My Beautiful Enemy

by Thomas, Sherry

  Some things are not meant to be, he had told her less than twenty-four hours ago.

  Did he still believe it, faced with this fateful connection?

  Had he believed it even at the moment he’d spoken those very words?

  The Sussex countryside was beautiful. Gentle rolling hills, green woods, fields blooming with bright yellow flowers, pastures dotted with content flocks of sheep.

  A neatly trimmed hedge now ran alongside the road. After a while the carriage slowed and passed through a wrought iron gate. “Here we are,” said the driver of the hansom cab Catherine had hired at the village railway station. “Starling Manor.”

  The gravel drive, lined with mature chestnut trees, meandered. The land rose and fell. They crossed two streams—or was it the same stream twice?—a small meadow, and what Catherine almost thought of as a stretch of woodland before she realized there was nothing wild about it—the trees had been carefully planted, almost equidistant, while between them ran clear paths with herbaceous borders.

  They rounded a turn and came before a lake. Two black swans glided on its smooth surface. A white gazebo grazed the edge of the water. On the far shore rose the manor, a large house dominated by a three-story central section flanked on either side by an octagonal tower. Beyond the east tower, the house ended, and the land gave way to orchards and small buildings. Beyond the west tower, the house continued, two stories, one story, at last ending in what looked to be a walled garden.

  Despite its asymmetrical shape, the entire structure had been built with the same almond-colored bricks, its numerous windows evenly spaced, their trims white and the slats of their shutters a deep, calm green. The whole house sat on a raised terrace. Peacocks—peacocks!—roamed the wide front lawn.

  He had come back for her. He had wanted to share all this with her. Catherine was completely unconvinced that she was suited to a life in an English manor, but it was the gesture that counted.

  A butler who heroically concealed his surprise at the sight of an unaccompanied female caller told her that the master of the house was out on the downs. The downs—she had once asked Master Gordon why English made so little sense; shouldn’t an area of undulating land be called the ups, if anything?

  She declined the butler’s offer to wait inside, but instead walked the grounds. Behind the house, a wide stone terrace gave way to a formal rose garden. The garden path exited under an arched gate. Beyond the gate extended an avenue of laburnums in bloom. The branches had been trained to form a leafy pergola. Long racemes of canary yellow flowers hung from the branches, like palmfuls of confetti waiting to flutter down.

  It was quiet here, the quiet of breezes and an occasional birdsong. The air smelled heart-stoppingly pure, of sun-warmed stone, clean soil, and spring subtly expanding into summer.

  She sensed him before she saw him. He appeared at the far end of the path and stopped. They gazed at each other. For a moment she felt precariously balanced: The forces that would hold them apart and the affinities that would draw them together in a perfect yet dangerous equilibrium.

  But as he began to advance, she forgot about the larger forces: He was in pain again, pain that she had caused.

  She pointed at a wooden bench. “Sit down. I will see to your limb.”

  A flare of hope lit in his eyes, before he shook his head. “It must be too late for anything to be done.”

  “It’s never too late. Sit down.”

  He did not put up more argument, but did as she ordered, grimacing only slightly.

  She felt along his leg. Her fingers recoiled. He had not been gentle on himself. This seemingly fluid walk of his was a product of brutal will. His natural chi paths had become a jumble of knots and dead ends.

  She lowered herself cross-legged to the ground, took a deep breath, and raised her hand, index finger and middle finger tight together, the other digits held down at the center of the palm. Gently, she tapped at his leg along a circuit of chi nodes.

  His sinews stiffened in resistance to the inpouring of her energy.

  “Relax,” she commanded. “Breathe deeply and don’t speak. I won’t injure you.”

  She didn’t actually know that. Chi healing was intricate and potentially dangerous. A powerful infusion at the right places could aid his own chi in reconnecting its natural paths. But one wrong move . . .

  This was not the best time or place for it. Impulse had overcome her. She had started too hastily, without adequate explanation to him. But now she also could no longer speak, for fear of breaking her concentration. Any interruption would be detrimental to them both and could even lead to permanent paralysis for him.

  Three times she quick-tapped the circuit of chi nodes, using short bursts of chi to reopen sealed pathways. Then her rhythm slowed. Her chi streamed in a steady flow, smoothing the pathways, pushing, oftentimes forcing his own chi along, guiding it into the proper pattern of circulation.

  Beads of perspiration rolled off the tip of her nose. Her chemise adhered damply to her skin. This must hurt him, like a swarm of angry bees inside his flesh. But he remained quiet and breathed as she had instructed.

  On the final round, she placed her entire palm against him, passing along torrents of her chi to fill his empty reservoirs. Exhaustion mauled her, as if she had given him half of her blood.

  When she at last finished, she had to put her hands down on the ground so that she wouldn’t topple over. Now it was he who caught her and sat her down on the bench.

  “How is your limb feeling?” she panted.

  “Much better,” he said. “Thank you.”

  “You should know that the relief is temporary.”

  For the healing to be permanent, they would need such a session daily, for fourteen—perhaps twenty-eight—consecutive days.

  “I did not expect it to be anything but,” he answered quietly.

  Since Lin’s return, she’d carried the salve and the pilules on her person, in case of injury. Now she dug out the jar of pilules and handed it to Leighton Atwood. “This was what I did not give you last time. Take one every morning and night, without fail, for seven days, and that should expel the remaining poison. Once the poison is gone, further repairs will be much easier.”

  Now she closed her eyes and moved into the beginning of a long set of breathing exercises. She must circulate and replenish her own chi—or risk severe damage to herself.

  She had no idea how long she remained in place, but when she opened her eyes, he was there, waiting for her.

  CHAPTER 15

  The Pledge

  Catherine had thought he meant to take her to the cottage he had mentioned, but instead, he led her to an outbuilding that he called a lavender house, pushed aside a straw mat on the floor, and pulled up a hidden trapdoor. The trapdoor led to a tunnel. He lit a lantern and helped her down.

  “I still don’t understand how you survived,” she said, even though her words set off detonations of afterfright. “After seven days of the salve . . .”

  “I stopped on the sixth day,” he answered calmly, his profile beautiful in the dim, swaying light.

  “Why?”

  He hesitated. “I wanted to preserve the remainder of the salve as a souvenir.”

  He’d lived because he’d loved her. She swallowed the lump in her throat. “Did you ever find your friends? I came across Mr. Madison in Kashgar, looking for you.”

  He shook his head. “I reached Rawalpindi October of that year, well after their return.”

  “I searched for you,” she said. It sounded quite inadequate, her action. But she’d sought him until she no longer dared to be abroad, with her advancing pregnancy.

  “Thank you,” he said, after a moment.

  She had no idea how to respond to that. Fortunately she didn’t need to. They had reached the end of the tunnel, where a flight of stairs led up to another trapdoor. They emerged in what looked to be a study, with dark, masculine-looking furnishings and bookshelves lining one entire wall.

 
He peered out of the door of the study, then led her down a wide, carpeted corridor to the library, two stories tall, with a wraparound gallery that was accessed via a spiral staircase.

  She studied him every step of the way, not sure whether the sensation in her chest was her heart breaking or her heart healing.

  He slid aside one of the shelves that lined the gallery, revealing another secret passage.

  “What kind of house is this?” she couldn’t help asking, even with the distraction of all the revelations of the past twenty-four hours.

  “A house built by a man who imagined he had many enemies,” he answered.

  This passage, so narrow they could only fit through sideways, gave out to a room he called the solarium. And from the solarium, it was a very short walk to the mistress’s apartment. There he drew her a bath. And when she had washed off her perspiration, she found clean clothes and a tray of tea waiting for her.

  Her Persian, she thought as she dressed, her Persian who had always looked after her as if she were a princess.

  The door opened and in walked Leighton with an armful of framed photographs, every one of them of Master Gordon, often together with a young Leighton and a man who must have been the late Mr. Atwood.

  Master Gordon with one arm around Mr. Atwood, the other around a young Leighton. Master Gordon at a picnic with his beloved. Master Gordon and Leighton seated on the same bench, their eyes closed, their features soft with contentment and relaxation.

  The photos were black-and-white, but it was easy for her to see the clear, unclouded sky, the thick foliage on the trees, and the opened collars and rolled-up sleeves on the men. She blinked back tears: This was what Master Gordon had remembered, his eternal English summer in the countryside, bright with laughter and affection.

  Leighton, who had slipped out while she was looking at the photographs, came again, this time with a number of small containers. He laid them out on the table before her.

  “I claimed the Centipede’s luggage from Southampton. That luggage I’ve had to surrender, but I kept a portion of each of the salves he carried, in case they might prove useful to you.”

  She opened the containers, which were made of a dark, smooth wood, and gingerly sniffed their contents. She was not as much of an expert in the study of poisons and their antidotes as Amah had been, but she had absorbed a good bit of knowledge. “This is a poison. This one, too, I think. My goodness, this is the one with which his palm is poisoned.”

  “Does he not need an antidote for it himself?”

  “Yes, he does. Can you bring me five glasses and a pitcher of water?”

  When he had done so, she poured water into the glasses and to each glass added a small amount of the palm poison. Immediately all the water in all the glasses turned black.

  “The correct antidote will turn the water clear,” she explained to him.

  But none of the other five salves managed to do that.

  She frowned. “Perhaps two of the salves need to be combined for the proper effect.”

  He brought more glasses and more water. He also labeled the salves and the glasses, so that they would know what combination had been put into which glass.

  Still no luck. They repeated everything, this time combining three salves together. At last, one of the combinations changed the glass of water it was dropped into a lighter color, grey instead of black.

  She experimented further and found out that three parts of one salve, two parts of another, and one part of a third turned the water perfectly clear.

  “Do you mind if I pass on the method of how to arrive at an antidote to one of the Centipede’s poisons?” he asked. “There is a child whose suffering might be relieved sooner for it.”

  “Of course I don’t mind,” she answered.

  The glass of clear water in hand, he led her out of the house via another secret tunnel, this one leading directly to the unoccupied cottage he had talked about. Behind the cottage was a stream. He caught a minnow and a tadpole and dropped them into the glass.

  “So the Centipede killed Mr. Gordon,” he said, from where he knelt by the bank of the stream.

  She sighed, reluctant to relive the memories. “I don’t think he meant to take Master Gordon’s life—Master Gordon taught him the French language. It was a heated combat and Master Gordon was trying to stop everyone. The Centipede shoved Master Gordon aside. He fell, but it wasn’t until later that we realized the fall had led to a fatal head injury.”

  Leighton was silent for a moment. “But the Centipede did mean to kill your amah.”

  “In retaliation for the death of his master.”

  “Do you know how he left China and became the Centipede?”

  She plucked a leaf from a branch overhead. “Before my journey to England, the last I had heard of him was in 1886. He was supposedly arrested and beheaded in the summer of that year. It is quite possible that someone at court decided that a man such as he, who spoke French and could pass for a European, was more useful alive than dead.”

  He swirled the water inside the glass, then looked up at her, his gaze level. “Why have you come to England?”

  While she had been in the bath, he had also washed and changed. Now he wore a suit of country tweeds, about as English as could be, and about as un-Persian. But all she saw was the man who believed in wonderful things for her.

  It was a few seconds before she realized that she was only staring at him, and not answering his question. “My stepfather is in need of funds,” she hastened to say, her cheeks warming. “He has been tasked with the revitalization of the Ch’ing navy, but little of the silver budgeted for him ever arrives—the amount of graft, corruption, and mismanagement at court is staggering. His last best hope is the treasure laid down by the Buddhist monks from long ago, and for that he needs the two jade tablets he doesn’t yet have.”

  Now it was Leighton who looked at her a little too long before he asked, “So he has the third tablet that your amah once stole?”

  “He’d had it for many years. It was from him that my amah stole the tablet. I gave it back after she died.”

  “And he is father to the stepbrother who tried to molest you?”

  “That is the tragedy of great men—theirs sons are often wanting in every aspect. And he didn’t know. He was busy and seldom home.”

  Leighton examined the water inside the glass. The tadpole and the minnow swam happily, showing no hints of succumbing to poison. “You have probably guessed by now that I have the other jade tablet that you are looking for. If you want, I will give it to you.”

  Her breath caught. The jade tablet, inherited from his father, must hold a special place in his heart. “What’s the catch?”

  “That you take it and go to your stepfather. Don’t risk your life for vengeance.” He looked down the stream, toward a small, arched stone bridge. “For years I waited for you to come and find me in India. The idea of harm befalling you, now, after everything . . .”

  She almost crushed the leaf in her hand. If only he’d asked her to give up anything else . . .

  It occurred to her that she could tell him—that maybe she should tell him—about their daughter. Then he would understand why she could not suffer Lin to live.

  But then he would also have to know the ravages of losing a child. And she did not want to expose him to that torment. Let him continue to believe that all he’d lost was her. Let him not even conceive of this other, irreversible devastation.

  “I will not flee, so don’t give me the jade tablet,” she told him. “I’ll just have to rob you blind.”

  His lips curved into something that was half grimace, half smile. He poured out the contents of the glass into the stream, then he straightened and turned to her. “Come with me.”

  He did not speak much as they walked, except to point out places around the estate that would be of interest to someone who had loved Herbert Gordon.

  My father enjoyed fishing, but Herb didn’t have that kind of patience. We u
sed to all come together, but he and I would play card games or climb trees. My father used to have to tell us to be quiet—we were too loud for the fish.

  He liked to go for an afternoon gallop when he visited. Sometimes, I would look out my window, and see him crest that knoll, the setting sun behind him.

  He had a camera with tapered bellows and he often brought it with him to Starling Manor. That was in the days before dry plates, and the wet plates that were used had to be processed immediately. So he would bring a portable darkroom as well. The two of us would go around the estate with everything on a dogcart, and I would be the one responsible for setting up and taking down the darkroom as he took pictures.

  She listened hungrily to those details of Master Gordon’s life—and his. And she was just beginning to fear he might eventually run out of places to show her when they reached the top of an incline and she found herself standing before a small, well-tended cemetery. He stopped at a slab of dark granite that read, Nigel Richard John Atwood, beloved husband and father. “This is where Mr. Gordon’s ashes are scattered. He and my father are together in death, as they could not be in life.”

  She plucked a wildflower that grew at the head of the grave and wrapped it in her handkerchief. “I’m glad he made it home. He was happiest here.”

  He lowered himself to one knee and cleared some flower petals that had fallen into the chiseled letters of his father’s name. “Where were you happiest?”

  When I was with you. “In Chinese Turkestan.”

  Her memories of the place had become dreamlike: the impossibly blue sky, the gleaming white mountains, the sometimes abrupt change from brown wasteland to lush green meadows, dotted by the nomads’ yurts and their grazing horses. Sometimes she could not believe that she had ever lived anywhere so wide-open and rugged. Sometimes she could not believe that she had ever been that fierce and untamed girl.