Free An Illicit Temptation by Jeannie Lin Page B

on her face.
    Kwan-Li met her gaze. A flicker of defiance lit in his eyes. It
lent something daring and exciting to him and her heartbeat quickened. She
looked away, searching for something to lighten the air between them.
    “Such barbarian customs they have here,” she murmured, watching
one of the nomads place his fur cap over his head.
    “Barbarian?” Kwan-Li echoed stiffly.
    “It seems odd to shave the top of your head like a monk, but
then leave the sides so long,” she mused.
    “It is to open themselves to the grace of the sun,” he
explained.
    Alarm crept into her voice. “Will I have to do the same?”
    “The princess has nothing to worry about. The women do not
follow the same practice.”
    He nudged his horse forward and she did the same, keeping
stride beside him as he had instructed. As a ranking official from the imperial
court, Kwan-Li was the only one who felt he could speak to her without averting
his eyes and agreeing to her every word. She found herself missing the comfort
of conversation.
    “You seem to have studied their customs very thoroughly,” she
said.
    He regarded her with an odd expression. “I am from Khitan.”
    Her eyes widened. “But you don’t look—”
    “Like an unwashed barbarian?” He allowed a slow smile to reveal
itself.
    “I didn’t say unwashed,” she protested.
    In the capital, they spoke of the barbarians of the northern
steppe to be a roughened, warlike people. The Khitans that rode along with them
certainly had the hard-eyed look of survival amidst the unforgiving elements.
Yet Kwan-Li’s bearing had the mark of education and culture.
    “But you speak our language so fluently,” she said fascinated.
“You even look Han.”
    “You are mistaken, Princess.”
    She traced over the shape and line of his face with unabashed
curiosity. Kwan-Li grew his hair long and had it pulled back into a topknot as
they did in the empire. His skin also lacked the dark, sun-drenched quality of
the nomads. Perhaps there was a slight difference in the shape of his eyes, a
broadness of his nose and chin that she had overlooked before.
    “How unexpected! I would have never known.”
    He was taken aback by her reaction. “I assumed the princess
would have been told—” He stopped himself, his eyes narrowing as he considered
her.
    Dao’s pulse jumped. “I have no knowledge of the day-to-day
dealings of the outer court,” she said quickly. “We princesses are kept so
sheltered away in the palace.”
    She attempted a smile. He frowned, but seemed to accept her
answer. Or rather he rode on in silence. Dao realized she was gripping the reins
too tight when her horse tossed his head, flicking his ears in agitation. She
relaxed her hold and concentrated on the trail in front of her.
    She had to be careful what she said around Kwan-Li. He was
intelligent and likely well-versed in court etiquette and politics while she
knew none of the things a princess should know. It was fine for him to think of
her as a vacant and innocent as long as he was convinced she was a princess.
    When she dared to glance at him again, he was looking over the
caravan, ever watchful. She had assumed that he was a diplomat, appointed by the
court to accompany her. This new information made her even more curious about
him.
    “Your name sounds Han,” she remarked.
    He turned and regarded her as if surprised she was speaking
again. “Kwan-Li is the name I was given by the imperial court. A courtesy
name.”
    She refused to be intimidated by his cold demeanor. She was the
princess here after all. “How long were you in Changan?”
    “Twelve years.”
    “You came to the capital to study?”
    “I came to be educated.” There was a pause. “And for diplomatic
reasons.”
    All sorts of foreigners lived within the walls of Changan. The
public markets were full of stalls set up by merchants from neighboring lands,
but this was the first she’d known of a barbarian—of a foreigner—who was taken
into the