“You could try to learn a reputable trade,” Ben began.
“I’ll think on it. For now, the theatres are closing, which means pigeons are returning ’ome to roost. No be’er time to pluck some fine feathers.” Pete winked. “Good evening, guv.”
“Pete—” Ben found himself looking at the lad’s retreating back.
“Some horses were not meant to be tamed.”
Turning at the calm words, Ben bowed. “Master Chen.”
Chen returned the bow. A few inches shorter than Ben, the healer embodied strength and balanced power. This evening, his wiry form was clad in a plain grey tunic with matching trousers, but he often walked the streets dressed like an Englishman. His precisely clipped layers of black hair surrounded a noble face with piercing eyes.
Chen was probably not much older than Ben’s own age of one-and-thirty, yet the master possessed an air of sagacity that made him seem beyond the reach of time and place. His accent had the polish of elocution lessons. Although Ben had heard whispers in the clinic about Master Chen’s origins—rumors circulated that Chen was everything from a retired sailor, exiled royalty, to a former monk—theshifu’s past remained shrouded in mystery.
“The English have a saying about leading a horse to water,” Chen said.
Ben bit back his frustration. “Yes, but Pete could do much better for himself.”
“It is not your choice to make, Your Grace. I noticed your practice was disturbed this evening.”
As usual, the master missed nothing.
“Yes,shifu,” Ben admitted.
“We will discuss over tea.”
Chen led the way to his study, a room as simply furnished as the rest of the clinic. There was a desk, a pair of vertical calligraphy scrolls on the wall behind it, and a round rosewood table where tea awaited. The men took their seats on the round stools, and Ben picked up his cup, a lidded porcelain vessel with no handles. When he lifted the lid, a faint jasmine scent escaped, bringing back the moonlit garden and the yearning in Livy’s eyes.
You are the only man I could ever love. If I can’t have you, then I won’t marry at all.
His chest clenched. She was so young and innocent. He supposed it was normal for a girl her age to form atendre,but she deserved far better than him. She needed a younger man and one who didn’t have a veritable army of skeletons rattling in the closet. As a man of experience twelve years her senior, Ben should have anticipated their kiss and prevented it.
Hedefinitelyshould not have responded to it.
With twisting guilt, he recalled the crazed instant when he’d lost his mind. When she’d pressed herself against him, giving and soft, her sweetness flooding his senses. When he’d pulled her closer instead of pushing her away…
I deserve to be drawn and quartered.
His sins were already too many: he was a murderer, a recovering opium addict, and an all-around bastard. He would not add seducer of an innocent to the list.
Furthermore, he would not betray his friendship with Livy’s father, the Duke of Strathaven. For years, Ben had kept company with selfish scoundrels like himself. Ben’s destructive tendencies had led to his estrangement from his remaining family member, his sister Beatrice. While he’d worked to make amends, she remained wary of him, and he did not blame her.
Some sins were unforgivable.
Strathaven was the rare male friend Ben had who he actually respected. The duke and, indeed, the whole Strathaven family, had offered Ben steadfast support. The thought of dishonoring their kindness churned Ben’s insides with self-loathing.
And hurting Livy? His tenacious little queen who had reminded him how to smile, to laugh, to see the promise of life rather than its worst?
I would rather tear my heart out than harm a single hair on her head,he thought starkly.
“Your mind is a restless ocean this eve,” Chen said.
Ben dragged his attention to Chen, who was drinking tea and watching him.
“I cannot seem to control my thoughts,” Ben admitted.
“The harder one tries, the less control one has.” Chen set his cup down on the table without making a sound. “The goal, therefore, is not to try.”
This sort of paradoxical saying was typical fare for theshifu. At first, Ben had thought Chen’s principles were nonsensical and wholly un-English. Over time, however, he had begun to see the wisdom and usefulness of the other’s philosophy.
