Gai-Jin Read Free Page A

Pale blue eyes, long reddish brown hair tied in a queue, and old for his twenty years. “No reason to stay, we’re in such good hands with Jamie McFay. He’s done a sterling job for us, opening up Japan.”
    “He’s a nob, Mr. Struan, and that’s a fact. Best there is. The lady will leave with you?”
    “Ah, Miss Richaud. I do believe she’ll return with me—I hope so. Her father asked me to keep an eye on her, though temporarily she’s the French Minister’s ward while she’s here,” he said lightly, pretending not to notice the sudden gleam, or that Tyrer was deep in conversation with Angelique in French, which he himself spoke hesitantly, and already under her spell.
    Don’t blame him, Canterbury, or anyone, he thought, amused, then spurred forward to give the others room as the path ahead became a bottleneck.
    The terrain was flat but for bamboo thickets, though it was wooded here and there—the trees already autumn-tinged. There were many duck and other game fowl. Paddy fields and rice swamps were being cultivated intensively, and land reclaimed. Narrow pathways. Streams everywhere. The stench of human manure, Japan’s only fertilizer, ever present. Fastidiously, the girl and Tyrer held scented handkerchiefs to their noses, though a cooling breeze came off the sea to take away most of the stink and the dregs of summer’s humidity, mosquitoes, flies and other pests. The far hills, densely forested, were a brocade of reds and golds and browns-beech, scarlet and yellow larch, maples, wild rhododendrons, cedar and pines.
    “It’s beautiful there, isn’t it, Monsieur Tyrer? A shame we can’t see Mount Fuji clearer.”
    “Oui, demain, il est là! Mais mon Dieu, Mademoiselle, quelle senteur.”
What a smell, Tyrer replied happily in fluent French—an essential language for any diplomat.
    Casually Canterbury dropped back alongside her, neatly displacing the younger man. “Are you all right, Mademoiselle?”
    “Oh, yes, thank you, but it would be good to gallop a little. I’m so happyto be outside the fence.” Since she’d arrived two weeks ago with Malcolm Struan on the bimonthly Struan steamer she had been closely chaperoned.
    And quite right too, Canterbury was thinking, with all the riffraff and scum of Yokohama, and let’s be honest, the odd pirate sniffing around. “On the way back you can take a turn around the racetrack if you like.”
    “Oh, that would be wonderful, thank you.”
    “Your English is just wonderful, Miss Angelique, and your accent delightful. You were in school in England?”
    “La, Mr. Canterbury.” She laughed and a wave of heat went through him, the quality of her skin and beauty exhilarating. “I’ve never been to your country. My young brother and I were brought up by my aunt Emma and uncle Michel; she was English, and refused always to learn French. She was more a mother than an aunt.” A shadow crossed her face. “That was after my mother died birthing my brother, and Father left for Asia.”
    “Oh, sorry about that.”
    “It was a long time ago, Monsieur, and I think of my darling aunt Emma as Mama.” Her pony tugged at her reins. She corrected him without thought. “I was very lucky.”
    “This’s your first visit to Asia?” he asked, knowing the answer and much more, wanting to keep her talking. The snippets of information about her, gossip, rumors, had sped from smitten man to smitten man.
    “Yes, it is.” Again her smile lit up his being. “My father’s a China trader in your Colony of Hong Kong. I’m visiting him for the season. He’s a friend of Monsieur Seratard here, and kindly arranged this visit for me. You may know him, Guy Richaud, of Richaud Frères?”
    “Of course, a fine gentleman,” he answered politely, never having met him, knowing only what others had told him: that Guy Richaud was a philandering, minor foreigner who had been there for a few years, scratching a living. “We’re all honored that you’re visiting us here.