her private chambers sent a surge of anger through Miku. She had expected the samurai to remain a respectful distance from her the rest of the evening, as he had all day—far enough away, in fact, for him not to notice her escape from the manor once darkness fell. But was he now so bold as to step on to her veranda, mere inches from her hidden form?
Miku’s eyes fell to the scroll spread open across the lacquered table in front of her. The verse she was composing spoke of cherry blossoms, long considered the most beautiful yet most fragile flower. In her poem, however, one blossom remained open as the first winter snowfall began to drift down, the flower’s unexpected resilience against the frost magnifying its pale beauty.
Though her heart thudded wildly, Miku’s resolve solidified. How dare this coarse warrior intrude upon her private sanctuary uninvited, regardless of any edict given by her manipulative uncle? All trepidation was now replaced by a sense of smoldering outrage at the armed man’s presumptuous arrival.
“Speak now, or leave,” she said firmly.
There was a beat of silence, and then a low voice growled from the other side of the kicho. “I will answer to no one but the Master of this estate.”
“The Master is gone, so you must answer to me,” Miku said.
“I am aware of his absence and am here because of it.”
A chill sharper than the winter’s northern wind drove through Miku. So her uncle had instructed the samurai to encroach upon her private rooms as dusk fell. She took a deep breath to steady her voice, then spoke again to the shadowy figure concealed by her veranda curtain. “You have invaded the solitude of a noblewoman, and your continued presence is not needed.”
A humorless laugh stirred the delicate fabric of the kicho. “I will decide what you need.”
Any renewed fear the man’s words stirred in Miku was quickly burned away by her growing anger toward this insolent stranger who seemed so intent on speaking in riddles. “All my uncle’s samurai have sworn an oath to serve him to the death,” she said, “and that vow includes protecting me, his only niece. You must therefore guard my virtue as well as my life. And—samurai or not—being this close to me without an appropriate chaperone threatens that honor.”
“Your life—and virtue—will both remain in my hands tonight,” the samurai said. “Your uncle has commanded that I am not to leave your side until dawn.”
The man’s uninvited appearance, the unspoken threat of his sword, his unemotional insistence that she had been left at his mercy—all these factors pushed Miku’s indignation to the boiling point. Too furious to care that social protocol demanded the thin curtain remain between her, a maiden, and this common soldier, she stood and ripped aside the golden silk. “And I am to have no say in who sleeps in my chambers?”
“I do not plan to sleep tonight,” said the man, his dark eyes locking with hers.
The tall, lean form of one of her uncle’s finest warriors stood with his back to the setting sun. Though dressed in full military regalia, not even the intricate red lacing and stenciled leather of his plated armor could distract from the man’s striking physique. Resting low on the horizon, the sun’s fiery orange glow outlined the soldier’s broad shoulders and powerful arms. Tightly muscled legs, chiseled as from stone by elite cavalry service, were planted with immovable authority on Miku’s veranda. Though he appeared relaxed, the man’s muscular power was obviously held at bay only by his recognition of the quiet respect due a noblewoman. This was a warrior, not a gentleman…and his hardened body spoke to years spent conquering and crushing.
As she wondered why a man of his obviously high martial rank would be sent to guard her, the samurai’s eyes dropped to take in the white silk kosode Miku wore. She wrapped her arms around her body, keenly aware that the flowing, calf-length robe should have been covered with proper outer-garments. Would have been, she thought, had she expected anything more than yet another long afternoon sitting alone at her writing bench.
Her skin prickled as the man took in her softly curving frame barely concealed beneath the pale silk. The molten heat of his eyes intensified as they lingered on the exposed skin of her bare ankles, and Miku gasped as a surprising excitement shivered through her body. This man looked upon her as if he owned her, with the bold assurance of a victor in battle assessing the spoils of war.
Never before had a man dared to stare with such unveiled appreciation—and desire—of her physical charms. The realization stunned Miku, leaving her both excited and terrified.
And yet neither had Miku truly felt any of the intense longing her poetry so often described—verses her uncle disparaged as improperly sensual for a noblewoman’s pen. Until now…until this handsome samurai’s gaze had fallen upon her barely clothed body.
Though intrigued by the surge of conflicting emotions stirred by the man’s piercing gaze, Miku reminded herself that he was no elegant suitor, properly versed in the protocol of courtship, for in addition to his long, curved katana, he wore a shorter knife at his waist and a bow across his broad back. No, she thought resentfully, this was a hardened soldier trained in warfare. And he had come not to woo her, but to stand guard.
“Why do my activities this evening need special oversight?” she asked hotly, her suspicions mounting. “You have watched from a distance all day. Why must you stay in my rooms after sunset?”
The man remained silent for a moment as she scanned his jet hair, pulled back from the hard angles of his bronzed face in the formal knot favored by the military caste. He was familiar, she realized. She had caught his brooding, ink-black eyes watching her on previous occasions as she moved about the manor and knew him to be one of her uncle’s most trusted warriors, although she had never spoken to him before. He seemed older than her own twenty years, but not by more than another ten.
Her eyes returned to his stoic face, and she noticed the dark shadow of his neatly trimmed beard was softened by a gentle mouth. But his words remained as sharp as the sword that hung across his plated armor. “Your uncle does not want you to forget your place.”
“My place?” Miku challenged, taking a fearless step toward the armed man. “That is my choice alone.”
This self-assured conviction had caused increasing friction between herself and her uncle over the past few months. He had begun to show heightened exasperation at her poetry, with its imaginatively erotic tones. And Miku, in her own right, had started to care less and less about whether her uncle approved of her verses—or that he had recently discovered she’d been sneaking out into the fields and mountains beyond the manor walls. For how else could she be free, even for a few hours, from his suffocating restrictions?
Miku’s uncle had accepted the role as her guardian seven years ago with an appropriate sense of familial duty, if not love. But as the months following her parents’ death had passed, he had become increasingly strict. Now she hardly dared peek from behind the curtains of his ox-drawn carriage when she traveled to the temple—her only approved trips outside of the manor—for fear of his displeased frown. Not that the view of starving, threadbare serfs along the roadside brought anything but grief to her tender heart, knowing she had no power to alleviate their suffering.
Their heretofore quiet battle of wills had come to a head this morning when she’d been caught by her uncle’s servants bathing naked in the hot springs of a nearby mountain glade. The old man had exploded with indignant rage and forbidden her from leaving her chambers while he hastily arranged for the visit of an old friend in Heian-kyo, someone Miku assumed would try to convince her of the error of her
