Chapter Three
It didn’t take long for Cedric to get Lord Wenshire’s tale. Sailing was a tedious process and it would take months to make port in England. The days and nights were long, and Cedric had with him a bottle of Graham’s very fine Aarack. Which, it turned out, was a particular favourite of Lord Wenshire.
‘Come now,’ Cedric chided after the bottle was nearly empty. ‘You must know everyone will ask.’
‘About my girls? Of course they will talk, but only the boldest will ask me.’ The man was rosy-cheeked with twinkling eyes as he spoke. But his words weren’t slurred, and so Cedric knew he was playing, not drunk.
‘Then I am bold, sir. How did you find them? I was told Canton is blocked off to westerners.’
‘It is, except for a very small area. Just a quarter mile long. And women are not allowed there at all. It is a place for men.’
‘But then, how—’
‘Illegally, of course.’
He gestured for more Aarack, and while Cedric gave him the last of it, the man told a tale too fanciful to be believed and yet the emotions were real. And, obviously, the girls were real.
‘You have my full attention,’ Cedric said as he set down the flask. He’d waited until it was just him and Lord Wenshire in the mess to encourage confidences.
‘There is competition among the Chinese merchants to get our silver. First, they must get approval from the emperor to bargain in the Thirteen Factory area, but then how does one Chinese merchant stand out from the next? Us poor westerners cannot effectively choose.’
‘I assumed you pick by the quality of the goods and the price.’
‘And when that is all the same?’
Cedric could guess. There were several sordid ways, including threats, bribery and women.
Lord Wenshire nodded, even though Cedric hadn’t spoken his thoughts out loud. ‘There were parties. Quiet dinner parties, loud, raucous fetes and everything in between, though none of it was legal. At least not if there were Chinese women there.’
‘But they came as bribes and temptations?’
‘Yes. And I was a young man very far from home.’ He sighed as he drained the last of his glass. ‘She was the seventh concubine to one of the merchants, which is a lucky number for westerners but not so lucky for the Chinese.’
Cedric said nothing. He had no understanding of numerology, though he had heard that many Asians put great faith in such things.
‘So beautiful,’ Lord Wenshire said, his eyes closing in memory. ‘She was flawless in every way, but because her feet were not bound, she was unattractive to many Chinese.’
‘But she was married.’
‘She was a concubine. That means she had food, clothing and a kind of status. But her husband was not a kind man. I found out later that he married poor girls—he had a dozen or more concubines—just so he could use them this way.’
Cedric winced. ‘For parties. With westerners.’ It wasn’t a question.
‘Yes. But she was beautiful, could manage a smattering of English and I liked her immediately.’ He shrugged. ‘I made him a very rich man because I gave him my business. Because of her.’
Mr. Richards’s gaze was soft, his focus off in some distant past. Cedric was no expert on love, but he could see when a man thought of a woman with tenderness. And when it was more than that.
‘You loved her,’ he said.
‘I did.’ He looked down at his empty cup. ‘Young men fall in love so easily.’
Really? He’d never thought so. Lust, yes. Infatuation, certainly. But the kind of love that made a man search out and adopt his foreign daughter? That was rare.
‘You never married?’
‘I couldn’t. She was already married.’
He’d meant to an English girl, but it was clear that Lord Wenshire thought of this Chinese concubine as his one true love. ‘What happened?’