Mary Putney - The China Bride

"Ah. Sorry to hear that." Gavin pulled out a cigar and struck a light. "When Wrexham is gone, you'll be too busy as an earl to roam the far corners of the globe."

"The world is a smaller place than it used to be. Ships are faster, and the unknown is being mapped and explored. I've been saving China for last. After this visit, I'll be ready to go home."

"Why is China last?"

Kyle thought back to the day he'd discovered China. "When I was fourteen, I wandered into a curio shop in London and found a folio of Chinese drawings and watercolors. Lord knows how it made its way there. Cost me six months' allowance. The pictures fascinated me. It was like looking into a different world. That was when I decided I must travel to the East."

"You're fortunate that you've been able to fulfill your dream." There was a hint of bleakness in Gavin's voice.

Kyle wondered what the other man's dreams were, but didn't ask. Dreams were a private affair. "The ultimate dream may be out of my reach. Have you ever heard of the Temple of Hoshan?"

"I saw a drawing once. About a hundred miles west of Canton, I think?"

"That's the one. Is there any chance of visiting it? "

"Out of the question." Gavin drew on his cigar, the tip flaring in the darkness. "The Chinese are dead serious about keeping Europeans quarantined in the Settlement. You won't even be allowed within the city walls of Canton, much less permitted to travel into the countryside."

Kyle knew about the Settlement, a narrow strip of warehouses between the Canton waterfront and the city walls. He'd also been told about the infamous Eight Regulations that were designed to keep foreigners in line. Still, in his experience, men with money and determination could usually find a way around the rules. "Maybe crossing the right palms with silver would give me the chance to travel inland."

"You wouldn't get a mile before you were arrested. You're a Fan-qui , a foreign devil. You'd stand out like an elephant in Edinburgh." The Scottish burr that lingered from Gavin's childhood strengthened. "Ye'd end up rotting in some prefect's dungeon as a spy."

"No doubt you're right." Nonetheless, Kyle intended to investigate further during his stay in Canton. For twenty years the Temple of Hoshan had lived in his imagination, an image of peace and unearthly beauty. If there was a way to visit, he'd find it.

In dawn light, a Chinese garden was a mysterious, otherworldly place of twisted trees and living rock. Silent and shadowless, Troth Mei-Lian Montgomery moved through the familiar precincts like a ghost. This was her favorite time of the day, when she could almost believe that she was within the walls of her father's home in Macao.

This morning she would perform her chi exercises by the pond. The mirrorlike water reflected graceful reeds and the arch of the bamboo footbridge. She became still, imagining chi energy flowing up through her feet from the earth. Muscle by muscle she relaxed, trying to become one with nature, to be as unself-conscious as the delicate water lilies and the gleaming golden fish that flickered silently below.

Not that she often achieved such a state of grace. Grace itself was a word that came from the foreign-devil part of her, which stubbornly refused to disappear.

She felt herself tensing, so she moved into the first slow steps of a tai chi form. Precise but relaxed, balanced yet alert. After so many years, the pattern of movements was second nature to her, and it induced a sense of peace.

When she was small, her father would sometimes enter the garden with his morning tea to watch her practice the routines. When she finished, he'd laugh and say that when he took her home to Scotland she'd be the belle of the assemblies, able to outdance all the Scottish lassies. She would smile and imagine herself dressed as a Fan-qui lady, entering a ballroom on her father's arm. She was particularly pleased when he said that her height would not be unusual in Scotland. Instead of looming over all of the Chinese women and half the men, as she did in Macao, she would be average.

Average. Like everyone else. Such a simple, impossible goal.

Then Hugh Montgomery had died in a taaî-fung , one of the devil storms that periodically roared in from the ocean, destroying everything in its path. Troth Montgomery had also died that day, leaving Mei-Lian, a Chinese girl child of tainted blood and no worth. Only in the privacy of her mind was she still Troth.

She began a wing chun routine that required quick footwork and simulated strikes. There were many forms of kung fu, fighting arts, and she'd been trained in the version called wing chun . The exercises were vigorous, and she always practiced them after warming up with the gentler tai chi. She'd almost finished her routine when a cool voice said, "Good morning, Jin Kang."

She stiffened at the approach of her master. Chen-qua was chief among the merchants' guild called the Cohong, a man of great power and influence. He had been the agent who handled her father's goods, and it was he who had taken her in when she was orphaned. For that, she owed him gratitude and obedience.

Nonetheless, she resented that he always called her Jin Kang, the male name he'd given her when he first set her to spy upon the Europeans. Though she was ugly, too tall, and with huge unbound feet and the coarse features of her mixed blood, she was still a woman. But not to Chenqua, or to anyone in his household. To them she was known as Jin Kang, a freakish creature neither male nor female.

Suppressing her resentment, she bowed. "Good morning, Uncle."

He was dressed in a simple cotton tunic and trousers like hers, so he had come to practice two-person kung fu exercises with her. He lifted his arms into position to begin formalized sparring.

She pressed the backs of her arms and hands against his in the posture known as sticking hands. His skin was smooth and dry, and she felt the power of his chi energy pulsing between them. Though he was over sixty, he was taller than she, strong and very fit. One of her uses to him was that she was the only person in his household capable of giving him a good kung fu workout.

Slowly he circled his arms in the air. She maintained contact, sensing the flow of his chi so she could anticipate his movements. His pace quickened, becoming more difficult to follow. To a casual observer, they would have looked like partners in some obscure dance.

Chenqua attempted a sudden strike, but was unable to elude her blocking wrist. While he was off balance from the failed blow, she countered by lashing out with the heel of her hand. He deflected her punch so that it only clipped his shoulder. Once more their hands came together in a pattern of motions that looked formal and graceful, but concealed dynamic tension. Like two wary wolves, they tested each other.

"I have a new task for you, Jin Kang."

"Yes, Uncle?" She made herself relax so that she felt rooted into the earth, impossible to knock from her feet.

"A new partner will be coming to Gavin Elliott's trading firm, a man called Maxwell. You must take special care with him."

Troth's stomach tightened. "Elliott is a civil man. Why should his partner be difficult?"

"Elliott is from the Beautiful Country. This Maxwell is English, and they are always more trouble than the other Fan-qui . Worse, he is a lord and surely arrogant. Such men are dangerous." He tried again to break through her guard, without success.

She was fighting well today. Buoyed by the exercise, Troth made a request she had been considering for years: "Uncle, may I be released from spying? I… I do not like the pretense."

His dark brows arched. "There is no harm in it. Since I and the other Cohong merchants are responsible for everything the foreign devils do, it is necessary for our safety to know their plans. They are unruly children, capable of causing trouble far beyond their comprehension. They must be watched and controlled."