Party in Peking

by Margaret Pemberton

  ‘If they were Christians, back to their villages. If not, they may have joined forces with the Boxers.’

  Olivia’s eyes widened in disbelief. ‘They wouldn’t do that! The Hoggett-Smythes’ servants have been with them for years and are devoted to them!’

  His face was grim as he began to fling open the door of first one empty stall and then another. ‘When the Boxers reach Peking, I think you may be surprised at just how quickly their ranks are swelled by Chinese “ devoted” to Europeans,’ he said dryly.

  She stared at him. He had been born in China; brought up in China. He had married a Chinese girl and had chosen to devote his life working among the Chinese. Yet he spoke of them as if he hated them.

  ‘Do you not like the Chinese?’ she asked incredulously.

  He opened the door of the last stall and stared down at her, raising a dark eyebrow. ‘Do you?’ he asked, a note of surprise in his voice.

  ‘Yes,’ she said, uncomfortably aware of his nearness in the darkness.

  ‘Even after the Boxers did their best to massacre your family?’ His gaze was disturbingly intense.

  ‘All Chinese are not Boxers, and I do not believe that all Chinese are sympathetic to them.’

  His eyes were appraising. ‘Perhaps you are right,’ he said, and for the first time she saw something approaching a smile touch his lips. ‘But when news of what has taken place reaches Peking, I doubt if many of your friends and family will be in agreement with you.’

  He swung open the door of the last stall and a short, sturdy Mongol pony regarded them indifferently.

  ‘You’re not quite what I had hoped for,’ Lewis said to it as he led the pony from the stall and searched for a bit and bridle.

  ‘Will he be strong enough to carry Lady Glencarty?’ Olivia asked doubtfully, stroking the pony’s soft muzzle.

  Lewis grinned, his white teeth flashing in the darkness. ‘Ponies like this are accustomed to heavy loads, Miss Harland.’

  ‘But not quite such illustrious loads,’ Olivia murmured mischievously.

  The amusement in his eyes deepened. ‘ No,’ he agreed, ‘and I doubt if the lady in question is going to be very impressed with her mount.’

  They began to walk back along the soft, dry track and as the trees began to thin, revealing the expanse of the plain, she said, suddenly shy, ‘I haven’t thanked you yet for saving my life.’

  He felt a ripple run through him, a tensing of his muscles and then he shrugged dismissively and she knew that the lean, dark face was once more harsh and abrasive. Perhaps he had not wanted to be reminded of that hideous moment when he had ridden to her aid. She wondered how many other men would have done so. Phillippe, of course. But she could not imagine many other gentlemen riding full pelt and single-handed into a ferocious Boxer attack.

  Lewis continued to march along the track in silence. He had saved Olivia Harland, her aunt and her uncle and the obnoxious Lady Glencarty, but he had not been able to save his own wife. The burden of that failure weighed so heavily on him that he could scarcely breathe.

  He was overcome with hatred for the country he had always loved so passionately. His knuckles whitened. He would make a new life for himself elsewhere. But where? England, with its neat fields and polite society gave him claustrophobia. He had never wanted to be anywhere else but China. It was China that needed him; China that was in his blood, and China that had betrayed him.

  ‘What,’ said Lady Glencarty, as they emerged from the trees, ‘is that?’ Her glare was directed at the pony.

  ‘It was the only mount that we could find,’ Lewis said tersely.

  ‘It’s a Mongol pony and very strong,’ Olivia said, patting it affectionately.

  ‘And am I to ride it?’ Lady Glencarty asked, regarding it resentfully.

  ‘Oh please do, Clarissa,’ Letitia Harland said, eyeing the pony apprehensively. ‘Although it is small, it looks quite fierce and I do not think that I would like to ride it at all.’

  Lady Glencarty glowered at her friend and Lewis said dispassionately, ‘You will have to make some alteration to your skirt in order to mount.’

  Lady Glencarty clenched her teeth and then, accepting defeat, bent down and with a strength born of fury ripped the seam of her skirt wide, mounting the pony with as much dignity as she could muster.

  Surprisingly, Olivia did not feel tired as she resumed the journey, walking at Lewis Sinclair’s side. Her aunt and Lady Glencarty swayed ponderously behind him on their respective mounts and her uncle brought up the rear, walking with a briskness he was far from feeling.

  ‘How far is it to the main highway south?’ she asked Lewis as the great plain stretched out before them, vast and parched and silent. There had been no rain all spring. No corn had been sown. No fields tilled. In some parts of the country the drought had lasted two years.

  ‘A mile, perhaps less,’ Lewis replied. ‘If you listen, you will be able to hear the rumble of carts.’

  She stood still for a moment, listening intently. Very faintly she could hear the unmistakable clatter of Peking carts trundling over the dry earth.

  ‘Could it be Boxers?’ she asked with a sudden surge of fear.

  He shook his head. ‘I don’t think so. Boxers would be travelling on horseback and at a much quicker pace.’

  ‘Then who is it? Chinese seldom travel at night. Why should so many people be on the road?’

  In the moonlight, his handsome face hardened and contracted. ‘Refugees,’ he said tersely. ‘Converts fleeing south.’

  The noise grew slowly louder and gradually a long line of figures could be seen trudging southwards. Only a lucky few were in carts, the pale, frightened faces of their occupants peering out over the high wooden sides. Donkeys and mules staggered by under mountainous loads. Women carried babies on their backs. Children walked wearily.

  ‘Where have all these people come from?’ Letitia Harland asked bewilderedly as the narrow track they had been following merged into the great confluence south.

  No one answered her. Lewis was talking earnestly to an aged Chinaman with a stout birch staff, and Olivia was watching him, her face anxious. When at last the old man raised his hand in farewell, she hurried to Lewis’s side, her heart sinking when she saw the sombre expression on his face.

  ‘Are they fleeing from the Boxers?’ she asked urgently as they were jostled by the crush.

  He nodded. ‘ They are from Shanfu. The town has several missions and a large hospital and most of the community is Christian.

  Somewhere in the mêlée behind them a baby began to cry.

  ‘And have they all left?’ she asked incredulously.

  ‘All those that can walk,’ Lewis said, and at the tone of his voice horror touched her spine. There would have been patients in the hospital. Women and children. She swayed slightly and he looked across at her, his eyes darkening in concern.

  She had had a long and hideous day, and had walked uncomplainingly over rough terrain for the last four miles. He knew that she must be tired, but she showed no signs of it.

  She was not very tall: five foot two or three, and with her dark hair hanging loose and her Parisian coutured day dress exchanged for garments of coarse linen she looked more Chinese than European. He could smell the cleanness of her hair, see the delicate outline of her cheekbones and jaw, and was aware of a deep protective feeling that he had never expected to feel again. A feeling that he had thought had died with Pearl Moon. The realization filled him with deep disquiet. He glanced away from her quickly, and as he did so, Lady Glencarty’s strident voice rang out.

  ‘Doctor Sinclair, kindly inform the peasant in front of us that we are in need of his cart.’

  The peasant in question, wearily pushing a cart carrying a woman and child, looked around apprehensively, and then increased his pace.

  ‘For goodness’ sake, stop him,’ Lady Glencarty shrieked at Lewis. ‘I refuse to ride this wretched animal any longer. Demand that he gives us his cart!’

&n
bsp; ‘And let his wife and child walk?’ Lewis asked witheringly.

  ‘Peasants are accustomed to walking,’ Lady Glencarty snapped, goading her pony in the peasant’s direction and leaning forward to seize his shoulder.

  The peasant howled in outrage and twisted away, nearly unseating her.

  ‘Stop, this minute!’ Lady Glencarty shouted, her eyes flashing, her bosom heaving.

  The intimidated peasant did as he was told. Lady Glencarty victoriously clambered down from her mount and marched across to the cart. As she did so, Lewis strode past Olivia and seized Lady Glencarty, whipping her round to face him, his fury making even Sir William flinch.

  ‘You’ll not commandeer this cart, or any other cart!’ he hissed between clenched teeth. ‘ Now get back on the pony or walk!’

  Lady Glencarty tried to wrench her wrist away, and failed. ‘How dare you speak to me in such a manner!’ she demanded, but her voice had lost its authority and was nervously high-pitched. ‘I demand an apology at once. Sir William! Insist that he apologize to me.’

  Sir William said stiffly, ‘Doctor Sinclair is quite right. The cart could not accommodate us all. Our party would be dangerously divided and the woman and child do not look as if they have the strength to walk.’

  ‘But there are other carts! Lots of carts!’ Lady Glencarty persisted as the peasant, sensing a reprieve, set off again at a desperate trot.

  ‘And they are not ours,’ Sir William said with austere finality. ‘I have not sunk so low as to evict women and children from their only means of transport. Remount your pony, Clarissa, and let us continue.’

  Lady Glencarty glared venomously at him and snapped her hand from Lewis’s grasp, marching back towards her pony. When she had remounted, she dug her heels savagely into the pony’s flanks and the pony, annoyed at the maltreatment and his unaccustomed load, snorted in protest and sprang forward, knocking Olivia to the ground.

  She fell heavily, hitting the bare earth with such force that for a second she couldn’t breathe. Dimly she heard Lewis Sinclair utter a savage expletive and then he was kneeling beside her, his hands on her shoulders, saying with startling depth of feeling, ‘Are you hurt?’

  She shook her head and he raised her forward, holding her against his chest. There was the same faint aroma of cologne that she had been aware of when her head had rested on his jacket; an indefinable smell of maleness that sent a pulse beating wildly in her throat. Not even Phillippe had held her so close and so intimately. Her cheeks flushed and she tried to pull away from him, but he held her easily.

  ‘Stay still,’ he said, his voice catching and deepening. ‘ You’re bleeding.’

  Holding her so close that her hair brushed his cheek, he pressed a handkerchief against her temple. She began to tremble and then he said, ‘It’s not deep. Only a graze.’

  Her hair had fallen around her shoulders in wild disarray, black and silky. He felt it brush his hands and wrist and once again, he felt as if he were holding Pearl Moon. Pearl Moon, with her sweetness and gentleness and eager, pleasing body.

  In an agony of grief and longing, he sank his fingers into her shoulders, pressing his mouth against her hair.

  She tried to cry out in protest but no sound came. She was seized by a feeling so deep, so primaeval, that it robbed her of coherent thought. She wanted to press herself closer and closer to him, wind her arms around his neck, feel his lips on her cheek, her mouth, her breasts.

  ‘Is she badly hurt?’ she heard her uncle ask, and it was as if his voice came from another life, another world.

  ‘Olivia! Oh my dear child!’ Her aunt was dismounting clumsily.

  The arms around her froze into rigidity. Olivia. Not Pearl Moon. Olivia: a girl he barely knew. He released her with such suddenness that she gasped out loud. There was no longer any heat in his eyes, no tenderness in his voice.

  ‘We must hurry if we are to reach the city by morning,’ he said tersely, turning away from her as her uncle helped her unsteadily to her feet.

  Dazedly she pressed his handkerchief against her temple, staring after him, her heart slamming against her breastbone, the blood pounding in her ears.

  Chapter Three

  ‘Olivia, my dear, are you all right?’ her aunt was asking solicitously, brushing the dust from the Chinese garment with a net-gloved hand.

  ‘Yes thank you, Aunt Letitia,’ Olivia replied, her voice unsteady, a pulse beating wildly in her throat.

  ‘Perhaps you should ride Doctor Sinclair’s horse for a little while,’ Letitia Harland suggested gallantly.

  ‘No thank you, Aunt Letitia, that won’t be necessary.’

  Her emotions were in such turmoil that she couldn’t separate one from another. How long had he held her close against his chest? She shook her head, trying to think clearly. It had seemed like an eternity, but it could have been no more than a few seconds. A minute at the most. And in that moment her whole body had flamed with such a shameless desire that it had shaken her to the roots of her being. His lips had sought her hair, and his fingers had burned her flesh, and she had not pulled away. Had not even cried out in protest.

  She stood alone as her uncle helped her aunt to remount, her cheeks burning with shame. How could she have behaved so? She had displayed a wantonness that she had never even suspected lay within her nature. Had her aunt and uncle been aware of her disgraceful response to Lewis Sinclair’s embrace? An ice-cold flood replaced the heat of her mortification. If they had, she would not be able to bear it.

  Her uncle looked across at her, his eyes full of concern. ‘Are you able to walk, Olivia?’

  ‘Yes.’ Relief flooded through her. There was no censure in his eyes. No disappointment. ‘ I am not hurt, Uncle William. I only grazed myself.’

  ‘And got quite a fright,’ William Harland said grimly. ‘I only hope Clarissa has come to no harm, but if she has, she has only herself to blame. Our situation is difficult enough without such displays of petulant temper.’

  ‘Where is Clarissa, William?’ his wife asked, once more nervously astride Lewis Sinclair’s powerful stallion.

  ‘A little ahead of us. It’s too dark for me to see clearly, but the pony didn’t gallop far and now Sinclair is holding the reins.

  ‘Doctor Sinclair will be very angry with her,’ Letitia said, with a little shiver.

  ‘And quite rightly,’ William Harland said without sympathy. ‘Olivia could have been badly hurt. Even killed.’

  They began to walk forward once more, hemmed in on either side by trudging peasants, their bundles of belongings on their backs. Olivia tilted her head a fraction higher as they neared the bulky shape of Lady Glencarty and the fractious Mongol pony. Every line of Lewis Sinclair’s lithe body was taut with anger, and Lady Glencarty was looking distinctly cowed.

  ‘I did not intend… It was an accident…’ she was saying pathetically, as he vented his wrath on her, the whipcord muscles bulging under the linen of his shirt.

  Olivia halted a little distance away as her uncle went up and spoke quietly to him. She never wanted to see him again. He had changed her in a way she had not thought possible. How nearly she had circled his neck with her arms! The very thought made her want to drown in a sea of humiliation.

  Had he known? Had he guessed? He had turned and was looking directly at her.

  She kept her gaze firmly fixed on the ground, shame and longing fighting for supremacy. At last, after what seemed an eternity, she was aware that his eyes were no longer upon her and she slowly lifted her head. He was talking to her uncle. Though she tried to look away, she could not do so until she had noticed how straight and tall he stood; how snugly his breeches fitted about his narrow hips, how his shirt, gashed open at the throat, revealed a chest wide and deep. How the black hair tumbling low over his brows had taken on a blue sheen.

  He moved away, not looking at her, striding on ahead of them. She felt suddenly weak, as if only now was she experiencing the effect of being hurled so violently to the ground.
/>
  ‘Doctor Sinclair says that the Boxers are sheltering in Shanfu ten miles to the north. If we want to make Peking by daybreak, we must increase our speed,’ her uncle said to her apologetically.

  She nodded, her eyes darkening with concern. Her uncle was no longer a fit man. There were beads of perspiration on his brow, and she wondered apprehensively for how much longer he would be able to keep pace with frighteningly agile Lewis Sinclair.

  Lady Glencarty offered gruff apologies and managed to keep the unhappy pony under a measure of control. Behind her, William Harland marched stoically at the side of his mounted wife, Olivia walked a little apart from them, struggling to get her emotions in order.

  The shame that she had initially felt had intensified and deepened. She was not in love with Lewis Sinclair. She was in love with Phillippe. The engagement ring on her finger seemed to sear her flesh in reproach. She had been taken by surprise. Shocked by her fall. And he had taken ungentlemanly advantage of the fact.

  Her shame began to be coupled with anger. He had pressed her indecently close to him. Had taken unforgivable liberties, and all within sight of her aunt and uncle! Her anger blazed white hot. What might he have done if they had not been there? He was a libertine and a lecher. She stumbled as another realization hit her with breathtaking impact.

  He was a married libertine and lecher! She began to shake. He had left his wife, probably in the deadliest of danger, and in his absence from her had had the effrontery to hold another woman in indecent closeness against him and press his lips feveredly to her hair! And to think that she, Olivia Harland, had viewed him as a romantic hero who had forsaken all for love. Why, Dr Lewis Sinclair did not even know the meaning of the word!

  With her head held high she marched in his wake. He had saved her life and she had thanked him for it. She owed him nothing more. Her friendliness towards him had obviously been grossly misunderstood. From now on she would be cool and impersonal, and do her best to ignore him.