Page 13 of The Tainted and the Tamed
The chairmansniffed.
And then the door slammed shut.
Murasaki cursed the nightingale floors as she retreated, her limbs shaking. She might as well have played a drum to announce her presence. Herunwelcomepresence.
I shouldn’t have wished to see him.Now that she had, she wondered whether they’d fire her on the spot.
She was frightened of losing her job—and of losing her chance to meet with the famed physician again. Though she had far more important things to worry about, her mind repeated the same useless thought.
That shadowed view through the eyehole of the chairman’s mask had revealed something impossible:
Youth.
“You didwhat?” Ms. Tanabe repeated, the housekeeper’s voice sharp rather than loud. A fresh kettle simmered beside them. With her back angled away from them, Eri appeared to be watching the proceedings from a professional distance. Kanako was nowhere to be found.
“It won’t happen again, Ms. Tanabe.” Murasaki kept her eyes on the tiles of the kitchen floor. Her voice was so small, she wasn’t sure Ms. Tanabe heard her over the din in the kitchen.
“You’re right, itwon’thappen again,” the housekeeper ground out. “But if it does, I’d expect to be sent home immediately.”
Murasaki’s heart sank, even as it continued to pound.
“We stay out of the chairman’s way, and for good reason,” Ms. Tanabe continued, her eyes as hard and dark as flint. “The chairman expects Fusae Castle to run smoothly. He relies on it, in fact, so he can attend to matters affecting both our region and the nation. That is a sacred trust he’s put in us, and I will not have that compromised by a bumbling maid.”
Bumbling?
“You are not to approach Chairman Asami again, do you understand?”
Murasaki tried to bite back her response. It rolled from her tongue anyway. “I wasn’t trying to—”
“As you’ve already been told, the chairman requires both privacy and respect for his sensitivities. There’s no doubt in my mind he detected your presence.” She sniffed. “You have a—an odor about you.”
Me?Murasaki recoiled. Of course her body could not manage labor as well as it used to—and indeed she sweated more than she once did—but she didn’tsmell.Not that she could tell, anyway.
Perhaps Ms. Tanabe noticed her distress and felt sorry for her. Eyes softening, the housekeeper said, “I will speak to the chairman and explain the mistake on your behalf. He may not be pleased, but he is not a harsh man.”
He isn’t an elderly man, either.That slender view of a smooth, creamy complexion from between the doors flashed through her mind.
“Thank you,” Murasaki said. “I’m truly sorry, Ms. Tanabe. It won’t happen again.”
“I sincerely hope you’re right,” Ms. Tanabe replied, her stiff demeanor returning.
For her own sake, Murasaki hoped she was, too.
Chapter 7
Haruki
Her scent was everywhere.
There she is again, that same maid.As if he didn’t know her name.
Mukai Murasaki.
While the landowner behind the screen—a man in his prime, as mortals went, in western dress and with a little mustache so over groomed Haruki wondered what the point was of having it—tried to wheedle his way toward permission to raze the forest’s edge, Haruki rolled her name around in his mind like a river smooths a pebble.
She smelled faintly of camphor. She was close, just on the other side of the wall there—yet completely out of his reach.
He could never taint her with his touch. Hewouldnever. Even if she asked.
