Authors: Catherine Palmer
“Darjeeling wins by a mile.”
He smiled. “I think so, myself, actually, but it’s not the popular opinion. I’m glad you’re pleased with your quarters.” His eyebrows lifted. “Well, then. Shall we go and meet your father?”
Beth sucked down a gasp. “Wait, now. I just got here.”
“Not going to change your mind, are you?”
She stepped past Miles onto the veranda and sank into a bamboo chair upholstered with utilitarian tan canvas. “My mother’s phone call in the car ride up here…She reminded me that he doesn’t know. No one ever told Thomas Wood about me.”
“He’ll be delighted.” Miles took the chair beside her. “Look at what he produced. A beautiful daughter—intelligent, resourceful, successful. It will be like finding a brilliant jewel that he had no idea he possessed.”
“That’s the problem. How will he react to the realization that he has been kept in the dark about me for twenty-five years? He could feel cheated.”
“Perhaps. But I predict he’ll mostly be glad you turned out so well.”
“Or extremely upset that a total stranger claiming to be his child has stepped into his otherwise comfortable life.”
“You have no idea what his life is like. Perhaps it’s deadly dull, and he’s just hoping something will come along to liven it up. What better than you?”
Beth threaded her fingers back through her long hair, pushing it off her forehead and encountering tangles on the way down. She should take a shower, wash and brush out her hair, put on fresh makeup, dress in something that hadn’t traveled half the globe on her. Anything to avoid the inevitable.
“He may not like me, Miles,” she told him. “Just because you’re so quick with compliments doesn’t mean Thomas Wood is going to think I’m God’s gift to Darjeeling.”
“We’ll never know until we meet him.” He stood and held out his hand. “Shall we?”
“Do you know anything about his personality? Is he quiet? Or gregarious? Or what?”
“I’ve only met the bloke once or twice, and I hardly remember him. I’m sure he’s amiable enough. One can’t succeed in the job he has without an even temperament and a confident disposition. In dealing with the labor and the factory, he’s bound to face surprises all day long.”
“Well, he’s going to face a big one today.”
“He will love you. Now get up so we can go and have a chat with Mr. Wood.”
Beth set her hands on the chair’s bamboo arms and pushed herself to her feet. “Don’t say a word about me being his daughter, Miles. I’ll tell him when the time is right. Do you promise?”
“Absolutely. This is entirely your affair. I’m merely here to facilitate.”
As they walked down the path toward a row of small trucks the estate used to haul workers and tea, Beth glanced at Miles. “Why are you doing this, really? You’ve come all this way, and—”
“For you, my dear lady.”
“Don’t be sarcastic.”
“Sarcastic? I’m astonished that you would say such a thing.”
“You hardly know me, and you certainly don’t owe me anything.”
“Wrong on both counts. I know you very well. I read your Bible, remember? You underlined so many passages and wrote such personal information in its margins that I feel as if I know everything about you. You struggle to keep your tongue under good regulation. You’re not fond of proud people. You have very little patience—you’ve begged God urgently to give you more of it.”
“Okay, stop.”
“You’re passionate about caring for the poor, widows, orphans, the hungry, the thirsty, the sick. Enough exclamation marks alongside those verses to populate two or three complete novels.”
He opened the passenger side of one of the trucks, and Beth climbed in. She couldn’t believe she was actually going to do this. They would drive out onto the estate, and she would see him. It was a mistake. She should have listened to her mother and chosen safety and sense and stability.
“And as for my not owing you anything,” Miles went on as he turned the key and the truck jumped to life, “the fact is I owe you everything.”
“I haven’t done a thing for you.”
“Wrong again.” The truck pulled out of the parking lot onto a narrow road, dry now but rutted by years of tire tracks through the rain and mud of the monsoon season. “It was your mention of the race, you see. And then the Bible you left on the table at The Running Footman. And your phone call telling me you were coming back to London. I never expected any of those things. Nor did I deserve them. I am, in reality, quite unworthy of you.”
“Don’t be silly, Miles. I’m not going to fall for that kind of flattery, so you can just give it a rest. I know who I am and who you are, and neither one of us is perfect. Don’t try to sweet-talk me, especially right now when I’m so tense.” She eyed him. “I might be unable to keep my tongue under good regulation.”
He laughed. “Say whatever you like. I require a good tongue-lashing now and again.”
“Hang around with me very long, and you’ll get one.”
“I’m terrified.” He rolled down a window and pointed at a long, low building in the distance. “That’s the factory where we process the tea leaves for shipping. Mr. Wood might be inside, but as it’s a clear afternoon and the sun’s out, I imagine we’ll find him in one of the fields.”
Beth tried without success to think of ways to still her heartbeat and calmly draw air into her lungs. But the altitude, the curving road and the prospect of actually meeting Thomas Wood defied all her efforts. Unlike photographs she had seen of tea fields spread across flat expanses, the Wilson estate covered a series of steep rolling hills. Pluckers with baskets on their backs labored up and down the tidy rows. Mist rose from the damp ground as the sun beat down. Somewhere a bird cried out with a squawk that jangled Beth’s nerves.
“There.” Miles slowed the truck. “Near that tree. I believe we’ve found our man. He’s too tall for an Indian or a Nepali, though he’s certainly brown enough. Looks like he’s spotted us, as well.”
Beth focused on the angular, broad-shouldered man in the distance. Halfway down a precipitous slope, he was speaking to a group of women. He wore a green shirt with some kind of logo, and his dark brown hair hung in shaggy, uneven lengths down the back of his neck.
“It’s him,” Beth whispered. She grabbed Miles’s hand and squeezed it hard. “Let’s go back. Take me to the bungalow.”
“I’m afraid he’s seen us.”
“We’ll talk to him later. Now I know what he looks like, and that’s enough. Let’s go.”
“Look, he’s coming up the hill.” He pulled her hand to his lips and kissed it gently. “I’m stopping the truck, and we’re going to get out. I promise he’ll be much more intent on me than on you. I’m his boss, remember?”
Swallowing at nothing, Beth pressed her dry lips together. She wouldn’t be able to talk. Her mouth was parched, and her knees felt like noodles. She couldn’t even think how to pray.
And now Thomas had climbed up to the road. She could see him better, and he looked like the boy in the senior photograph from the high school yearbook…only the hair at his temples was gray and deep lines fanned out from the corner of each eye. But he was tall enough. Square enough. The high cheekbones and long, straight nose, the Adam’s apple…
“Mr. Wood?” Miles had stepped out of the truck and was walking to meet him, hand thrust out in greeting. “Miles Wilson. London office. Pleased to see you.”
Beth sat rigid, small breaths hopping in and out of her scorched mouth, her nostrils dilated as though she were choking. Thomas Wood shook Miles’s hand and reminded him they’d met before.
“A few years back,” Thomas said. “The big Christmas party at the main house. You were here with someone…a girlfriend, I think. The whole event was fairly crazy. A lot of alcohol. I’m not surprised you don’t remember me.”
“Ah.” Miles gave Beth a guilty glance. “And I should very much like you to meet another…friend. Beth?”
Feeling like the Tin Man without his oil can, she managed to open the truck door and step out onto the road. She willed her mouth into a smile and forced her feet to move forward one after the other.
“Beth Lowell,” Miles was saying. “This is Thomas Wood. He’s in charge of production here in Darjeeling. The fields as well as the factory, I believe?”
“That’s right.” Her father thrust out his hand. “Thomas Wood. Pleased to meet you, Ms. Lowell.”
She stared at it too long. His hand, the fingers that had caressed Beth’s mother. The palm that had pressed her against him. The knuckles a deep brown from years of exposure to the tropical sun. The hand that was somehow connected to Beth even without a touch.
“Hello,” she murmured. She set her hand in his, and he wrapped those large, brown fingers around it and gave a firm shake.
“You’re an American,” he said. “Where are you from?”
“Texas.”
Too late!
He perked up. “I was raised in Texas. Tyler. Ever been there?”
“Yes,” she breathed.
“As have I,” Miles spoke up. “Dallas, at any rate. Fascinating city. The businessmen wear cowboy hats and boots with their Armani suits. A bit humid in the summer months. Beth is a travel consultant of sorts. We met in an airport in Kenya. Do tell him about your work, Beth.”
“I handle global transitions for a New York moving company.” To her surprise, the words came out perfectly. “Basically, I help our customers settle comfortably into a foreign country.”
“She finds houses for them,” Miles explained. “Hires household staff. Locates schools and country clubs. Immensely helpful. Wilson Teas would do well to make use of her services, don’t you think, Mr. Wood? I’m certain you didn’t have such assistance when you first came to Darjeeling.”
Thomas lowered his head and chuckled. “I was sent over from the Sri Lanka estate years ago when the former production manager suddenly quit. Lawford put me into one of the guest bungalows for a while. When I got married, I moved into one of the bigger houses. To tell the truth, I was too busy to realize it was a transition. But I’m sure most people could benefit from your services, Ms. Lowell.”
“Lucky for us to have such an adaptable employee as you, sir,” Miles observed. “My brother, Malcolm, told me you constructed a home here for yourself and your wife.”
Thomas’s expression sobered. “I built the new place three years ago. After she died.”
“Dreadfully sorry, Mr. Wood. I had no idea you’d lost your wife. Please accept my condolences.”
“Thank you.”
“Well, I’m pleased to know you’ve got a place where you can feel comfortable, and I do wish to convey my thanks and congratulations for the excellent work you do here. I’ve been remiss. As president of the international division, I should have spoken with you long before now, Mr. Wood. Malcolm tells me that our Darjeeling tea continues to bring some of the highest prices on the market. And equally important, we’ve operated at a substantial profit from your second year as production manager to this day. Well done, sir.”
“I can’t claim the credit, Mr. Wilson. Lawford handles the office work—the books, the payroll, the markets, all that.” Thomas Wood had turned his head and hooked his hands into his back pockets, Beth noticed. He was studying the women who had gone back to their plucking, as though he didn’t trust himself to look Miles in the eye. She wondered if the mention of his wife’s death had caused the reaction.
“We can’t have success without good tea,” Miles pointed out. “I’m told you’re actually involved in the propagation and breeding of tea here at Darjeeling. I can’t think how you have time for it while overseeing the labor and the factory.”
“Hybridization is a hobby of mine from way back. My family owned a big rose nursery in Tyler, and I studied agriculture at school. Once I had things running a bit more smoothly here, I thought I’d see if we couldn’t breed out some of our problems and make our stock more healthy.
Camellia sinensis
is a fascinating shrub. You’d think we couldn’t discover anything new about it, but I’m still learning.”
“Excellent, Mr. Wood.”
“Please call me Thomas.” He turned to Beth, his voice lighter and his expression more cheerful. “If you’ll excuse me, Ms. Lowell, I need to head over to another field and talk to the women. There’s some kind of rivalry going on between that group and this one here. They tell me it’s all about how I’m assigning the fields—who has to walk the steepest hills. But I’ve got an informer who says they’re feuding over a man.” He laughed, chest-deep. “It’s always something.”
“Women,” Miles echoed.
Beth knew she should rise to the challenge, but she had hardly been able to keep breathing the whole time Miles was talking to Thomas Wood. He was real. This man. Her father by birth. She drank him in like a thirsty child, trying to absorb and know everything about him. He had endowed her with those dark brown eyes, that long face, the olive skin. He was smart. Inventive. Good with people. Adaptable. Had he given her those things, too? She ached to throw her arms around him and feel his embrace. At the same time, she wanted to run away as fast as her legs would carry her.
Who was he? Who was she? What was she supposed to do now?
“Right, then,” Miles spoke up, taking her arm. “Listen, Thomas, might I entice you to dinner with us this evening? We won’t be in Darjeeling long, and I should like to make it up to you for focusing so much attention on Lawford’s end of things. I’d enjoy hearing more about your hybridization program. And I certainly want to hear how you sort out these pesky troubles with your labor.”