He found the back garden gate, and guided her down the lane to where it met the street where the carriages waited. He spied Tong Wei standing sentry.
She touched her hair again.
“It is dark,” he said. “He will not notice.” He pulled her into an embrace and looked down at the tiny stars visible in her eyes. “Send him away. Come back to Grosvenor Square with me.”
“I cannot.”
“You mean that you will not. Why?”
She caressed his face, then slid from his embrace. “Because by summer's end I will return to my real life and my true destiny. And because you are Easterbrook.”
CHAPTER
EIGHT
Leona passed Tong Wei as she walked through the drawing room. He gazed out the window blandly, as if counting the paving stones in the street.
“What are you watching?” she asked. “You have been there an hour.”
“Just now I watched nothing. When the mind thinks, the eyes often stop truly seeing.”
“What thoughts blinded you?”
“Those of your brother, and his charge to me.”
Leona wished she had not pried. Tong Wei had been more enigmatic than normal the last few days. It was as if he had seen what transpired in the garden at Lady Pennington's ball, even though he stood with the carriages. She had sensed criticism in his silence, and hesitation in his conversation.
Perhaps she only attributed her own emotions to Tong Wei. She had been thinking a lot since that night. When alone, in this house, she knew the intimacy had been a mistake. The questions that she had about Easterbrook's actions and motives in Macao would not go away.
But when she saw him—the careful judgments did not sustain her. And she had seen him since then.
He had attended a dinner at his solicitor's home last night, one to which she also accepted an invitation. The presence of a marquess at the table had awed everyone so much that she had learned nothing at all about trade and finance, even though two men famous in those areas also were guests.
It had been a discomforting evening. Everyone knew that Easterbrook had come because of Miss Montgomery, but the honor of his presence demanded a liberal point of view. The hostess could not fawn enough, so delighted was she in her most unexpected catch. Her husband tried twice to arrange privacy for the lovers, as if he assumed that was his important guest's expectation.
Their own exchanges had been most proper, almost formal. But for the entire evening, whether in the drawing room or at dinner, whether sitting under his gaze or alone with the ladies, Leona had been aware of him. She was helpless against the stimulation he created.
If he only drew her with desire she would not be so confused. However, the attraction now contained all the memories. Those kisses in the garden had been too familiar. The soul behind them, within them, still had much of Edmund in it, hidden away. An ache of wistful yearning had lodged in her heart that night, and seeing him again made her painfully aware of its power over her.
“Before we left Macao, your brother spoke to me,” Tong Wei said. “He commanded me to ensure that you came to no harm. He told me to protect you.”
“You have done so.”
“I protect you from thieves and criminals. I do not, and cannot, protect you from yourself.”
She felt her face getting hot. “If you refer to the marquess, you do not have to concern yourself. I—”
“I do not speak of him. Your brother may want me to fight him, but I do not kill men just for taking willing women.”
“You are assuming that much more has transpired between Easterbrook and me than you have good cause to.”
Tong Wei expressed impatience as he rarely ever did. “I assume nothing. It is of no interest to me. I am not a nursemaid. I speak of your time abroad in this city when you refuse my protection. If you go to meet him, I do not care. But until you meet him, I should be with you.”
His agitation surprised her. This matter had been discussed since their first week in London and her first refusal of his company. She thought that her explanations had swayed him. Apparently they had not.
His face fell into an impassive mask, as if its recent expressiveness was cause for shame. Nonetheless he faced her squarely, his posture upright and proud. “You do not accept my company because you are doing things that you do not want me to know about. I can imagine what they are. If I am correct, then I have cause to worry for your safety, and to consider what steps I must take to fulfill my duty.”
“You are worried over nothing. I am not in danger when I go in the carriage without you.”
“Are you not?” He turned back to the window. Immobile again. Watching. “A man on a brown horse followed the carriage yesterday for a long time. Another man watches this house from a window across the street. He stands there just as I stand here. He looks at me, and I look at him. Why does he not move?”
“Why don't you move?”
“I am watching him. I have cause to. He has no cause.”
“Perhaps he simply finds you.…interesting. He may have never seen people from China before. Come away from the window now, and you will see that he will leave too.”
“No. I will let him know that I watch. I will let him see me, so he knows that Tong Wei is aware that there are those who are too interested in you and your movements.”
“Sir?”
The interruption came quietly. Christian opened his eyes.
“What are you doing here, Miller?” He had not heard Miller enter. The young man was sly that way.
“I was sent by your aunt. Your valet was too timid and no footman would take the charge either. I apologize if I have intruded on.…”
The sentence hung there, since Miller had no idea what the intrusion might be. In fact he had intruded on nothing besides memories and calculations regarding Leona. They had blocked out the world more thoroughly than any meditation, it appeared.
“What crisis has my aunt bothering me? Did a modiste add too much lace to a ball gown?”
“Rather more important than that, sir.” Miller nodded to the table beside Christian's chair. A salver rested there, bearing two cards. Christian shuffled through them.
“Lady Wallingford has been distraught ever since they arrived,” Miller said. “They said it was not a social call, and that you must see them. They would take no refreshment or accept her company, and have been waiting a half hour in the library while she sent for me.”
“All to no avail.” He let the cards fall to the floor and closed his eyes again.
Cocky young Miller was suddenly much less so. Christian opened his eyes again. His gaze settled on one of the cards on the carpet. In particular, on three of its words. East India Company.
He stood. “Hell. I will go to them.”
Miller looked at him. More specifically he looked at Christian's robe and bare feet. Annoyed that this nuisance had interfered with very pleasant memories of Leona's generous and soft breast, Christian strode to his dressing room, pulled on trousers and boots, and strode out again.
Someone had opened the library windows. Afternoon sun and a refreshing breeze flowed in. The two men sitting nearby did not appear aware of the glorious day.
Christian greeted them and took a chair at their head. He waited while Denningham smiled privately at the robe. Mr. Griffin Winterside of the East India Company blinked in surprise.
“My apologies, Lord Easterbrook,” Mr. Winterside rushed to say. “I had no idea that you were ill. Now I am appalled at myself for requesting this meeting, and for pressing the matter.”
Christian felt no need to explain himself. He allowed the apology to stand.
Denningham was more honest. “He is not ill, Winterside. My friend here does not dress unless he has an engagement. You and I do not qualify as one. He did put on boots for us, however, so we are almost important.”
“You brought Mr. Winterside here for a reason, I assume,” Christian said to Denningham. He did not care for Winterside. The man exuded wor
ry and small-mindedness. He was the sort who endlessly pondered every greeting that he received, to determine if the greeter had revealed any special sympathy.
“I did indeed. Mr. Winterside is an acquaintance of mine, and well known in the House of Lords. If you ever attended sessions except for major votes, you would already know him. He represents the Company's interests and provides us with information that we need in order to make our decisions. He executes his duties with admirable skill and tact.”
Winterside bowed his head with humility at the praise.
Christian settled back in his chair. “I think that I understand. If Parliament is a bank of heavy snow, and the East India Company is a sleigh, then Winterside here is the grease on the runners.”
Denningham chuckled. Mr. Winterside did not.
“What do you want with me?”
Winterside reached under his coat and removed a thin, soft book with a pale blue paper cover. He handed it over.
Christian examined it. “A journal. For women. Minerva's Banquet. Clever title, but a little pompous.” He flipped through the front pages. “A few poems. A report from Paris. Drawings of dresses. A pretty hat here on page fourteen.” He set the journal on his lap and looked at Denningham and Winterside, waiting for enlightenment.
“My lord, that journal is being published by your sister-in-law.” Mr. Winterside said.
“It appears to be well done, but then I would expect nothing less from Phaedra.”
Winterside wagged a finger at the journal. “If it pleases you, Lord Easterbrook, turn to page thirty-one.”
Christian obliged. On page thirty-one, Phaedra had treated her readers to a letter from a woman who had sailed the China Sea and beyond. The letter gave a concise description of Macao, then veered into political matters.
He reached the paragraphs that would interest Mr. Winterside.
For great evil lurks in the waters around China, evil that the currents of time and trade will inevitably bring to your shores. With this evil comes a form of slavery that even your Mr. Wilberforce cannot fight, because it binds with chains that I have seen only a few men break. I speak of the evil of opium.
This great curse has ensnared untold numbers of poor souls in China and India, and has spread its tentacles into England. I have seen this for myself. Some might say there is a perverse justice in this latter development. For without the complicity of the English East India Company, the trade in opium would be a mere fraction of what it is today. The negro's bonds were not the only ones forged from our fathers’ greed
He did not need to read the author's name at the bottom to know who she was.
“You can understand our concern, Lord Easterbrook,” Winterside said. “She has impugned the Company. She implies that we are responsible for the smuggling of opium into China. We are in no way—”
“Winterside, I am not ignorant of the world. Opium bought from the Company in Calcutta is in fact smuggled into China every day.”
“That is not our fault.”
“Without your sales to the smugglers, there would be no reason for you to grow all those poppies in India on the Company's land.”
Winterside bowed his head like a servant well scolded. “My apologies. Yes, let us speak frankly. The Company buys many tons of Chinese tea and pays the Chinese a huge amount of silver to do so. However, the Chinese are forbidden by their emperor's law from importing our goods in turn. The Company runs a huge trade deficit with China as a result.”
“A balance must be found, you mean,” Denningham said. “So you sell the smugglers opium. That income from the opium balances what you lay out for your tea purchases with China.”
Winterside turned red. “We sell an agricultural product in Calcutta. What is done with it—”
“As you can see, you were lured into the devil's cause, Denningham,” Christian said. “The Company is well aware of how that opium is smuggled, and the devastation it has brought to China. It is convenient, however, for everyone to pretend it is all out of our hands.”
“There are times when economic necessity requires accepting realities that one does not like,” Winterside said.
“That is what was said for generations about the slave trade,” Christian said. “I see that Miss Montgomery did not miss that analogy. I ask you again, sir, what do you want with me?”
“We thought that perhaps, as a friend of Miss Montgomery, you might persuade her to avoid this topic in the future letters that she has promised. And that, perhaps, as a relative of the publisher, you might use your influence there as well.”
“Miss Montgomery reveals no secrets here. It is a story told before. Why silence her when others have published freely?”
“There is gathering talk in Parliament about ending all the Company's special licenses. This is not a time for this fire to be fanned.”
“She writes in a ladies’ journal,” Denningham said dismissively “I think Easterbrook's point is well made, and I am regretting that I submitted to your expressions of urgency.”
“The ladies can influence matters through their husbands, through their reform activities, through their pens, and through their gossip. Better an obscure pamphlet by a vicar in Cornwall than a series of letters in a fashionable ladies’ journal.” Winterside turned to Christian again. “Will you at least speak with Miss Montgomery? We are told that you are old friends, and she may be amenable to any suggestion that you make.”
“You are assuming my suggestion would be for her to desist in any more references to the opium trade. I do not know why you would think that.”
An awkward silence ensued. A very long one.
Denningham straightened and craned his neck to see better out the window to the garden. “I say, your head gardener is down there. I think I'll slip out and speak with him. I am experimenting with a graft that is going poorly, and old Tom there is the best at that.”
“Why don't we all go? The day is fair and a turn in the garden is called for.”
They filed down to the terrace and out to the garden. Old Tom knew Denningham, and after a greeting they were deep in discussions of his graft.
Mr. Winterside took the opportunity to sidle close to Christian. “If I might have a private word, Lord Easterbrook?”
They left Denningham with the gardener and strolled down the path.
“You met Miss Montgomery in Macao, I have heard. Did you know her father?”
“I met him. It was a brief association while traveling widely some years ago. I found him a little bland and very sober, but welcome company since he was English.” Actually he had found Montgomery suspicious and calculating and sharp as a nail.
“We know about his history, of course. We license the Country Traders and maintain information on them all.”
“How resourceful of the Company.”
“His trading house met with some reversals some years ago. That is always a danger in trade. A ship goes down, a cargo catches fire—it is not for the faint of heart. Mr. Montgomery, unfortunately, was one of those men who thought his misfortune must have been planned.”
“Are you saying that he blamed the Company?”
“Not directly. He did blame the opium trade. There were some letters from him to the Company. Rash, accusatory ones. He insisted that the largest smugglers had formed a company of their own, and that the owners of that company included men of high standing here in England. He suggested that this secret company connived with ours, and that his efforts to expose the cabal had led to his persecution. Well, it was all preposterous, of course.”
“Of course.” Christian knew all about Montgomery's claims and suspicions, but he could think of no reason to inform Winterside of that.
“This first letter in Minerva's Banquet does not make that accusation, but I fear Miss Montgomery plans it for one of the next ones. She promises great revelations. Secrets. Intrigues. If she names names—” The mere thought agitated Mr. Winterside.
“Do you think that she has names to name?”
“She will publish no names without solid proof. That much I can promise you. Since it is impossible for Miss Montgomery to obtain proof, this is all much ado about nothing.”
“Impossible?”
“You called it a mad theory of a half-crazed man, Mr. Winterside. She cannot obtain proof of a conspiracy that does not exist.”
Winterside squirmed in the corner where he now found himself. “Of course not.”
“Go to your masters and reassure them that the application of logic to the problem resolves everything. The Company has nothing to fear from Miss Montgomery and her letters besides a bit of moral disgrace.”
Their stroll had brought them around to the terrace. Denningham pulled himself away from Old Tom, and he and Winterside took their leave.
Old Tom was a simple fellow, at ease with his life in this spring garden. Christian found him restful company after the jumble of high-pitched worries pouring off Winterside. He sat on a bench not far from the gardener's pruning basket and opened Minerva's Banquet again.
He reread Leona's article. He wondered what she sought to achieve with it. If she hoped to arouse opposition among the English to the opium trade, good luck to her.
But if the goal had been to flush out the men in England behind the smuggling ring that she thought had targeted her father, she may have been too successful. Because while Mr. Winterside may have come here today to grease the sleigh runners for the Company, Christian did not believe it was actually the Company that had sent him.
CHAPTER
NINE
Leona gave a cursory glance to her letter in Minerva's Banquet. Lady Phaedra had sent a copy fresh off the press, and normally Leona would have taken pride in her published words for a few minutes at least. Other matters occupied her mind however.
The Sins of Lord Easterbrook Page 10