The Secret Adventures of Charlotte Brontë (38 page)

Fear trickled into my heart. Did he suspect I’d been outside longer than I’d implied when Hitchman found me? But he merely said, “You must have some wine to warm you.”

He produced a bottle and poured a goblet for me. The wine gleamed ruby red. I am wary of imbibing liquor—perhaps from fear that it will enslave me as it has Branwell—and I would have declined, but I was wary of offending Kuan. I accepted the goblet and drank. The wine was sweetly potent, with a bitter aftertaste.

“You deserve a reward for finding T’ing-nan,” Kuan said. “What shall it be?”

What I wanted was that he should go back to China and never harm anyone again. What I said was, “I should like to hear the rest of your story.” Then God help me convey the information to Mr. Slade and effect Kuan’s capture!

Kuan nodded. “Your choice pleases me.” He resumed his tale as though we had never been interrupted: “After I took revenge on the men who killed my family and the Canton officials surrendered to the British, I could not remain in Canton. I had taken no care to conceal what I had done, and word that I had slain the opium gang spread through the city. My life as I had known it was over. I was a criminal, with the law after me. I fled into hiding in the delta. In the meantime, other events transpired.”

His eyes looked inward and far outward at once, searching memory and space. “The war did not end with the truce. The British weren’t satisfied with the money paid them for the opium that had been destroyed. They remained determined to conquer China, and they sailed their warships up the river. Brave folk in the country villages rose up to resist the barbarians. It was in one of these villages that my men and I had found shelter. The residents formed militias, arming themselves with cudgels, swords, match-locks, and spears. I became commander of my village’s militia. My appetite for revenge extended beyond the Chinese gangsters who had slaughtered my family, to the British traders who were ultimately responsible.”

Kuan paused, and his gaze concentrated on me. “Miss Brontë, you’re not drinking your wine. Do you dislike it?”

“No, it’s fine,” I said, and sipped more, although the bitter taste put me off and my head was getting light.

“We fought a valiant, losing war against the British,” Kuan went on. “By October they had occupied and looted two major cities, Tinghai and Ningpo. Chinese resisters everywhere were massacred, their houses burned, their families killed.”

The wine blurred the room around me; visions of bodies drenched in blood and piled high in the streets flickered before my eyes, while gunfire and screams rang inside my head. These illusions were even more frighteningly real than those Kuan had inspired in the past. My glass was empty, and he refilled it. I drank in spite of a terror that he had doctored it with some potion that induced trances while it eroded the will.

“We, in our small efforts at fighting the barbarians, were like gnats buzzing around a giant. We were only delaying their inevitable victory,” Kuan said, his hypnotic voice weaving through my confused thoughts. “I wasn’t satisfied to fight to the death or to run away. I began to plot alternate strategies against the British. During my forays through the delta, I had the good luck to meet Tony Hitchman. He was captain of a merchant ship, the son of a duke with a proud heritage and no wealth. One night in Canton, Hitchman quarreled with the captain of another ship and stabbed the man to death. He was arrested, convicted of murder, and sentenced to hang.”

I felt a chill of terror; my intimation that Hitchman was dangerous was now confirmed.

“While Hitchman was in prison, the war broke out,” Kuan said. “During the confusion, he escaped. He fled to the marshes outside Canton, where a band of my soldiers caught him. They would have killed him, but I realized that he could be valuable. I ordered my men to desist. We gave him food and shelter. In return, he taught me English and captained the ship that brought us to Britain. Here, he introduced me to people who helped me establish a foothold in the West. We made perfect partners. I had allies in the form of my loyal retainers and the soldiers from the militia. Hitchman had maritime skills and advantageous connections.”

At last I understood how a Chinaman had gained influence at high levels of society, through contacts obtained by his aristocratic underling. But dizziness and stupor rendered me silent, passive.

“One night we spied a British scout boat that had become lost in the delta. We killed the crew and stole the vessel. Thus began my career as a pirate. We made our way back to Canton to raise money to finance the plans I’d made. Our target was the opium trade. It seemed fitting.” Irony colored Kuan’s voice. “Opium money was stored in receiving ships moored offshore. We raided and plundered them until the British forces became too aggressive in their pursuit of us. We ventured farther out to sea to prey on opium clippers journeying home with their ill gotten bounty. Our biggest prize was a steamship carrying fifty thousand pounds in silver.”

Kuan’s face glowed with satisfaction. “Now I had my war treasury. I had a seaworthy ship. We set out for England and arrived in 1842. Here I used my stolen fortune, and Hitchman’s contacts, to build an empire. I induced businessmen to give me war supplies and money, and traders to smuggle weapons to my allies in China. British politicians proved useful in shielding my secret efforts to mount an army that could drive their own nation out of China.”

I knew how he’d exploited vulnerable men such as Joseph Lock and the prime minister, but I’d never dreamed he had so ambitious a goal as to wage a one-man war on Britain. His grandiosity amazed me; intoxication caused the peculiar sensation that my head was drifting free from my body. Kuan seemed far away, yet his voice infected me all the more deeply.

“The times favored me.” Kuan seemed to appraise my condition; he smiled. “Many other men were as eager as I to overpower the leaders of Britain and other kingdoms. I forged alliances with revolutionaries both here and abroad. My intention was to foster instability in Britain while building my own power and wealth over the years, then to return to China, where I would drive the barbarians and the opium trade out of my homeland forever. But a certain event disrupted my plans.”

Emotion darkened Kuan’s face. I could feel his anger and hatred enfolding me like tentacles. The lamplight wavered. Strange echoes wailed in my ears as my head drifted higher.

“In June of 1842 came news from China,” Kuan said. “The British forces had captured Shanghai. They then headed up the Yangtze River, wreaking terrible carnage. The Chinese army was powerless to stop them. The British reached Nanking in August, and China was forced to surrender.”

Kuan’s voice tightened with an effort to control the rage that suffused his features. “In Nanking Britain and China signed a treaty that ceded Hong Kong to Britain and ordered China to pay an indemnity of twenty-one million pounds. This loss of territory was a disgraceful humiliation for China. And the opium trade flourished bigger than ever. I realized that I could not afford to delay taking action. Britain might overrun China while I was slowly building my army. Hence, I plotted a more immediate, daring scheme to make Britain pay for the deaths of my wife and children, and at the same time force it to renounce the new treaty and leave China.”

Fanatical determination smoldered in his eyes. “Innocents shall suffer as recompense for the suffering of innocents. I shall take them hostage to my cause and bring the British Empire to its knees. For six years I have been gaining the influence of the right people and planting my allies in strategic places. The time is almost at hand.”

This was the closest I had come to learning Kuan’s intentions, and excitement reverberated through me; but still he spoke in only vague terms. In my entranced condition, I couldn’t fathom his meaning. A question surfaced from amidst the whirl of sensations that possessed my mind. “What innocents?” I whispered. “Who are your hostages?”

“Be patient, Miss Brontë. You will know soon enough,” said Kuan. His secretive smile teased me. “In fact, you will play a role of the utmost importance in my scheme. It is the role I once intended for our mutual friend Isabel White. You will take her place.”

Across my vision flashed the image of Isabel’s murder in that London alley. I heard the words from her diary as if she spoke inside my head:
How could I allow myself to be used as an instrument to shake the foundations of the world?
Should I refuse to comply with Kuan, I would share her fate. Should I obey him, I would share her sins.
I must free myself of Him, or consign my soul to eternal damnation.
A heart-pounding fright stirred in me an urgent desire to run for my life. I tried to stand, but my limbs were as heavily inert as sacks of flour.

“Why have you chosen me?” I whispered.

Kuan rose, moved behind my chair, and leaned close to me. “You, Miss Brontë, are a woman of intelligence, honor, and righteousness.” His warm breath hissed the words into my ear. “Together we will triumph over evil.”

His strange magic combined with the effects of the wine, subduing my urge to resist. It blurred my ability to distinguish between justice for Isabel White and Kuan’s other victims, and justice for Kuan’s family and China. Now Kuan caressed my cheek. To my horror, I felt my skin tingle alive under his fingers, and the heat of desire spread through me.

I thrilled to the touch that I’d longed for,
said Isabel’s voice in my memory.

“Your face is as beautiful as your spirit,” Kuan whispered. “You enchant me.”

His words fed a lifetime’s hunger for such praise, even if it was false. How much I had yearned to hear it from Mr. Slade, who had never expressed such admiration for me. Kuan raised me to my feet, easing me so slowly and smoothly away from the chair that it seemed to vanish. He held me with my back pressed to him. The room faded from my perception; we were afloat in some alien place where lights flickered and eerie noises sounded through black shadows. Kuan’s lips grazed my neck; his hands moved over my breasts. No man had ever touched me thus. Intoxicated and dizzy, I moaned as pleasure overwhelmed me.

I wanted to flee in terror, but . . . I could only submit
.

Mr. Slade had instilled in me this desire, but had not fulfilled it. Now I responded against my will to Kuan, craving from him what I couldn’t have from Mr. Slade. The animal in me was a blind, lusty creature, unable to distinguish one man from another. I hardly knew what I felt for Mr. Slade and what for Kuan.

My mind pictured Mr. Slade holding and caressing me, as real as life. I sighed with rapture.
His very presence reduced me to a state of hot, quivering need. . . .
The image of Mr. Slade and myself dissolved into a shocking, obscene picture of Kuan with Isabel White, naked and entwined. But at that moment I didn’t care that Kuan had been Isabel’s lover. I didn’t care that he wasn’t Mr. Slade. I forgot he was a murderer. All I was aware of was his power to satisfy my desire.

“Will you do my bidding, Miss Brontë?” Kuan murmured. I heard Mr. Slade’s voice echo his. “Will you help me achieve justice?”

“Yes,” I whispered, not knowing whether it was Mr. Slade or Kuan to whom I was pledging my loyalty.

I
AWAKENED TO FIND MYSELF LYING ON MY BED, FULLY DRESSED, MY SPECTACLES askew on my face. Pale daylight shone through the white curtains; gulls screeched outside. My head ached, my stomach was queasy, and there was a sour taste in my mouth. My wits stirred sluggishly to life. I sat up with a cry of dismay as I recalled how Kuan had begun to seduce me. Yet I couldn’t recall anything else, for the wine must have rendered me unconscious. Panic clutched my heart. What, in my inebriated condition, had I allowed that madman to do?

I made a hasty inspection of my clothes and person, and found no evidence that Kuan had maltreated me. It seemed that he’d conveyed me to my bed and left me to sleep. I was vastly relieved, but also shamed and horrified that last night I had succumbed to Kuan. Was it only poisoned wine that had undermined my will? With its effects worn off, could I still resist him? Or was I his creature, over whom he would always exert control? I moaned at the thought that here was another day to face. How many more must I pass in Kuan’s company before I could learn who were his intended hostages and what were his plans for them?

When fortune gives us no alternative but to go on, we somehow manage. I rose, washed, and tidied myself. This took a bit of time, as my stomach kept heaving, and dizziness spun the room around me; I frequently had to stop and lie down. Finally I tottered downstairs.