Page 5 of A Lord in Want of a Wife (Daring Debutantes #2)

I t 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?’

‘She became pregnant. I didn’t care. I loved her and the child.

I didn’t even care if it was his and not mine.

’ He shoved his cup away from him, the disgust plain in his face.

‘He made me pay though. More and more demands. Bad product, high prices.’ He shook his head.

‘I was working for the East India Company. I had superiors.’ His voice grew tight.

‘It wasn’t a situation they would tolerate. ’

‘They recalled you?’

He nodded. ‘I was replaced. I tried to talk to her one last time. Hell, I even tried to buy her freedom. Nothing worked.’

‘That’s awful.’

‘It took me two years to get back to China. Then, when I finally made it, I had to bribe his seventeenth concubine for answers. I had been told that mother and child died in childbirth. I didn’t believe it at first. There were so many lies and no way to find out the truth.

’ His voice trailed away. ‘Seventeenth concubine said that the babe had survived, but she did not. Another concubine said she had killed herself and the babe.’ He shrugged.

‘I didn’t know what was true, but they all said the child was a girl. ’

Cedric frowned, trying to put the pieces together in his mind. ‘But you found your daughter a few months ago. Grace is your daughter. You found her.’

‘Not then. I had to leave, and I was too disheartened to keep pressing. I thought I would forget her, but I never did. I managed to return every five years or so to look again. Five trips in all, and I only heard about the temple this year.’

Cedric couldn’t imagine a love that strong. To last for twenty-five years and still burn bright? That was the kind of love that changed a man completely.

‘Where is this temple? If there are women there, it cannot be in the Thirteen Factories district?’

‘No. It’s in Canton proper, but it’s where the unwanted children go. Assuming they’re not killed at birth.’

Cedric shuddered at the very idea.

‘I knew if my daughter was alive,’ Lord Wenshire continued, ‘she would be there.’

‘But how did you get there? If the temple is inside the city?’

The man shrugged. ‘I couldn’t. But I got a message to the monks. I explained about my daughter. I knew her probable age. I promised to take care of her, if they had her.’

‘And they did? She had survived?’

‘They arranged a meeting. And when they arrived, I met both Grace and Lucy. I knew the minute I saw Grace what had happened.’

‘They just brought them? And handed them over to you?’

‘Do you know what kind of life a half child has in China? Of course, I took them. I offered them a future in England with me. I didn’t force them.’

‘I never thought you did. But it’s such a big change for them.’ He couldn’t imagine it. To have the monks who had reared you take you one evening to meet a white man. And then to blithely go with the foreigner, not knowing what the future held.

‘They’re both smart. You see that, don’t you?’

He did.

‘They knew what their future would be in China. Best to roll the dice on me.’ He smiled.

‘And they both refused to leave without the other.’ He leaned back in his chair.

‘They wanted out of China. I offered to take them. The rest…’ He shook his head.

‘We’re figuring it out. I have no other children, you know.

Nothing but the memory of a seventh concubine from two decades ago. ’

‘What was her name?’

‘Yue E. It means Moon Beauty.’

‘And now you are adopting two daughters from China.’

‘I am. Yue E would want me to.’

And that was it, apparently, because the man stretched his arms over his head before slowly straightening to his feet. ‘I’m for bed. Thank you for the Aarack.’ Then he paused. ‘I mean to dower them, you know. I mean them to have good lives in England.’

And on that note, he departed, his last words ringing in Cedric’s head.

Cedric had tried all the different ways to earn money.

He’d gambled like his father with very mixed results.

He’d tried working for it with the East India Company, but their methods turned his stomach, and the income wouldn’t come fast enough.

It took money to make money in that company, not to mention a ruthless disposition.

That left one traditional route which he had disdained so far.

He could marry it.

Indeed, that had been his intention the moment he’d stepped aboard this ship headed for England. He was determined to charm whichever spoiled heiress his mother paraded before him this Season. But the very idea sickened him.

Until he met Lord Wenshire and his daughters.

Clearly, the man was wealthy. Exactly how wealthy was a mystery, but he had enough to adopt two half-Chinese daughters because of an old love affair.

More importantly, the man had spent most of his life working for the East India Company.

That could easily make Lord Wenshire a nabob, and his daughters heiresses.

Cedric spent a very pleasant few minutes imaging how one dowry could set his family back on their financial feet.

First, he would repair the farms that were falling apart, then he might invest in pigs, and the canal needed significant repair.

All the marvelous things his father was supposed to be doing but wasn’t.

It was like the man had a sickness for gambling and nothing stopped him.

Not three daughters who needed dowries, not a home that was falling apart and not several very blunt talks between him and Cedric.

Which left any hope for his family in Cedric’s hands.

He would have to investigate further. Not the pigs, but the girls.

After all, he had no competition on the boat.

How hard could it be to charm one of the two Chinese girls when the only other men were rough sailors or men as old as their father?

The idea of choosing his bride in such a mercenary way horrified him.

But he would rather make the choice himself than leave it up to his mother’s dubious selection.