The Sins of Lord Easterbrook (9 page)

This was not the night to face this temptation.

“You should not be out here,” he said. “Branca will whip you if she learns of it.”

“Branca is asleep, and I am too old to whip. I am not a child, Edmund.”

No, she wasn't, despite her innocence and ignorance.

“Why did you leave the house, Leona?”

She shrugged. “I could not sleep. I was restless. The day bored me. I would walk on the quay, but it is too late.”

She bent to smell a flower on a nearby bush. Her hair fell forward while she leaned and her eyes closed as she inhaled the fragrance.

He had to go to her, of course. The storm had
retreated, as it always did in her presence. The heat in him had a reason now.

She straightened as he neared. He plucked the flower and held it, beckoning her to sniff again.

She leaned toward it. Toward him. Her own perfume mixed with that of the bloom. She looked up at him, over the petals. She knew what was in him. She always had.

He stroked the soft petals down her cheek. “I think you were restless for a reason, Leona. I think that you came into this garden looking for something.” The flower fell away, and his fingertips replaced it on the path up and down her soft skin.

She trembled. She pulled her shawl tighter but it had not been the breeze. Her lids lowered and her lips parted from the sensation of his caress.

“You should go back to the house.” His words warned her but his touch lured her. He wanted her. Right now he wanted her desperately. He could have her tonight. He did not doubt that.

“Maybe you are the one who should go back to the house,” she said. “It is my garden.”

He had to smile. He did that a lot with her. He could not remember smiling much in his life before Macao.

“That would be rude. You came looking for me tonight, after all.”

“Why would I do that?”

He slid the caress down her neck. “For this.” He cupped her nape and eased her toward his kiss. “And this.”

Damnation.

Christian opened his eyes. Memories like this had
intruded for three days now. This one left him as hard as that kiss had that night, and as agitated as the mood that had sent him into the garden in the first place.

He stood, to walk off both effects.

It was Leona's fault. All of it. The retreat into meditation was because of her, and the distractions that made it impossible were too.

Marry Pedro, hell. What a waste that would have been. If she did not like men who thought they were gods, she would have been miserable.

That bastard had accused her of an affair with Edmund. The coward. The liar.
Edmund
had been too damned noble to take advantage of Leona. He had let her run away that night, even though it had near killed him to do it.

Still, he had sought her out often enough, just as she had sought him. He had displayed an impulsive lack of discretion with her, and made her vulnerable to Pedro's accusation. That it had saved her from marriage to that fool pleased him, but he did not like to imagine her under the cloud of scandal.

It had given her freedom, though. Freedom to now come to England. Freedom to sail the Eastern seas. Freedom, perhaps, to have love affairs if she chose to.

She had lived in a world of men ever since her father's death, a lovely young woman with dark eyes that revealed her passionate nature and lack of reserve. Sea captains, traders, even members of the Company and the naval service—she had sat at many dinners with men who would want her.

An aggressive, primitive heat entered his head,
bringing a mood so black that he found himself glaring at nothing.

He calmed the storm before lightning flashed. How like Leona to inspire emotions so long unknown that he had lost the ability to sense them coming.

He needed to find distraction from these constant thoughts of her or he truly would turn half mad.

London never fell silent at night. Even in winter an invisible energy flowed through the dark, the echoes of the yearnings and fears, the hopes and joys pulsing in its buildings behind shutters and drapes.

In spring the forces of life spoke more clearly, especially on a clear, cool night such as the one that Christian traversed.

He found the nights peaceful. He even welcomed the life whispering around him. The worst part of his curse had always been the isolation it encouraged. Not only was it unhealthy to retreat totally from the world, but also he had long ago admitted that he did not want to. As long as the dark center waited with its respite and its peace, he could indulge in human congress a little.

Leona had given him that. She did not even know the value of the gift. When she asked Tong Wei to teach the young Englishman about meditation, the reason had been unrelated to Christian's ability to sense the emotions of others.

He had never explained it. Not to her. Not to anyone. It was the sort of thing that sounded insane. For a long time, he had been sure it would eventually make him deranged. A man cannot live like that, invaded at
every turn by instincts regarding others’ private selves. Worse, the temptation to use the curse to his own ends was almost unbearable, and he still occasionally succumbed.

He tested himself as he walked, blocking the vague energies first with concentration on his thoughts, then with a rigorous pace that provided the peace found in sport.

All of the strategies derived from the first, however. If he had never found the utter silence of the selfless center, he would have never known what to strive for in experiments that required less oblivion.

His path eventually brought him to a fine house on the edge of Mayfair, near the park. Like many others it still showed the glow of lamps through its windows. London did not fall silent at night, and Mayfair during the season did not sleep until close to dawn.

A footman escorted him to the library. The men assembled there looked over when he entered.

A table of four went back to their game of cards. Christian walked over to another group occupied only with glasses of spirits.

“What ho, Easterbrook. Did not think you would show this time. We are in need of a fourth tonight too. Been left with naught to do but drink and gossip until now.”

Drink and gossip were the real purpose of these informal meetings, and games of whist mere filler, so the absence or presence of one or another person really did not matter.

Christian had inherited this circle along with his title. An invitation to join them had come as soon as his
father died. For generations, it was explained to him, Easterbrooks had been members of this very small, very private club.

Six peers and four bishops comprised the circle, all with titles and sees among the oldest in the realm. The club's origins were shrouded in political plots so dangerous that each member was also known by one of the face cards in a playing deck, in the event secret communication were necessary.

As Easterbrook, Christian was the King of Hearts. The bishops had taken the aces for themselves. Some times members still made use of those designations in their reference to each other, but the club's function now was mostly social.

Mostly. They still swapped political favors. On a few rare occasions the members decided how to privately punish a peer for crimes that would be too embarrassing to the peerage if he were publicly tried in the House of Lords.

“I rearranged my plans just for you, Denningham,” Christian said to the tawny-haired, corpulent man who greeted him. The Earl of Denningham was the only member of this club whom he occasionally saw outside these nights. He and Denningham had been friends at school, in part because Denningham was so amiable, so lacking in guile or ulterior motives, that his only emotions were the ones written on his face for all to see.

“You have had a change of habit. Out and about quite a lot these days, or that is the
on-dit.
Would it have anything to do with the handsome woman seen with you yesterday in the park?” Rallingport said.

Viscount Rallingport was a regular at these card parties and had been for five years, since he inherited his title. His attendance was so predictable that the meetings now took place in his home. He was basically a good man, just too fond of brandy.

“Miss Montgomery is an old friend,” Christian said.

“I wish my old friends looked like that. I am stuck with Meadowsun here, and he resembles an old apple.”

Meadowsun did resemble an old apple. An older man, his face possessed a pattern of wrinkles much like fruit develops as it begins to dry. Since he was slight of build and sparse of hair, that face was really all one noticed about him.

It would be easy for a person to dismiss frail, pale-eyed Meadowsun as inconsequential. That would be a mistake. He was a favored cleric in the Archbishop of Canterbury's court. He had the ear of one of the most powerful men in the realm, and through the archbishop exerted influence throughout the church and the House of Lords.

In the oldest days the archbishop himself had attended these meetings, but for generations now archbishops had sent proxies. That proxy had been Meadowsun as long as Christian could remember.

Meadowsun's sobriety lent little to the convivial mood in the library. He observed most nights, not participating. The necessity of discretion to his position meant Meadowsun buried his emotions so deeply below the surface that only bland indifference emanated from him in public.

“Say, I spoke with the King of Spades today,”
Rallingport said. He referred to the Duke of Ashford, a senior member of their group who rarely attended during the season. “He begged off tonight, but mentioned that he has heard from our friend in Kent. The fellow is most unhappy.”

“Pity,” Christian said. Rallingport referred to the subject of one of their private judgments. The peer had been offered a choice between permanent house confinement in the country or ruinous scandal and insurmountable disgrace at a trial.

“He was petitioning for relief. Wants to come up to town. Wants to be rid of that housekeeper he was given. Wants to have a party.”

“That is not possible,” Christian said. “Not this season. Not next season. I would say not for twenty seasons to come.”

“I expect so. Of course.”

“It would displease the archbishop most grievously if your friend left his estate in Kent,” Meadowsun said blandly. “I will explain that to His Grace if you prefer not to.”

“I did not say Ashford thought otherwise, did I? No need to explain anything, either of us.”

“Denningham, you should write to our friend and recommend he find an interest to occupy his time,” Christian said. “Gardening, for example. You could share with him the restful delights that you enjoy in your horticultural experiments.”

Denningham took the suggestion seriously. He nodded to reassure everyone that he would deal with the problem in Kent.

Christian strolled over to the bookcases to choose a
cigar from Rallingport's selection. Denningham followed to fetch one too.

“So, how did you come to know Miss Montgomery? Not like you to cavort in public with a woman.” Denningham's grin was that of one young blood goading another, even though he had never qualified for the role even when of age to do so. “I see that you are also looking less barbaric these days. Her influence?”

“It was only a ride through the park.”

“Your first in memory. Everyone says you threw over Mrs. Napier too. Everyone is curious about your new interest. Lots of questions buzzing around.”

“What kind of questions?”

“Who is she, why is she here, what is her history with you. There are suggestions that she is other than she says, and here for purposes other than she claims.” He wiggled his eyebrows. “A lady of mystery, and there are those collecting the clues.”

“Where did you hear all of this?”

“Why, right here. Before you came.”

“From whom?”

Denningham lit his cigar and glanced at their company while he puffed. “Damned if I can remember. It was just there, before the cards started, the way talk is. How you were seen with this woman from China, and someone wondering who she is and what she is doing here, and in your company no less. That sort of talk. I can't really say who raised the matter.”

But someone had. Here, among the men who probably knew him as well as any men other than his brothers. It might have just been talk. The speculations about Leona were probably just curiosity.

Christian took his place at the table across from Denningham. To his right sat Meadowsun the Obscure.

That evened things out. Denningham's cards might as well be printed on his face, after all. Whatever advantage Christian had with the fourth person at the table was balanced by the advantage that both of his opponents had with his partner.

Dear Readers,

Allow me to introduce myself. I am the daughter of three countries. My mother was Portuguese and my father was English, but I have lived my life in China.

Leona read her salutation three times before deciding it would do. She dipped her pen.

She spent a half hour describing Macao. She visited her home in her mind while she wrote about the white houses rising in terraces and the promenade along the quay. Giving an accurate picture of the Cathedral of St. Paul and the famous Camoen's Cave required some thought.

She turned to the residents, the Chinese who comprised half the population, and the Portuguese families with their women so often garbed in black. She introduced the English, who included eccentrics like Mr. Beale who had an aviary in his gardens, and dozens of caged birds on his veranda. She ended with a glimpse of the walls of Canton.

She paused. This would be her first of several letters, if published. This introduction would be sufficient. She should finish now with the promise of what would come in later essays.

And yet—

She dipped her pen.

I look forward to describing this exotic land to you. Its rituals and beauty are of great interest. However, I also must tell you of matters less colorful and more serious. For great evil lurks in the waters around China, evil that the currents of time and trade will inevitably bring to your shores.