The Sins of Lord Easterbrook (29 page)

“You have the best excuse.” Except she really didn't. This was not a woman who would let pleasure decide her path. She had made that very clear when she came to him.

He would try a different tack, for all the good it would do. “You should consider why you go back to London and what you plan to do once you are there.”

“I do not have to plan it. I already know. I will see the shippers that you told me your brother arranged for me to meet. I will also visit with Denningham, the way you promised.”

“I told you already that you will learn nothing of value from him. Your scribe erred, or lied.”

“Your certainty carries more weight now, of course. It no longer stands as a mere opinion. However, I still want to meet him so I am certain too.”

She was relentless. It was time to distract her again.

He tried to rise to the occasion, as it were. He failed. Damnation.

“I had hoped to put off this conversation today, Leona.”

She smiled mischievously. “You succeeded magnificently for hours. However, even the great Easterbrook cannot keep it up forever.” Her gentle finger traced down his torso until it skimmed the object of her joke.

That touch was all he needed. It turned out he could keep it up one more time after all.

H
e managed to delay the conversation, but it waited for them. Its cloud shadowed the day. By nightfall Leona concluded that if she did not force the issue, it might be months before she left Aylesbury.

She thought about Gaspar for the first time in days while she prepared for the evening. She felt guilty for the degree he had dropped from her mind. She saw his confidence in her when they parted. Their business desperately needed the alliances she had come to forge, and he assumed she would be successful. He trusted her judgment more than was reasonable and depended on her more than was wise. She might want to dally at Aylesbury forever, but she would fail him if she did so.

She went down to Christian's apartment earlier than normal that night. She found him still dressed in shirt and trousers, sitting in the dark. His stillness told her that he was meditating.

She wished she had learned how herself. Her heart thickened with dread about the row to come. It would be useful to escape to the peace that Tong Wei said
could be found in that loss of self, where one relinquished desires and ambitions.

She set her lamp down as she always did, then sat in a chair. He emerged from his retreat and saw her. The abstraction lifted almost immediately. His attention centered on her.

“I will be leaving tomorrow,” she said. “If you will not send me in your coach, I will hire one for Isabella and myself.”

She braced herself for lightning. None flashed. No heat. No turmoil. He calmly considered what she had said.

“You must know that you are not going to go anywhere, Leona, in my coach or any other, unless I permit it.”

She swallowed hard. “I am trusting that you will permit it.”

“You have more faith in me than I do.”

“I have faith that you will keep your promise.”

“I promised to allow you to return to your brother. Not to London.”

“You know that I cannot go back to China until I return to London first.”

“That is not true.”

“Do you intend to make me a prisoner? To create a new choice, this house or a ship to Macao? I can either stay with you or I can return home having failed in my purpose?”

“Purpos
es
.” He emphasized the plural, firmly. Tightly.

Every part of her stilled. This was not about keeping her here. Perhaps it was not even about wanting her. He
kept her from the second purpose, and would make her sacrifice the first if necessary in order to do so.

“If you are worried about my safety in London, Christian, the sooner I finish my questions, the quicker I will be safe.”

“It is not worth the risk. Even with Tong Wei to protect you, even with me—I have told you to give this up. Now I do again. Even in victory you will gain little, and you risk your safety and your brother's business with those questions.”

She hated how he sat there, so damned sure of his judgment. She glared down at him but he still dominated the chamber and her. He did not even have to move to do that. Nor did he have to compromise. He wore his power quietly, but it still cloaked him. He knew he could stop her.

It dismayed her that he wanted to. She walked away from him. Her heart urged her to capitulate, to do anything so this night would not end in sorrow, but she had to know now.

“Christian, our first night here, I said that I had questions. You offered to answer one. I am thinking I chose the wrong one. I forgot who I was after all. I must ask another now.”

He did not respond. His silence sapped her courage. The lord waited to hear the petition.

“My father had a notebook. A leather half folio in which he wrote down the patterns he saw and the names he learned in his efforts to expose the smugglers and their masters. I never saw it after the night that you left Macao. I did not find it in his private belongings after he died. Did you take it when you left?”

“Yes.”

She closed her eyes so she might contain what his admission did to her. Disappointment so pained her heart that it affected her physically. Her stomach sickened. She feared that if she looked at him again she would see a different man from the one she had been holding. She might suddenly notice all kinds of aspects of face and character that excitement had blinded her to before this.

Her eyes burned. Her better sense had always warned that his interest had ulterior motives, or indifferent ones at best. These last few days, however, she had allowed herself to believe differently.

“Don't you wonder why I took it, Leona?”

His voice, so close, made her startle. She opened her eyes. He had left his chair and now stood right in front of her.

“Think back to that night, Leona. To the danger you saw and felt. You took refuge in anger and action, but I could see your terror. Even your father, who had suffered other attacks and losses, could not believe they had been so bold as to fire that ship right there in Macao.”

She let her mind drift back. To the smoke and the vain attempts to stop the blaze. She saw her father, ashen-faced and stunned. He had been on that ship just an hour earlier, showing her brother how to check a bill of lading against a cargo. It was mere luck that they had disembarked earlier than expected.

“They tried to kill him.” Her fury from that night flashed through her again now. “They failed, but they broke him just the same. And all the evidence that he
had, all the proof, was in that notebook that you stole.
Damn you.
I looked for it. I was going to do what he could no longer do, and end it all. I would have gotten word to the emperor's viceroy in Canton. I would have—”

“You would have gotten yourself killed. And him. And maybe your brother too. I took the notebook so you could not.”

“I think that you took it for other reasons.”

“There was no other reason. That night proved it was bigger than your father could fight. Bigger than you could fight. I took the notebook to protect you.”

She wanted to believe that, but she was beyond believing anything now. “Do you still have it? You do, don't you? I want it.”

“No.”

Frustration ripped her composure and set her teeth on edge. “I need
to finish this.”

“You will finish nothing. You may prove your father was correct. You may discover the names of men here in England who profit from that trade. You may even expose them to the world's scorn. But even if you are successful, it will not stop. Your family's business will once more be punished, and you will again be in danger. You already are.”

She could not believe he was so implacable. So unsympathetic. He wanted to do more than protect her, too. She just knew it. He had had possession of that notebook for years. He had read it. He knew it would help her, but he did not want to allow it for his own reasons.

She looked back at the last week, at the emotions
and the discoveries. This conversation made her doubt everything she had perceived and believed about him.

“I want the notebook, Christian. You said in Watlington that I could have whatever I wanted.”

His anger finally showed. His hand sliced the air, in a lord's gesture of finality. “I did not mean
this.”

“No, you meant jewels or silks or gifts. Distractions, so I would not ask any other questions, or make a request that inconvenienced you.”

“Most women would be content with jewels and silks, damn it.”

“If I were any woman, you would not have wanted me. What will it take for you to give me that notebook? You said you wanted whatever I will permit. If I say I will permit anything at all, will that sway you?”

He considered it. She could tell. He looked at her in a way that made her tremble. Shaking inside, hiding the way his darker mysteries could still lure her, mourning how much he had become a stranger again, she managed to face him down.

“You insult us both, Leona. If I wanted you for my whore, I would have settled the terms at the start. That is the customary practice. I did not realize that your damned mission means more to you than your own pride.”

His rebuke served as a slap. The anger parted to allow her to see what she had just done. Her breath caught at the cruelty of her words, and the way she had tainted everything they had shared.

He turned away from her, physically and in every other way. If a door had shut in her face, his disgust could not have been more manifest.

“Often you provoke the best in me, Leona. Right now you are inciting the worst. It would be best if you ran away before I accept the offer you just made.”

She held down the tears that wanted to spill. She walked to the door with what dignity she could summon. Once out of the bedchamber, she did run. She flew to her bed, where she wept harder than she had in years.

T
he message arrived with a breakfast tray at dawn. The servant explained that Lord Easterbrook had given orders for the coach to be made ready for her by nine o'clock.

Isabella arrived soon after. She also had received a message. She silently set about packing.

Leona could not stomach any food. She stared sightlessly at the garden while Isabella laid out her carriage ensemble. There had been no sleep last night, just a stupor of sorrow that still dulled her senses.

“Did you displease him?” Isabella asked quietly.

“I asked to leave.” And she was leaving, even if it felt as if he were sending her away. Because he was sending her away. She did not lie to herself that he merely acceded to her wishes in arranging for the coach.

Isabella frowned while she poured water for washing. She muttered to herself in Chinese.

“What are you saying?” Leona asked.

“Forgive me, but I was saying that Europeans are a stupid people.” She helped Leona out of her nightdress.

“Were you calling me stupid? Or him?”

“There may be enough stupidity to share. However, it is not hard to please a man, so it would take a stupid woman to displease one who was so eager to be entranced.”

It was easy to be stupid if you were angry and reckless and spoke rashly. She had conjured up a hundred ways to have ended that conversation last night other than the way she had.

She tried to take some consolation that at least she had affected her initial design. He would not stop her. The victory seemed very small this morning, and was not enough to ease the pain in her chest. Her heart believed it had lost more than she gained, and refused to listen to reason.

Isabella set about brushing her hair. “I have a book. My mother gave it to me. I will give it to you.”

“A book?”

“A pillow book. It is about pleasure. My mother received it from her first lover. She gave it to me when we left. She dreams that I will become a concubine to a great man here. She hoped it would be different with Europeans if they were not in Macao.” She brushed some more. “My father liked this book. It has some pictures.”