Mary Putney - The China Bride

"Scots have always had a passion for education. My mother was one of the best-read and best-informed women I've ever known. Rather like you."

Troth dropped her gaze and petted her cat. "Is my uncle nearby?"

"He lives in a cottage just outside of Melrose with his family. Easy walking distance." Kyle swirled the wine in his glass, praying that an educated man would welcome his exotic niece even if her birth was irregular by British standards.

And if Montgomery rejected her, Kyle would… would…

He wasn't sure what he would do. But it was a pity that dueling was illegal.

« ^ »

Tense as a drum, Troth clutched her father's Bible as she and Kyle walked down the lane that led to the home of James Montgomery, schoolteacher.

"That must be the place." Kyle indicated a well-kept, larger-than-average stone cottage with whitewashed walls and a cat snoozing beside the door. He glanced at her. "The worst will soon be over."

She nodded, her mouth too dry for speech. Kyle knocked on the iron-bound door. All too quickly it was opened by a tall man who said pleasantly, "Can I be helping you?"

Troth's breath caught in her throat. Dear gods, he looked like her father! The same height and long-boned face, the same thick, reddish brown hair, now heavily salted with gray. He was a few years younger than her father, she thought.

"You're James Montgomery, brother of the late Hugh Montgomery of Macao?"

The man's bushy brows arched. "Aye."

Kyle took Troth's arm and drew her forward. "Allow me to present your niece, Troth Montgomery, who has recently arrived in Britain."

Montgomery's long jaw dropped, and there was so much shock in his gray eyes that Troth would have bolted if Kyle hadn't had a firm grip on her elbow. Then he raised his voice to a schoolteacher's boom. "Mother, Jeannie-Hugh's Troth is here!"

Seizing her hand, he pulled her into the cottage. Within seconds, two women appeared from the next room, wiping floured hands on aprons. One was an attractive redhead of middle years who must be Montgomery's wife, and the other a tall, very erect old woman with snow-white hair.

As two dogs began to bark, the white-haired woman stepped up to Troth. She must have been close to eighty, but her gaze was keen. "My Hugh's daughter," she said wonderingly. Tears appeared in her eyes. "Ye look just like him, child."

Which was such a patently foolish statement that as the old woman hugged her, Troth began to cry. "I… I didn't know I had a grandmother," she said helplessly.

She had envisioned many possible scenes, from bitter rejection to grudging acknowledgment, but never once had she thought to receive such instant, wholehearted welcome. As her grandmother guided her to an oak settle where she could cry in comfort, she heard Kyle introduce himself as Maxwell, while her uncle introduced his wife, Jean, and his mother, Mairead. James ended by saying, "We thought you'd drowned in the shipwreck with Hugh. Where have you been all these years, lass?"

"In Canton," Kyle replied, since Troth was less than coherent. "A Chinese merchant friend of her father's took her in after she was orphaned."

As Troth tried to pull herself together, one of the shaggy dogs put its paws on her knees and thrust a wet nose against her cheek. Laughing and crying at the same time, she straightened and fumbled for a handkerchief. Kyle handed her his.

After blowing her nose and blotting her eyes, she said, "I'm sorry for making such a spectacle of myself, but I… I didn't know if I'd be welcome here."

"My son's only child not welcome?" Mairead said. "What gave ye such a daft notion?"

Troth said bluntly, "Because I'm half-Chinese, and my parents weren't properly married by Scottish standards."

"Your parents were wed by Scottish custom, and even if they hadn't been, you're still my brother's girl," James replied.

"My parents were married?" Troth said, startled.

"Aye," Mairead answered. "Hugh and Li-Yin pledged their troth in the old Scottish way, just the two of them before God." Tenderly she smoothed back her granddaughter's hair.

Fascinated, Troth said, "Would that kind of marriage be legal in Macao? "

" 'Twas good enough for him, and 'tis good enough for us," Jean said placidly. "Your parents never spoke of this?"

"No, and I never thought to ask about it." Troth had presumed that Li-Yin was a concubine, a legitimate status in China. Marriage had never occurred to her.

Now that she knew her parents had sworn vows, she could understand why the subject had never been mentioned. "In Macao, many Fan-qui had Chinese concubines and mixed-blood children, but for a European to have married his mistress would have caused great scandal. One man who did that was forced out of his trading company. My father must have decided it was more discreet to keep their vows private."

He had called Li-Yin "my lady," which Troth had always found courteous and romantic. Now that she thought about it, she recognized that her father's moral code wouldn't have permitted him to live in sin, so he'd married Li-Yin in the traditional way, telling only his family back home. There was no need for the European community in Macao to know that he'd scandalously made a wife of his mistress.

"I think it's time for a wee cup of tea." Jean, who'd been in the kitchen, emerged with a tray containing a plate of shortbread and a huge steaming teapot. "Too much drama puts an edge on the appetite."

Nerves had kept Troth from eating earlier, so she welcomed the bracing tea and the heavenly shortbread, still warm from the oven. It was every bit as good as her father had said. When her appetite was appeased, she surveyed the circle of newfound relatives. "Don't you have any doubts about whether I'm who I say I am? I've got my father's Bible, if you'd like to see it."

Mairead waved away the book. "Nae need. Ye do look like him, for all the Chinese blood. Ye have his ears, and something of the shape of his face, and there's just a look of him. Hugh knew how much I longed to see my granddaughter, so he wrote of ye often. He was that proud ye were so pretty and clever, and said that with two languages ye'd be a great boon to his business." She shook her head sadly. "I asked him to bring his family home for a visit, but he wouldna separate you from your mother, and he thought the trip would be hard on her."

He'd been right-her mother would have hated taking the long sea voyage to this strange northern land, though she would have done it to please Hugh. But her father would not have forced Li-Yin to do something she disliked. Refusal to coerce a woman was a good trait in a man, one that Kyle shared.

"Now that you're here, I can hand over your father's fortune, and it's glad I am to be free of it," James said. "Since his will left everything to you and we thought you drowned, the money came to the family."

"But how can there be any money?" Troth asked, startled. "At the time he died, my father was in debt. Surely Chenqua, the merchant who took me in, wouldn't have lied when he said I was penniless!"

"Likely Mr. Chenqua didn't know about Hugh's British account," James said. "He sent most of his profits to a bank in Edinburgh, keeping only enough in Macao to buy new trading stock. That's probably all your merchant friend knew about."

"That must have been the case," Kyle agreed. "Even if Chenqua had known there was money in Britain, he'd have assumed you were penniless because Chinese women can't inherit, can they?"

Troth accepted his explanation with relief. Of course it had been that way. It was impossible to imagine Chenqua as dishonest. He'd been a merchant for forty years, never using any contract more formal than his spoken word.