Authors: Mary Jo Putney
The firing squad was drawn up in a line facing the back of the compound. He found mild pleasure in the knowledge that Wu Chong's wall would be damaged.
As he crossed the compound between half a dozen guards, a drum began to beat in time to his footsteps.
Barummm. Barummm. Barummm
. The death march.
Surrounded by his court, Wu Chong sat on a dais overlooking the execution ground. Kyle was brought to face him, and the sergeant growled,
"Kowtow!"
He'd been willing to offer a mark of respect when first captured, but not now. When the seconds dragged and he didn't prostrate himself, the sergeant shoved him hard between his shoulders. Expecting it, Kyle pivoted and slammed his elbow into the man's throat, laying him flat and gasping on the paving bricks.
The other guards leaped for the prisoner, but the prefect snapped an order and they refrained from striking him. A high-ranking officer drew his sword and approached, the blade pointed like a cattle goad.
Ignoring the officer and his sword, Kyle crossed the courtyard to stand in front of the wall. As a Renbourne, arrogance had been bred into his marrow. He used every shred of it now. Wu and his people might despise him, but they'd not forget him soon.
He turned to face his executioners, glad they hadn't heard of the custom of blindfolding a condemned man. He didn't want to miss his last sight of the world.
The dozen matchlock muskets carried by the firing squad were primitive by European standards and not very accurate, but they would suffice. The barrels looked enormous. Any one of them was capable of blasting a fist-size hole through him. He hoped enough musket balls would strike to end it quickly.
Wu Chong's face radiated evil pleasure. God help the people of Feng-tang who lived under his authority.
Last words were also traditional, but there was hardly any point when no one present would understand them. The only one who mattered was, please God, safely away.
Travel safely, Troth, with all your strength and
cunning. And when you reach England
—
be happy
. At a signal from their officer, the soldiers raised and aimed their weapons, faces flat and emotionless under their spiked helmets.
Wu Chong chopped his hand down and barked a command.
Into your hands, O Lord, I commend my soul.
A crowd had gathered outside the walls, silently waiting for Feng-tang to be cleansed of the foreign devil. Troth stood apart from the others, so tense her bones might snap if someone spoke a hard word to her. Surely in the last day Wu Chong had realized the folly of killing a European. Even now he might be reconsidering his sentence.
Inside the walls, a harsh voice shouted, "Fire!"
A volley of gunshots shattered the morning air with thunder, echoing from the stone walls of the compound. As dark smoke wafted upward, Troth jammed her knuckles against her teeth to suppress her agonized cry. Kyle Renbourne, Viscount Maxwell and lord of her heart, was dead.
England
Christmas Eve 1832
" 'And it came to pass in those days that there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus, that all the world should be taxed.' "
As the vicar's sonorous voice filled the small stone church, Troth closed her eyes and drank in the familiar words. When she was a child, her father would always return to Macao to spend the holidays with his family, and on Christmas Eve he read the nativity stories to his household in a voice not unlike that of the Warfield vicar.
Seated in the family pew between Dominic and his sister Lucia restored the sense of belonging that had vanished with her father's death. During her years in Canton she'd privately read the nativity stories from her father's Bible at Christmas, but it hadn't been the same. Tonight she felt like a Christian again. Her father would have been pleased.
In true Chinese fashion, her reverence for Kuan Yin and the Buddha were undiminished by her joy in Christmas. Kyle had understood her need to honor both spiritual paths—in fact, he'd shared it—but she doubted that many other English people would. Perhaps Meriel might—Troth suspected that her sister-in-law was more pagan than Christian. Tonight, though, the countess was entirely proper, listening to the service and choir like a serene, silver-haired angel. She was even wearing shoes.
The service ended. Voices softer and smiles warmer than usual, the worshipers left the church to return to their homes. Carriages waited for the Warfield party, but when Troth saw that a light snow was frosting the hills, she said, "I'll walk back. It's not far, and the night is so pretty." To her surprise, Dominic said, "I'll join you, if you don't object."
"Of course not." She took his arm, and they made their way to the footpath that led to the estate, traveling half the distance that the carriage road did. As always, she found bittersweet pleasure in Dominic's company. Though she tried not to think of Kyle, in the snowy night it was impossible not to dream of what had never been.
They were halfway to Warfield when Dominic said quietly, "The holiday makes everything worse. I keep thinking that last year at this time, Kyle was alive. He spent Christmas in India, and wrote me that he missed having a proper English celebration. He… he promised he'd be here for Christmas with the family this year."
"He was looking forward to coming home and seeing you all." Troth's fingers tightened on Dominic's arm as she recognized why he'd wanted her company. As the only person at Warfield to have seen Kyle in seven years, her presence brought him a little closer to Dominic. "Strange to think that a year ago, I hadn't even met Kyle. How could such a short acquaintanceship make such a difference?"
Dominic smiled a little. "Meriel turned my world inside out in a matter of days. Love does that." His smile faded. "In my heart, I still can't quite believe Kyle is dead. Sometimes at night I feel like I could reach out and touch him. He doesn't seem gone, but there's an… an ache in my spirit when I try to find him."
She understood that ache well. "Perhaps that's proof that the spirit survives death. Somewhere he still exists, feeling sadness for what he has left behind."
Dominic glanced at her. "Do you really believe that?" She sighed. "I want to."
They came to a stile. Dominic climbed over, then gave her his hand to help her across. Knowing him had helped her understand Kyle's gentlemanly manners, and why it had chafed him not to treat her with the gallantry he thought a woman deserved. She'd loved those occasions when Kyle had cared for her as if she were precious porcelain. Such a lovely contrast to the masculine life she'd lived for too long.
Her skirts brushed snow from the stile as she stepped down to the ground. Only a fluffy inch or so had fallen—just enough to change the wintry hills to fairyland. "Kyle said that if you didn't believe I was his wife, I should ask you about the time you were trapped in the Dornleigh priest hole. You never doubted. Surely it must have occurred to you that I was an impostor."
"Never." Dominic took her arm again as they approached an icy stretch of path. "Your love for him was unmistakable. No impostor could have shown that."
Troth blinked against stinging eyes. Had she been so transparent? She wondered if Kyle had known how she felt about him. At the time she had tried desperately to conceal her unseemly emotions. He'd wanted a guide and a mistress, not a lovesick woman. She'd used all her carefully honed skills of deception to show him the face he wanted to see.
Now that it was too late, she bitterly wished she had told the truth.
Long Road Home
Macao, China
Spring 1832
Bleakly Troth slipped unchallenged from Feng-tang and made her way across country, keeping to narrow roads and the smallest villages, sleeping rough to avoid attention. Her one ambition was not to be identified as the
Fan-qui
's accomplice; imprisonment would prevent her from fulfilling the charges Kyle had laid upon her.
Not daring to travel through Canton, where she might be recognized, she circled west and walked the extra eighty miles to Macao, using fatigue to numb her grief. It was a blessed relief when finally a fishing boat carried her the last stretch across the channel to the island city that was the only place in China where Europeans could live.
She felt a poignant sense of homecoming as she walked along the Praya Grande. Macao was home in a way that Canton had never been. On the streets were people of every race known to man, and mixed-blood faces that resembled her own. Her life would have been very different if she'd been taken in by a Macanese merchant rather than Chenqua after her father's death. Perhaps she'd be married and have children now.
But she never would have known Kyle, and instead of a happy marriage, she might have been forced into prostitution and an early death. Best not to question fate. She found a quiet corner and took Kyle's ring from the money belt, sliding it onto her left hand and clenching her fingers to ensure that it wouldn't slip off. Her wedding ring.
A few inquiries took her up the hill to Gavin Elliott's residence. It was close to the house she'd been born in, with a similar wide veranda and spectacular views over the city and the Pearl River. Praying that Elliott hadn't left Macao on a trading voyage, she rang the bell.
The porter who answered took one look at her ragged, filthy garments and said, "Begone, boy. We'll have no beggars here." She caught her breath as she recognized the old man who had been her father's porter. Since he had some understanding of English and Portuguese, it wasn't surprising to find him in another European household. Taking off her tattered straw hat, she said, "That's a poor sort of greeting, old Peng." His jaw dropped. "Miss Mei-Lian?"
"Indeed." She moved past him into the house as if she were still the young mistress. "Is the Honorable Elliott in residence? I must speak to him." Peng bobbed his head. "Aye, you're in luck. Another two days and he'll be off to Singapore. I'll tell him you're here."
"Announce me as Jin Kang. That is how he knows me." Peng raised his brows at the masculine name, but went off obediently. Within a minute Gavin Elliott raced down the steps three at a time. "Thank God you're back, Jin! You're weeks overdue. Where is Maxwell?" Throat tight, Troth gestured him into the drawing room and shut the door so they had privacy. " Lord Maxwell is dead."
Elliott's face paled. "Dear God in heaven. I had a bad feeling about the trip, but I'd convinced myself I was worrying unnecessarily." He stalked to a window and stared out, his hands clenched tightly behind him. "What happened?"
Voice faltering, she described how Kyle's identity had been accidentally revealed, and his arrest and execution. Saying the words out loud for the first time made his death seem real in a way it hadn't before. This was not a bad dream she would wake from.
"At least… it was quick." Elliott muttered a blistering oath. "So bloody unnecessary! I don't think Maxwell understood how much he could be hated because of the color of his skin and the shape of his eyes." That was true. Despite his aristocratic upbringing, Kyle had taken a rare and unbigoted pleasure in the world's diversity.
Elliott turned away from the window and regarded her with bleak eyes.
"What of you, Jin? Maxwell told me that your father was a Scottish trader, Hugh Montgomery, and that you were born here in Macao. Do you still want to go to England?"
"I must. I promised Kyle to personally take the news of his death to his family."
Elliott's brows rose a little at her use of the familiar name. In a burst of defiance, she untied her queue and shook her hair loose the way her husband had liked it. "Kyle said you hadn't known Hugh Montgomery left a son. That's because he didn't. My father left only a weak, worthless daughter named Troth."
"Sweet Jesus." Elliott stared at her. "All of these years, you were disguised as a man? Unbelievable—and yet now that I look at you, I wonder why I was ever fooled."
"People see what they expect to see." Except those like Kyle, who looked closer. "I was of no use to Chenqua as a female, so Troth Montgomery vanished."
"Just as today, Jin Kang vanishes."
She relaxed a little, grateful for how quickly he'd grasped the dilemma that had ruled her life for so many years. "There's more, Mr. Elliott." She raised her left hand to reveal the Celtic ring. "Kyle married me in prison the day before he died. I thought he was mad, but he said that a mutual pledge was all that was required in Scotland. I don't know if it was legal, but it was what he wanted."
"And what you wanted also, I think?" Elliott said gently. His perception crumbled the willpower that had held her together in the weeks since Kyle's death. She began to cry, great, agonized tears that racked her body. She spun away, humiliated at her complete loss of control, but unable to check her wrenching sobs.
Warm arms encircled her as if she were a child. "You've had a damnable time of it, lass," Elliott murmured. "But you're safe now." Strange how much differently he treated her now that he knew she was a woman and half-Scottish. Though he'd always been courteous and respectful of Jin Kang, to Troth Montgomery he gave the kindness of a big brother. She burrowed into his arms, crying for the loss of a rich, vital life that had so much to offer the world. For the loss of the man she'd loved, and had hardly begun to know.