Free The China Bride by Mary Jo Putney Page B

only desire for the gift itself, but delight in the knowledge that her father had been thinking of her. It was equally warming to know that she had been in Maxwell's thoughts.
    Finally she was safe in her room and could open the package. She folded the paper back, then gasped. It was the splendid scarlet robe he'd held up to her in the silk showroom. Reverently she touched the sumptuous fabric. He had seen how she looked at the garment and recognized her longing. She lifted out the robe and discovered that the parcel also contained the crystal vial, now filled with the most intoxicating perfume from the scent shop. There was also a long necklace of carved jade beads, a set of golden combs, and the most elegant of the ivory fans. He'd noted every item that had particularly appealed to her, and that was the sweetest gift of all. No one had paid such attention to her wishes since her father died fifteen long years ago, more than half of her lifetime.
    With luxurious deliberation, she removed Jin Kang's male garments and put on her female undergarments and silk trousers. After her hair was brushed out, she used the golden combs to arrange it in the style of a Portuguese woman rather than in Chinese fashion. Only after applying her cosmetics did she don the scarlet robe.
    By standing on the opposite side of the room, she was able to see most of herself in the mirror. The robe was sized just right and contrasted well with her dark hair. She was an exotic, surprisingly attractive blend of East and West.
    It was the robe, of course. Any woman would look striking in it, but the knowledge did not diminish her pleasure. She was pleased with her appearance for the first time since she was a child. Laughing softly, she whirled around the small room, feeling deliciously female.
    What would it be like to be a woman all the time?
    She halted and looked into the mirror again, suddenly sober. The Fan-qui were more diverse in their appearance than the Chinese, and if she lived among them she would not be as conspicuous as she was in Canton. Her skin was smooth, her hair thick and glossy, and if she lived in Britain with a suitable Fan-qui wardrobe, her appearance would be passable. Her height would be unremarkable and her unbound feet would be blessedly normal, not the mark of a servant or a peasant.
    Slowly she sank onto her bed, her mind spinning. The dream of going to Scotland had vanished with her father's death. She had been twelve when Chenqua had come to the hillside house in Macao to give her the news of her father's death.
    At first she had refused to believe that he was truly gone, until Chenqua explained that Hugh Montgomery's ship had been seen to founder on the rocks, and his body had been washed ashore and identified. She'd collapsed into hysterical grief until Chenqua had told her that such a display was unseemly. Dazed, she did her best to please him, saving her tears for the night.
    It was a mark of great friendship for a merchant as powerful as Chenqua to personally settle her father's affairs, assuming responsibility for a penniless half-blood child. The storm that destroyed her father had also taken most of his trade goods and the profit that would have supported the household through the coming year. Troth had learned from her father's comprador, the highly skilled steward who ran the household, that Chenqua used his own money to settle her father's debts so Hugh Montgomery's name would not be dishonored.
    Even so, in later years she'd sometimes heard Fan-qui traders mention her father's name with disdain. Not leaping hotly to his defense had been her greatest test of self-discipline.
    After closing the household, the Cohong merchant took Troth onto one of his great trading junks, and they sailed the eighty miles up the Pearl River to Canton. On the voyage, he had explained that Troth's language skills would make her a valuable addition to his household, but that she must assume the role of a male. Too young to feel female