Authors: Mary Jo Putney
Having left the design in the capable hands of Meriel and the dressmaker, Troth was shocked to look into the mirror and see herself. "I can't wear this in public," she said with a gasp. "It's… it's indecent!" Meriel frowned. "Indecent?"
Troth had become somewhat accustomed to form-fitting European dresses, though she preferred the looseness of Chinese garments. She'd also been pleased to discover that the breasts that had seemed vulgarly large in China qualified as nicely proportioned here.
But that hadn't prepared her for a fashionable evening gown. She stared at the vast expanse of bare flesh, dismayed at the way the corset conspired to make her breasts look positively enormous. "This fits like a second skin and it has no top!"
"Because you're in mourning, it's actually cut rather high, as ball gowns go." Meriel tilted her head to one side pensively. "Chinese clothing is very different?"
"A woman's body should not be exposed to the eyes of any man but her husband. Even the throat should be covered. Female garments have high collars for that reason."
"Can you bear to wear the gown?" the countess said gently. "You look very fine."
Troth took a deep breath—which made the neckline even more alarming
—and tried to see herself objectively, without embarrassment. The gown was beautifully cut and fitted, and it made her look almost English, except for her eyes.
She wanted desperately to look English. "I… I can bear it, if that is your wish."
"What matters is
your
wish."
Troth bit her lip. Though all of the adult Renbournes she'd met encouraged her to state her preferences, she still slid automatically into deference. But she was an English lady now, a viscountess, and entitled to have opinions of her own. "I… I wish to wear this gown because Kyle would have wanted me to look my best for his friends and family."
"Very good." Meriel opened a velvet-covered jewelry box and took out a magnificent necklace made of five strands of seed pearls joined by a series of gold plaques set with amethysts. "This might help with the neckline."
"How lovely." Troth touched the silky pearls with her fingertips. "Such splendid jewelry is allowed during mourning? "
Meriel shrugged. "We have bent other rules."
"Then thank you for lending this to me."
Meriel fastened the wide necklace around Troth's neck. "The necklace and matching earrings are yours, a gift from Lord Wrexham."
"From the earl? Why is he so generous when he scarcely knows me and would never have approved of my marriage?"
Meriel sighed. "It's a kind of mourning for him, I think. He can do nothing for Kyle, so he wished to do something for you." Troth should have guessed that herself. Carefully she removed the gold studs from her ears and put in the swinging pearl-and-amethyst earrings. Having her ears pierced had been enormously exciting. Earrings were one of the female things she'd craved most, but of course Jin Kang couldn't wear them. She didn't care that the new earrings would hurt because they were heavy and her ears were not fully healed. Tonight she was unmistakably a woman.
"There is another gift as well." Meriel handed Troth a heavy bangle-style bracelet, a hoop made from sinuous lines of gold.
Troth's gaze dropped to Kyle's ring, which had been cut down so she could wear it on her left hand. "This is the same design as my… my wedding ring."
"They're of traditional Celtic knotwork. Both ring and bracelet came from the family of Dominic and Kyle's Scottish mother."
Troth stroked the intricate, twining pattern. "Surely this belongs to you."
"Family jewelry is not owned but held in trust. Kyle would have liked you to have the bracelet, I think."
Tears stung Troth's eyes. "You are all so kind."
"You have enriched our lives, Troth." Meriel gestured to the maid. "I must dress now. I shall collect you when it is time to make an entrance."
The countess returned after a surprisingly short interval, looking stunning in a jade green gown that intensified the pale green of her eyes and made her hair shine like moonlight. Beside her was Dominic, who said, "You look quite amazingly beautiful, Troth. My brother always had excellent taste." With a smile he offered his left arm. With Meriel on his right, he escorted his two ladies down the broad staircase and into the ballroom. In his dark evening clothes he was strikingly handsome, and achingly like his twin. By this time Troth had seen enough of Dominic so that she would never confuse him with Kyle, but it was impossible not to imagine what it would have been like if she'd been entering her first ball on her husband's arm. When he looked at her, there wouldn't have been the pain that showed deep in Dominic's eyes. Instead, Kyle would have regarded her with a lover's intimacy and private promises.
Swallowing hard, she concentrated on meeting the other guests. The names and faces went by in a blur—a vicar and his wife, a general, a baronet and his lady, and surprisingly, a dark, bearded man wearing a turban with his well-tailored evening clothes. The guests were startled by her foreignness, but none seemed contemptuous.
And some of the men regarded her with unmistakable male interest. Once she'd craved that kind of attention. Now it made her nervous because she couldn't imagine having anyone but Kyle as her lover.
Her initial nerves faded as the music began. Meriel's aunts had decreed that Troth shouldn't dance because she was in second mourning, a judgment that Troth accepted with relief. Though she would enjoy dancing when the time was right, for now it was better to watch and make the acquaintance of the local ladies.
As the evening progressed, she realized that there was always a Renbourne near her, unobtrusively ensuring that she was not left alone to feel awkward. Kyle must have been greatly loved by his family to have earned the care extended to his widow.
After an hour or so, Meriel approached with her face flushed from dancing. "Troth, I thought you would particularly enjoy meeting our neighbor, Jena Curry." After performing the introductions, the small countess floated away. Troth was bemused to see that Meriel had shed her silk slippers.
Jena Curry was a tall, handsome woman with dark hair and eyes. Troth loved meeting women taller than herself, such as Jena and Kyle's sister, Lucia. "How do you do, Mrs. Curry? "
"Call me Jena, everyone does. Will you join me in a stroll through the orangery? The air will be fresher there."
Troth accepted the invitation. It was a relief to visit the peaceful orangery, with its blossom-scented air.
"I love this place." Jena touched a brilliant scarlet flower. "Someday we'll build an orangery at Holliwell Grange, though it will look odd. The Grange is far less grand than Warfield, just a large farmhouse, really."
"To have such beauty all year round is worth a little oddness. I love to come here. With the heat and the plants, it reminds me of South China."
"It makes me think of India." In a rustle of skirts, Jena settled on a bench surrounded by luxuriant plants.
Troth sat next to her. "You've visited India? "
"I was born there. My father was an officer in the Indian army." Troth searched her memory of the guests, recalling a tall, upright man with a shrewd gaze rather like Jena's. "General Ames is your father?"
"Yes. I lived in India for the first twenty-five years of my life. My mother was a high-caste Hindu."
Troth caught her breath, understanding. "Which is why Meriel wanted you to speak with me." She studied the other woman's face. "Your mixed blood is not so obvious as mine."
Jena smiled. "If you saw me wearing a sari and standing beside my husband, who is a full-blooded Indian, I wouldn't look English at all. But you're right, dressed as an Englishwoman, I merely look dark. Your Chinese heritage is more visible."
Troth leaned forward eagerly. "What is it like for an Asiatic to live among these Britons?"
"My father's position protected me from prejudice." Jena's mouth twisted.
"The only time I've really suffered was in my first marriage to a man who was horrified when he learned of my 'tainted' blood. It led to… great unpleasantness. I was in the process of seeking a legal separation when he died."
There was a story to that, Troth guessed, though probably not one Jena would discuss lightly. "Your second husband is the tall Indian gentleman here tonight?"
"Yes. Curry is an Anglicized version of his family name." Jena chuckled.
"Since he has chosen to spend the rest of his life in England, Kamal has adopted some of the local customs and clothing, but his beard and turban remind me that I'm not all English. Nor do I want to be."
"Have you never thought that it would be easier to be one or the other?"
"Easier, perhaps, but then I would not be myself." Jena regarded Troth with large, dark eyes. "Ease is not the purpose of life. I gather that your time in Canton was often difficult, but don't renounce your Chinese side. To be only English would be to impoverish yourself."
That was easy for Jena to say, with her features that could pass for European and a life lived under the protection of a high-ranking father. Though the first husband sounded unfortunate, the second was a striking man, with intelligence and authority in his face, and clearly the couple was accepted by local society despite their foreign blood. Jena couldn't know what it was like to live as an outcast, unable even to claim her own gender.
"With my face, I couldn't renounce my breeding even if I wished to." Jena studied her expression, but didn't take the subject any further.
"Though the country folk here are rather conservative, as peasants are everywhere, there is a basic tolerance. You have married into a family that will protect you as my father protected me. When your mourning ends, you can have a rich and fulfilling life in England."
"I hope so," Troth said bleakly. "There is nothing left for me in China."
Hoshan, China
Spring 1832
The trail cut sharply around a stony ridge, and there was Hoshan. Kyle halted, stunned by the beauty of the temple that lay below. His original print had shown water, but he hadn't realized that the temple was built on an island in the middle of a lake. With the sky reflected in the water, Hoshan appeared to be floating in heaven.
From the other side of the donkey, Troth murmured in the special, almost inaudible speech they'd developed, "It is truly lovely, isn't it? The blue tiles on the roofs are reserved for religious buildings."
Blue tiles for heaven. Kyle studied the temple and scattered outbuildings hungrily, scarcely able to believe that within the next two hours he'd finally enter Hoshan. Feeling an odd mixture of excitement and apprehension, he resumed walking along the narrow track that clung to the face of the mountain, descending to the lake in steep swoops. A scattering of other pilgrims could be seen above and below them.
He reminded himself to shuffle and hang his head like a feeble old man. It was difficult when he felt more like a youth who had just discovered the delicious pleasures of the flesh. The wonder of it made him want to burst into song or race down the mountain from pure exuberance.
Troth deserved the credit for his invigoration, of course, because she truly
was
discovering the pleasures of the flesh. Passionate and eager, she was irresistible. After they'd cleaned up traces of their stay and left the cave shrine, they traveled from the hills down into more populated farmland. At dusk they'd stopped in a village inn similar to the one where they'd spent their first night.
Kyle's blood had been simmering all day, and no sooner were they secure in their room than he'd caught his companion in a hungry embrace. They'd ended up coupling against the rough mud-brick wall, Troth as frantic as he. After recovering some strength with the evening rice, he'd experimented with Taoist practices, and found that it was indeed possible to withhold his seed and prolong their pleasure. Over the next nights—and one wild, indiscreet interval by a shaded stream—Troth had entered into his sometimes clumsy experiments with laughter and enthusiasm. He hadn't known it was possible to have a relationship with a woman that was, for lack of a better term, a passionate friendship.
With Troth, there were no tears or demands or manipulations, no implication that because they were bedmates, she owned him. She was all honesty, generous and incredibly open about her physical nature. Given the intoxicated way they'd been feasting on each other, it was amazing they'd managed to reach Hoshan. But they had. Three weeks of travel, going rather slower than they'd planned because there seemed no reason to hurry, had brought them to the temple that had haunted him for half a lifetime. As they picked their way down the trail, he was almost sorry they'd reached their goal. Until now the journey had been fueled by anticipation. The return would be anticlimactic, with every step taking him closer to the end of his travels—and of his intimacy with Troth.
A rattle of pebbles sounded below them on the path, heralding the progress of a returning pilgrim. Soon a sedan chair appeared, carried by two bearers along the narrow track. Kyle, Troth, and Sheng squeezed against the wall in a wide section of the trail as the chair was carried by, curtained so that the occupant was invisible. The sinewy bearers trotted along swiftly, unconcerned by the sheer drop.