"It…it seems too much when we were married for less than a day."

"Maxwell married you to insure your future. Don't feel that it's wrong to accept what he wanted to give." Elliott eyed her speculatively. "I'm planning on opening a London office. If you're a partner and living in England, you can have a strong voice in running it. You know things about China no Fan-qui ever will."

She covered her eyes with her hands, not prepared for this new world opening in front of her. It was hard to grasp that she, who had been a minor hong employee, was now a partner in a powerful American trading company.

Guessing her thoughts, Elliott said, "This must all be a shock, but you'll have five or six months to prepare yourself for the role of the widowed Lady Maxwell. Just take everything one step at a time."

One step at a time. "I… I must have European clothing made. All I have is what I'm wearing."

"And the sooner that's burned, the better. I know a seamstress who specializes in clothing for European women. She'll take care of you."

A servant arrived with a tray of food and a pot of tea. Elliott sipped a cup while Troth ate. She hadn't realized how hungry she was. When she finished, she said, "Peng mentioned that you're off for Singapore in two days."

Elliott frowned. "I'm afraid so. I can delay perhaps another day, but no longer."

"There's no need for you to change your plans on my account." She gave a wintry smile. "I'm used to managing for myself."

"But you don't have to now. That's why Kyle married you."

Close to tears again, she poured more tea. "The most important thing for you is to arrange for his body to be retrieved so he can be buried in England. I think it's best to go to Mr. Boynton, since he's head of the East India Company's Chinese operations."

"A good idea-he has more influence with the viceroy in Canton than any other European. I'll go this afternoon and tell him the whole story. Since Maxwell was a British nobleman, the Company will cooperate fully." Elliott frowned. "Does Chenqua know what happened?" When she shook her head, he said, "You'll have to tell him."

He was right, of course. She'd mentally tried to compose a letter during the long walk from Feng-tang. Though she hadn't liked the role Chenqua chose for her, he'd acted honorably as head of his household and her guardian. She owed him gratitude for all he'd done. And, though she'd always feared him a little, she also felt respect and affection. "I will write him before I leave Macao."

"You'll stay here, of course, even after I'm gone." Elliott frowned thoughtfully. "There's an English ship in port now. It will be sailing for London early next week. Just long enough for you to take care of necessary business and acquire a wardrobe."

The sooner, the better. She yearned to escape China and its ghosts. Rising, she asked, "Is there a guest room ready? I'm very tired."

"Of course." He rang for the comprador, who ran the household, then escorted her to the drawing room door. "Anything you want, you have only to ask."

She gave him an uneven smile. "You're very kind. Kyle provided for me well when he married me out of pity."

Elliott raised her chin with one hand and studied her face, surprising warmth in his eyes. "He didn't marry you from pity, Troth Montgomery."

After that cryptic remark, he turned her over to the comprador, then left for the Company's headquarters. Grateful that Kyle's death was no longer her burden alone, Troth went to her room and fell onto the bed without stripping off her filthy garments.

She slept for twenty hours.


Though Troth had lived in the household of a powerful man for fifteen years, she'd never had that power exercised on her behalf. Over the next days, Elliott organized her life with dizzying speed and efficiency. By the time he left for Singapore, a day later than planned, her voyage to London had been booked and her wardrobe was well under way. He also arranged a letter of credit on his London bank, explaining that the money was simply profits due to Kyle. She felt well cared for indeed.

The seamstress clucked disapprovingly when Troth insisted on dark colors and sober styles for her Fan-qui wardrobe. Though she was a bastard who had lived a highly irregular life, she would look respectable when she visited Kyle's family.

Her private obligations were the hardest. The first was to compose a letter to Chenqua in which she explained her actions and Lord Maxwell's death. Though she begged his forgiveness for her disobedience, she did not suggest returning to Canton and her old life. She'd paid too high a price for freedom to relinquish it now.

Then she visited the Protestant cemetery where her parents were buried side by side. A peaceful, walled enclave, it was as much garden as burial ground. Her father had helped buy the land and establish the cemetery, which had been badly needed since the only other Christian burial ground was Catholic, and neither the Catholics nor the Chinese had wanted to accept Protestant bodies.

Hugh Montgomery hadn't expected to be buried here himself, though. He'd spoken sometimes of the lowland kirk his family attended, and the fine view it had of the Scottish hills. Nonetheless, she sensed that he was content to lie in the exotic land where he'd spent most of his adult life. "Good-bye, Papa," she whispered as she laid flowers on his grave. "In your honor, I swear to visit Scotland. I… I wish you were going with me."

Her beautiful mother had been nominally a Christian, but in true Chinese fashion she'd also worshiped the gods she'd been raised with. To her, Troth said, "I've had a tablet inscribed with your name and Papa's, and I shall honor it all my days. Your spirit will not hunger or thirst in the afterlife."

She lit sandalwood incense sticks and left them to burn down by the headstones, along with an offering of oranges. Then she left the cemetery, knowing she would never see it again.

Last of all, she walked along Macao's small peninsula until it narrowed to a hundred-yard width called the Stalk of the Lotus. There she was stopped by the wall into China. Called the Barrier, it had been built to prevent Europeans from setting foot on Chinese soil. By her own choice, she was irrevocably cutting herself off from the land of her birth. She gazed at the wall for a long time before turning away.

So be it.

Chapter 29

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Feng-tang, China

Summer 1832


Today Kyle would be executed… again. He prayed that this time it would be real.

He'd been prepared to die under the prefect's guns, and it had been a shock to find himself still standing as the smoke drifted away. Numbly he wondered if he'd been mortally wounded, but was too injured to feel pain.

Then he looked at Wu Chong and saw the cruel satisfaction in the old man's face. Damnation, the matchlocks hadn't been loaded with bullets, only powder and wadding! The execution had been Wu Chong's vicious, sophisticated form of mental torture.

Kyle was still standing by the wall, rigid, when the plump merchant, Wang, came up to him and bobbed his head apologetically.

"Wu Chong consult soothsayer. Inauspicious time for execution of Fan-qui. After new moon, sentence will be carried out Chinese-style."

"A beheading?"

"Very swift, painless," Wang assured him.

Kyle would rather have been shot.

Hanging on grimly to the shreds of his dignity, he stalked back to prison surrounded by guards. Outside his cell, several of them took the opportunity to work him over with expert punches before shoving him into the damp straw.

Three weeks until the new moon.


To keep himself from going mad, he devised exercises to maintain his body. For his mind, he methodically worked his way through his Cambridge courses, starting with the Michaelmas term of his first year. Philosophy, mathematics, the classics in Latin and Greek. Surprising how much a man could remember when he had nothing better to do.

He tried to avoid memories of Troth and home, for they were far more painful than reciting bits of the Odyssey. But he couldn't control his dreams. At night Constancia lay beside him, warm and loving, or Troth, sweet and true and passionate. Or he was fishing with Dominic, or riding the hills of Dornleigh with his sister and father.

Waking up was a return to hell.


He was sure the second execution would be real. Beheading, after all, was the preferred Chinese method, and their executioners were said to be very expert.

The prospect of decapitation was peculiarly unpleasant, despite Wang's assurances that it would be painless. This time it was harder to keep his face impassive when he was taken into the courtyard. His bristling, untamed beard helped conceal any failures of control.

When forced to kneel in front of the headsman, he thought of Hoshan and the serenity he'd experienced there. His hammering heart almost drowned out the beating of the drums that marked the raising of the sword.

Cool air brushed his face as the blade sliced by to bury itself in the ground a scant inch in front of him. He half expected a second blow to fall just when he would begin to believe he'd been spared, but Wu Chong was subtler than that.

Once more Kyle was marched back to his stinking cell. It was wretchedly hot. The monsoon season had begun and water trickled down the walls constantly as the rains alternated with suffocating humidity.

Every night Kyle made another scratch on the wall and wondered how long it would be until the prefect tired of his game, and ended it once and for all.