Mary Putney - The China Bride

Dominic froze, the color draining from his face. "No. He can't be dead."

"I wish it weren't so." Her voice unsteady despite the months she'd lived with the knowledge, she described Kyle's death in short, flat sentences.

When she was finished, Dominic buried his face in shaking hands. "I knew something was wrong," he whispered. " But I always thought that if he was dead, I would know it."

She bit her lip. "I'm sorry, so sorry. His last request was that I come to tell you what happened."

He raised his head, expression haggard. "Forgive me. This must be even more difficult for you than for me."

"I knew Kyle only a few weeks." Though those weeks had changed her forever. "You knew him your whole life."

Dominic's mouth twisted. "I suppose there is no point in comparing pain."

He got to his feet, his gaze blind. "If you need anything, just tug on the bellpull and someone will come." He started to say more, then shook his head. "For… forgive me."

He left the room, moving as though he had been struck a mortal blow. Intuitively Troth knew he was going to his wife, the only one whose comfort might help after such catastrophic news.

Duty discharged, she rolled over and buried herself in the pillows, surrendering to sobs she had suppressed for too long.

« ^ »

Canton, China

February 1832

Kyle blinked when he entered the high-ceilinged dining room of the English Factory, as the East India Company hong was known. Hundreds of wax candles blazed from chandeliers and in the massive candelabra that marched down the center of the long, gleaming table. "You were serious about this being an excuse to get out the silver," he murmured under his breath to Gavin Elliott. "This would make the castle of an English duke look positively informal."

Gavin chuckled. "You'd know that better than I."

Kyle noticed a crowd of Chinese dressed in plain dark garb at the far end of the room. "Surely so many servants aren't needed."

"It's traditional to have one standing behind each chair. I asked Jin Kang to take care of you. If you have any questions about customs or protocol, he'll answer them."

Jin might have answers, but Kyle thought it best to avoid asking the questions. He was still uneasy about his reaction to the young man.

"Lord Maxwell, let me officially welcome you to the English Factory." A solid, balding man emerged from a group to offer his hand: William Boynton, head of the East India Company in Canton. As host, Boynton took him around the room for more introductions. Kyle cast a wistful glance out the window at the river before settling himself to doing his duty. The first lesson he'd learned from his father had been that with rank came responsibilities. Boring ones.

"Try to keep Maxwell out of trouble, Jin," Gavin had instructed Troth before the banquet. "The man has too much curiosity and not enough fear."

She'd noticed that herself-Maxwell was trouble waiting to happen. As the Fan-qui seated themselves at the long table, she studied them. Some were wise, shrewd merchants like her father; others were indolent bigots who'd become rich from the trading system, yet despised the country and people that created such wealth. She knew them all-yet none of them really knew her.

She took her position behind Lord Maxwell, who had the place of honor at Boynton's right hand. He saw her approach and gave her a nod of recognition. In his eyes she saw curiosity and wariness similar to what she herself felt. It was some comfort that he was also disquieted.

What was it about Maxwell that affected her so? He was not the tallest man here, nor the most richly dressed, and perhaps not even the most handsome, since Gavin Elliott was present. Yet Maxwell had a compelling presence and an air of authority that eclipsed even Boynton, who as taipan of the East India Company was the most powerful Fan-qui trader in Canton.

During the long meal, weighted down by slabs of animal flesh and steamed puddings and other heavy English food, Troth had ample opportunity to memorize the back of Maxwell's head. Absurdly, she enjoyed studying the faint wave in his thick brown hair, the promise of power in his broad shoulders. And again and again, she remembered that strange pulse of awareness when she'd thoughtlessly taken his hand to show him how to hold a brush. Having little to do but stand behind a chair left the mind prey to strange fancies.

The dinner had plodded into the final phase of port and Philippine cigars when the conversation took a disquieting turn. It started with casual, rather drunken complaints about the Eight Regulations, which restricted the activities of the European traders. Troth scarcely listened. She'd heard it all before.

Then Caleb Logan, a Scot who'd once been her father's junior partner, said, "You should be working with a British firm, Maxwell, not an upstart American trading company." Though his tone was joking, there was an edge to his words.

"The Company needs some competition," Maxwell said amiably. "Besides, I like Elliott's philosophy."

"Philosophy?" Logan grinned. "Making as much money as possible is the philosophy we all follow."

Maxwell didn't reply, but a drunken Englishman, Colwell, did. "By philosophy, do you mean the fact that Elliott House doesn't deal in opium?"

Maxwell hesitated. "I'll admit that I prefer not to traffic in illegal goods."

"We aren't all lucky enough to have dead beavers and dirty roots to ship."

"American firms are fortunate to have furs and ginseng, but perhaps Britain should follow their example and look for new products to sell," Maxwell suggested. "The opium trade isn't popular back home. Many people feel that smuggling in contraband tarnishes us as a nation."

"What would our righteous countrymen say if they no longer had their tea?" Logan said dryly. "No opium, no tea. We offered other goods, but the mandarins turned up their noses at Europe 's best."

"We took pride in the fact that Napoleon called Britain a nation of shopkeepers, but no divine law says that China must trade with us," Maxwell said with equal dryness. "The government is behaving responsibly in trying to keep opium out of the country."

"Trade is the lifeblood of the world. The Chinese merchants know that even if their government doesn't. There are plenty of eager opium buyers, and that's what keeps the trade in balance." Like most of the China merchants, Logan considered the opium trade in terms of business, not morality. Having seen the evil that opium addiction could do, Troth was less pragmatic. Luckily, her father had not traded in opium, though he'd have made more money if he had.

Maxwell swirled the port in his glass. Troth sensed that he was uncomfortable with the topic, but he wouldn't back down. "That's been true in the past, but times change. The East India Company is probably going to lose its monopoly in the next year or two, so there will be more merchants competing here. It's also possible that Parliament will forbid British citizens to participate in the opium trade."

Heavy silence fell across the dining room until Logan said coolly, "Are you a Parliamentary spy who will run back to London and try to put us out of business?"

"I have no desire to put anyone out of business. Britain needs your skills, your experience, and your tea. I'm just suggesting that you consider diversifying."

"There's no need. This whole heathenish trading system is going to fall apart soon," the drunken Englishman said. "It exists only because the mandarins are afraid to let their people see us, because we're greater gentlemen than they are. So they say we're barbarians, and keep us penned up here. They're the barbarians."

Boynton, the British taipan, intervened. "Such talk is not fitting. We are guests in their country, and every one of us has profited handsomely by the trading system."