The Captain's Pearl (2 page)

Davis did not speak as he went with Bryce to their quarters in the American compound. He motioned for Bryce to join him in his room, but said nothing as he lit a lantern.

The simple room offered Spartan comfort. A table, a single chair, and a wardrobe crowded in the space left by the narrow bed. Nothing hung on the whitewashed walls. Pulling a bottle from the mantel, Davis poured two drinks and handed one cup to Bryce.

Bryce broke the silence. “Do you think there's any chance—?”

“Of course, there's a chance!” he retorted, irritated. “Don't let my father's present condition fool you. I may have dozens of half-breed siblings.”

“True, but watch your step, Captain. You don't want to end up being blackmailed.”

“I heard no mention of money.”

“Why in hell are you defending the harlot?”

“I fear she's being honest.” He pyramided his fingers in front of his face. “Father
was
stuck here years ago when the
Pacific Shadow
needed to be refitted. Pretty, blue-eyed Lian may be a misplaced Catherwood.”

“You can't be serious!”

“What if she is my sister? You saw the design of the ship on the box.”

“It could have been any ship.”

“You don't believe that.”

Bryce sighed. No, he did not believe that. The Shadow ships had a unique keel design that allowed them to gain power from the wind. Their beauty held his eyes as pretty Lian had. Every muscle along him reacted to the thought of her. If he went back to Hog Lane, he might be able to find her and offer her a few coins in exchange for her slender limbs entangled with his.

With a silent groan, he drained his rum and reached for the bottle. He wanted this woman as he had not wanted any other in a long time. Her eyes pulsed with emotions daring a man to explore them and her. Her
blue
eyes! If she was truly a Catherwood, this longing must remain unfulfilled. He could not treat Samuel Catherwood's daughter like a common harlot.

“What would you have me do?” Davis continued. “Would you chance leaving your sister to these heathens?”

Bryce slapped his hand on the table, and the bottle of rum danced. “
To
the heathens? She's one of them!”

When Davis's face flushed again, disquiet wracked Bryce. He did not want to see any resemblance between his captain and that half-Chinese woman. Yet, he could not deny how Davis's tight lips and flushed cheeks matched Lian's when her mother had insisted on showing them the box.

“She may be my sister, Lieutenant Trevarian,” Davis said in a clipped voice.

Bryce swore. Davis called him lieutenant only when he was furious. He had to persuade Davis the woman was lying.
If she was
. Dammit! He did not need his own sense of fair play interfering now.

“Captain, you should ask more questions before you accept her tale.”

“When? We sail day after tomorrow.”

“Then forget the whole thing.” He sat on the edge of the table. “That your father remained behind in Canton after the other ships sailed would have made his name memorable.” He smiled coldly. “Ask yourself this—why is she approaching us only now?”

“I thought about that.” Pouring himself another glass, he downed it in a single gulp. “I knew she must have been lying, but once I saw the Shadow ship on that box along with Father's initials … I believed her.”

“Are you sure it's brotherly concern?”

“What do you mean?”

Bryce almost did not answer, but he could not let his captain be duped by a Chinese harlot. “Maybe you should just give her a tumble and be done with it.” Dammit! Why had he said that? He wanted Lian for himself.

“My own sister?” Davis gasped. He went to look out the window. “I said I would meet them tomorrow. Until then, I do not want to hear any derogatory remarks about Lian.”

Bryce fought to keep emotion from his voice. “You'll hear nothing from me until tomorrow evening.”

“I appreciate that. Let's call it a night. We have to go to Whampoa in the morning, and, I, for one, would like to have a good night's sleep before sailing ten miles in that smelly junk.”

“Good night, Captain.” When he got no reply, Bryce realized Davis had not heard him. The captain continued to stare out of the window. Bryce closed the door behind him.

His uneasiness returned doubly strong when he thought of the next evening. The disquiet rumbling through his gut now had a name.

Lian
.

Two

The lovely woman vowed that the young man would never see her again, save when he sought the truth within his books, for she was the magic daughter of the fox. He tended to his studies, and each night, when he looked in his mirror, there was the daughter of the fox, smiling. He studied through the winter, but when summer came, his friends led him into merriment. In his mirror, he saw only the shadow of the fox's daughter, for she was visible to him only through his studies. Fearful that he had lost her, the young man returned to his studies, becoming a renowned scholar. When he had studied the last of his books, he sought in his mirror for the fox's daughter. The mirror evaporated, and she was there, awed by the learned man he had become and how he had discovered the rewards of hard work. His greatest reward was the fox's daughter for his wife, so they could be happy for the rest of their days
.

Lian smiled as Mother finished the tale she had heard so often. It was her favorite among the ones in the stories box.

Her smile faded. The thousand stories box! She wished that she had never seen it. How could Mother have dishonored them by insisting that Lian present herself to a
Yang Kuei-tzÅ­
as his sister? It was one thing to listen to the tale of how her father had been a great captain of a wondrous ship from distant America. It was quite another to come face-to-face with her father's son who shared her blue eyes—eyes that had condemned her as a mixed-blood abomination.

She glanced around the hut. They had moved often, taking their possessions from one hovel to another. The only constant had been the box that her mother used to teach lessons a daughter should learn.

As if she could hear Lian's unsettled thoughts, Mother said, “Your father was a man of great honor. His son, I hear, is the same. He will welcome you into his family.”

“But I don't want to be welcomed into the family of a
Yang Kuei-tzÅ­
.”

The wrong thing to say, she knew, when her mother's face crumbled. Dear Mother! She had sacrificed the luxurious life she could have had within Canton's walls because she would not deny her only child.

“Lian, I have told you often how like the willow, whose name you bear, you grow strong and tall from many roots. You have the roots from your Chinese past, but you have a heritage that is American as well.” Closing the box and placing it in its place of honor in front of the family altar, which was the only piece of furniture in the hut, she said, “Tonight, Captain Catherwood will acknowledge you as his sister.”

“I am not so certain.”

“I am. He will not deny the truth which he saw in the thousand stories box last night.” Mother looked at it. “Even his companion could not persuade him otherwise.”

“No.” Lian said nothing else, for even a single word could betray her apprehension each time she thought of the green-eyed man. Others among the
Yang Kuei-tzÅ­
had tried to touch her. Others among the
Yang Kuei-tzÅ­
had offered Mother money for her. Not one had disconcerted her as this
Yang Kuei-tzÅ­
did. Maybe it had been his demon green eyes that glowed like sunshine on the river, but she could not rid herself of the memory of his touch—brazen and yet gentle. Something in his jade gaze had stolen her heartbeat for a single moment, frightening her.

As someone knocked on the wall, Lian rose from the dirt floor, as a good daughter should, to answer. Only with Mother was she so obedient. It had been different when Mother's Father was alive. She had loved him, and, with his death three months ago, all joy had vanished from her life and from her mother's.

When Lian pulled aside the tattered cloth hanging in the door, she dropped to her knees, scowling. Mother's Younger Brother did not deserve respect. Ch'en Keung had become head of the family on his father's death and delighted in his tyranny over his family, especially his older sister Mei and her child.

Lian remained on her knees, watching the hem of her mother's skirt move toward the door. Only when Mother's Younger Brother gave his permission could she rise. She knew he would wait until her whole body ached. Not that she minded. She did not want to look upon his dull hair and sickly skin that contrasted with her mother's beauty.

“It is time,” he stated in his squeaky voice. “Lian comes with me.”

“Younger Brother, give me just one more week. Surely you have not completed all the arrangements with the honorable merchant Han Yuan-yin to take Lian into his household.”

His laugh grated on Lian's ears. “You should be grateful anyone wants a woman with the eyes of a
Yang Kuei-tzÅ­
.”

“Younger Brother,” Mother said, “you must remember that our father agreed I should find Lian's father.”

“I tire of seeing her hideous face.” Ignoring his sister's gasp, he ordered, “Rise, Lian, and come with me.”

Slowly she stood. Grief swept through her as she saw her mother's tears. “Mother's Younger Brother, allow me a chance to say farewell to my mother.”

“Listen to her, Mei! She speaks to me as if I were a child.”

“Her request is reasonable,” Mother said quietly. “She does our family honor by being so loving.”

Shoving Lian out the door, he snarled, “I hope she shows that devotion to her new master. If she pleases him, he may not slay her for her ugliness.”

“Mother!” Lian cried. She swallowed her sobs as he pushed her along the street. She would never see her mother again. Her place would be in the gardens of the opium merchant's house. There she would live out her life, waiting upon his commands and bearing his children. She would not be his wife, for Mother's Younger Brother was correct. With her strange eyes, she was ugly.

“Cease your mewling!” Mother's Younger Brother thrust her to the ground. “Look! The daughter of an American pig wallowing in the mud.”

“My father is no pig!”

“He never returned to look at your hideous face, did he?”

“My brother—”

When he jerked her to her feet, she stared at the odd glitter in his eyes. Horror filled her. Mother's Younger Brother was an opium eater.

Gripping her chin, he tilted her head back. “What brother?”

“Captain Catherwood.”

“The name your sluttish mother says belongs to your father.”

“And to my brother.”

“How do you know you have a brother?”

Lian kept her voice even. “Mother found him last night.”

He laughed. “Then why are you still with her?”

“My brother was unsure if I am his sister.” She was about to explain, but bit back the words. Until last night, Mother never had shown the thousand stories box to anyone but her and Mother's Father. Mother had warned her never to speak of it.

Mother's Younger Brother laughed. “He did not wish to claim you.”

“That is not true.”

He spat on the road. “That is what I think of your lies. Come. He waits for you.”

Lian considered dragging her feet, but she would not shame her mother by being disobedient. She must go with Mother's Younger Brother and pray her new master would be merciful.

When Mother's Younger Brother turned into the street the foreign devils called Hog Lane, she hunched her shoulders. She did not want to be touched by a drunken man. She heard a man being ill, and she tried not to stare. Gripping her arm, Mother's Younger Brother herded her through a gate.

Lian's eyes widened in horror. Mother occasionally did sewing for the owner, but she had never allowed Lian to come to the brothel. Shaking her head, she planted her feet firmly.

“Come!” Mother's Younger Brother yanked on her arm.

“Mother does not want—”

“Her wishes no longer concern you.” Mother's Younger Brother prodded her toward a building in dire need of repair. The archway tilted, and several boards were missing on the steps. When she tripped on a loose one, he pushed her into the dim interior, calling, “Sun Niang? We are here.”

From the dark recesses emerged a huge phantom. As its shadow crept over her, Mother's Younger Brother seized her arm, keeping her from fleeing.

“Where is the girl you bring me, Ch'en Keung?” asked the shadow.

“Here she is. Take her and use her as you wish.”

Lian gasped, “But this is not the house of—”

“Silence.” Mother's Younger Brother pressed her onto her knees before the huge man who wore a floor length robe over his trousers.

Long fingers lifted her face. She remained silent as she met the stare above his long mustache. His lips twisted in distaste. “She is a bizarre creature.”

“Perhaps appealing to the depraved tastes of Americans.”

“Yes, the foreign devils have no appreciation for beauty, but even an American must deem this ugly.”

“Honorable Sun Niang, she shall earn you many
taels
, for she is young.”

“Not even one night. No one would want her.”

Mother's Younger Brother would have to take her home. Lian whispered a prayer of gratitude to Mother's Father's spirit for watching over her.

Fear returned to strangle her as Mother's Younger Brother said, “I give her to you for one night for nothing. See what she can earn for you. If she earns enough to make it worth the price I ask, you may pay me then.”

Sun Niang stroked his mustache. “I shall take her for tonight, but you must pay for her food.”

Mother's Younger Brother dropped some coins into his hand. “Sister's Daughter, now you shall have the life for which you are fit.”