The Shadow and the Star (4 page)

The room full of women went uncharacteristically silent as Mr. Gerard appeared in the door… a collective intake of feminine breath at the sight of him—a golden, slightly windblown Gabriel come down to earth, minus nothing but the wings.

Hawaii, 1869

Just to one side of the gangplank that thumped and
creaked under the feet of the other departing passengers, he stood on the dock, silent. People pushed past him and ran to other people and congregated in laughter and tearful reunions. He shifted his feet, hurting in the new shoes that had been saved since London for this moment. He wanted very much to chew his finger. He had to keep his hands in a tight ball behind his back to prevent it.

He saw women in bright full robes of scarlet and yellow, with long loops of dark leaves hanging around their necks, and men with nothing on at all but breeches and a vest or a straw hat. Amid the crowd, girls sat bareback astride horses: dusky, laughing girls with long black hair around their shoulders and crowns of flowers on their heads, their brown legs dangling, calling and waving at the gentlemen in carriages and the ladies with their parasols. And behind it all were the green mountains rising up to mist and a double rainbow that spanned the entire sky.

On the ship he'd been afraid to leave his cabin. For the whole voyage, he'd stayed in his own snug space down where the steam engines throbbed and stank of coal and the steward brought him all the food he could eat. He'd hidden himself there until this morning, when they'd come and told him that he'd best put on his fine clothes, because the ship had rounded Diamond Head and put in for Honolulu Harbor.

The air smelled good here, with a strange, fresh scent, clean as the sky and the trees. They were odd trees, like none he'd ever seen before, with strange plumed tops glistening and swaying on tall, bare trunks. In his whole life, he hadn't smelled air so clean, nor felt sun so bright and warm on his shoulders.

He stood there alone, trying to be inconspicuous and conspicuous at the same time, and terrified that he had been forgotten.

"Sammy?"

It was a soft voice, like the wind that ruffled his hair and blew its golden strands into his eyes. He turned around, reaching with a quick hand to wet his fingers and shove the offending lock back into place.

She stood a few feet away, holding a tumbling coil of gay flowers over her arm. He looked up into her face. The incomprehensible shouts and chatter of native children filled the air. Someone brushed past him from behind, shoving him a half-step toward her.

She knelt in her wide lavender skirts, holding out her hands. "Do you remember me, Sammy?"

He stared at her helplessly. Remember her? Through all the lonely days and hated nights, in all the dark rooms where they had tied his hands and done what they pleased with him, in all the days and weeks and years of silent misery, he had remembered. The one bright face in his life. The one kind word. The only hand raised to shield him.

"Yes'm," he whispered. "I remember."

"I'm Tess," she said, as if he might not be sure. "Lady Ashland."

He nodded, and found his fist pressed against his mouth. With a quick, awkward move, he made himself lower the rebellious hand. He locked it behind his back with the other.

"I'm so glad to see you, Sammy." Her open arms still offered an embrace. She looked at him with those pretty blue-green eyes. A huge lump in his throat made it hard to breathe. "Won't you let me hug you?"

Somehow his feet in the pinching shoes took him forward, a step, and then a run, and he fell into her arms with a clumsy force which made him feel stupid and hot with shame. But she was pulling him close with a small glad cry, tossing the wreath of flowers over his head, pressing her smooth cheek to his. There was wet on her face. He felt it as she squeezed him, and the swelling in his throat hurt and throbbed as if something was trying to get out that couldn't.

"Oh, Sammy," she said. "Oh, Sammy. It took us so long to find you."

"I'm sorry, mum." The words were muffled against the flowers and the soft lace at her collar.

She held him away from her. "It wasn't your fault!" Her voice laughed and cried at once. She gave him a little shake. "You're worth every minute of searching. I only wish those hateful detectives could have found you sooner. When I think of where you've been—"

He just looked at her, knowing nothing of detectives or searches and wishing she had no notion of where he had been. He ducked his head. "I'm sorry," he said again. "I didn't know—I didn't have nowhere else to go."

She closed her eyes. For a miserable moment he thought it was disgust, and he deserved it. He knew he must deserve it. He shouldn't have let those things happen to him; he should have done something; he shouldn't have been helpless and afraid.

But she didn't turn away from him. Instead she pulled him close again, a warm, hard hug that smelled of wind and flowers. "Never again," she said fiercely. Her voice caught, and he knew she was crying. "Forget it all, Sammy. Forget everything before today. You've come home now."

Home. He let her hold him against her and hid his face in the cool flowers and heard dumb little noises come out of his own throat, little whimpers that would have shamed a baby. He tried to keep them back, and tried to say something like a grown-up, like he ought to be—eight years old, or even nine, maybe, and he ought to be able to say something right. Her tears wet both their cheeks and he wanted to cry at least, but his eyes were dry and his throat just kept making those stupid little noises…
Home
, he wanted to say, and…
Thank you, oh, thank you. Oh, home
…

Leda was staring.

She caught herself in the middle of it, but not before Samuel Gerard had looked straight at her, an instant's lock of glances: hers paralyzed, his silver and burning beautiful, utterly stunning in a face of masculine flawless inhumanity… perfect… perfect beyond the perfection of mere marble art, beyond anything but dreams.

It was the strangest moment. He looked at Leda as if he knew her and had not expected to find her there. But she did not know him. She had never seen him.

Not him. Never before.

His glance skimmed past her. Lady Catherine was coming forward, speaking to him in an easy, familiar voice, as if it were the most ordinary thing in nature to converse with this archangel come down to walk among mortal men. His mouth curved faintly, not quite a smile at Lady Catherine, but suddenly Leda thought:
He loves her
.

Of course. They made a pair that almost tempted fate, so perfectly matched they were. A dark beauty and a bright sun-touched god. Meant for one another.

Ah, well.

"Now tell us—what
are
these poor ladies trying to say?" Lady Catherine demanded, drawing him forward with her.

He let go of her hand and bowed formally to each of the seated Japanese ladies in turn. The morning sun sought him through the tall windows as if to confer a special favor, burnished the deep gold of his hair, slid light into the depths of it. When he straightened, lifting his eyes�and really, such handsome lashes as he had, thick and long, much darker than his hair—he spoke in the strange, clipped syllables of their language, bowing again with a courteous deference before he finished the brief speech.

The younger of the ladies answered with a flood of words and gestures, tilting her head once, very slightly, toward Queen Kapiolani with a timid smile.

He questioned her again. She giggled and made a fluid shape in the air, sweeping her hands wide around her own torso and then down toward her feet.

Mr. Gerard repeated his bow when she had finished. He looked toward the queen and her sister. "It is a question of a fashion, ma'am. A particular dress." Like Lady Catherine's, his accent was more American than English, and he spoke as gravely as if the fate of nations hung in the balance. "Her Majesty Queen Kapiolani has worn a white dress at court, ma'am? Heavily embroidered?" He made a slight motion with his hand: a vague, awkward, male sort of copy of the Japanese princess' descriptive movement. The color rose in his neck a little. "Loose? With no—ah—"