Angelique sat by the bay window of the tai-pan's office where lounging chairs, an oak table and sideboard were. Chen stood nearby.
"May I say again how sorry I am about all this. If there's anything I can do, you only have to ask, Ma'am."
"I know, thank you, Edward. Yes, you can help, we all need friends. I'm glad the inquest went properly--you should get a medal. It was very brave of you, I'd like to thank you for Jamie, I don't know what I would do without him." A good fire burned in the hearth and fine Thai silk curtains shut out the night. Chen went over to the ice bucket with the opened bottle.
"My husband said you liked champagne?"
"Sure, yes, Ma'am, yes I do,"
Gornt said, thinking of the inquest and the heavenly verdict that put the dangerous Norbert chapter to bed. The coroner, Heavenly Skye, was well named.
She motioned to Chen who poured two tall glasses.
"Doh jeh"--thanks, Gornt said, accepting his glass.
Chen gaped at him as though he had not understood, despising this impertinent foreign devil even more for daring to speak a civilized dialect.
Angelique said, "Chen, you wait outside.
If want, I use bell, heya?" She indicated the silver bell on the side table.
"Yes, Missee."
She glared at him. "Tai-tai!"
"Yes, Missee-tai-tai." Chen left, pleased with small victories. The servants had requested a conference that he had chaired. Ah Tok, her mind wandering, had wanted them to employ a soothsayer to put the Evil Eye on this "Possessor of a Death-filled Duct," but he had said, "No, we can't--and it isn't. The Master's death was not her doing. The Master married her and made us call her tai-tai in front of him and her. Our compromise is to call her "Missee" first, then "Missee-tai-tai" until the matter is decided by Illustrious Chen, to whom my urgent, detailed report is already aboard Prancing Cloud."
"Salut, Edward."
"Your health, Ma'am!"
She took the tiniest sip, he drank with enjoyment.
"Champagne's a source of life for me," he said, immediately wishing he had not said it that way.
"I've never been able to afford it, except on festive occasions."
"I like champagne too, though not tonight. But soon you'll be able to afford all you want, no?
My husband told me your affairs were going to improve, tremendously, and that you had many secrets to share with him--for mutual profit."
"He did?" Gornt was caught off guard for he and Malcolm Struan had agreed to tell no one else. Norbert? Norbert didn't count, that was just more of the plan to confuse the enemy and Norbert had always been enemy. "Secrets, Ma'am?"
"He told me he liked you, trusted you, as I do, that you were a man who could keep secrets as well as know them, and who understood the value of old friends--in the Chinese sense."
"That part's true. I liked and trusted him too."
"Jamie said you've booked passage on Prancing Cloud."
"Yes, that's right, Ma'am."
"My husband said you were going to give him special information about how to ruin the Brocks. You were going to tell him yesterday morning after... was it only yesterday? It seems a lifetime ago--for Malcolm it was, poor Malcolm."
He sighed, sad for her. "Yes. May I say you've changed, Ma'am? You're different.
Without wanting to be impertinent, or callous, may I say the change suits you very much."
"I would prefer ten thousand time to have my husband alive, and not to have changed." Her openness surprised her, though like Malcolm, she had always found Gornt easy to talk to. "I'm not yet sure about the change, if I like it. Growing up so fast is, I don't know the right word, is aching, scare-making." She got up and refilled his glass, then put the iced champagne bucket on the table, closer to him.
"Thanks," he said, aware of her more than ever before.
"I've decided not to go to Hong Kong by the clipper."
"Ah, yes, Ma'am. I'd heard the rumor, something about you not wanting to go aboard her again--or your husband's remains--that you go by mail ship." As soon as he had heard, for safety, he had seen the agent to reserve passage also but all cabins were taken. Cursing, he had tried to find Jamie but Jamie was not in the building.
"I can understand you not wanting to go on the Cloud."
Her hands were tranquil in her lap, her voice quiet and as controlled. "These secrets you were going to tell my husband, will you tell them to me?"
He smiled his nice smile, fascinated by her, and shook his head. "Sorry, Ma'am, no --even if I had any."
She nodded, not offended. "I didn't expect you to, I'm sure I wouldn't understand them if you did, and then, I could never put them into effect anyway, could I?" He smiled. "But Tess Struan can, no?"
"Ma'am?"
"My husband told me you said if anything happened to him, you would go at once to Hong Kong to deal directly with his mother, to make the same arrangement with her you had made with him. He said you were doing this because you hated the Brocks-- he didn't tell me why you hated them." She reached up and toyed with the stem of her glass.
"Tess Struan could certainly use the information, if what you claim is true, no? This was Tuesday, before we were married."
Again, he just watched her, a pleasant expression on his handsome face.
"I can understand why my husband liked you, Edward, why you'd be a dangerous enemy, and even more dangerous a friend."
This made him laugh outright and the tension between them broke. "Not to you, Ma'am, never, I swear it.
Never."
"We'll see. We have many bridges to cross you and I, for, by God, as my husband would say, I am embracing his hopes and dreams as my own: that you can help Struan's destroy the Brocks, once and for all. Perhaps your hopes and dreams too."
"Mine?"
She opened her bag and took out the paper she had found in the safe's inner compartment, held it closer to the light to see better and read aloud: ""This is my solemn agreement with Mr.Edward Gornt, gentleman, of Rothwell's in Shanghai: if information provided by him assists Struan's to break Brock and Sons, causing them to go under within the next six months, on behalf of Struan's I guarantee that he will receive from their wreckage, the Brock 50% interest in Rothwell's free and clear, that we will assist him in good faith, as best we can, with the Victoria Bank to raise the necessary loan to purchase the other 50% belonging to Jefferson Cooper, that from this date, for twenty years, Struan's grants him, or any company he personally controls, favored nation status on any mutually agreed business dealings."
She held it for him to see but did not hand it over. "It's dated the day before yesterday, Edward, signed but not witnessed."
He made no move to take it. His eyesight was good. While she was reading it he had recognized the signature. Without the witness it doesn't have its real value, he thought, his mind moving rapidly from plan to plan, from question to question, to answers. "So?"