Once she helped him with the necessary information he needed to stop that threat, he would be done with her. She was a means to an end, a pleasure to his body and nothing more.
Casting a final glance over his shoulder to her window, Katsu slipped into the night and put thoughts of her behind him where they belonged.
* * * * *
Katsu strode swiftly until he’d put some distance between himself and the bridge leading from the foreign settlement. He paused to relieve his bladder in one of the roadside urns buried at intervals along the Tokaido.
Hannah-chan’s sweet scent still clung to him, but he tilted his head back and took a long deep breath of the cool night air to clear his senses. It was foolish to torture himself this way, more foolish to feel anything at all for a woman who could never fit into his world, his life.
After straightening his clothing, he finally lit the rice paper lantern he’d left at the base of the tree outside Hannah’s window earlier. The lantern flame highlighted the distinctive crest of his domain inked upon the ivory paper.
Rounding a bend in the road, he glimpsed a pale light signaling another traveler. The light disappeared then reappeared in quick succession as if the person up ahead were using their wide sleeve to cover their own lantern at intervals as some type of signal. The other traveler turned slightly as another man approached him from the stand of trees across the way. Katsu caught a glimpse of their lantern’s crest. Was it one of his men come to look for him? Damn his impulsiveness for making him seek out Hannah. He wouldn’t be pressed for an explanation by an underling, but if need be, he would claim he had been trying to speak with the local magistrate on clan business.
“Oi! You from Minowa han?” Katsu called, walking toward them. He’d taken only a few steps when the first man dropped his lantern, drew his sword, and ran the second man through.
Katsu had drawn his own sword by the time the samurai ahead shook the blood from his blade, resheathed his sword, then turned toward Katsu, the man’s face briefly illuminated in the light from the dying flame of the lantern which ignited when dropped.
“Masato?”
“How observant.”
Katsu resheathed his weapon then retrieved his lantern, which had extinguished itself but not caught fire when it hit the ground. He relit it then approached his friend. He crouched down to look at the dead man. One sword, undrawn. A peasant samurai, a masterless ronin from the look of him. “What happened here?” Katsu asked as he stood
“Kiri sute gomen,” Masato said sharply as if daring him to argue the right of their class to cut down anyone of lesser rank who failed to show the proper respect due a samurai of their stature.
“Fine. I’ll walk back with you to inform the authorities.”
The fury in Masato’s dark eyes blazed in the glow of the lantern. “He’s a piece of garbage. Let him be found in the morning.”
Katsu could only stare as his lifelong friend strode away. With a glance to the dead man, Katsu followed, his pace quick, until he caught up to Masato. “We’ll tell them up at the next guardhouse, then.”
“You can tell them what you wish. I’ve cleaned my hands of it.” With that, Masato stepped off the road and followed a path through the trees.
Katsu stared into the darkness after the glow from Masato’s lantern was swallowed by the night. He began walking again, unable to make sense of his friend’s behavior. When he reached the small structure where the road guards were stationed, he told them he’d come across the dead man’s body on his way back to Kanagawa. “The magistrate knows where to reach me should he have any questions, though I know nothing more than what I’ve told you.”
By the time he encountered Masato again at the inn in Kanagawa, Katsu’s frustration with his friend had formed an angry knot in the pit of his stomach. He grabbed Masato’s shoulder and spun him around. “Why are you behaving this way? What did that man do to you? Who was he?”
Masato’s shove sent Katsu stumbling back into the side of the building just outside their room. “I told you all you need to know, but your inquisitiveness makes me wonder what you’ve been up to tonight.”
Katsu met his friend’s fierce gaze with one of his own. “I was restless. I walked.”
Snorting a derisive laugh, Masato stepped in closer, the hilt of his long sword prodding Katsu’s abdomen. “Fucked is more like it. Her smell is all over you. It makes me want to vomit.” He sneered then turned toward the sliding door.
Katsu grabbed him and landed a punch that sent the shorter man flying off the engawa. Twisting his body to right his balance, Masato landed on one knee. He sprung up, launched himself at Katsu. They crashed through the paper paneled door to their room.
Masato landed a punch that blurred Katsu’s vision, but he struck back, landing a kick that sent his friend sprawling atop the folded futons and blankets across the room. “What demon has gotten into you?” he demanded as Masato picked himself up and advanced once more.
“You’re the one who needs to answer that question.” Masato drew his tanto as he advanced. “Perhaps I should cut the monster from your soul.”
Katsu stood, shifting his weight into a defensive stance. “This isn’t like you. What happened on the road tonight?”
“I told you,” Masato said flatly, using the dagger in his hand to gesture. “The man insulted my honor. For that, he was punished.” He stepped closer, his gaze locked with Katsu’s. “But you, my friend, dishonor your people, your rank, most of all yourself.”
He pressed the blade to the base of Katsu’s throat. “It doesn’t have to be this way.” Masato’s voice dropped to a whisper as he put the tiniest bit of pressure to the blade, enough to draw blood. “It can be the way it’s been since we were young, the way it should always be…” He lowered his hand, leaned in, his tongue snaking out as if to lap the tiny wound.
Katsu swung his right arm upward, his iron fan connecting solidly with Masato’s jaw. He threw his weight forward and toppled with Masato to the floor. Straddling his friend, Katsu stared long and hard into those dark eyes so familiar, yet suddenly so cold, so strange to him. “I know my place in the world, and I know hers. You have nothing more to say on the matter.”
“Good.”
Without warning, Masato seized him by the shoulders and pulled him down for a crushing kiss. Memories of Hannah-chan’s soft, sweet lips tried to intrude, but Katsu wouldn’t allow it. He gripped the sides of Masato’s face and kissed him back fiercely, invaded the other man’s mouth with his tongue.
“Yessss,” Masato sighed when Katsu’s kisses traveled to his neck. “This is what you need.”
Yes, he did need it. He needed to remind himself of who and what he was. There was no point in wanting something so wrong, someone who could never fit into his life or his world. Katsu sat up, still straddling his lover’s waist, and let Masato undo the knot of ties fastening his hakama in place. His swords tumbled to the tatami, the lacquered sheathes clacking together.
Katsu closed his eyes and forced himself to concentrate on the rough groping of Masato’s callused fingers. He was relieved when his body responded and he began to grow hard within his tightly wrapped loincloth. Masato bucked his hips and pushed Katsu off him to deal with his own constrictive clothing.
Focusing on his lover’s jutting erection, Katsu undid his fundoshi, stroked himself to full hardness, then let Masato take the initiative. He concentrated on the feel of his friend’s rough hands stroking him, kneading his balls, probing the cleft between his legs. He followed suit when Masato shifted, turning onto his side, his head now facing Katsu’s feet. He got back into the rhythm of touching and sucking, and Katsu did likewise, teasing the other samurai’s cock with lips and tongue, lapping up the salty drop of fluid beading on the head of his shaft.
Masato came not long after they started and Katsu wished he could as well, but his body, though aroused by the other man’s actions, had a will of its own. He was still hard after Masato emptied into his mouth and he wasn
’t sure what to feel when the other man pulled away and rummaged through their belongings until he retrieved a stoppered jar of camellia oil they used to polish their katanas.
“It’s as it has always been with us,” Masato said as he tipped the bottle over his palm. A tiny stream of oil puddled there. He crouched down and rubbed it along the length of Katsu’s cock before pressing his slick fingers into his own puckered hole. “Fuck me, Katsuhiro. Hard,” he half begged in a rough tone.
Needing to lose himself in this moment, Katsu pushed his friend, toppling him over and turning him onto his side. Stretching out behind Masato, Katsu lifted Masato’s leg and plunged his cock into his friend’s tight hole. He closed his eyes and let Masato’s satisfied grunts fill his ears as he thrust hard and deep, taking his lover’s body with the same abandon they’d exhibited in their youth.
The sex of those early days had been fast and rough, a way to work off the tension and frustration accumulated from hours in the dojo where the older students showed them no mercy and delivered blows meant to injure or kill.
Masato shivered beneath him, his inner muscles contracting as pleasure shot through him once again, and yet Katsu remained unfulfilled. He pulled his rigid cock free, grabbed his kimono from the floor and headed for the inn’s bathhouse.
Chapter Ten
The sun hadn’t quite come up when Hannah began to wake. She turned on her narrow bed, still flushed inside from Sanada-san’s, no, Katsuhiro’s lovemaking. And he had made love to her. It definitely went beyond a toss in the sheets in her mind.
She rubbed the sleep from her eyes with one hand and reached out with the other, but of course he wasn’t there. Maybe it weren’t nothin’ but a little roll for him after all.
She pulled the blanket up over her head and told herself to stop acting like a silly little git, or worse yet, like so many of the women she’d known back home. Hating their miserable lots in life, they believed the fanciful tales of the swells who plied them with gin and bought them for a night. Even Mitsu here in Edo kept dreaming how that old gent of hers would take her home for good someday.
Taking a deep breath to fortify herself, Hannah threw off the covers and sat up. There weren’t no use in being some sad little thing and pining away for what she couldn’t have. What she did have was a wonderful memory, and even if Katsuhiro’s feelings didn’t go much beyond those hours, well, it didn’t take away from what they’d shared and that was a lot more than some people had.
Right. First order of business was to wash these bed linens, clean herself up, and set to making old Grabby his breakfast. Second order of business was to get to the marketplace and while she was buying stuff for the house she’d need to see if she couldn’t get herself some of the herbs they used at the house back in Edo to take care of any little complications arising from business.
Hannah smoothed her hand across the front of rumpled nightgown. Any babies Katsuhiro fathered were sure to be beautiful, but a girl had to be practical, now didn’t she? Steeling her resolve once more, Hannah took out some fresh clothing and a little cake of soap she’d bought in the marketplace and got started on her day.
Grayson was waiting right outside her door and gave her such a start that she nearly drenched herself with the leftover wash water she was toting out.
“Good morning, Hannah. Sleep well?”
Oh God, he didn’t know, did he? He hadn’t come in and heard them, had he? “Erm, yeah. You?”
His smile was a sly one that said he knew something. “That I did,” he said, straightening a small framed picture. “Good drink and pleasant company tends to relax a man.”
“I wouldn’t quite know about that,” Hannah said, trying to step around him to get to the stairs. He shifted just enough so that she’d have to brush against him to pass. She stopped. “Now where’s my manners gone, eh? You’re the master of the house; you go first. So sorry ‘bout that.”
“No need to apologize,” he said reaching out to cup her elbow and coax her forward. “Things aren’t nearly as formal between servants and employers where I come from.”
Hannah contained the urge to dump the water on him to cool the heat he surely had flowing between his legs. “I’ll try to keep that in mind,” she said as she walked past, letting him have his little thrill this time.
She expected him to hover around as she made his breakfast, but he didn’t and that was fine with her. It surprised her a little that he wasn’t waiting in the dining room or the small parlor. She moved through the parlor to the door at the back of the room that led to a study. She knocked once. “You in there, Mr. Grayson?” She gave the knob a turn. The door was locked, so she knocked again. “Breakfast is done.”
“I’ll be there in a minute!”
“I can bring it to ya if you’re busy.”
“I’ll be out in a minute!”
“All right. All right. Sorry.”
As she entered the kitchen to plate his food a flash of blue caught her eye and she peered out the window just as something darted behind the bed linens she’d washed and hung up to dry. You’re seeing things now, Hannah.
Grayson looked more than a little flustered and decidedly more rumpled when he came into the dining room.
“You all right, sir?”
“I’m fine,” he snapped.
Hannah poured his coffee. “If you say so, sir. When you’re done I’m going to head off to the market to get a few things for dinner and whatnot.”
“Fine, fine,” Grayson said. He toyed with the eggs and shifted uncomfortably in his chair.
“You sure you’re all right, then?”
“Yes!”
“Sorry,” Hannah said, making a quick exit back to the kitchen. She had her own breakfast then headed off to the market. There was a hint of rain in the air, and she hoped those heavy clouds forming out across the bay would stay there until she was done and her laundry had time to dry.
As she walked to her first destination, Hannah wistfully hoped to see Katsuhiro milling about with the other Japanese, knowing all the while what a daft wish it was.
She ran into Yoriko, the daughter of the meat shop owner, who told Hannah she still hadn’t succeeded in getting her father to move those skinned monkeys from the front of the shop, but that she would keep trying. She also asked when Hannah could begin tutoring her again.
“I s’ppose we can start soon. I’ll have to check with ol’ Grayson, but I imagine he won’t give me a bother. I’ll stop ‘round the back of the shop and let you know.”
The girl giggled at Hannah’s continued reluctance to cross paths with the skinned monkeys her father displayed, then took her leave.
Hannah was leaving the stall that sold fresh herbs when she noticed the group of older Japanese women up ahead pause and bow their heads in deference. Hannah’s heart caught in her throat a moment when a fierce looking samurai turned the corner, but it wasn’t Katsuhiro. It was that friend of his Sato-san.
She gave him a curt nod, but didn’t bow deeply at the waist as the other women had. He scowled at her then jerked his head away and went about his business.
Strange thing was that his business seemed to be taking place near the other shops Hannah visited. Of course it might not be so strange after all. Katsuhiro’s cryptic note did say his people would be here and over in Kanagawa should she ever “need assistance.”
Halfway home, Hannah decided that she might as well get that assistance. She turned around and retraced her path, trying to catch sight of Sato-san to find out exactly what it was they wanted her to look for instead of playing this pussyfoot little game of needle in a haystack.
Oh, for cryin’ out loud. They would all look alike from the back with their hair all pulled up into them topknots. It was easy enough to eliminate the non samurai, even with the same kind of hair. Now what the hell had he been wearing? Something gray, no it had been blue.
Well, hell, it would be her luck that he’d gone elsewhere, probably back to Kanagawa. Hannah glanced up at the
sky. She wouldn’t make it there and back before those clouds came in. She took one more walk about the marketplace then headed home, taking the back ways to get there quicker.
The clatter of the Japan Gazette’s printing press rang in her ears as she passed behind the building and almost covered the angry men’s voices that echoed from around a little storehouse situated between the news office and the meat shop. Scrunching against the side of the storehouse, Hannah peeked around the building.
What the hell?
It was her employer, Grayson, and he was having some serious words with Katsuhiro’s friend, Sato.
Chapter Eleven
“This has nothing to do with business, and you know it!” Grayson shouted. Sato-san tried to brush past him, but Grayson grabbed the samurai’s right sleeve.
Hannah sucked in her breath when Sato-san wrenched his arm free and went for his short sword. Impulsively, she banged herself against the building, cried out, and fell to her knees, dropping her parcels as if she’d tripped. Cursing quietly as if angry with herself, she looked around the building as she retrieved her belongings. The samurai was gone, but Grayson was still there, looking even more flustered than he had earlier.
“Look at the clumsy thing I am today.” Hannah reached for the last parcel and stood. “Fancy me trying to take a shortcut and ending up on my arse.” She laughed. “You lookin’ for me, sir? I was just on my way home to take in the washing before the rain comes. It looks like quite the storm is brewing, don’t you think?”
Grayson raked his hand through his hair. “Get home and do what I’m paying you for,” he ordered before stalking around to the front of the buildings.
Hannah brushed the dirt from her skirts and watched Grayson disappear around the adjacent building. She’d get back to work, all right, and work at figuring out exactly what he was up to.
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