Pam Chun - The Perfect Tea Thief

"When haughty Scottishgardener Robert Fortune, who hated everything about China, set outfor the Middle Kingdom during the Opium Wars as an employee of theBritish Horticultural Society and under the pretext of collectingflowers, he didn't anticipate that a formidable slip of agirl-warrior, Jadelin of the powerful House of Poe, would capturehis closed heart.

Presuming himself immune tothe power of love, Fortune pursues a secret mission that will, ifsuccessful, enable Britain to steal the secrets of China's covetedteas that had enabled its economy to prosper and dominate the teaindustry. The deeper Fortune ventures into the forbidden inlandmountains, the more he is seduced by the country he scorns untilhe, too, dresses and acts like the Chinese and speaks theirlanguage. He pursues Jadelin, oblivious of her deadly skills toprotect her 5,000 year-old culture, and befriends her brother,unaware that he will prove to be both his savior andenemy.

The Chinese have a saying,"You don't know where you're going if you don't know where you'vebeen." The Perfect Tea Thief takes the reader back to the source ofthe tensions today between China and the West in a fast-paced andcaptivating read based on the real life and letters of RobertFortune."

Barbara Bundy, PhD

Founding Executive Director Emerita, University ofSan Francisco Center for Asia Pacific Studies

By Pam Chun

Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2014 Pam Chun

This book is available in print at most onlineretailers.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may bereproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical meansincluding information storage and retrieval systemsexcept in thecase of brief quotations embodied in critical articles orreviewswithout permission in writing from Pam Chun.

The characters portrayed in The Perfect Tea Thiefare fictitious or are used fictitiously. Any similarity to realpersons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

Cover design by Laura Shinn Designs

Ebook formatting by www.ebooklaunch.com

Discover other titles by Pam Chun

The Money Dragon

When Strange Gods Call

The Seagull's Gardener

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Dedicated to my fellow adventurersand world explorers,

Fred J. Joyce III and Erzebet andRyan C. Leong

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

LONDON

On the tree-lined Kensington street, a figure duckedunder the fog-shrouded sign which read, 'Chinese Antiques, RobertFortune, Proprietor,' and jiggled the brass doorknob, an ornatelion's head. Locked. A powerful twist and the lock surrendered.

"Sing Wa!" Low and throaty, the voice calledlike a seductive South China breeze towards the back of the antiqueshop where towering Ming vases glowed in the gloom. The air smelledof old lacquer and older porcelain, of carved figurines oiled bydecades of collectors' caresses.

From his desk in the back of his store, thewispy-haired Scot, once a towering wild-haired blond withmuttonchops, craned his scrawny neck through the darkness and leaptto his feet. The paper-thin skin of his knuckles gripped the backof his chair. "Who are you?" he demanded.

"Sing Wa, remember me?" The frock-coatedfigure stepped into the circle of light, lifted a top hat, andreleased a black queue that uncoiled like a thick snake. Althoughdressed in the style of a British gentleman, the scent ofsandalwood, of China, emanated from the folds of finely wovenwool.

"I haven't heard that name in years," theantique dealer rasped. Long ago, he had lived that life in anotherplace. Now he recognized the strong dark eyes, arched eyebrows, andbrow. He stumbled backwards in his chair. "What do you want?" Hisvoice, once commanding, warbled from perpetually downcast lips.

"I want you! Disguised as Sing Wa, cloakedin the language you were forbidden to speak, you stole into theforbidden valleys where our greatest treasure grew. You betrayedus, Robert Fortune!"

The intruder's arms slung back with thegrace of the Asian crane and struck.

The old man tried to scream as he crumpledbackwards but no sounds came. His bowels emptied onto his preciousTianjian carpet. No! He tried to raise his hands, to plead that hewas not responsible for the result of time and politics. He hadscoured China for the most exquisite azaleas, peonies, and hundredsof trees and flowers in colors from brilliant reds to pale yellow,which were the pride of Kew Gardens, the Royal HorticulturalSociety, and dozens of private collections of the British gentryand nobility.

Too late. His attacker's leap exploded rareMing vases. A fist shattered his lacquered desk and tea chests.Antique porcelains spilled onto the fine carpets and hardwoodfloor. Crushed underfoot in a layer of tinkling glittery shards,buried by the contents of shelves and cabinets, all tumbled in anunrecognizable heap of destruction. Dozens of tea caddies spiltopen, releasing the luxurious jasmine pearls, swallow tonguegreens, crinkled oolongs, and compressed blacks. China's greatesttreasure would never touch his lips again.

From the splintered shards of the merchant'sdesk the intruder plucked the crystal snuff bottle that Mei hadgiven the Scot when it was still warm with the heat of her body."Buddhists believe in the sanctity of all life, so I cannot killyou. But you will find it harder and harder to get your breath. Asyour head screams for air, devils will come for the Christian soulyou claimed made you superior to us heathens. As your pain growssecond by second, think of the thousands of Chinese who died slowlyin the turmoil and destruction you caused. You will lose control ofyour functions. You will suffer.

"Before I leave England, I will tell aconstable you need help. If he doesn't arrive in time, he willthink you've had a heart attack and flailed in despair. The naturaldeath of a shriveled old man. The best of your collection, likeChina, is destroyed. I leave you to contemplate how you misused ourfriendship and stole China's treasures for England's glory.Farewell, Sing Wa."

Once, his attacker's dark eyes had hauntedhis dreams. That velvet voice had twined around his heart. Hegasped now, his breaths short and painful. Silence engulfed him.Fortune struggled alone, more frightened than he had ever been inChina where he had been stripped naked by brigands, chased bypirates, and tossed by waves higher than the moon.

He felt the night turn chilly, like thedepths of hell when he had knelt in China's monsoon sea. "No," hescreamed. He felt the waves sweep over the bulwark once again andtumble him into the abyss of his memories.

CHINA SEAS

Legends course through the kingdom about the firstnon-Chinese they had ever seen whose skin shone so white theycalled him gweilo , white devil. Theysay a monstrous fish, bigger around than he was tall, flew up fromthe China Seas and landed on his lap in a shower of glass. Otherssaw him race from the hills of Chapoo to the sea stark naked,chased by a horde of villagers waving his shredded clothes. Manycurse that the monsoon storms should have swallowed him; hisdevious mission destroyed life for the tea farmers in the remoteinland mountains where the air is clean and sweet. In the guise ofa plant collector he stole China's most precious secret and emptiedtheir treasuries. Although lost in time, the legends about him aretrue.

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The sea swiped the deck of the timberedschooner with cold, frothy claws, but the crew clung fast. Thesails, as salted and baked by the South China Sea as the men,snapped when the monsoon wind changed with the strong northerlycurrent through the Formosa Channel. Captain Landers and hishelmsman tightened their grip on the wheel and aimed for the wave'ssmooth face. They had sailed in seas worse than this.