My Beautiful Enemy (29 page)

There would be no bright pearl in her palms. No trip to see the Heavenly Mountains. No hope of redeeming herself by giving her child a wonderful life.

She screamed at last. For a long time, it seemed she would never stop screaming. Then tears came, burning her eyes as they fell and fell.

She had lost everything after all.

Peking

1886

Da-ren did not recognize Ying-ying.

When he’d last seen her, she had still been a pretty girl. Now she was no longer pretty, and no longer a girl. It was a hard, grim woman who lowered herself to one knee before him.

This, she had realized some time ago, was the doom that Mother, Amah, and Da-ren had always feared for her—that her pride, impulsiveness, and obduracy would lead to great misfortunes. And make her the kind of woman who could never again lead a safe, normal life.

She didn’t care anymore.

“Da-ren wished to see me?” she said by way of greeting.

He pushed aside his tea. “Three years we have had no news of you and this is all you have to say?”

She did not answer.

She had ridden to Peking to bury her child, wrapped in fabric from the turban her Persian had left with her, next to the grave of her mother. And then, without a word to anyone, she had left to hunt down Lin. Several times she’d had good leads, but she had yet to come close.

Her failures only fueled her. It had taken him five years to exact his revenge upon her. She had plenty of time.

Da-ren’s hand tightened around the armrest of his chair. “Bao-shun, how long did it take you to find her?”

From behind her, Bao-shun answered, “Four and half months, Da-ren. And it took us three weeks to return to Peking.”

Three weeks she could have used to locate Lin. But she had come—one did not refuse a direct summons from Da-ren.

He, too, was older and grimmer. She had heard what happened to Shao-ye, his eldest son who had been the source of so much trouble to everyone: Not long after she and Da-ren had departed for Chinese Turkestan, Lin had laid waste to him, breaking every bone in his body, savaging all the tendons and
ligaments. Shao-ye had been bedridden ever since. But while Da-ren had remained in Chinese Turkestan, the news had been concealed from him, for fear it would upset him too much.

“Lin is dead,” said Da-ren. “The one who killed your child and maimed mine has been beheaded.”

She stared at him in incomprehension. How? Lin was almost untouchable.

“They found him in Tienjin, in a drunken stupor. The magistrate was an old subordinate of mine and had his head specially delivered to Peking.”

Two servants brought in a basket filled with salt. She could see something black at the top: a long queue of hair.

“See for yourself,” said Da-ren.

She gritted her teeth and yanked out the head by the queue. The preservation in salt had come too late; the head was largely rotted. She dropped it back into the basket. “Da-ren is sure that is him?”

Da-ren’s hand slammed down on the tea table beside him. “Do you think if that were not him, I would not keep looking?”

Tears stung Ying-ying’s eyes. She had not wept since she buried her daughter—the search for Lin had consumed her. But now that he was dead, all the grief that had been packed away threatened to overwhelm her control.

And what was she going to do with herself, with no child, no husband, and not even an enemy she could pursue?

Da-ren sighed. “I have ordered your mother’s old home prepared for your use—you have been on your own for so long, I doubt you can live under someone else’s roof and someone else’s rules. Go there and take rest. When you are ready, come back and see me. I can always use someone like you.”

She had not seen her childhood home in a dozen years—she hadn’t even known Da-ren still kept it.

“Da-ren’s generosity I will never forget,” she answered, now down on both knees.

Da-ren sighed again. He waved his hand, indicating that she was now to be off. She kowtowed once, rose, and walked out into a bright Peking October day.

Into a life she did not know anymore.

England

1891

I
t wasn’t until Catherine had pulled herself together enough to go back into Mrs. Reynolds’s house that she realized Leighton Atwood had left a folded note in the palm of her kidskin-gloved hand.

The note was composed on Mrs. Reynolds’s stationery, the handwriting hurried.

Catherine hesitated. Half of her wanted to return to her flat—so what if Lin found her there? Sooner or later she would meet him head-on.

But perhaps in this case, later would be more prudent, given her injury from their last encounter. And she was curious about 12 Royal Street in St. John’s Wood.

Half an hour later, she turned the key in the door and let
herself into her temporary lair. It was a small, pleasant house, quite feminine in its decor, and it did not belong to Leighton Atwood—the estate agent’s placard still leaned against the wall just inside the door.

The kitchen was in the basement, and several bags of provisions sat atop the worn and pitted kitchen table. One bag was filled with fruits and vegetables; another contained a loaf of bread, eggs, and what she suspected to be a meat pie; and a third held such things as cooking oil, herbs, and salt and pepper.

The last bag had only a tin of Darjeeling tea and half a dozen bars of chocolate.

He remembered.

She found a kettle and a spirit lamp—the kitchen was supplied with woodchips and coal, but she didn’t feel like taking the trouble to light the cold stove. While the water heated, she inspected the rest of the house, which was furnished but empty of personal items—until she reached the bedroom upstairs.

There she found not only toiletries but clothes—a tailor-made jacket-and-skirt set, a nightgown, petticoats, stockings—and a pair of walking boots. On the nightstand was another note, one with much neater handwriting.

The last line on the note was written in a language she could not decipher but readily recognized: Turkic. Did he forget that she was illiterate in Turkic or had he written something he did not want her to understand?

The kettle whistled. She returned to the kitchen, made a cup of tea, and tasted chocolate for the first time in eight years. Then she slept very, very well, in the nightgown he had bought for her.

H
ave you ever seen the ocean?” he asked her.

It was the night before he left her, but he did not know it yet. He was planning for a lifetime together.

She shook her head and snuggled closer to him, as if she were cold.

“There is a chain of tropical coral islands not far from the southern tip of India. And all around them the water is the exact color of the sky, and so clear you can see the fish swim. I want to take you there.”

“Will you also take me to meet your family?”

“Yes, of course.”

“What if your mother does not like me?”

“I daresay she will pretend to, just so you don’t stab one of your daggers into her table.”

This made her smile a little. “Do we need to live with her if she doesn’t like me?”

“No, I have enough money to support a wife. And if I become a poorer man, well, you are a master thief, aren’t you?”

Her smile widened. “You want to live on my criminal proceeds?”

“Nothing would make me prouder. And I will disdain other men who aren’t clever enough to marry girls capable of robbing the neighbors blind.”

Leighton opened his eyes in the predawn darkness. The past lived and breathed, a phantom within. Sometimes, a monster within.

Fifteen minutes later, he was in a hansom cab, being driven in the direction of St. John’s Wood. He had managed, the night before, to return home and not leave again. But the compulsion had become too strong this morning.

He made sure to get off the hansom cab well away from Royal Street. He made sure that he walked nearly the entirety of the district before stepping onto her street. And he made sure that he did not stop, or even slow down, as he passed her house.

A light shone gently from behind the curtains of an upstairs window.

He exhaled. That would have to be enough reassurance of her safety.

For now.

I
n the morning, after Catherine made sure she was not being followed, she wired a short message—
Safe. Thank you.
—to Leighton Atwood’s address in the country. Then, as had become her habit, she went to the poste restante office on St. Martin’s-le-Grand and asked if anything had come for her.

“Yes, ma’am,” said the clerk, “a cable from America.”

Mrs. Delany, at long last. Catherine yielded her place before the clerk’s window and opened the telegram.