“You can put the knife away, Tai-Pan. You’re in no danger.” Her voice was calm and mocking.
“You ought to be horsewhipped,” he said.
“I know all about whipping, don’t you remember?” She motioned to the bedroom. “We’ll be more comfortable in here.” She went to a bureau and poured brandy into two glasses.
“What’s the matter?” she said with the same perverse smile. “Haven’t you been in a girl’s bedroom before?”
“You mean a whore’s bedroom?”
She handed him a glass and he took it. “We’re both the same, Tai-Pan. We both prefer Chinese bedmates.”
“By God, you damned bitch, you—”
“Don’t play the hypocrite; it doesn’t suit you. You’re married and you’ve children. Yet you’ve many other women. Chinese women. I know all about them. I’ve made it my business to find out.”
“It’s impossible for you to be Mary Sinclair,” he said half to himself.
“Not impossible. Surprising, yes.” She sipped her brandy calmly. “I sent for you because I wanted you to see me as I am.”
“Why?”
“First you’d better dismiss your men.”
“How do you know about them?”
“You’re very careful. Like me. You wouldn’t come here secretly without a bodyguard.” Her eyes were mocking him.
“What are you up to?”
“How long did you tell your men to wait?”
“An hour.”
“I need more of your time. Dismiss them.” She laughed.
“I’ll wait.”
“You’d better. And put some clothes on.”
He left the house and told Wolfgang to wait for another two hours and then to come and find him. He told him about the secret door but not about Mary.
When he returned, Mary was lying on the bed. “Please close the door, Tai-Pan,” she said.
“I told you to put some clothes on.”
“I told you to close the door.”
Angrily he slammed it. Mary took off the filmy robe and tossed it aside. “Do you find me attractive?”
“No. You disgust me.”
“You don’t disgust me, Tai-Pan. You’re the only man I admire in the world.”
“Horatio should see you now.”
“Ah, Horatio,” she said cryptically. “How long did you tell your men to wait this time?”
“Two hours.”
“You told them about the secret door. But not about me.”
“Why are you so sure?”
“I know you, Tai-Pan. That’s why I trust you with my secret.” She toyed with the brandy glass, her eyes lowered. “Had we finished when you looked through the peephole?”
“God’s blood! You’d better—”
“Be patient with me, Tai-Pan,” she said. “Had we?”
“Aye.”
“I’m glad. Glad and sorry. I wanted you to be sure.”
“I dinna understand.”
“I wanted you to be sure that Wang Chu was my lover.”
“Why?”
“Because I’ve information that you can use. You’d never believe me unless you’d seen that I was his woman.”
“What information?”
“I’ve lots of information you can use, Tai-Pan. I’ve many lovers. Chen Sheng comes here sometimes. Many of the mandarins from Canton. Old Jin-qua once.” Her eyes frosted and seemed to change color. “I don’t disgust them. They like the color of my skin and I please them. They please me. I have to tell you these things, Tai-Pan. I’m only repaying my debt to you.”
“What debt?”
“You stopped the beatings. You stopped them too late, but that wasn’t your fault.” She got up from the bed and put on a heavy robe. “I won’t tease you any more. Please hear me out and then you can do what you like.”
“What do you want to tell me?”
“The emperor has appointed a new viceroy to Canton. This Viceroy Ling carries an imperial edict to stop opium smuggling. He will arrive in two weeks, and within three weeks he will surround the Settlement at Canton. No European will be let out of Canton until all the opium has been surrendered.”
Struan laughed contemptuously. “I dinna believe it.”
“If the opium is given up and destroyed, anyone with cargoes of opium outside of Canton will make a fortune,” Mary said.
“It will na be given up.”
“Say the whole Settlement was ransomed for opium. What could you do? There are no warships here. You’re defenseless. Aren’t you?”
“Aye.”
“Send a ship to Calcutta with orders to buy opium, all you can, two months after it arrives. If my information is false, that gives you plenty of time to cancel the order.”
“Wang told you this?”
“Only about the viceroy. The other was my idea. I wanted to repay my debt to you.”
“You owe me nothing.”
“You were never whipped.”
“Why did you na send someone to tell me secretly? Why bring me here? To see you like this? Why make me go through this—this horror?”
“I wanted to tell you. Myself. I wanted someone other than me to know what I was. You’re the only man I trust,” she said with an unexpected, childlike innocence.
“You’re mad. You should be locked up.”
“Because I like going to bed with Chinese?”
“By the Cross! Do you na understand what you are?”
“Yes. A disgrace to England.” Anger swept her face, hardening it, aging it. “You men do what you please, but we women can’t. Good Christ, how can I go to bed with a European? They couldn’t wait to tell others and shame me before all of you. This way no one’s harmed. Except me, perhaps, and that happened a long time ago.”
“What did?”
“You’d better know a fact of life, Tai-Pan. A woman needs men just as much as man needs women. Why should we be satisfied with one man? Why?”
“How long has this been going on?”
“Since I was fourteen. Don’t be so shocked! How old was May-may when you bought her?”
“That was different.”
“It’s always different for a man.” Mary sat down at the table in front of the mirror and began to brush her hair. “Brock is secretly negotiating with the Spaniards in Manila for the sugar crop. He’s offered Carlos de Silvera ten percent for the monopoly.”
Struan felt a surge of fury. If Brock could work that trick with sugar, he could dominate the whole Philippine market. “How do you know?”
“His compradore, Sze-tsin, told me.”
“He’s another of your—clients?”
“Yes.”
“Anything else you want to tell me?”
“You could make a hundred thousand taels of silver from what I’ve told you.”
“Have you finished?”
“Yes.”
Struan got up.
“What are you going to do?”
“Tell your brother. You’d better be sent back to England.”
“Leave me to my own life, Tai-Pan. I enjoy what I am and I’ll never change. No Europeans—and few Chinese—know I speak Cantonese and Mandarin except Horatio and now you. But only you know the real me. I promise I will be very, very useful to you.”