Читать книгу Nightsong - V.J. Banis - Страница 8

CHAPTER THREE

Never in her life had Lydia seen a naked man, and the reality was far different from anything that she might have imagined. As if of their own accord, her eyes went to his loins and the turgid member thrusting out.

But however do they manage to conceal it in their trousers? she wondered, and at once went crimson, bringing her glance upward again.

“What the devil are you doing here?” he demanded, more angry than embarrassed.

“I—I’ve brought my mother,” Lydia stammered, unable to meet his eyes either. “We need your help.”

He sighed with exasperation. “Of all the—”

“Please, Mr. MacNair,” she interrupted him, “would you...could you....” She fluttered a hand in the general direction of his midsection.

“Just a minute.” He strode impatiently into the adjoining bedroom. “Did you say your mother’s with you?” he called from in there.

“She’s just outside. Please, may I bring her in?”

He barked a curt yes. Lydia hurried out, grateful for the cold rush of air on her burning cheeks. By the time she had brought her mother inside, Peter MacNair had donned a silk robe, not unlike the one Ke Loo had worn earlier.

“Good Lord, she looks half drowned,” Peter said. “Here, put her on the couch.” He helped guide Sarah to the couch. She collapsed upon it, barely conscious.

“It’s not that,” Lydia said, “It’s the fever, cholera I think. I’m sorry to expose you to it this way.”

He knelt by the couch, feeling Sarah’s temperature and her pulse. “I’ve been exposed before. You can’t travel in this blasted country and not run into it. What’s this all about, anyway?”

She told him, as briefly as she could, of her father’s death and their fear of the anti-white sentiment among the Chinese.

“You were right to worry about that,” he said. “These people hate foreigners at the best of times, and when they get worked up like this, there’s no telling what they might do.”

“Aren’t you afraid?” she asked.

“Of those yellow devils?” He gave a dry laugh. “Not likely. If any of them come here looking for trouble, they’d better have a taste for lead.”

As if in response to his challenge, there was a knock at the door. Lydia jumped and gave a little squeal of fright

“Easy,” he said, standing.

“Don’t answer it, please,” she whispered, clutching at his sleeve as he moved toward the door. “It may be Ke Loo.”

“The mandarin?” He gave her a startled look. She nodded. “Wait here,” he said. He shook off her hand and took up a gun from the table nearby, holding it down at his side as he opened the door.

Lydia could not see who was there, nor hear the brief whispered conversation. She remembered that he had been expecting someone else when she had arrived, probably one of the singsong girls; she had seen them before, coming in and out of the house.

She blushed again, recalling too the sight of Peter MacNair when she had turned and seen him behind the door. She was certain that if she but closed her eyes she would see him again as clearly as before. Indeed, she was certain she could never see him again without also seeing that same image.

Apparently he had sent away whoever was outside, for he closed the door and turned back to the room.

“Now then,” he said, coming back to her, “what’s this about Ke Loo? Why should he be looking for you?”

She told him the rest, watching his face grow grimmer as she spoke. “I’m truly sorry to barge in on you like this,” she concluded, “but there was no one else to turn to. In my mother’s condition....” Her voice trailed off. Peter’s expression offered no encouragement.

“And now what?” he asked gruffly. “What the devil am I supposed to do with you?”

“I—I thought perhaps in a day or so this violence against the whites might settle down again.”

“It probably will. But Ke Loo won’t. I suppose you’re something of a novelty to him. They don’t see many white women this far into the interior, certainly none your age. And the Chinese marry very young girls. But I’ve had some dealings with that mandarin before, and I can tell you one thing, once he’s got his mind set on something, he’ll never quit till he has his way.”

“But surely you’ll be leaving here before too long.”

“Tomorrow, with any luck, or the next day,” he said.

“Couldn’t you take us with you then?”

“You think Ke Loo won’t be looking for you? He’ll have spies watching all along the roads for you—and there’s few things more conspicuous than a couple of American women in China. We wouldn’t get fifty miles before you’d be spotted, and then it’d be my neck as well as yours. No, thank you. I told you, I’m not afraid of these devils, but I’ve got no desire to get my throat cut either, especially when it wouldn’t do you a damn bit of good.”

Lydia sank into a chair, tears beginning to roll down her cheeks. It was all more than she could bear, everything that had happened to her. And now the man that she had been so sure would help them was being utterly cold and unfeeling.

“Here, none of that,” he said impatiently. She heard a rattle of china and a moment later he thrust something under her nose.

“Drink this,” he ordered.

“Wh-what is it?”

“Rice wine. A bit of Scotch whisky would do better, but this’ll help some. Go on, drink it, it’ll do you good. All in one swallow now.”

She did as he said, emptying the little porcelain cup in one swallow. The wine had a peculiar, medicinal taste and it burned as it went down, but almost at once she could feel a warm glow radiating from her stomach.

“Thank you,” she sniffled.

He turned wordlessly and went to stand at one of the shuttered windows, gazing out into the darkness. For a long moment the only sound was the patter of the rain outside. Then Sarah moved on the couch and moaned softly, bringing Lydia a renewed awareness of their plight.

“What are we going to do?” Lydia asked.

“I think you’ve got no choice but to spend the night here,” he said. “Your mother’s in no condition to go anywhere. You do realize that she....” He paused and did not finish what he had been going to say, though Lydia thought she knew: her mother was dying. The cholera was almost always fatal, and Mama had been so weak, from nursing Papa, and from worry. Already her face had that ghastly, fallen-in look.

“You’d better get her out of those wet clothes,” Peter said. “I’ll get her some blankets. Might as well leave her on the couch.”

They made Sarah as comfortable as possible on the couch. Once or twice Peter found her staring at him, though he couldn’t be sure, with her fever, whether she was even aware of what she was seeing.

“There’s another robe in the bedroom there,” he said to Lydia when they were finished. “You’re pretty wet yourself, there’s no sense in your getting a chill.”

He watched her disappear into the bedroom. A mere child, and in a damnable fix. He’d spoken only today to Colonel Wu, who was in charge of the local military, and the colonel had warned him in the plainest terms that it was impossible for him to guarantee anyone’s safety just now; his troops were exhausted and jittery from dealing with the cholera, and beginning as well to share the anti-white sentiment affecting the rest of the population. It was this conversation that had convinced MacNair to leave as soon as he could for the coast, where it would be safer.

But though he was confident of getting there on his own, being saddled with two women—or, more likely, one, since the mother looked as if she wouldn’t last the night—would slow him down considerably. Worse, there wasn’t a chance in hell of transporting even one of them undetected, and if Ke Loo was really determined to get his hands on the little one, he’d be madder than a wet hen. Mad enough, maybe, to have both their throats cut.

At the same time, he couldn’t very well go and leave her here, on her own. Sooner or later the Chinese would get around to this house, if they were killing whites. He’d been literally buying time, paying outrageous bribes to those Chinese with whom he’d been in contact, but that couldn’t last forever, and his supply of cash was running low.

He was startled by a feeble tugging at his sleeve, and he looked down to find Sarah trying to get his attention.

“You should sleep, Mrs. Holt,” he started to say, but she shook her head impatiently and gestured for him to bend closer.

“You must—help my daughter, please,” she whispered when he knelt by the couch.

“I’ll do my best for both of you,” he said.

She shook her head again. “No, don’t mind about me, I shall be glad to join my husband—soon, I think—but I want my daughter to live—I beg you....” Her eyes closed, and her hand dropped from his sleeve.

* * * * * * *

It was a relief to be out of her wet clothes. Dressed in the silk robe, Lydia paused to look at the wall of his bedroom.

Some artist, perhaps centuries before, had done a painting on the wall. There was the branch of a plum tree, in full blossom, and a bird on the branch, singing, and there in the background the slightest curved rim of the moon, as if it had just wafted above the horizon. It was little more than a few deft strokes of the brush, in the manner of the Chinese artists, and yet it seemed to capture the scene in all its eloquence. She felt she had only to listen to hear the nightingale’s song to the moon, and she almost fancied she could catch the fragrant scent of the pale blossoms.

It was all the more impressive because in every other respect the house, like most of those she had seen in China, was little more than a hovel, with its floor of hard-packed earth and its whitewashed walls.

She was so absorbed in contemplating the scene that she was not aware that Peter MacNair had walked into the room, until he spoke.

“It’s lovely, isn’t it,” he said, coming to stand behind her. “I call it ‘night song’.”

“Who painted it, do you know?” she asked.

“And why did he paint it here, in this filthy shack, you mean? I’m afraid I don’t have the answer to either question, but to me it seems to symbolize China, the beauty and the filth, the elegance and the shabbiness, all inseparable. They see no contradiction. A Scotchman, or an American, living in this hovel, would have put the same time to use building a fence, or an outbuilding, or clearing a field. A Chinaman would paint that, and consider the time well spent.”

“You sound as if you love China,” she said, surprised.

“I do,” he said. “And despise her too. But I can never know her. No man can, least of all an outsider. She’s a moonbeam clothed in veils, like one of those crystals that is clear one moment and clouded the next, you know not how.”

His voice had gone husky, as if he spoke of a woman with whom he was passionately involved, and for the moment he seemed to have forgotten that she was there.

Of a sudden, Lydia was aware of his closeness, of the vibrant throb of his voice. His scent was in the room, the scent of pipe tobacco and whisky, and something else, too, that she knew instinctively was carnal, though she had never smelled it before. She felt a strange warmth coursing through her veins, at once thrilling and frightening. It was like being sucked into a vortex, dreading it and yet being drawn irresistibly forward.

Her nerves atingle, she sought distraction, glancing quickly about the room. “And these,” she said, picking up one of several jars atop the wooden dresser; she opened it and found it filled with rice powder. “Are these part of the mystery of China too, or is there some more prosaic reason for them?”

He laughed, breaking the spell that had fallen briefly upon them.

“Here, what do you think of this,” he said, unscrewing another container and offering it to her. It was perfume. At first she could not quite place it, though it was familiar; then she knew. She had smelled it in the streets when the sedan chairs went by, carrying the singsong girls.

“They’re cosmetics,” she said, surprised.

“They’re worth a fortune back in the States,” he said. “American women are just getting interested in this sort of thing, though they’re well behind their European cousins.”

“Is this what you came to China for?”

“Partly. Though I had hopes of learning some of the Empress’s secrets.”

“The Dowager Empress? Are these her perfumes and lotions?”

“I’m afraid not,” he sighed. “No one’s allowed to use her personal blends except herself, nor even know the formulas. I spent weeks in Peking trying to bribe someone into bringing me samples, at least, with no success. These are only the ones used by the prost—professional women throughout the country, but at that they’re very good. I’m taking them back as samples. I’ll have chemists analyze them, imitate them, and the American women will snatch them up as fast as they’re bottled. There’s nothing even close to them available now.”

She sniffed the perfume again. It was heady, smelling of lotus and the dark green shade of the bamboo forest. She could well believe that women would buy such a scent, if it could be duplicated.

“And the Empress’s perfume, it’s different from this?”

“There’s a secret scent,” he said. “I encountered it just once—a serving girl brought a scarf that had been dabbed lightly with it—it’s intoxicating. No man could resist it, or the woman wearing it. It’s one of the great perfumes, perhaps the greatest. And only one woman in the world wears it.”

“But how did you come to be involved in this sort of thing?”

“My father was a chemist in Edinburgh. Among other things, he bottled a scent much favored by the local ladies. When I came to America, I worked for a time at a place where they made cosmetics. I saw how much money they were making for third-rate items. Then one night I had an encounter with a Chinese girl, and the scent she was wearing intrigued me. I asked her about it, and she told me it had come from China. She was unhappy because it was almost gone, and she said there was nothing in America to equal the lotions and powders and scents that were commonplace here. The more I thought about it, the more convinced I became that if I could obtain a variety of these creams and lotions, I could start my own company and make a fortune. I begged and borrowed what money I could and, well, here I am. Now all I’ve got to do is get back to San Francisco alive.”

His last words brought home once again to Lydia the seriousness of her plight. Wearily she pushed her still damp hair back from her face.

“Sorry,” he said, seeing the gesture. “Here I am rattling on about creams and scents and powders, and you must be exhausted.”

“I’d better go see about Mama,” she said, moving as if to go past him.

“She’s all right,” he said. “She was sleeping when I left her.”

He hadn’t meant to take her in his arms, but she looked so young and frail and helpless that he instinctively put out a hand. The next moment, without his knowing quite how it had happened, he was holding her to him, her head against his chest. He felt the warmth of her tears as she began to cry again, noiselessly.

“It’s all right,” he comforted her, holding her close.

“I’m so frightened,” she said, her words muffled. “I don’t want to die.”

“I’ll see that you don’t, no matter what else,” he said.

After a moment her tears stopped, but neither of them moved to end their embrace. For the first time, it dawned on him that perhaps she wasn’t quite such a child as he had thought. Neither of them wore anything more than the thin silk robes, and through the sleek fabric he could feel the tips of her breasts burning into his chest.

Her breath quickened, and she tilted her face up to look into his. Her lashes were still damp with her recent tears, but already her eyes were smoldering with a desire that transcended fear and grief. The intensity of her passion startled him, at the same moment that it invoked a response in him. He pulled her tighter against him. Her lips parted, perhaps to speak, to protest even, but in the next instant, his had closed over them....

Lydia felt as if she were drowning. She had always thought the term “falling in love” rather a silly one, and yet, suddenly, she felt as if she were doing exactly that. Her knees buckled and if she had not been clinging to him she was sure she would have toppled to the floor. Even so, she had a feeling of sinking downward, swirling, all but swooning.

She seemed to have lost her senses to everything else about her, yet she was acutely aware of everything about him, of every point at which they touched. She could feel the hardness of his member, imprisoned between them, pressing against her belly; the memory of his naked splendor flashed suddenly across her consciousness, like lightning shattering the night, and suddenly it seemed as if all the secrets, all the mysteries, all the childish wonderings and puzzlements, had been made clear to her, and she knew—knew what was to be, and how it would happen, and knew that it would be wonderful.

So that’s what it all meant, she thought, and laughed a silent, inward laugh to think what a fool she had been to be afraid, to dread the time when the experience would be hers. She had heard women speak in whispers of a wife’s duty as if it were some onerous obligation to submit to a man’s caresses, yet she had never known anything so splendid, so thrilling, as this moment.

Peter moaned, taking his mouth from hers and burying it in her hair. “God forgive me,” he whispered, more to himself than to her.

Yes, she thought, forgive us both, for she knew that he was no more to blame than she was. From the moment of their first meeting she had wanted this, without even knowing what it was that she wanted. Some instinct had drawn her to him, her body longing for his body, for this suffocating sweetness that robbed her of her will. It was almost painful to feel the forbidden pleasure that swept over her.

She felt him tugging at her robe and she moved away from him slightly, letting it drop to the floor about her feet. Wantonly she kicked it away, and moved once more against him, to find that he had shed his robe too. Hotly she pressed naked flesh against naked flesh, whimpering with an almost delirious delight as his hand moved down her back, tracing the curve of her spine, outlining the fullness of her hips, her buttocks, then still lower. She parted her thighs slightly, and felt the last trace of her shame vanish as he touched her there.

At last he bent and swept her up into his arms. Not taking his mouth from hers, he carried her across the room and lowered her to the bed. Though he had carried her with ease, his breath sounded harsh and labored as he lowered himself beside her, and then they were again touching from head to toe. His tongue found its way into her mouth, searching, probing, even as his hands cupped and fondled her throbbing breasts. She moaned softly and writhed against him. How hard his body felt against hers, his manly chest, his muscled limbs—and that pulsating hardness that pressed now against her thighs.

He moved over her, parting her thighs, and she felt the first burning touch at the center of her passion, gentle at first, then probing, insistent....

Her body spasmed involuntarily as she felt a brief, stabbing pain, and she cried out, twisting as if to evade him, but his body held hers pinned to the bed, and the next instant she felt him within her.

What have I done? she thought in panic, the pain having brought her momentarily back to earth, but as he began to move within her a new wave of pleasure swept over her, and she forgot shame and pain and began to move with him, tentatively at first, awkwardly, and then with increasing urgency, panting and gasping now, even as he was. She needed...she wanted...but she did not know what drove them faster and faster, their bodies slapping noisily together.

She felt as if she were soaring upward under a great dark cloud that blotted everything from sight, aching sweetly, their bodies melted into one. Something was driving her, urging her on, something closer...closer...something....

The cloud suddenly exploded in a blinding sunburst of sensation. She seemed to have left the earth, to have surrendered everything to this unbearable ecstasy. She heard distant sobs and realized they were her own.

Slowly she drifted back to earth, becoming once more aware of him as someone separate from herself. He was still moving within her, his breath coming faster and faster. His body gave a violent spasm and he plunged deeply, gasping and shuddering.

She clung to him weakly, blissfully, grateful for the pleasure and the deep sense of relaxation he had given her, and then, almost at once, she was asleep.

Beside her, Peter MacNair lay for hours staring at the ceiling. He felt guilt and remorse for what he had done, notwithstanding the almost unbelievable pleasure she had given him. A mere girl, and he had taken advantage of her innocence and her grief. It was no excuse that she had been eager for the experience, or that he hadn’t intended for that to happen until it had been too late to prevent it.

Worse, he couldn’t even make amends in the manner that he knew she expected. It was hopeless that he could take her to safety in Shanghai. It was a journey of more than six hundred miles. Ke Loo would certainly be watching the roads, and in his anger he might kill both of them. The mandarin was not a man who liked having his wishes thwarted.

Even in the unlikely event that they were able to evade Ke Loo, there were plenty of other dangers just now. A man traveling alone might stand a chance, but traveling with a woman, a mere girl at that, was hopeless. If it was only a matter of risking his neck, he wouldn’t hesitate. He’d risked it often enough in the past. But he didn’t want the girl’s life on his hands.

Like it or not, there was only one way to be sure of her safety. However much she dreaded and feared Ke Loo, at least she would be safe as his wife. No one would dare attack her then. Surely it was better to be alive in a Chinese palace than dead in a Chinese field?

Yes, he was convinced that for her own sake it would be best if she became Ke Loo’s wife. The question was, how to convince her of that? How did one tell a sixteen-year-old American girl, whose father had just died and whose mother would die within a few hours, that she must marry a Chinese prince who terrified her, and live the rest of her life in a foreign land, as little more than a slave?

It was not the sort of problem that made for an easy night’s sleep, he thought ruefully, watching the first grey light of dawn make its tentative advance across the ceiling.