“Aiyah, what a small world—I met your husband the last time he was in Singapore with the Chinese delegation! Ladies, Bao Gaoliang is the former governor of Jiangsu Province. Come, come, you should both join us. We were just about to order dinner!” Daisy graciously offered.

Eddie beamed. “You’re much too kind. Actually, we could use some company. You see, it’s been quite a distressing time for Mrs. Bao. Her son was injured in a car accident two days ago in London—”

“Oh my GOD-ness!” Nadine cried.

Eddie continued, “I’m afraid I can’t stay, as I have to take care of some pressing matters for the Bao family, but I am quite sure Mrs. Bao would enjoy your company. She doesn’t know London well, so she’s at quite a loss here.”

“Don’t worry, we’ll take good care of her!” Lorena offered charitably.

“I’m so relieved. Now, Auntie Elle, can you point me to the best spot to catch a taxi?”

“Of course,” Eleanor said, walking her nephew out of the restaurant.

While the ladies consoled Bao Shaoyen, Eddie stood outside the restaurant giving Eleanor the lowdown. “I know this is a big favor I’m asking of you. Can I count on you to keep Mrs. Bao occupied and entertained for a while? More important, can I count on your absolute discretion? We need to ensure that your friends do not ever discuss Mrs. Bao with the press, especially the Asian press. I will be in your debt.”

“Aiyah, you can trust us one hundred percent. My friends would never gossip or anything,” Eleanor insisted.

Eddie nodded solicitously, knowing full well that all the ladies would be texting the news back to Asia at warp speed the minute he was gone. Those pesky gossip columnists would be sure to mention it in their daily reports, and everyone would think Shaoyen was just in London to shop and eat.

“Now, can I count on your discretion?” Eleanor asked, looking him straight in the eye.

“I’m not sure I know what you’re talking about, Auntie Elle,” Eddie said with a smirk.

“I’m talking about my breakfast…this morning?”

“Oh, don’t worry, I already forgot about that. I took an oath of secrecy when I joined the world of private banking, and I wouldn’t dream of ever betraying it. At the Liechtenburg Group, what can we offer but discretion and trust?”

Eleanor returned to the restaurant, feeling rather relieved by this strange turn of events. She was getting to even the score with her nephew. A huge platter upon which lay the most enormous lobster over a bed of steaming hot noodles sat in the middle of the table, but no one was eating. The ladies all looked up at Eleanor with rather peculiar expressions on their faces. She figured they must be dying to know what Eddie had told her outside.

Daisy smiled brightly as Eleanor sat down and said, “Mrs. Bao was just showing us some pictures of her handsome son on her phone. She is so worried about his face, and I was just assuring her that the plastic surgeons in London are some of the best in the world.”

Daisy handed over the phone, and Eleanor’s eyes widened almost imperceptibly as she locked onto the image.

“Don’t you think he’s handsome?” Daisy asked in an almost too cheery tone.

Eleanor looked up from the phone and said, ever so nonchalantly, “Oh yes, very handsome.”

None of the other ladies said anything else about Mrs. Bao’s son for the rest of the dinner, but all of them were thinking the same thing. There was no way it could be a coincidence. Bao Shaoyen’s injured son looked just like the woman who had caused the great estrangement between Eleanor and her son, Nicholas.

Yes, Carlton Bao was the spitting image of Rachel Chu.

* * *

*1 Unfortunately for Eddie, only Emirates, Etihad Airways, and Singapore Airlines have private cabins aboard their Airbus A380s. Emirates even has two Shower Spa bathrooms with sumptuous shower stalls for first-class travelers. (Mile High Club members take note.)

*2 Hokkien for “Wash your bottom.”

*3 According to Cassandra Shang aka “Radio One Asia.”

*4 Women of Eleanor’s background would rather camp out six to a room or sleep on the floor of anyone they remotely know than spend money on hotels. These are the same women who wouldn’t blink at shelling out $90,000 on a South Sea pearl “trinket” while on holiday.

*5 Hokkien for “nosy” or “meddlesome.”

*6 Eleanor, who normally didn’t wear pricey designer clothes and made a point of bragging that she “started getting brand-name fatigue back in the seventies,” kept a few choice pieces reserved specifically for special occasions like today.

*7 Never mind that the restaurant inexplicably resembles a 1980s Greek taverna, with its whitewashed barrel vault ceilings, Asian foodies will fly to London just to savor Mandarin Kitchen’s signature dish, because nowhere else in the world can one get Chinese hand-pulled egg noodles braised in an intoxicating ginger scallion sauce, served with giant lobsters caught daily from the Scottish Sea.

*8 The Holy Trinity are Four Seasons for the roast duck, Mandarin Kitchen for the aforementioned lobster noodles, and Royal China for the dim sum.

PART ONE

Everyone claims to be a billionaire these days. But you’re not really a billionaire until you spend your billions.

—OVERHEARD AT THE HONG KONG JOCKEY CLUB

1

THE MANDARIN

HONG KONG, JANUARY 25, 2013

In early 2012, a brother and sister clearing out their late mother’s attic in the London neighborhood of Hampstead discovered what appeared to be a cluster of old Chinese scrolls at the bottom of a steamer trunk. By chance, the sister had a friend who worked at Christie’s, so she dropped them off—in four Sainsbury’s grocery sacks—at the auctioneer’s salesroom on Old Brompton Road, hoping they might “take a look and tell us if they’re worth anything.”

When the senior specialist of Chinese Classical Paintings opened up one of the silk scrolls, he nearly went into cardiac arrest. Unfurled before him was an image so remarkably rendered, it immediately reminded him of a set of hanging scroll paintings long thought to be destroyed. Could this be The Palace of Eighteen Perfections? The artwork, created by the Qing dynasty artist Yuan Jiang in 1693, was believed to have been secretly removed from China during the Second Opium War in 1860, when many of the royal palaces were ransacked, and lost forever.

As staffers scurried around unrolling the scrolls, they discovered twenty-four pieces, each almost seven feet tall and in immaculate condition. Placed side by side, they spanned thirty-seven feet, almost filling the floor space of two workrooms. At last, the senior specialist could confirm that this was undoubtedly the mythical work described in all the classical Chinese texts he had spent much of his career studying.

The Palace of Eighteen Perfections was an opulent eighth-century imperial retreat in the mountains north of modern-day Xi’an. It was said to be one of the most magnificent royal residences ever built, with grounds so vast that one had to travel between the halls on horseback. On these ancient silk scrolls, the intricate pavilions, courtyards, and gardens that meandered through a dreamlike blue-and-green mountain landscape were painted in colors so vibrantly preserved, they seemed almost electric in their iridescence.

The auction-house staff stood over the exquisite masterpiece in awed silence. A find of this caliber was like discovering a long-hidden painting by da Vinci or Vermeer. When the international director of Asian Art rushed in to see them, he began to feel faint and forced himself to take a few steps back for fear that he might fall onto the delicate artwork. Choking back his tears, the director finally said, “Call Fran?ois in Hong Kong. Tell him to get Oliver T’sien on the next flight to London.”*1

The director then declared, “We need to give these beauties the grand tour. We’re going to start out with an exhibition in Geneva, then London, then at our Rockefeller Center showroom in New York. Let’s give the world’s top collectors a chance to see it. Only then will we take it to Hong Kong, and sell it right before the Chinese New Year. By then the Chinese should be frothing at the mouth in anticipation.”