The Blonde Samurai (7 page)

With that terse statement, I set into motion a drama I couldn’t have foreseen with an alarming alacrity that pushed me headfirst into this exotic, alluring world. Beguiling, yes, dazzling, more than I could have imagined.

My husband was joined by a rotund gentleman pushing snuff up his nose with a short fat finger while he observed me from under heavy-lidded eyes, their puffy hoods reminding me of a greedy serpent ready to bite its prey. I could only describe the wild look in those eyes as filled with an earthly passion no proper gentleman would extend toward a lady. (Should you guess his real identity, dear lady reader, I forewarn
you: any close contact with him could result in you getting caught flagrante delicto, your drawers down to your knees, the tail of your filmy chemise tucked out of the way so as to give his lordship full view of your magnificent arse.)

Breaking his gaze, I spun around, swishing my long skirts in his direction, my quick movement startling the babbling Chinamen and local natives hovering nearby, lifting crates and hoisting sacks onto their bare shoulders. The gentleman I presumed to be Lord Penmore informed me their smiling and snickering came in response to my exaggerated bustle bouncing as I turned around (a new Paris fashion I had embraced before leaving London). Their fascination, he added, with his eyes riveted to my posterior, led to speculations that my bustle was indeed a coiled-down tail.

Embarrassment pumped through me, not because of Lord Penmore’s absurd observation (James was laughing so hard he could barely get through the introductions), I imagined he also found great amusement in forming a mental picture of my naked buttocks spread out and quivering before he laid a shiny riding crop upon my flesh. I burned inside, the lascivious thought sending a different fear through me and making me shiver despite the vapid humidity and misty air. No one would come to my aid should James or his cohort wish to take advantage of me.

Still, I refused to cower like a caged animal.

I gave no indication I was under duress, laughing and chatting with Lord Penmore and commenting on the sea voyage. My ability to hide my emotions was a trait I’d learned growing up, seeing how my plainness made me the subject of teasing. Allow me to explain how this trait would serve me well. Here in Japan no one showed their true feelings, especially distress or any emotion that would upset those around them. The
natives communicated their thoughts differently than we do, conveying intent with the slightest movement or a simple word. It was a way of life and adhered to in the strictest sense.

It was also a place where a tradesman in a shop turned his palms out to beckon you inside or a servant swept the stairs outside the house from the bottom up because more dirt gathered there. Stranger yet was the role of women in their society. The female sex resided in a place that reminded me of a great railway balanced on smooth tracks that ran side by side: the woman at home and the
other
woman. These feminine Medusas with their numerous combs, high clogs nearly a foot high, the childlike attendants who hovered over them with an oil-slicked paper umbrella, women who wore their elaborate sashes tied in front.

Geisha.

No doubt in my mind which woman Lord Penmore preferred.

“You will be a welcome addition to the legation here in Yokohama,” Lord Penmore said, kissing my hand, his lips lingering on my kid-leather glove soiled by my sweat. I smiled, determined not to show my discomfort. In London, I often changed gloves three times a day. A silly habit and one I would discard in due time.

“Thank you, milord,” I said, swaying my shoulders with a delightful dip as I’d learned to do at Miss Brown’s School for Young Ladies, but not too sassy. I had every intention of playing the game, but I expected to be treated like a lady. I wanted to make certain Lord Penmore understood that. “I shall look forward to—”

“Lady Carlton has changed her mind and is not staying in Japan,” James interrupted, leading me by the elbow along the
seawall and back to the customhouse. Lord Penmore needed no invitation to accompany us, sniffing me like a hound about to take a bite out of a hare caught in a trap with her bottom up.

“Why not, James?” the older Englishman asked, sounding disappointed. “She has a magnificent—”

“Her ladyship’s luggage is lost,” James added, his change in temperament amusing to watch. Was he jealous? “I’ll make arrangements for her to return to the ship where she’ll be comfortable until the steamer sets sail.”

“You’ll do no such thing, my dear husband,” I said, resentful at being discussed by the two gentlemen as if I were a piece of barter to be traded back and forth. “I intend to stay in Yokohama and replenish my wardrobe.”

“I
forbid
you to remain here,” James said in a harsh whisper, his grip on my arm tightening.

“I don’t believe you’re in a position to
forbid
me to do anything,” I retorted, pulling away from him. “We have an agreement, in case you’ve forgotten. Things are no different here than they were in London.”

“Don’t be so sure, milady.” He curled his upper lip in a nasty snarl, marring the usual attractiveness of his full and sensual mouth. “You can’t escape me
wherever
you go, remember that.”

I ignored his threat. “The Viscount Aubrey is expecting me to represent him at the British Legation in Tokio and I intend to complete my mission even if I have to dress like a geisha girl with needles sticking out of my hair and clogs on my feet.”

Lord Penmore threw his head back and laughed. “Egad, James, you picked yourself a spirited wench.”

His big, hearty guffaw drew stares from the bustling natives
and few westerners meandering along the stretch of the seawall on foot or riding in what I recognized from the postal cards in his lordship’s letters as jinrikishas. That gave me an idea. I spied an empty vehicle and headed toward it.

“She may have spirit,” James said, his absorbing glance drinking in my obstinance but not releasing me from his power. “But her ladyship’s talents won’t save her if she loses her way again in the dark.”

“I don’t expect I shall be caught unaware the next time,” I said with bravado. Holding my parasol over my head, I climbed into the waiting conveyance.
I refused to yield to him.
I motioned for the young fellow manning the jinrikisha to take off before James could stop me. I had no idea
where
I would find western clothing, but it didn’t take a seasoned globe-trotter to figure out the nearly naked native pulling the big, two-wheeled baby carriage could take me somewhere,
anywhere
where I’d be out of his lordship’s reach. That old fear from that night in San Francisco revisited me, making me shiver. Or had it never gone away?

“Lady Carlton,
Lady Carlton!
”

I set my lips in a grim line, determined not to be deterred from leaving, though instinct and good hearing alerted me it wasn’t James or his pompous business associate calling me.

“Yes, I’m Lady Carlton. Who are you?” I asked, turning around to see a gentleman jabbering with the jinriki-man in Japanese, the native bowing over and over and putting down the shafts. The newcomer was a portly man with a stout face, his brown tweed suit cut with a flair one would find on Bond Street, the wide-brimmed white hat pushed back on his head, his hair and scraggly sideburns the color of dried spice. Who was he? And how did he know my name?

“Seymour Fawkes here, milady,” he said, tipping his hat and
presenting his card to me. “The British Legation sent me to meet you. Sorry I’m late, but I had pressing business.”

“What could be more important than attending to her ladyship?” James dared to inquire, his sarcasm not lost on Mr. Fawkes nor me.

Ignoring my husband, a slight which endeared him to me immediately, Mr. Fawkes said in his clipped British accent, “You’ll be pleased to know, Lady Carlton, I’ve found your missing luggage.”

I’d like to take a moment, dear lady reader, to reflect upon that day and meeting Mr. Fawkes. He was a sly and learned gentleman, a speaker of many languages and a man who enjoyed his rum. On this misty February morning he was also a sleuth. He had come on board the steamer when I was with the quarantine officer and, when he couldn’t locate me, he inquired about my luggage. He informed me it was his duty to make certain my trunks and portmanteau were loaded onto a hotel steam launch and deposited at my accommodations in Yokohama. After questioning several natives, he discovered a gentleman had paid them to hide my luggage in the cargo hold until the ship left port.

An
English
gentleman.

My dear husband, no doubt.

And now you know the tale of my missing luggage, a footnote at best, but important to my story not because I considered it part and parcel of my femininity, but because it granted me a valuable ally in Mr. Fawkes against my husband, something I would need in the months to come.

On a personal note, I found Mr. Fawkes to be entertaining and intelligent and I miss his funny habit of checking his
gold pocket watch for the correct time whenever he mulled over a problem. He preferred the native system of telling time with hours of varying length.
Imagine what one could accomplish with more time as needed?
he often lamented.

Mr. Fawkes was what was known in Japan as a broker, an English gentleman who earned his sustenance by concluding a business transaction for two parties in need of a go-between. He earned a commission for his services and no proper native official would conduct business with a foreigner without one. The Viscount Aubrey had arranged for him to be a bridge between the mikado’s government and me.

On the personal side, Mr. Fawkes claimed to be a man of letters, a great reader of the classics and travel lore, which led him to the Orient years ago in search of cultural endeavors. His sharp hazel eyes noticed every detail, whether it was a loose thread on a kimono sleeve or a nervous hand clutching a sword, but he retained a simplicity about his observations that allowed him to go beyond what was on the surface. That trait was what induced him to accept this Irish lass with my tall, lean frame and mess of blond hair, not to mention my stalwart insistence to turn a phrase even at the most inopportune time, though he was quick to point out to me I would have to work hard to understand the natives.

He could also laugh at his own foibles, such as the spot on his head as bald as an infant’s bottom and his abundant paunch, which he carried with pride as a sign of a man well paid for his talents. His callused hands and ruddy complexion reminded me more of a man who worked in the fields, though I never questioned him about it. He was a true gentleman, so unlike my husband and his cronies with their righteous countenance, men who hid their perverse desires under a genteel persona. Mr. Fawkes was a right-minded, common
man who didn’t subscribe to the idea that the aristocracy was beyond reproach. He was also a dear friend and a man I shall never forget.

“Why did the legation send
you,
Mr. Fawkes? And not a native official?” I asked, holding on to my yellow straw hat (I noted the jinriki-man wore a similar straw hat, though his was flat and shaped like the head of a mushroom) as the runner hoisted up the shafts of the jinrikisha, I mean,
kuruma
(the local European residents preferred the native word to the Chinese phrase) onto his broad shoulders and took off in a fast trot. I couldn’t stop smiling, turning and seeing James and his business associate mumbling interrupted phrases of a non-delicate nature. Mr. Fawkes’s appearance had riled my husband’s anger (to my intense delight) and ruined his plans to rid himself of my presence.

“Besides my charming personality,” Mr. Fawkes answered without a trace of ego, “the natives are a rather shy people when it comes to expressing themselves, especially with
gaijin—
”

“Gaijin?”
I repeated the strange sounding word.

“Foreigners. The natives fear making mistakes and embarrassing themselves,” he said as I listened intently, trying to understand. “To counter that, they have this bourgeois habit of thinking over everything before answering you, and when they do they speak in short syllables.”

How well I remembered his words when I met my samurai, grunting but making his meaning clear regarding his interest in me. At that moment, I had another thought on my mind. “Where are we off to, Mr. Fawkes?”

“Arrangements have been made for you to stay in a house built for foreign guests on the Bluff,” Mr. Fawkes said casually,
“since private inns often refuse admission to
gaijin
because they fear and distrust us.”

I decided against asking why this was so, since it took no stretch of my imagination to surmise James wasn’t the only profiteer who had come to Japan in search of launching a quick business venture for monetary gain.

“Is Lord Carlton aware of our living accommodations?” I asked, curious.

Mr. Fawkes took out his gold-plated watch, looked at the time, then closed it again. In a dry voice he said, “His lordship has made
other
arrangements.”

I feigned disappointment, but I was secretly relieved to be residing on the Bluff and not in what Mr. Fawkes called the settlement. He told me James had elected to take rooms at the International Hotel on the Bund, the street facing the bay. The Englishman assured me his lordship would be more comfortable in town with billiard tables to amuse him as well as the nearby United Club, where the gentlemen gathered to discuss business. He was too discreet to mention what
other
entertainment was available in Yokohama, though he hinted that
he
frequented the rum mills. Knowing my husband, I was certain his lordship would pursue the lurid delights of the geisha. I imagine he was relieved to have Mr. Fawkes tend to my needs, leaving him at liberty to pursue his affairs without an inquisitive wife checking his every move. I dare say his thinking was premature. I had no intention of allowing his lordship complete freedom. I had promised my father I would keep an eye on his business interests, which meant checking with the bank manager to make certain James delivered the funds for the railway into the proper hands and not squander them on heavy gambling losses.