Gai-Jin (167 page)

“Hallelujah,” André echoed. He saw Seratard with a telescope on the steps of the French Legation, Sir William at his window with binoculars, and next door, Dmitri stood at Brock’s entrance, a short telescope to his eye. As Dmitri lowered it he noticed Jamie, hesitated, then gave him a thumbs-up. Jamie waved back then refocused. The clipper was beautiful charging for her moorings.

André said softly, “Perhaps she’s aboard?”

“I had the same thought. We’ll soon find out.”

“Signal her.”

“By the time I get the Harbor Master to put up the flags the light will have gone. Anyway it’s not up to me now, that’s Mr. MacStruan’s decision.” Jamie looked at him. “We’ll know soon enough. You’re seeing Angelique?”

“Yes.”

“No need to worry her, until we know. Eh?”

“I agree,
mon brave.”
André looked back at the clipper. “You’ll meet her?”

“The ship?” The same hard smile. “Wouldn’t you?”

They went into the foyer together. Coming down the staircase was Albert MacStruan, half dressed in evening clothes, tie undone but elegant.
“Prancing Cloud?”

“Yes,” Jamie said.

“Thought so.” The strange eyes narrowed. “’Evening, André. How are you?” MacStruan said.

“Fine, thank you. See you later.”

Jamie waited until André had knocked and gone into the tai-pan’s office that was now MacStruan’s. “You’ll meet her?”

“Oh, yes.” MacStruan walked down the last step but now the bounce had gone from his stride. “Please join me.”

“Thanks, but that’s your privilege now. I’ve sent Vargas for the Bosun, the launch will be ready in five minutes.”

MacStruan said kindly, “Come aboard with me, meet the ship like you used to, should still be doing.”

“No, time to move on, it’s all yours now. But thanks.”

“I hear Zergeyev’s banquet tonight will be grand, as Angelique’s accepted. Change your mind, join the party.”

“Can’t, not tonight, I’m still not finished packing.” Jamie smiled at him, then motioned down the corridor. “Angelique cleared using your office with you?”

“Oh, yes, glad to oblige, and better than having visitors upstairs in her suite, especially him. Can’t say I like him.”

“André’s all right, his music is the best, certainly the best we have here. Hope
Prancing Cloud’s
news is good.”

“Me too. But I doubt it. Do you think Tess is aboard?”

“The thought had occurred to me.” Jamie grinned, no longer her servant. “It would explain
Cloud’s
changed schedule. That’s what Dirk would have done.”

“She’s not Dirk, she’s much more cunning—more’s the pity, my dear fellow.” There was no love lost between the stepbrothers and Tess Struan, but a codicil in Dirk’s will had laid down that should the two boys prove themselves in schools and scholarship, they were to be used in the Noble House to the limit of their ability. Both were smart, their connections with highly placed Etonian and university friends scattered throughout the gentry, the City and in Parliament where his stepbrother, Frederick, had just won a seat, made them even more valuable. Even so both knew Tess Struan would dismiss them, but for the codicil. “Hope she hasn’t come a-visiting—that’s a boring thought.”

McFay laughed. “We’ll just batten down the hatches.”

“Hello, André.”

“’Evening, Angelique.”

She was in her favorite chair near the bay window, the curtains open to the harbor.
“Prancing Cloud?”

“Yes.”

“Good. Is she aboard?”

André smiled crookedly. “It would explain the clipper.”

“It doesn’t matter either way,” she said evenly but her stomach was twisting. “Would you like a drink?”

“Thanks.” He saw the bottle of champagne opened in its bucket of ice and a half-full glass on the table. “May I?”

“Please.”

It was becoming her custom to watch the sun go down, or the gloaming and the night arrive, with champagne. Just one glass to prepare for the long evening and then the long night. Her sleep pattern had changed. She no longer put her head on the pillow and drifted off to wake at dawn. Now sleep eluded her. At first she had been frightened but Babcott had convinced her that fear only made insomnia worse. “We don’t need eight or ten hours, so
don’t worry. Use the time to your profit. Write letters or your journal and think good thoughts—and don’t worry ….”

She was watching André, waiting for him to begin. His face was hard, the skin pale and stretched, and he was thinner. The first glass had been gulped. And the second. Now he sipped the third. “You’re more beautiful than ever.”

“Thank you. Your Hinodeh, how is she?”

“More beautiful than ever.”

“If you love her so much, André, why do your lips tighten and your eyes pop out with rage when I mention her name—you said it was all right to ask about her.” A few days ago he had told her about their agreement. Part, not all. It had burst out when despair had overwhelmed him. “If you’re so adamant about not making love in the dark and the huge price this Raiko demanded why did you agree in the first place?”

“I … it was necessary,” he said, not looking at her. He could not tell her the real reason—it had been enough to see Seratard’s lips curl and see him avoid making contact ever since, careful never to use the same eating utensils or glass even though it was only caught from a woman or a man—wasn’t it? “I just took one look at her and,
mon Dieu
, don’t you understand what love is, how …” The words died away. He poured another glass, the bottle almost empty now. “You cannot believe how crushingly desirable she was that once.” He gulped the wine. “Sorry, I need money.”

“Of course. But I have only a little left.”

“You have paper, with his chop.”

“Oh?”

His smile was, if anything, more crooked. “Fortunately shroffs talk to shroffs, clerks to clerks. Fill in another tomorrow. Please. Five hundred Mex.”

“That’s too much.”

“Not half enough,
chérie,”
he said, his voice barely audible. He got up and closed the curtains to the last of the sunset, then turned up the oil lamp that was on the table and reached for the bottle. The dregs went into his glass, and then he slammed the bottle back in its ice bucket. “Do you think I like doing this to you? You think I don’t know it’s blackmail? Don’t worry, I’m reasonable, I only want what you can presently afford. A hundred Mex, or the guinea equivalent tonight, two hundred tomorrow, a hundred the next.”

“That’s not possible.”

“Everything’s possible.” He took an envelope out of his pocket. The envelope contained a single sheet of paper that he unfolded carefully. Dozens of shreds of green paper were pasted meticulously on it to complete a perfect jigsaw. He laid it on the table, well out of her reach. At once she recognized her father’s handwriting. The second page that she had seen André tear up so long ago.

“Can you read it from there?” he asked softly.

“No.”

“Your loving father wrote, he signed and dated it, ‘and hope, as we discussed, that you will arrange an early betrothal and marriage by whatever means you can. It’s important for our future. Struan will permanently solve Richaud Frères. Never mind th—’”

“Never mind, André,” she said as softly, no need now to disguise the venom. “The words are indelibly written on my brain. Indelibly. Am I buying it, or is it a permanent threat?”

“It’s an insurance,” he said, folding it and replacing it with care. “Now it goes back to a safe place, with details of the Affaire Angelique, in case anything nasty happens to me.”

Abruptly she laughed, unbalancing him. “Oh, André, do you think I’d try to murder you? Me?”

“It would wreck any financial arrangement Tess might offer, may be forced to offer, and put you in the dock.”

“How silly you are.” She picked up her glass and sipped her champagne and he noticed, disquieted, how steady her hand was. She was watching him placidly, thinking how foolish he was, foolish to let her know he had done what he had done and was a total cheat, but even more foolish to rile against Hinodeh for preferring the dark—perhaps he looks awful naked—and more foolish to scream about the price he paid, because both are insignificant if she’s everything he says she is. “I’d like to meet this Hinodeh. Please arrange it.”

“Eh?”

Amused at his expression, she said, “What’s so strange about that? I have an interest in her, I’m financing her, the love of your life. Yes?”

Shakily he got up and went to the sideboard and poured brandy. “Would you like some?”

“No, thank you.” Only her eyes had moved.

Again he sat opposite her. A draft played with the flame and made her eyes glitter. “A hundred. Please.”

“When do I stop paying, André?” she asked pleasantly.

The brandy tasted better than the wine. He faced that question. “When she’s paid for, before you leave.”

“Before I leave? You mean I can’t leave until then?”

“When she’s paid for, before you leave.”

She frowned and went over to the desk and opened a side drawer. The little purse contained the equivalent of about two hundred Mex in gold oban. “And if there’s no money?”

“It will come from Tess, there’s no other way. She’ll pay, somehow we’ll make that happen.”

“‘We’ will?”

“I promised,” he said, the whites of his eyes bloodshot. “Your future is my future. At least on that we both agree.”

She opened the purse and counted half. Then, not knowing why, put them all back and handed it to him. “There’s about two hundred Mex there,” she said, smiling strangely. “On account.”

“I wish I understood you. I used to.”

“Then I was a silly young girl. Now I’m not.”

He nodded slowly. Then took out the envelope and held it to the flame. She let out a little gasp as the corner caught and then it flared and he put it into an ashtray and together they watched it curl and twist and die. He crushed the ash with the bottom of his glass.

“Why?” she asked.

“Because you understand about Hinodeh. And like it or not we’re partners. If Tess doesn’t pay you I’m a dead man.” He stuck out his hand. “Peace?”

She put her hand in his and smiled. “Peace. Thank you.”

He got up. “I’d better check on
Prancing Cloud
. If Tess’s aboard, it will speed things up.”

After he had gone she sifted the ashes but not a single word could be seen. Easy for André to forge a copy and tear it up and present it as the original and burn it—and still have the restored original secreted away for later use. That’s just the kind of stratagem he would adore. Why burn the false one? To make me trust him further, to forgive the blackmail.

Peace? The only peace from a blackmailer is when the deadly exposure he threatens you with no longer needs to be hidden. In my case that’s when she has paid, and the money banked. And after André gets what he wants—Hinodeh, perhaps. What is it she wants? She hides from him in the dark. Why? Because of his color? To titillate? For revenge? Because he’s not Japanese?

I know now that the act of love can go from terror to ecstasy to delusion, with every variation in between. My first time with Malcolm was in the light, the second in darkness and both were beautiful. With
him
. of the other life always in the light and he was beautiful and deadly, his color beautiful, everything beautiful and deadly and terrifying and blindingly powerful, nothing like my husband, Malcolm, whom I truly loved. And honored—and honor still, and will forever.