Read The China Bride for Free Online Page A

to doing his duty. The first lesson he'd learned from his father had been that with rank came responsibilities. Boring ones.

    "Try to keep Maxwell out of trouble, Jin," Gavin had instructed Troth before the banquet. "The man has too much curiosity and not enough fear." She'd noticed that herself—Maxwell was trouble waiting to happen. As the Fan-qui seated themselves at the long table, she studied them. Some were wise, shrewd merchants like her father; others were indolent bigots who'd become rich from the trading system, yet despised the country and people that created such wealth. She knew them all—yet none of them really knew her.
    She took her position behind Lord Maxwell, who had the place of honor at Boynton's right hand. He saw her approach and gave her a nod of recognition. In his eyes she saw curiosity and wariness similar to what she herself felt. It was some comfort that he was also disquieted. What was it about Maxwell that affected her so? He was not the tallest man here, nor the most richly dressed, and perhaps not even the most handsome, since Gavin Elliott was present. Yet Maxwell had a compelling presence and an air of authority that eclipsed even Boynton, who as taipan of the East India Company was the most powerful Fan-qui trader in Canton. During the long meal, weighted down by slabs of animal flesh and steamed puddings and other heavy English food, Troth had ample opportunity to memorize the back of Maxwell's head. Absurdly, she enjoyed studying the faint wave in his thick brown hair, the promise of power in his broad shoulders. And again and again, she remembered that strange pulse of awareness when she'd thoughtlessly taken his hand to show him how to hold a brush. Having little to do but stand behind a chair left the mind prey to strange fancies.
    The dinner had plodded into the final phase of port and Philippine cigars when the conversation took a disquieting turn. It started with casual, rather drunken complaints about the Eight Regulations, which restricted the activities of the European traders. Troth scarcely listened. She'd heard it all before.
    Then Caleb Logan, a Scot who'd once been her father's junior partner, said, "You should be working with a British firm, Maxwell, not an upstart American trading company." Though his tone was joking, there was an edge to his words.
    "The Company needs some competition," Maxwell said amiably.
    "Besides, I like Elliott's philosophy."
    "Philosophy?" Logan grinned. "Making as much money as possible is the philosophy we all follow."
    Maxwell didn't reply, but a drunken Englishman, Colwell, did. "By philosophy, do you mean the fact that Elliott House doesn't deal in opium?" Maxwell hesitated. "I'll admit that I prefer not to traffic in illegal goods."
    "We aren't all lucky enough to have dead beavers and dirty roots to ship."
    "American firms are fortunate to have furs and ginseng, but perhaps Britain should follow their example and look for new products to sell," Maxwell suggested. "The opium trade isn't popular back home. Many people feel that smuggling in contraband tarnishes us as a nation."
    "What would our righteous countrymen say if they no longer had their tea?" Logan said dryly. "No opium, no tea. We offered other goods, but the mandarins turned up their noses at Europe's best."
    "We took pride in the fact that Napoleon called Britain a nation of shopkeepers, but no divine law says that China must trade with us," Maxwell said with equal dryness. "The government is behaving responsibly in trying to keep opium out of the country."
    "Trade is the lifeblood of the world. The Chinese merchants know that even if their government doesn't. There are plenty of eager opium buyers, and that's what keeps the trade in balance." Like most of the China merchants, Logan considered the opium trade in terms of business, not morality. Having seen the evil that opium addiction could do, Troth was less pragmatic. Luckily, her father had not traded in opium, though he'd