The Unexpected Wife

by Caroline Warfield

  Zambak bit back a laugh, her cheek between her teeth, before answering. “I fear my father’s sister has some rather strong opinions about the education of young women. My Latin is excellent, my Greek merely passible, and I have three other languages not counting my attempts to master Cantonese.” She ticked history, geography, and philosophy off on her fingers.

  They stare at her as if she were some sort of exotic creature—which she certainly is. At least they see it. The Elliots and their ilk never will.

  “Lin Zexu. What do you know of his past?” Zambak asked, turning the subject. Charles listened to her lead them through everything they knew about the man and the workings of the court. In short order, he had to request pen and paper to record the answers.

  “A scholar?” she asked.

  “The normal route up the bureaucracy in China,” Peters told her. It had become clear quickly that of the three he was the expert. “To succeed in government, a man has to prove he deeply understands the writings of Confucius, that he can write and speak well, and that he is a man of culture.”

  “Does military experience matter?” she asked, tapping her left fingers as she sorted through the information. Charles had little need to engage in the questioning. She did it for him, leaving him free to absorb the answers and observe the men around the table. God’s teeth, but she is magnificent!

  “Military’s more difficult to say,” Oliver replied.

  Peters shrugged. “Hard to know how big a part it plays in a man’s career. Some. The ruling class took control by military force two hundred years ago, but they haven’t been tested since.”

  “What else do we know about the commissioner and opium?” she asked.

  Bradshaw laughed ruefully. “They say that, as Governor of Huguang, he managed to rid the province of opium.”

  “Interesting. Where is Huguang?” Zambak asked.

  “North,” he answered, “One province north I think.”

  “Not on the coast,” she murmured. “Do we know how he did it?”

  The three of them looked at one another. “We’ve heard nothing, except that he uses threat of punishment.”

  “That alone wouldn’t work.”

  “You sound sure of that,” Charles said, curious but less skeptical than Oliver.

  “You’ve seen Thorn. He won’t give up the poison easily. Threats aren’t enough.”

  Peters nodded. “Yes. She’s correct. The poor wretches chained to opium sell everything, betray everything, and risk everything for more of it. Threats aren’t enough.”

  Zambak frowned deeply at the doctor’s description. She must wonder what Thorn would betray—or what he already had. “Which leaves us wondering how he did it,” she said.

  “I suspect we’ll find out soon enough,” Oliver replied.

  “True. He won’t hesitate now. I would like to meet this man,” she said.

  All four men shifted in their seats. Charles took breath to forbid it but knew better. She would likely have no opportunity, and if she did, he would have difficulty stopping her.

  “Never fear, gentlemen,” she said with a sigh. “As much as I loathe the restrictions, I will not put Zion’s Quarter in danger. I’ll remain your one act of rebellion.” She stood then, and they scrambled to their feet. “I will leave you gentlemen to your port.” She paused, peered at the missionaries, and wrinkled up her nose. “Or whatever after-dinner treat you indulge in. I best get back to my patient.”

  “I’ll check in on you later,” Peters said.

  When the others sat back down, Charles took his leave, stuffed his notes in his coat, and hurried after her.

  She glanced over at his approach. “Did you get most of it down?”

  “Yes. Invaluable intelligence. I’ll transcribe it.”

  “Add it to the journal along with your observations about Whampao and Jarratt. You do still have it, don’t you? I meant you to hand carry it.”

  “Of course. The journal is yours, though.”

  She stopped and turned to him. “What happened to ‘ours’?” she asked.

  Charles felt his heart skip a beat. “Ours,” he repeated. “Partners?”

  “Separate reports would be foolish at this point, don’t you think?” She said over her shoulder as she turned a corner, forcing him to follow her downstairs. “Though, of course you’ll have to summarize for your formal report to Her Majesty.”

  “We have to summarize.”

  She gave him a rueful smile. “Victoria doesn’t actually approve of independent women. Ironic, isn’t it? The journal goes to my father. You will leave Thorn out, of course.”

  “Zambak, one thing. I can’t leave here now, not with the current developments.”

  “What of Julia?” she asked.

  Julia. Ever the fly in my ointment. “I provided for her until we can return to London.”

  “Will she stay out of trouble?”

  “Possibly. We have an agreement.” Probably not. She probably already has a lover. She may have savaged Zambak’s reputation. He studied the woman in front of him, realizing how little this proud young woman cared about that. Zambak herself has given them all plenty of fuel for that fire. “If she hasn’t kept it, I can’t do anything about the situation until we get to Macao and survey the damage,” he said in answer to her question.

  They had reached the door to Thorn’s room, and loud cries met them. Zambak lifted her chin in the “duchess” manner he knew so well. “We’re in agreement. In any case, I have to see Thorn through the worst of this, and he can’t be moved. We stay in Canton for now.”

  The dread he saw in her eyes made him long to protect her from what she faced behind that door but knew she wouldn’t welcome it. She faced what she had to with valor. He watched her go about her business, torn between relief that she would remain inside the compound where he could protect her and an overwhelming urge to get her and her brother on the first ship leaving China before war exploded around them.

  Chapter 22

  The nightmares began that night. At least, the screaming did. She found Thorn on his cot backed up into the corner of the wall, a blanket over his head, screaming. When she tried to pull the blanket away, he knocked her to the floor shouting, “Help!”

  She scooted away to press her back to the door, unable to stop shaking. No one came to her aid, and it seemed an eternity before Thorn returned to his corner, rocking back and forth and mewling like an injured animal. Terror gave way to shame—she let her younger brother terrify her.

  She felt her shoulders relax. “It’s me, Thorn. Zambak. You are going to be well.” She pitched her voice to its most calm, stripping it of the fear he’d engendered. He didn’t respond. Several heartbeats passed, and she said the words again. The crying out ceased, but he remained huddled, knees to chin, in the corner. For a brief moment, he reminded her of the blond little boy who slept on his cot in the nursery. Though only two years older, she used to slip out from under the covers to check on him when he had eaten too many sweets and gone to bed with a bellyache.

  She tried again after a half hour. “Zamb?” he whispered, voice quivering. “You have to help me.”

  She went to him then. When she sat on the bed, he latched on to her as a drowning man might grab his rescuer to pull them both under. “They’re keeping me prisoner, Zamb. I want to go . . .” Her heart heard “home,” but she suspected he meant some place else.

  “You need to stay until you are well, Thorn. You will feel better, I promise.”

  “But I hurt so badly!”

  “Let me fetch some water.” She extricated herself from his grip.

  “No,” he roared. “I need my laudanum. You know I need it. You know.”

  “It’s destroying you, Thorn.”

  “You don’t know how badly it hurts. I h
urt, and you lecture. You don’t understand.”

  She struggled to formulate soft words, some platitude to calm him, but couldn’t.

  “You hate me. You’ve always hated me. Jealous, aren’t you? You want me dead.”

  Dead is what he will be if he won’t help himself. The family mausoleum on their father’s estate came to her mind. It struck her that the grave would be larger than the little room they struggled in. She sank to the floor and dropped her head, holding it with both hands, horrified by her thoughts. You brought him here to save him, not to let him destroy himself.

  He rocked back and forth before spewing more poison. “You’re just a woman. Women are only good for one thing.” He spelled out the last statement in words so degrading her stomach tried to rebel. When he pushed up from the cot and started toward her, she scrambled away, reaching for the key in her pocket, but he fell back down, fisting his hair in both hands and yowling horribly.

  “Lady Zambak, are you well?” Dr. Peters asked through the door.

  Heart pounding, she opened to admit him. “I think so. My brother had a nightmare. He . . .” She meant to say he was better but knew it for a lie. Her shoulders sank. “I don’t know what to do,” she admitted.

  “Let’s walk,” the physician suggested. “Come, my lord, let’s see if we can make you feel better.”

  “Won’t work,” Thorn mumbled, but he didn’t fight them. Peters led him to the hall. He and Zambak took turns walking him up and down, pushing him when he would stop, and pulling him forward when he stopped to holler. After what might have been an hour—she couldn’t tell—she helped him into a clean shirt and rubbed lotion on to arms covered with scratches from his frantic itching. Thorn collapsed on his cot, rolled toward the wall, and fell into fitful sleep.

  “You’ve done what you can, my lady,” Peters whispered. “Save your strength for tomorrow.” He locked the room behind them.

  “Thank you. I was at my wit’s end.”

  “Try reading tomorrow,” the physician suggested.

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “Poetry might help.” Peters smiled ruefully. “Like music, they say it hath charms that soothe a savage breast,” he quoted. “My wife uses it with unruly children.”

  “Congreve.” She smiled. “Where might I find his poetry in Canton?”

  “You didn’t know? Dan keeps a library on the upper floor next to his office. He will happily give you access.”

  “Thank you. It may not help Thorn, but it will calm my nerves while I sit with him.”

  “All to the good, my lady, all to the good.”

  Zambak sat in the sun on the upper terrace late in the afternoon, tipped her head back, and let the sun warm her face. She wished poetry might heal her heart. A book of Wordsworth’s poems lay unread in her lap.

  The sickness Temperance warned her about had set in early that morning. She cleaned the first mess herself, and the second as well, before asking for help. As Thorn’s stomach rebelled in every direction, the day had been interminable. She grabbed at Peter’s emphatic order she take time to clean up and rest, leaving her heaving brother to the kindness of strangers.

  “Zambak?” Charles’s voice, close by, felt like a caress. She opened her eyes to see him kneeling at her side and smiled. “A friendly face,” she murmured.

  He touched her cheek with a tenderness that sent echoing tremors deep inside, and she longed to fall into his embrace. She knew that would be a bad idea, but she no longer remembered why.

  “Is it horrible?” he asked. “Peters told me he sent you here.”

  “As bad as you can imagine,” she replied, sitting upright and forcing him to pull his hand back. “Do you need me?”

  He paused at the question. “Yes,” he answered at last, “I believe I do.” Their eyes caught for a moment, but Charles looked away and pulled a chair next to hers. “I need the resources of that analytical engine in your head.”

  ~ ~ ~

  He had her attention, to his great relief. Anything to take her mind off the sickroom.

  “The commissioner issued four edicts. You were entirely right about his probable actions. At least we now have some idea what worked in the provinces, how he undoubtedly expects to fix the problem here.”

  “Four?”

  “He appears to be a systematic thinker. The first edict requires teachers to eradicate opium smoking among their students. He expects them to organize students into groups of five for mutual support and, one supposes, supervision.”

  “Yes. Save the young first,” she said deep in thought. “I assume punishment will occur for those who fail?”

  “That’s the interesting thing. Those addicted to smoking are given eighteen months to free themselves from it.” Her bleak expression told him more than anything else had how things went with Thorn.

  “What are the other three?” she asked.

  “The second was addressed to the “gentlemen, soldiers, merchants, and peasants” of Canton and its province. He’s trying to shame them and appeal to honor and patriotism. He tells them the situation is not hopeless. He seems to believe that even someone dependent for many years can free themselves from the need for opium.”

  “And again, they have time to correct their lives?”

  “To remove the poison from their bodies, yes. The third edict attacks sailors on the coastal patrol boats, accusing them of collaboration and corruption as well as smoking opium themselves. There appears to be less mercy for them.”

  She nodded, obviously in agreement with the commissioner on the third point. “He’s attacking corruption on all levels. What is the fourth?”

  “It is similar to the one for schools. He addresses the rural villages, demanding of the elders what he ordered for the teachers. Households are to be grouped in fives as well.”

  Zambak’s brows drew together, and her left hand moved in a familiar gesture. “That’s all?”

  “For now.” He could almost see the machinery in her mind working, measuring each word, arranging and rearranging facts.

  “Nothing about foreigners?” she asked after a while.

  “Not yet.”

  She nodded. “It will come. You’re correct. He is systematic and thorough. I would add determined. He means to attack the problem on every level. The traders have come up against a formidable enemy. Do you think Elliot is up for it?”

  He held her level gaze. “Do you?”

  She didn’t answer. They both knew it to be unlikely. They sat in companionable silence for several minutes. He wished he might know her thoughts.

  His own centered on the woman in front of him, not where they ought—on his commission. Fate had dropped them there at a crucial moment. He turned his responsibilities over and over his mind. He tried to convince himself that he had fulfilled and exceeded expectations with the providential opportunity to judge the new commissioner and Chinese intentions now that he knew about the edicts. It ought to be enough to reinvigorate his career—once the scandal of divorce died down—if he managed to avoid bringing even greater scandal home from China.

  Unconvincing line of thought. Too much more intelligence lies waiting to be gathered, and Zambak must know it as well. He still believed any future he could envision that included her was hopeless, but her respect had come to mean the world to him.

  Zambak, lost in her own thoughts, seemed unaware how closely he studied her. Her strong profile and the gentle slope of her neck held him fixated until she shook her head to clear it. “Thorn needs me. I can’t abandon him now, even if he hates me for the rest of his life. If what you say is true, Doctor Peters may need my assistance as well. The users will seek help where it can be found. Zion’s Quarter will be overrun with people trying to free themselves from opium.”

  He stood with her. “They aren’t your co
ncern.” Her weariness worried him.

  “Aren’t they?” she asked, thumb worrying her middle finger. “There’s more at stake here than my need to impress my father, isn’t there?” Her eyes when she raised them to his had strength beneath the sorrow.

  “Stay a moment, Zambak, if you will. I have decisions to make. I could use your ideas.”

  Chapter 23

  Bundled against the late winter wind, Charles set out the next morning toward the British consulate and the offices of the Superintendent of Trade with a long, determined stride. The most brilliant diplomatic mind in Canton, held prisoner by her gender in the American factory at Zion’s Quarter, agreed he ought to approach Elliot before he carried out the plan she called “audacious, but correct.”

  The foreign quarter consisted of the factories with their offices, living quarters, and warehouses abutting one another in an unbroken line, a fortress of commerce, each roof flying the flag of its country and often the banner of a trading company. Their rear faced the city proper, but they fronted along a wide parade ground that separated the factories from their ships anchored in the Pearl River. The open ground gave the young men plenty of room for exercise and a release from the pressures of business. The flower boats bobbing in the water around the foreign ships served a similar, though less virtuous, purpose.

  He crossed the entire length quickly. Before he could do anything, he wanted to speak to the superintendent; circumstances frustrated his plans, and he cursed himself for not acting sooner.

  “Superintendent Elliot did indeed stop in Canton, Your Grace,” Elliot’s useless deputy told him. “He left soon after to patrol for gunboats and return to Macao.”

  “I presume he has been informed of the high commissioner’s edicts,” Charles said.

  “Yes, Your Grace. We sent word as soon as we heard. The dispatch will reach him when he arrives in Macao.”