My Beautiful Enemy

by Thomas, Sherry

  Her failures only fueled her. It had taken him five years to exact his revenge upon her. She had plenty of time.

  Da-ren’s hand tightened around the armrest of his chair. “Bao-shun, how long did it take you to find her?”

  From behind her, Bao-shun answered, “Four and half months, Da-ren. And it took us three weeks to return to Peking.”

  Three weeks she could have used to locate Lin. But she had come—one did not refuse a direct summons from Da-ren.

  He, too, was older and grimmer. She had heard what happened to Shao-ye, his eldest son who had been the source of so much trouble to everyone: Not long after she and Da-ren had departed for Chinese Turkestan, Lin had laid waste to him, breaking every bone in his body, savaging all the tendons and ligaments. Shao-ye had been bedridden ever since. But while Da-ren had remained in Chinese Turkestan, the news had been concealed from him, for fear it would upset him too much.

  “Lin is dead,” said Da-ren. “The one who killed your child and maimed mine has been beheaded.”

  She stared at him in incomprehension. How? Lin was almost untouchable.

  “They found him in Tienjin, in a drunken stupor. The magistrate was an old subordinate of mine and had his head specially delivered to Peking.”

  Two servants brought in a basket filled with salt. She could see something black at the top: a long queue of hair.

  “See for yourself,” said Da-ren.

  She gritted her teeth and yanked out the head by the queue. The preservation in salt had come too late; the head was largely rotted. She dropped it back into the basket. “Da-ren is sure that is him?”

  Da-ren’s hand slammed down on the tea table beside him. “Do you think if that were not him, I would not keep looking?”

  Tears stung Ying-ying’s eyes. She had not wept since she buried her daughter—the search for Lin had consumed her. But now that he was dead, all the grief that had been packed away threatened to overwhelm her control.

  And what was she going to do with herself, with no child, no husband, and not even an enemy she could pursue?

  Da-ren sighed. “I have ordered your mother’s old home prepared for your use—you have been on your own for so long, I doubt you can live under someone else’s roof and someone else’s rules. Go there and take rest. When you are ready, come back and see me. I can always use someone like you.”

  She had not seen her childhood home in a dozen years—she hadn’t even known Da-ren still kept it.

  “Da-ren’s generosity I will never forget,” she answered, now down on both knees.

  Da-ren sighed again. He waved his hand, indicating that she was now to be off. She kowtowed once, rose, and walked out into a bright Peking October day.

  Into a life she did not know anymore.

  My beloved,

  I write to you from our cave. Did you know I have learned to read and write in Turkic? At times it feels like the only worthwhile thing I have done in the five years since we parted.

  The chocolate and tea I’d left for you last time are gone. My letter remained, a little trampled but largely intact—whoever took the other things had been considerate and did not use the letter to start a fire. I will leave another bar of chocolate and another packet of tea in the hope that this time it will be you who come upon them.

  I dream of you often, for which I am glad, for in my waking hours I can no longer recall every detail of your appearance. But in my dreams everything is precise and clear, as if you are right here before me, firelight glowing upon your skin.

  I still live in India and still occasionally journey to other places. Please come to Rawalpindi and ask for Arvand the gem dealer at the British garrison.

  Come find me while we are still young.

  The one who loves you, always

  P.S. I have cleaned the mural as best as I could. It is amazingly beautiful. I hope you will see it.

  CHAPTER 14

  The Connection

  England

  1891

  It wasn’t until Catherine had pulled herself together enough to go back into Mrs. Reynolds’s house that she realized Leighton Atwood had left a folded note in the palm of her kidskin-gloved hand.

  The note was composed on Mrs. Reynolds’s stationery, the handwriting hurried.

  Do not return to your flat. Proceed to 12 Royal Street in St. John’s Wood. The key is in the window box on the south side of the house.

  I repeat: Do not return to your flat.

  Catherine hesitated. Half of her wanted to return to her flat—so what if Lin found her there? Sooner or later she would meet him head-on.

  But perhaps in this case, later would be more prudent, given her injury from their last encounter. And she was curious about 12 Royal Street in St. John’s Wood.

  Half an hour later, she turned the key in the door and let herself into her temporary lair. It was a small, pleasant house, quite feminine in its decor, and it did not belong to Leighton Atwood—the estate agent’s placard still leaned against the wall just inside the door.

  The kitchen was in the basement, and several bags of provisions sat atop the worn and pitted kitchen table. One bag was filled with fruits and vegetables; another contained a loaf of bread, eggs, and what she suspected to be a meat pie; and a third held such things as cooking oil, herbs, and salt and pepper.

  The last bag had only a tin of Darjeeling tea and half a dozen bars of chocolate.

  He remembered.

  She found a kettle and a spirit lamp—the kitchen was supplied with woodchips and coal, but she didn’t feel like taking the trouble to light the cold stove. While the water heated, she inspected the rest of the house, which was furnished but empty of personal items—until she reached the bedroom upstairs.

  There she found not only toiletries but clothes—a tailor-made jacket-and-skirt set, a nightgown, petticoats, stockings—and a pair of walking boots. On the nightstand was another note, one with much neater handwriting.

  I hope you will not be reading this. But if you are, forgive me for the liberties I took in purchasing the garments: It seemed prudent to have a change on hand.

  There is food in the kitchen and some money in the nightstand drawer. I have established credit for a Mrs. Westfield at Madame Dumas’s on Regent Street, should you need more clothes.

  In case this location becomes compromised, take the train to Brighton and then the coastal line for the village of Claymore. From the village anyone will be able to direct you to Starling Manor, where there is an unoccupied cottage you can use. On the back of this note I have drawn a map of the cottage’s approximate location on the estate.

  To avoid becoming an unwitting tool for the Centipede, I will not come again to this address. If you can, telegraph me as Mrs. Westfield to let me know you are safe. After the ball I will be going down to Starling Manor for a few days, so send your cables to Claymore in Sussex County, if you would.

  Look after yourself.

  The last line on the note was written in a language she could not decipher but readily recognized: Turkic. Did he forget that she was illiterate in Turkic or had he written something he did not want her to understand?

  The kettle whistled. She returned to the kitchen, made a cup of tea, and tasted chocolate for the first time in eight years. Then she slept very, very well, in the nightgown he had bought for her.

  Have you ever seen the ocean?” he asked her.

  It was the night before he left her, but he did not know it yet. He was planning for a lifetime together.

  She shook her head and snuggled closer to him, as if she were cold.

  “There is a chain of tropical coral islands not far from the southern tip of India. And all around them the water is the exact color of the sky, and so clear you can see the fish swim. I want to take you there.”

  “Will you also take me to meet your family?”

  “Yes, of course.”

  “What if your mother does not like me?”

  “I daresay she will pretend to, just so you don
’t stab one of your daggers into her table.”

  This made her smile a little. “Do we need to live with her if she doesn’t like me?”

  “No, I have enough money to support a wife. And if I become a poorer man, well, you are a master thief, aren’t you?”

  Her smile widened. “You want to live on my criminal proceeds?”

  “Nothing would make me prouder. And I will disdain other men who aren’t clever enough to marry girls capable of robbing the neighbors blind.”

  Leighton opened his eyes in the predawn darkness. The past lived and breathed, a phantom within. Sometimes, a monster within.

  Fifteen minutes later, he was in a hansom cab, being driven in the direction of St. John’s Wood. He had managed, the night before, to return home and not leave again. But the compulsion had become too strong this morning.

  He made sure to get off the hansom cab well away from Royal Street. He made sure that he walked nearly the entirety of the district before stepping onto her street. And he made sure that he did not stop, or even slow down, as he passed her house.

  A light shone gently from behind the curtains of an upstairs window.

  He exhaled. That would have to be enough reassurance of her safety.

  For now.

  In the morning, after Catherine made sure she was not being followed, she wired a short message—Safe. Thank you.—to Leighton Atwood’s address in the country. Then, as had become her habit, she went to the poste restante office on St. Martin’s-le-Grand and asked if anything had come for her.

  “Yes, ma’am,” said the clerk, “a cable from America.”

  Mrs. Delany, at long last. Catherine yielded her place before the clerk’s window and opened the telegram.

  Dear Miss Blade,

  My apologies—I was away on a short holiday and only read your cable today. I did not know Mr. Herbert Gordon very well. But he was a great friend to both my late husband and my son, Captain Leighton Atwood. Captain Atwood is in London for the Season and I am sure he would be delighted to hear from you. His address is 15 Cambury Lane in Belgravia, the house left to him by Mr. Gordon, in fact.

  Yours,

  Anne Delany

  Catherine gripped the paper, nearly tearing it, as she read the words again and again.

  For a while, but then I ran away to find a friend, her Persian had told her once, as if he had simply ridden from one town to the next.

  And what had Master Gordon said, on the last day of his life? I cannot believe it. It is a journey of more than ten thousand miles. I cannot believe he came all this way to see me.

  How excited Master Gordon had been, at the prospect of meeting his young friend from England, how stunned and happy. He had wanted to introduce her to this boy who had traveled halfway across the world. But he had died too soon and she would not meet the boy until years later, at the edge of the Takla Makan.

  Some things are not meant to be, Leighton Atwood had said the night before.

  But if they were not meant to be, then why did the forces of destiny keep bringing them together?

  I stayed near her until she went to the cloakroom,” said Madison. “Captain Atwood volunteered to guard the garden, so she could not slip out.”

  There was a faint note of accusation in Madison’s voice.

  “She came out to the garden and spoke to me for some time,” Leighton said calmly. “But then I noticed Miss Chase observing us from inside the house. I could not very well remain in the garden with Miss Blade and lead my fiancée to suspect that there might be something untoward between us.”

  He could not be sure, however, that Annabel hadn’t seen his hand on Miss Blade’s.

  “That’s when she must have left. And that’s when I came to alert you,” said Madison to Windham.

  Windham braced his hands on the edge of his desk. “Well, the fortunate thing is that my men searching her flat were not interrupted.”

  “That is fortunate indeed,” said Leighton. “Did you find anything interesting among her belongings?”

  “Nothing at all, I’m afraid, unless one considers two pairs of metal chopsticks to be of interest.”

  Leighton exhaled. So she had heeded his advice and removed items from her flat accordingly. “You said the fortunate thing was that your men weren’t interrupted in their search. Is there something unfortunate that you are about to tell us?”

  “I wouldn’t call it unfortunate—interesting, perhaps. Miss Blade never came home last night.”

  “You are sure?” asked Madison.

  “I had men watching the building from all sides and angles, plus two stationed in the empty flat next to hers. No one saw her.”

  Leighton rose from his chair—a sudden pain had zigzagged down his left thigh. He did not want it to be the seven-day agony returning, but he had no hope that it wasn’t. “Your men, did they hear anything?”

  Windham hesitated. “There is a bead curtain in her flat. According to one of the men in the next flat, around four o’clock in the morning, he heard a sound that could have been that bead curtain in her flat moving. But when he and his partner went to check, they saw no one at all.”

  “Was the curtain still moving when they got in?”

  “Slightly, according to him, but he could not be sure whether it had already been swaying, or whether the draft from the opening of the door was responsible for it.”

  “You think Miss Blade came back to the flat in the middle of the night, then disappeared as soon as she got in?” demanded Madison.

  The pain in Leighton’s leg had turned atrocious. He gripped the handle of his walking stick and willed himself to not collapse against the wall. “Did anyone check the roof?”

  The question was for Windham, who frowned. “The pitch of the roof is steep. Without mountaineering gear a man would slip off in three steps and crash to his death.”

  “Not every man,” said Leighton. He turned to Madison. “And no, I do not believe it was Miss Blade the men heard. I believe it was the Centipede.”

  After I left Windham last night, I returned to the ball,” said Madison. “It was already past time for carriages and Mrs. Reynolds had gone to bed. But Annabel and Mrs. Chase were still up, so I spoke to them.”

  He and Leighton were in the underground tunnel that led from the house that served as Windham’s office to the house several streets away that his agents used for access.

  Light from the lantern in Madison’s hand swung on the brick walls of the tunnel, lighting their way ten feet at a time. “I believed—and Windham concurred—that they should be warned about the Centipede,” Madison continued. “And Miss Blade’s possible connection to him, since she is on such friendly terms with Mrs. Reynolds.”

  Leighton barely managed not to stumble at the next spike of pain. “What did they say?”

  “Mrs. Chase did not say much of anything, except along the lines of ‘oh my’ and ‘goodness gracious.’ Annabel, on the other hand, refused to believe that Miss Blade could be in league with the Centipede. She said that she had seen Miss Blade’s face that day at the park, when the Centipede’s kite was sighted—and Miss Blade had looked petrified.”

  Annabel would have seen that, wouldn’t she, she who had taken to observing Miss Blade minutely, whenever they were all thrown together?

  “So Mrs. Reynolds, too, will know by now?” Leighton would hate for Miss Blade to lose her only friend in England.

  “Annabel promised to tell her aunt.”

  Only a matter of time, then.

  From the house at the other end of the tunnel, Leighton headed for Victoria station. Windham badly wanted to see the contents of the Centipede’s luggage. He had asked Leighton to go down the night before; using his fiancée’s ball as an excuse, Leighton had flatly refused.

  But now one of Windham’s runners was already at Claymore, waiting for Leighton to hand over the Centipede’s belongings. He met the man at the village station. They drove to Starling Manor together and the runner departed with the trunk and
the satchel, as well as the miscellaneous objects the luggage had ejected in anticipation of unauthorized openings.

  Without bothering to change, except into a pair of boots more suitable for hiking, Leighton set out for the downs—the hours in the train had been sheer agony. Walking was also sheer agony, but one he preferred. As he left the house, a footman had chased after him to give him the latest mail from his mother.

  Without looking, Leighton had stuffed the letter into his pocket. Two hours later, when he finally allowed himself to sit down and rest, he took out the mail and realized it wasn’t a letter, but a telegram, which she rarely sent.

  My dearest Leighton,

  A lady recently cabled me. She has known the late Mr. Gordon in China and is eager to find some of his friends in England. I gave her your address in town. I know how much you valued Mr. Gordon and I hope you will welcome a call from Miss Catherine Blade.

  Love,

  Mother

  Leighton closed his eyes.

  At long last he knew where he had first seen her: from his room at the British Legation in Peking, so drained by quinine that he hadn’t quite known whether he was asleep or awake. She had stood on the opposite side of the street below, tears falling down her face. What he had not seen at the time, but could now guess, was that she had escorted Herb’s body to the legation.

  Leighton would not be informed of Herb’s passing until the next day. As a result, he had never made the connection between the weeping girl and the death of his friend. And yet years later, when she walked back into his life, some part of him had instinctively recognized her importance.

  I have made a friend here, a lovely young lady of mixed blood who studies English with me and teaches me Chinese, Herb had told him during their brief visit. Perhaps I can obtain permission for you to visit my patron’s residence, and you will be able to meet her.

  He had envied Herb’s new friend, for having had Herb’s companionship all these years. Little had he realized how difficult her life had been, always trying to evade the unwelcome attention of her stepbrother, trapped behind walls she could not escape.