The Sins of Lord Easterbrook (14 page)

Winterside reached under his coat and removed a thin, soft book with a pale blue paper cover. He handed it over.

Christian examined it. “A journal. For women.
Minerva's Banquet.
Clever title, but a little pompous.” He flipped through the front pages. “A few poems. A report from Paris. Drawings of dresses. A pretty hat here on page fourteen.” He set the journal on his lap and looked at Denningham and Winterside, waiting for enlightenment.

“My lord, that journal is being published by your sister-in-law.” Mr. Winterside said.

“It appears to be well done, but then I would expect nothing less from Phaedra.”

Winterside wagged a finger at the journal. “If it pleases you, Lord Easterbrook, turn to page thirty-one.”

Christian obliged. On page thirty-one, Phaedra had treated her readers to a letter from a woman who had sailed the China Sea and beyond. The letter gave a concise description of Macao, then veered into political matters.

He reached the paragraphs that would interest Mr. Winterside.

For great evil lurks in the waters around China, evil that the currents of time and trade will inevitably bring to your shores. With this evil comes a form of slavery that even your Mr. Wilberforce cannot fight, because it
binds with chains that I have seen only a few men break. I speak of the evil of opium.

This great curse has ensnared untold numbers of poor souls in China and India, and has spread its tentacles into England. I have seen this for myself. Some might say there is a perverse justice in this latter development. For without the complicity of the English East India Company, the trade in opium would be a mere fraction of what it is today. The negro's bonds were not the only ones forged from our fathers’ greed

He did not need to read the author's name at the bottom to know who she was.

“You can understand our concern, Lord Easterbrook,” Winterside said. “She has impugned the Company. She implies that we are responsible for the smuggling of opium into China. We are in no way—”

“Winterside, I am not ignorant of the world. Opium bought from the Company in Calcutta is in fact smuggled into China every day.”

“That is not our fault.”

“Without your sales to the smugglers, there would be no reason for you to grow all those poppies in India on the Company's land.”

Winterside bowed his head like a servant well scolded. “My apologies. Yes, let us speak frankly. The Company buys many tons of Chinese tea and pays the Chinese a huge amount of silver to do so. However, the Chinese are forbidden by their emperor's law from importing our goods in turn. The Company runs a huge trade deficit with China as a result.”

“A balance must be found, you mean,” Denningham said. “So you sell the smugglers opium. That income
from the opium balances what you lay out for your tea purchases with China.”

Winterside turned red. “We sell an agricultural product in Calcutta. What is done with it—”

“As you can see, you were lured into the devil's cause, Denningham,” Christian said. “The Company is well aware of how that opium is smuggled, and the devastation it has brought to China. It is convenient, however, for everyone to pretend it is all out of our hands.”

“There are times when economic necessity requires accepting realities that one does not like,” Winterside said.

“That is what was said for generations about the slave trade,” Christian said. “I see that Miss Montgomery did not miss that analogy. I ask you again, sir, what do you want with me?”

“We thought that perhaps, as a friend of Miss Montgomery, you might persuade her to avoid this topic in the future letters that she has promised. And that, perhaps, as a relative of the publisher, you might use your influence there as well.”

“Miss Montgomery reveals no secrets here. It is a story told before. Why silence her when others have published freely?”

“There is gathering talk in Parliament about ending all the Company's special licenses. This is not a time for this fire to be fanned.”

“She writes in a ladies’ journal,” Denningham said dismissively “I think Easterbrook's point is well made, and I am regretting that I submitted to your expressions of urgency.”

“The ladies can influence matters through their
husbands, through their reform activities, through their pens, and through their gossip. Better an obscure pamphlet by a vicar in Cornwall than a series of letters in a fashionable ladies’ journal.” Winterside turned to Christian again. “Will you at least speak with Miss Montgomery? We are told that you are old friends, and she may be amenable to any suggestion that you make.”

“You are assuming my suggestion would be for her to desist in any more references to the opium trade. I do not know why you would think that.”

An awkward silence ensued. A very long one.

Denningham straightened and craned his neck to see better out the window to the garden. “I say, your head gardener is down there. I think I'll slip out and speak with him. I am experimenting with a graft that is going poorly, and old Tom there is the best at that.”

“Why don't we all go? The day is fair and a turn in the garden is called for.”

They filed down to the terrace and out to the garden. Old Tom knew Denningham, and after a greeting they were deep in discussions of his graft.

Mr. Winterside took the opportunity to sidle close to Christian. “If I might have a private word, Lord Easterbrook?”

They left Denningham with the gardener and strolled down the path.

“You met Miss Montgomery in Macao, I have heard. Did you know her father?”

“I met him. It was a brief association while traveling widely some years ago. I found him a little bland and
very sober, but welcome company since he was English.” Actually he had found Montgomery suspicious and calculating and sharp as a nail.

“We know about his history, of course. We license the Country Traders and maintain information on them all.”

“How resourceful of the Company.”

“His trading house met with some reversals some years ago. That is always a danger in trade. A ship goes down, a cargo catches fire—it is not for the faint of heart. Mr. Montgomery, unfortunately, was one of those men who thought his misfortune must have been planned.”

“Are you saying that he blamed the Company?”

“Not directly. He did blame the opium trade. There were some letters from him to the Company. Rash, accusatory ones. He insisted that the largest smugglers had formed a company of their own, and that the owners of that company included men of high standing here in England. He suggested that this secret company connived with ours, and that his efforts to expose the cabal had led to his persecution. Well, it was all preposterous, of course.”

“Of course.” Christian knew all about Montgomery's claims and suspicions, but he could think of no reason to inform Winterside of that.

“This first letter in
Minerva's Banquet
does not make that accusation, but I fear Miss Montgomery plans it for one of the next ones. She promises great revelations. Secrets. Intrigues. If she names names—” The mere thought agitated Mr. Winterside.

“Do you think that she has names to name?”

“Her father had become half-crazed with this mad theory. He was certain his business was being destroyed by these men because he would not cooperate with them. He may have convinced himself he knew who these so-called partners are. She may publish—”

“She will publish no names without solid proof. That much I can promise you. Since it is impossible for Miss Montgomery to obtain proof, this is all much ado about nothing.”

“Impossible?”

“You called it a mad theory of a half-crazed man, Mr. Winterside. She cannot obtain proof of a conspiracy that does not exist.”

Winterside squirmed in the corner where he now found himself. “Of course not.”

“Go to your masters and reassure them that the application of logic to the problem resolves everything. The Company has nothing to fear from Miss Montgomery and her letters besides a bit of moral disgrace.”

Their stroll had brought them around to the terrace. Denningham pulled himself away from Old Tom, and he and Winterside took their leave.

Old Tom was a simple fellow, at ease with his life in this spring garden. Christian found him restful company after the jumble of high-pitched worries pouring off Winterside. He sat on a bench not far from the gardener's pruning basket and opened
Minerva's Banquet
again.

He reread Leona's article. He wondered what she sought to achieve with it. If she hoped to arouse opposition among the English to the opium trade, good luck to her.

But if the goal had been to flush out the men in England behind the smuggling ring that she thought had targeted her father, she may have been too successful. Because while Mr. Winterside may have come here today to grease the sleigh runners for the Company, Christian did not believe it was actually the Company that had sent him.

L
eona gave a cursory glance to her letter in
Minerva's Banquet.
Lady Phaedra had sent a copy fresh off the press, and normally Leona would have taken pride in her published words for a few minutes at least. Other matters occupied her mind however.

She studied another bit of her writing instead. On the paper in her hands she had copied the death notice published in
The Times
of London about her father. The newspaper saved all its old issues in large bound books, and obtaining access to the year in question had not been difficult when she presented herself at the paper's offices yesterday.

Her temper had been one thread away from unraveling ever since. The words on her copy were barely legible, having been scratched by a hand tightened into a fist.

The few facts about her father's life were accurate if sparse. The last line, however, amounted to a scurrilous lie.

Mr. Montgomery passed away after a long decline
attributed to a wasting disease well known in Asia, the result of ingesting dangerous agricultural products native to that region.

The notice all but said that her father had succumbed to opium. Who would have reported such a thing? There had been no such malicious gossip in Macao. Everyone there knew about his weakening heart, and had seen the evidence of that illness with their own eyes.

Her eyes narrowed on the tiny printed name at the bottom of the notice.
C. Nichols.
There had been no Mr. Nichols in Macao for as long as she knew. This was not a correspondent's report. It must have been written right here in London.

She pondered how to find this Mr. Nichols. She needed to talk to him and discover where he had obtained this information about her father.

The old editions of
The Times
had yielded little help. Mr. Nichols's name did not appear often as a writer. In recent papers, however, she had found it several times below lively descriptions of proceedings in the magistrate offices in London.

A subtle change in the air alerted her that she was not alone. She looked up to see Tong Wei standing ten feet away.

“A lady is here,” Tong Wei said. “One of high status.”

Leona took the card with curiosity. She went to the drawing room where her guest waited.

Lady Lynsworth wore a geranium promenade dress and hat, and an expression of reserve badly compromised by the anxious lights in her blue eyes.

She and Leona exchanged a few pleasantries while those lights burned ever more brightly. Finally the rest of her soft face could no longer maintain the mask that pretended all was well with her.

“Miss Montgomery, I read the first volume of
Minerva's Banquet.
Easterbrook's sister-in-law has created a most commendable journal.”

“She will be happy to learn of your good opinion.”

“Your own contribution in particular interested me. Your reference to the opium trade—I found it very educational.”

“I hope others do as well. The people of England should learn about it, even if it takes place so far away. It is my hope that public opinion will force the East India Company to change its ways.”

Lady Lynsworth fingered her reticule nervously. “Your letter speaks of seeing people die. Our poets and artists do not consider it poison, but an enhancement for their creative imaginations.”

“I am aware that is the popular view in Europe. Please believe me that the lure is insidious and becoming an habitué almost inevitable. Once caught in the snare a person wastes away.”

“You wrote of knowing a few who had not, however. Who had broken the chains.”

“Very few. The vast majority—”

“But some. You did not write that only to appease the concerns of your readers, did you? You in fact do know of a few at least who—” A tear began a slow path down her cheek. She wiped it with her hand and turned her face away.

Leona went over to sit down next to her. “Yes, a few. I did not lie about that.”

Lady Lynsworth dug for the handkerchief in her reticule. “Forgive me. I read that one line and could read no more. A few who broke the chains. I have been in a state of desperate hope since this morning.”