The China Bride

  She was startled from dreaminess by her grandmother’s voice. “Is this some kind of heathen dancing, lass?”

  Troth spun around, a little embarrassed to have been caught in her loose Chinese garments. “It’s not really dancing. In China it’s believed that chi, the energy of life, is in all things, and the right kind of movement helps balance it.”

  Mairead’s brows rose skeptically. “I suppose the exercise is good, if ye don’t catch lung fever dancing about in those indecent trousers. I came out to see if ye’d like some breakfast after such a vigorous night.”

  “It was a wonderful cèilidh, and breakfast would be lovely.” Shivering a little now that she wasn’t moving, Troth accompanied her grandmother inside, then raced up to change into a dress while Mairead fried eggs and toasted bread.

  Properly garbed, she enjoyed the meal and the relaxed time alone with her grandmother, since James and Jean were both away from home. She was just finishing her meal when Mairead disappeared for a moment, then returned and set a ribbon-tied bundle of papers on the scrubbed pine kitchen table.

  “I thought ye might like to read some of yer father’s letters,” Mairead explained as she poured more tea.

  Troth caught her breath as she took the first letter from the bundle. Plainly it had been read over and over again, but she would recognize her father’s bold, clear hand anywhere. Since his own father had been a schoolteacher, he’d been taught to write well.

  The first sentence said exultantly, We have a daughter! Li-Yin is well, though ashamed of not having given me a son, foolish girl. We’ve named the baby Troth Mei-Lian (“Beautiful Willow”), and I fell in love the instant I clapped eyes on her, for she’s the bonniest infant imaginable.

  Biting her lip, Troth read through the letters, hearing her father’s voice in her ears. During her years in Canton, she had forgotten how well she had been loved as a child.

  When tears blurred her eyes so much she could no longer read, her grandmother handed over a handkerchief. “Ye were the joy of his life, Troth. I only wish Hugh had lived long enough to bring ye home himself.”

  Troth buried her face in the soft, embroidery-edged square, wondering if it was a sign of pregnancy to cry so easily. “Thank you for letting me read the letters, Grandmother. I feel as if he’s standing right here beside me.”

  “Sometimes when I couldna bear the thought that he was dead, I’d reread the letters and pretend he was alive and well on the other side of the world.” Tenderly Mairead retied the ribbon around the bundle of letters. “It’s nae good to outlive your children.”

  Feeling very close to her grandmother and wanting to talk about what was occupying her mind, Troth said hesitantly, “I…I think I may be with child.”

  Mairead glanced up swiftly. “Are ye sure?”

  “It’s too early to be sure—but my heart is convinced.”

  “Ye’re probably right, then—a woman can know long before she has proof.” Mairead smiled. “So ye’ll be marrying Maxwell for good, then. I assume it’s his—I wouldna like to think otherwise of my granddaughter.”

  “It’s his, but I have my doubts about marrying him.”

  Mairead’s brows drew together. “James talked to him, and Maxwell said he was willing to do the right thing. Is he a lying Sassenach?”

  The right thing. Troth’s resistance stiffened. “I’m sure he’d do his duty, but I don’t want to be married from obligation. I don’t know if I want to be married at all. I thought that with a handfast there was no shame to the woman if the couple decided not to stay together. Kyle doesn’t have to know, since I can support my child without him.”

  “That’s true for wild Highlanders, but handfasting is rare around here, especially for educated folk. What’s wrong with Maxwell? Does he beat ye?”

  “Good heavens, no! He’s always been kind and considerate.”

  “Then ye’d better come up with a stronger reason for nae marrying him than romantic fancies.” Mairead cocked her head. “Or is this some Chinese way of thinking?”

  Troth smiled without humor. “Quite the opposite. In China I was told how I must behave for too many years, and don’t want to be dictated to now.”

  “Ye’re Hugh’s daughter, right enough.” Mairead drummed her fingers on the table. “Ye’re a woman grown and we canna force ye to act against your will. But ye must think long and hard about the wisdom of going yer own way at any cost. It takes two people to make a baby. Will ye deprive yer child of his father, and Maxwell of his child? He doesna seem to be an uncaring man.”

  Troth never should have brought the subject up. Of course, pregnancy wasn’t something that could be kept a secret for more than the first few months. “If I decide not to marry Maxwell, will I no longer be welcome here?”

  Mairead’s face softened. “Ye’ll still be my granddaughter, lass. But there will be those in town who’d disapprove, handfast or no handfast. That could make life awkward for yer child if ye raise it here. And what would ye do if ye want more bairns?”

  Troth’s jaw set stubbornly. “I could marry someone else.”

  “I doubt there are many men around here that ye’d find to yer taste. I suppose ye could go to Edinburgh—my grandson Jamie moves in good circles, and maybe ye could meet a husband there.” She stood and started tidying the table. “But ask yerself what ye’d want in a husband that Maxwell doesna have. He’s enough to make a virtuous woman consider violating her vows.”

  “Grandmother!” Troth said, scandalized.

  The old woman smiled mischievously. “I may be an eighty-year-old widow, but I’m nae dead yet, lass. If ye don’t want Maxwell, I may decide to find out if he fancies older women.”

  Laughing, Troth retreated to her attic to pack for her trip to the Highlands. But a small, stubborn core of her resisted the idea of marrying Kyle simply because it was what everyone expected. She’d come to Britain to find freedom. She’d not yield it easily now.

  “We’ll see ye in a fortnight or so then.” Mairead hugged Troth hard. Troth hugged back, then turned to embrace her aunt Jean. She was already missing them and she hadn’t even left. Most of her possessions and Pearl Blossom would remain here, waiting for her return. The mere fact that her trunks were entitled to stay under this roof made her glow with warmth.

  “I shall take good care of her, I promise,” Kyle said.

  “See that ye do,” Mairead said gruffly as Kyle helped Troth into the rugged little curricle he’d hired for the trip to Kinnockburn.

  Troth knelt backward on her seat, waving until she was out of sight of her grandmother and aunt. When she could no longer see them, she turned and settled down. “I hope that Pearl Blossom will be all right while I’m gone.”

  “I’m sure she will be. Your grandmother raised four children, she can certainly look after one undersized cat for a fortnight. Even one as hell-bent on trouble as Pearl Blossom.” Kyle turned the carriage from the lane onto the main road through Melrose. “Have you decided to live here?”

  “Does this mean you’ve given up on the thought of courtship?”

  His answer was slow in coming. “You seemed so happy and complete in Melrose. It’s hard to imagine that you need a husband.”

  Briefly she had dreamed of having a cottage within walking distance of her grandmother and aunts and uncles and cousins. She’d planned to learn how to cook and garden, order books from Edinburgh, buy a placid horse to ride over the hills. Those people who looked askance at her foreign face would soon become used to her, and to her child, who would probably look more Scottish than not.

  But her conversation with Mairead the day before had woken her from her dreams. In the first rush of pleasure at being welcomed by her father’s family, she hadn’t appreciated that there were levels of acceptance. She didn’t doubt that the bond of blood was a powerful tie that entitled her to warmth and support from the Montgomerys. But blood didn’t mean they would always see the world as she did, or approve of all her actions.

  Melrose was a
small market town, its population limited and homogenous. Even a Highlander like her uncle Tam Gordon was considered foreign. No matter what she did, she’d always be Hugh Montgomery’s Chinese daughter.

  Not only would she never be fully a member of the community, but she would have few neighbors who’d be interested in the wide world beyond Scotland. Even with a friendly family, in many ways she’d be very isolated.

  “I haven’t made my mind up,” she said with forced lightness. “Melrose is lovely but small. It would be difficult to have secret lovers to supply my life with yang.”

  “Yin and yang is one area where we had no problems.”

  “But it’s not enough.” Realizing they should clear the air—or at least draw their lines—at the start of this journey, she continued, “I don’t understand you, Kyle, or your reservations about marriage. Why do you think you’re unfit to be a husband?”

  “I see that Oriental subtlety has been abandoned in favor of Scottish bluntness,” he said dryly, his gaze returning to the road.

  “That’s not an answer.”

  “If I had a clear answer, I’d give it to you.” A muscle jumped in his jaw. “I fear that…that there’s a part of me missing.”

  For the length of a long hill, she pondered what he’d said. Deciding to try a more oblique approach, she asked, “Why did you want so much to travel? Was it merely to see the world’s oddities, or were there deeper reasons?”

  “Both.” He reined in the curricle as they came on a flock of sheep ambling over the road. “I loved seeing different lands and learning about customs and ideas, but even more than knowledge, I sought…understanding.”

  Knowledge could be found in any book, but understanding was far more elusive. “Did you find it?”

  “Sometimes, especially at Hoshan, where I felt a deep sense of peace. A shadow of understanding about where I belonged in the universe.” His mouth twisted. “But whatever I thought I’d found vanished in Feng-tang.”

  “What’s missing must be part of your soul, for that is a person’s foundation, and a hole in the foundation weakens the entire structure,” she said reflectively.

  “You’re probably right—but how does one repair a hole in one’s soul?” Effortlessly he calmed the fidgeting horses, nervous from the river of sheep flowing around them. “Now that we’ve discussed my unfitness for marriage, what about you? You have doubts about being in my world. What parts of it can’t you live with?”

  “I can’t imagine myself as a countess, especially not as a grand London hostess,” she said, choosing the most obvious barrier.

  “Why not? Because of shyness, lack of social skills, being foreign?”

  “All of those things.”

  “Yet when you choose to, you can dazzle a ballroom full of aristocrats with your beauty, wit, and charm. You proved it at Dornleigh, and you could do the same in London if you tried.”

  “If I impressed your Northamptonshire neighbors, it was because I was too angry to care what they thought.”

  “Actually, the secret of many great beauties is exactly that—not giving a damn whether or not they impress people. Because they have confidence and a reckless disregard for appeasing lesser folk, they are mesmerizing even if they aren’t beautiful, and often they aren’t, at least not objectively.”

  “If beauty isn’t required, at least I have that part right.”

  “On the contrary. You have a beauty that makes men catch their breath, and a modesty that makes other women like you. You dazzled as thoroughly at the cèilidh as you as did at Dornleigh.” He gave her a satiric glance. “You also gave a very good imitation of enjoying yourself.”

  Uneasily she recognized the truth of that; she’d had a fine time on both occasions. “By your own admission, the most I could ever expect from your father would be bare tolerance. I don’t want that, and I don’t want you to be caught between your duty to him and your duty to me, because one should honor one’s parents first.”

  “This isn’t China.” He turned to face her, eyes glittering with exasperation. “Hear me well, Troth Montgomery. As my wife, you would always come first. If you don’t wish to live under the same roof as my father, so be it. We can live elsewhere. If you choose to avoid society, so be it, though I think that when you became comfortable in your new world, you would make a very great and admired lady. If you won’t live in London during the months I must sit in Parliament, you may stay in Melrose even though I’d miss you as a fire misses fuel. Does that address your objections to marriage?”

  She stared at him, shaken by the passion in his eyes. He was becoming the man she had first met in Canton—full of life and conviction. And if he kept saying she was beautiful, someday she might actually believe him. “I…I don’t know what to say.”

  “You needn’t say anything yet. We’ve time ahead of us for you to produce more objections, and for me to counter them. But while you’re thinking, include this.”

  He wrapped his free arm around her and drew her hard against him, his mouth demanding. Her lips opened under his and she clutched his arms as she responded almost against her will. At Dryburgh Abbey, he’d kissed her with tender promise. This time he was branding every fiber of her being with reminders of the intimacy, wonder, danger, and rapture they had shared.

  She had come to cherish her independence, yet how could she ever be independent if she surrendered to this? When they had been lovers, she had been his slave, willing to do anything he asked.

  Then he had asked very little, except for the opportunity to please her. But if he learned that she might be carrying his child, he would demand her body and allegiance for the rest of her life, and she wasn’t ready to yield them. At least, not her allegiance. Her body was willing to yield right now….

  He broke away, breathing quickly, but there was no triumph in his eyes—only the same yearning reflected in hers.

  Unsteadily she brushed her mouth with the back of her hand. “I thought you proposed a courtship without a bed.”

  “That was no seduction. Merely something to think about.” The flock of sheep had finally passed, so he set the carriage into motion again. “I thought that if I had to burn, you might as well also.”

  She stared at his profile with furious indignation. If he’d wanted to make her burn, he’d succeeded.

  Damn him. Damn him!

  Chapter 42

  Castle Doom

  The Highlands

  Kyle shaded his eyes as he studied the boldly silhouetted castle that crowned the crag ahead of them. “I’d forgotten just how ominous this place is. It chills the bones.”

  “You remembered the steepness of the hill correctly, though,” Troth said. “Can the horses make it up there?”

  “I wouldn’t ask it of them. You and I shall walk and learn if the chi exercises have been working.” He climbed from the carriage and helped Troth out, then hobbled the two horses where they could drink from a small stream.

  “Where did the name come from? It sounds like a Gothic romance.”

  “The original name was several syllables longer and Gaelic, but the first syllable was Doom, and it fit so well that it stuck. It’s a Clan Campbell fortress that was destroyed by the English after the Forty-Five. No one has lived here since.”

  He swung a picnic basket from the curricle. The food had been packed by the landlord’s wife at the small inn where they’d stayed the night before. Their trip north had been leisurely, with plenty of detours to see things he thought she’d enjoy.

  As he’d hoped, the sheer normalcy of their journey created a relaxed, easy mood they’d never shared before. Except when he kissed her good night. In a spirit of feminine revenge, she had taken to kissing him back with a thoroughness that threatened to bring him to his knees, begging to share her bed.

  The hard part was knowing that she’d probably bed him gladly. But he was playing for higher stakes than a single night’s pleasure, so he’d always returned to his room alone.

  As they crossed a crude p
lank bridge that had been laid over the stream, Troth said, “This seems like the end of the world, as if no one has been here for decades.”

  “Few people do come—it’s well off the main roads, and that last stretch was almost too much even for a carriage like ours.” He squinted at the sky. Was that a wisp of smoke rising from the castle? No, it must be a ribbon of cloud. “It’s been many years since I visited here with Dominic, and I doubt the castle has changed at all. Yet not far from here in the Hebrides, modern steamboats are now carrying people through the islands in luxury. Quite a contrast.”

  “Steamboats? I’d like to travel on one of those someday. But I like the wildness of this better.”

  Conversation ceased as they started to ascend the rough track that snaked up the hill to the castle. A quarter of the way along, Kyle said breathlessly, “Let’s take a rest. I need to hang over the edge and gasp for a bit.”

  “I’ll bet the people who lived in the castle never came down, not when it meant climbing back up again!” Troth gratefully sank onto the low stone wall that protected travelers from the sheer drop. “I’m glad you suggested wearing Chinese trousers. This is not a ladylike excursion.”

  “Definitely not for the faint of heart or weak of lungs.” A category that included Kyle at the moment; apparently he still hadn’t recovered fully from the malaria.

  Warmed by the climb, Troth loosened the plaid she wore draped around her slender frame. She’d been enchanted when they found a tartan shop in Stirling, then disappointed that there was no plaid for Montgomery.

  Kyle had cheered her up with a Campbell plaid, saying she had a right to wear it since his mother had been a Campbell. Troth and the green-patterned plaid had become inseparable. When she wore it with a Chinese tunic and trousers, the effect was improbable but charming.