need to defend myself.”
“I don’t?—”
“Shh.” He wrapped his arms about her, his hands brushing hers where she held the flower. “Like a chrysanthemum petal bent by the dew—the petal does not shake off the drop, and yet the instant arises when the dew falls and the petal rebounds, releasing strength.”
His finger touched the chrysanthemum she held. His heartbeat was steady, his chest warm on her back.
“Focus on the flower,” he ordered.
She did not think of the flower in a conscious manner, but without boundaries between herself and the flower and the dewdrop. Something shifted at the edge of her sight. The drop fell. In tandem, Zachary’s strong body from behind drifted her away, and then toward it, like a gentle whoosh of the sea on the shore.
From that moment, her senses reeled as if Zachary had pulled her into a strange universe. She could stand on a street and sense it, as she could sense the spicy, suffocating odor of teeming tenements, so full of people that the throngs goingand coming spread off the sidewalk to the middle of the street. Horse droppings, the clack of carriage wheels, the hawking of newsboys, bootblacks, butchers, and fish mongers. She was there. She was not there. No one touched her except the warmth from Zachary’s body.
What was this mysterious effect he had on her? This connection? A form of becoming one with the divine ether of the universe—earth, wind, fire, water. All existing as part energy instead of pure matter, that vitality or quality of light and matter calculable only when the soul vibrations existed as an exact match.
He moved back and she straightened with the shock of reality. Oh, how she wanted him to tell her it wasn’t a shoddy parlor trick, and how they survived. She frowned, unable to understand. Like asking a tree how it grows. They gazed at each other, and in that silent communion, an acceptance evolved of the phenomenon that had profoundly brought them together.
Elizabeth moved around him and gracefully sat on the settee as a servant carried in a tray, setting it down on the table between them. “Tea, Mr. Rourke?”
“Thank you, yes.” She passed his cup over, and when he reached for it, his fingers brushed hers, the sensation like an electrical spark. Heat flooded her face and, fingers shaking, the cup rattled in the saucer. He smiled in a way that said more than words.
“Chen has taught me of peace and violence. That one must discover one’s center within himself and make stillness and serenity of it.”
Elizabeth sipped her tea and chewed thoughtfully on a coconut macaroon. “That is hard to do in a sometimes-violent world.”
His hands rested palms downward on his thighs. “He has taught me strength and power are nothing, only intention.”
“Please explain.”
“He claims we are an illusion within a real world. We give ourselves disguises, as the moth imitates a flower. It does not become the flower. It does not forget that it is a moth. One must be careful of this.”
Elizabeth widened her eyes. Was he telling her he was a threat? Everything he told her was simple, yet agonizingly complex. A distinct feeling pervaded her that he did not trust women–and her. As if he had been hurt or taken advantage of. At times when she felt close to him those feelings were obliterated by his evasiveness. He kept his emotions close to his chest. A man choosing to be alone. “I must say I feel you look for deceit from me. You should know me by now, that I’m honest and forthright.”
