The China Bride

by Mary Jo Putney

  Singing crickets? Amused, Kyle asked, “Where is your master’s shop?”

  “Just up here, sir!” The boy bowed again, then trotted down the alley, glancing over his shoulder to ensure that Kyle was following. Most of the businesses they passed were closed, but he saw a lantern illuminating an alcove ahead where minuscule cages hung from nails driven into the wall. As he approached the tiny shop, the shrilling of insects pierced the noise of Hog Lane.

  Listening to the crickets, he didn’t hear footfalls behind him, but a swift-moving shadow triggered an instinctive sidestep. He spun around just in time to avoid a swinging club. “Bloody hell!”

  Three Chinese men moved in behind him, and three more were coming from the far end of the alley. The boy had vanished, his job done. Swearing, Kyle charged at the men who blocked his retreat. If he could reach the drunken European sailors two blocks away in Hog Lane, they’d happily help him fight off robbers.

  Weight and speed nearly broke him free before another club smashed across his left side and shoulder. He staggered and almost fell, his side going numb.

  Since he carried little money and no valuables, it might be wiser to toss his purse and run, but surrender was against his nature. He grabbed the nearest man and flung him into his two companions.

  The attackers from the end of the alley closed in, their grim determination visible even in the darkness. Damnation, they meant to kill him! Retreating until his back was against a wall, Kyle shouted for help in the faint hope that his voice would carry above the clamor of Hog Lane.

  He used every vicious trick learned in fighting pirates, bandits, and thieves to keep the attackers at bay. But there were six of them, and he’d been damned fool enough to come without his pistol.

  Thanking God for the knife in his boot, he whipped the weapon out and stabbed his nearest attacker. The man fell back, dark blood flowing over his hand. A menacing growl came from the others when they saw their victim was armed. Two of them pulled knives of their own.

  Another club struck a glancing blow to his skull. He fell to the ground, stunned, blackness closing in on him. Kicks crashed into his ribs and belly as he helplessly watched a flashing blade raised to strike. Dizzily he thought that it was a hell of a way to die, in a “safe” city just before he was to return home. Dominic would be stuck with the earldom after all.

  A blood-freezing shout sliced through the air. An instant later, a dark-clad figure cannoned into the attackers. Moving with balletic grace and unbelievable speed, the newcomer kicked one man in the crotch, chopped the throat of another with the side of his hand, and slammed the heel of his hand into the nose of a third. All three of the toughs collapsed, crying out with agony.

  The gang turned on this new threat, but were unable to come to grips with the man, who was elusive as a shadow and fierce as a raging tiger. Sliding away from clutching hands and swinging clubs, he kicked a drawn knife, sending it spinning into the darkness, then dropped another man into a crumpled, moaning heap with another throat chop.

  Two of the thugs tried to pin the dark-clad stranger against the wall. Leaping into the air, the man somersaulted over the back of one assailant as if they were acrobats practicing a routine.

  Seeing the flash of a knife, Kyle shouted a warning and tried to struggle to his feet to help, but the effort was too much. Pain seared through him and he collapsed into darkness.

  Giving thanks that none of the attackers were trained in kung fu, Troth used one man’s own momentum to slam him into a wall. He fell to the ground and didn’t rise again. The two still standing fled into the night.

  Not wasting a glance at them, she dropped down beside Maxwell, her heart pounding. His shout had drawn her to the alley, and he’d still been fighting strongly when she arrived. Gods willing, he wasn’t mortally hurt.

  Pulse strong, skull not crushed, little blood. He should survive. But what to do? They couldn’t linger here—three of the men she’d brought down were groaning and making feeble efforts to rise, and the ones who’d run might return with reinforcements.

  Help in moving Maxwell was readily available in Hog Lane, but then word of this attack on a European would become public knowledge, with catastrophic results for Chenqua, since the Cohong merchants were considered responsible for everything their Fan-qui clients did. The attempted murder would bring a huge fine down on Chenqua, possibly even imprisonment. His wealth and power had made him many enemies.

  She must get Maxwell back to the hong without anyone realizing what had happened. Elliott would cooperate in keeping this quiet—it was in his best interest that Chenqua not be punished.

  She found Maxwell’s knife where he’d dropped it and slid it back into the clever sheath concealed in his boot. Then she shook his shoulder. “Get up! We must go now.”

  He groaned, but didn’t move. She shook him again, harder, but he was too deeply unconscious to respond.

  A fragment of conversation she’d heard between Maxwell and Elliott floated back to her: Maxwell had said that he’d had a Scottish nurse when he was a boy. Perhaps an authoritative voice that sounded like one from his childhood would affect him in a way that her whispery, Chinese-accented English didn’t.

  Speaking with her father’s accent, she snapped, “Get up, ye damned lazy fool! Do ye want your gizzard sliced to ribbons?”

  It worked. Feebly he attempted to rise. She dragged him upright, needing all the strength she’d developed in her years of wing chun training.

  “I’m taking you home now, laddie.” Pulling one of his arms over her shoulders, she guided him toward the end of the alley. Thirteen Factories Street would be quiet at this hour, and with luck, anyone seeing her would think her companion merely drunk.

  Maxwell was weaving, but he managed to stay upright. As they moved into Thirteen Factories Street, he said in a gasp, “You can’t be…a Scotswoman. No European females…closer than Macao.”

  “I’m no Scotswoman. Your wits are wandering.” She prayed he’d remember none of this later.

  She was drenched with sweat by the time they reached Elliott’s hong. Maxwell was heavy, and she was barely able to keep them both from falling to the street.

  Disguising her voice, she spoke in Chinese to the porter in the gatehouse. “Your Fan-qui has no head for samshu.”

  The porter laughed as he opened the door. “Need help, boy?”

  “And share the tip he gave me to get him home? No, thank you!” She moved inside. With Maxwell draped over her like a shawl, the porter probably wouldn’t recognize her, and she knew how to slip out later without being seen.

  She was tempted to lay Maxwell out in a quiet corner of the warehouse, but it would be better to take him to his bedroom even though it meant climbing two flights of stairs. Luckily she knew the hong well enough to find her way in near darkness. When they reached the back stairs, she used her Scottish voice again. “Steps. Climb.”

  He was starting to recover and used the narrow iron railing to haul himself upward. With her as a human crutch they managed, though twice they almost lost their balance and pitched down the steep staircase.

  Panting, she finally got him to his bedroom door. “Do ye have the key, laddie?”

  Maxwell fumbled toward an inner pocket. She reached into his coat with her free hand and pulled out the key, then opened the door.

  Inside the room, she steered him to the bed and dumped him unceremoniously. She would have loved to fall onto the mattress to recuperate, but the sooner she escaped, the less likely he was to remember her involvement. Being seen to fight off six gang members would draw too much attention to Chenqua’s meek clerk. She would wake Gavin Elliott and let him take charge of his trouble-prone partner.

  After lighting a lamp, she performed a more thorough examination than had been possible in the street. Maxwell would have plenty of bruises and the devil’s own headache, but there didn’t seem to be any serious damage. Already his eyes were flickering open. “You’re not so badly off, laddie. I’ll send someone to care
for you.”

  She was turning from the bed when his hand shot out and caught her wrist. Blinking to focus, he asked, “Who are you?”

  “No one you know.”

  “But I do know you. Jin Kang?” His brows drew together as he stared at her, struggling to clear his mind. Amazing eyes, intensely blue and edged in darkness.

  She tried to pull free, but his grip was surprisingly strong, and she didn’t want to risk hurting him by using too much force. She rattled off several sentences in Chinese, hoping he’d remember that rather than the English she’d used earlier.

  Before she could twist away, he reached up and pulled off her dark blue skullcap, baring her head. “My God,” he whispered. “Jin Kang is a woman.”

  Chapter 7

  She looked like a trapped fawn, her brown eyes huge and alarmed. Removing her cap revealed that she didn’t shave the front part of her head as Chinese men did. Her shining hair was dark but with subtle auburn highlights, unlike the blue-black of most Cantonese. The features that had seemed almost too pretty for a man were now so obviously female that he wanted to kick himself for his stupidity.

  And not only female, but strikingly lovely. Shaken, he released her wrist. “I’m relieved to learn that my response to you was not so odd as I thought. You’re Eurasian?”

  She nodded, watching him warily. He guessed that she wanted to bolt, but knew that it was already too late for that.

  He pushed himself to a more upright position against the pillows, gasping at the pain. “Sit down, I won’t hurt you. But if you don’t tell me who you really are, I may perish of curiosity, which would be a waste of your rescue.”

  With a tired sigh, she perched on the edge of the bed. “I am truly Jin Kang, Chenqua’s linguist. But once I was Troth Mei-Lian Montgomery.”

  That explained the crisp Scottish accent. Her natural voice was very different from the hesitant tones of Jin Kang. Listening to her made him homesick for his mother’s Highland home. “Your father was a Scottish trader?”

  “Yes. His name was Hugh Montgomery. My mother was his concubine. I was born and raised in Macao, and educated in both languages and cultures.” Unlike diffident Jin Kang, Troth Montgomery met his gaze with the directness of a Western woman.

  “Your father died?”

  “When I was twelve. My mother had died the year before. There was no money, so Chenqua took me in. He’d been my father’s agent. Since I could be of more value to him as a male, I…became one. I have been Jin Kang ever since.”

  “All the time? To everyone?”

  She nodded. “Chenqua’s household knows I am female, but there is a…a kind of tacit agreement that I am officially male. That is how I dress, and how I am treated.”

  He tried to imagine her life—denied her true nature, a product of mixed blood in a nation that despised foreigners. “So you live between worlds in more ways than one.”

  For the first time her gaze dropped, concealing her thoughts. He took the opportunity to study her more closely. The slant of her eyes was pure Chinese, exotic and lovely, but her Scottish father’s influence was in the modeling of her features, longer and more pronounced than the face of a Cantonese woman. She’d also inherited height from her father, but her build was light and graceful, more Asiatic than British.

  It was hard to tell much about her figure. The loose, high-necked Chinese garments concealed her body very effectively. Her masquerade would be much harder to carry off in Britain.

  How could that slender frame conceal such strength? Knowing she had the ability to defeat half a dozen men was both intimidating and curiously alluring. “I’ve never seen anyone fight like you. How the devil did you do it?”

  “I am skilled in kung fu, the fighting arts,” she explained. “There are many forms. I practice wing chun, which was originally developed to use female strengths and weaknesses.”

  He rubbed his throbbing head, trying to absorb the wild improbability of the young woman in front of him. Troth. A fine Scottish name, meaning truth and loyalty. “I’ve never seen anything like your wing chun. Can all Chinese do what you did?”

  “If they could, you’d be dead,” she said dryly. “Mastery of the fighting arts is rare and secret, the skills passed from teacher to disciple. My nurse in Macao was hired to be my mother’s servant and protector, and she was an expert in wing chun. She began to teach me as soon as I’d learned to walk.”

  “I didn’t know that Chinese women could be warriors.”

  “There have been some. Once there was even an army of widows. One of China’s favorite legends is about Mu-Lan, a dutiful daughter who took her father’s place in the army and served with great valor.” She rose and donned the dark cap again. Her demeanor changed, her shoulders slumping and her expression blank. “I must go now.”

  “Wait!” Not wanting to lose her so soon, he raised a hand involuntarily and was rewarded with another stab of agony for his trouble. Biting back a curse, he said, “It’s late now, but I want to talk with you again soon, Miss Montgomery.”

  “There is no Miss Montgomery. Only Jin Kang.”

  “That’s not possible, now that I know better. There is so much I can learn from you.” He gave her his best smile. “Surely there is no harm in our talking.”

  “No harm to you. For me, yes.”

  “Would Chenqua be angry that your identity is known?”

  She hesitated. “He would be most displeased, for he gave strict orders that no one in the trading community could know my true nature. Female servants are not allowed among the Fan-qui, and if the governor’s people learned of me, Chenqua would be punished, and perhaps his whole household with him. And there are…other reasons.”

  “It would be too difficult to be Jin Kang if sometimes you are Troth?”

  She frowned at him. “A Chinese would not ask such a question.”

  “But I am not Chinese, and neither are you, not entirely.” The sense of connection he felt with “Jin Kang” was stronger now. Wanting to know everything about her, he asked, “Are you content with your life?”

  Her chin lifted. “I am well treated and my master values my abilities. I consider myself fortunate.”

  “Yet your life rests on a lie, which could break underneath you at any moment,” he said, as much to himself as to her.

  Her gaze turned to ice. “Are you threatening me?”

  “Good God, no. Destroying your life would be a poor return for your saving mine. I shall tell no one your secret.”

  She relaxed a little. “Thank you. It will be easier if Chenqua does not realize how careless I have been.”

  “You were heroic, not careless.” He studied her face. “How old are you?”

  “In Western reckoning”—she calculated—“twenty-seven. Soon twenty-eight.”

  Though she looked younger, she was a woman grown, trapped in a life where she was not a woman at all. “Have you ever wished to visit your father’s land?”

  For a moment, her eyes were clouded with almost unbearable longing. Then she shook her head. “My joss binds me to China.”

  “Joss?”

  “Fate. Fortune. Joss sticks are burned to petition the gods for good luck.”

  He’d seen the smoldering sandalwood sticks and even heard the word used, but hadn’t thought to ask the meaning. “See how much I am learning already?” Carefully he sat up and leaned toward her. “Wouldn’t you like to have someone with whom you could relax and speak freely, rather than always playing a role?”

  Her mouth twisted. “The fact that I saved your life does not give you the right to question me, Lord Maxwell.”

  Realizing that he was being damnably rude, he settled back again. “I’m sorry. I’m afraid that you fascinate me.”

  “No doubt you find all freaks and monsters fascinating,” she said acidly. “Good night, my lord. Do not go alone into public places again. The men who attacked you were hired, and the person who wanted you dead may try again.”

  He frowned, realizing that he
’d almost forgotten the attack. “Why would anyone want to have me murdered?”

  “I have no idea. Perhaps an enemy of Chenqua wanted to create a situation that would cause my master great problems. Or perhaps you’ve made enemies of your own, with your too-frank tongue.”

  “It is the way of my people to be frank. I’ve said nothing in Canton to make mortal enemies.” From what Gavin had told him about the local politics, it seemed more likely that someone had wanted to injure Chenqua. The death of an English lord who was one of Chenqua’s trading partners would be a great scandal in both China and the West. “How did you learn that I was to be attacked?”

  “An informant of mine in Hog Lane heard two gang members boasting of the money they’d earn for killing you. He had the wit to come to me as I left the hong.”

  “So you are indeed a spy.”

  “I am. And you have cause to be grateful for it.”

  She walked out, her chin high, every inch a Scotswoman. He guessed that she’d be Jin Kang before she’d gone another dozen steps.

  He rubbed his aching head, thinking of the spark of attraction that had flared between them when “Jin Kang” had shown him how to hold a calligraphy brush. Never in his wildest imagination could he have believed that the shy clerk was really an incredible woman warrior who could defeat six thugs with her bare hands.

  But now that he’d met her, how could he forget her?

  Despite her fatigue, Troth reported the night’s events to Chenqua as soon as she returned to Honam Island. He received her in his private study, wearing a hastily donned robe and a stern expression. “What is so urgent that you must disturb my rest?”

  She bowed deeply. “I apologize most profoundly that such a useless creature as I has interrupted your sleep, but two hours ago there was an attempt on the life of Lord Maxwell.”

  He frowned. “Tell me.”

  She gave a succinct explanation, starting with the message from Teng and ending with her helping Maxwell back to his hong. She told everything except that the Englishman had discovered her true identity, and not only because Chenqua would be displeased. Speaking of that rare interval of honesty would destroy its magic.