The Shadow and the Star (54 page)

Officers of the British and American navies abounded in their crisp summer uniforms, along with tourists and planters and ship captains, finding amusement in everything, as everyone seemed to do here. Indeed, it was impossible not to be pleased with life in such a place; it was difficult to feel worried; she could not brood. Not that she wished to do so, but she hadn't seen Samuel since yesterday, when the Richards had swept her off to the hotel from the ship.

He had sent a message by telephone that he was delayed at his dockside office. So delayed, it ensued, that he had never come at all.

Leda told herself that she was overly anxious. He'd been gone from his business for months; certainly he would have much to occupy him. And by no means had he neglected her; he'd instructed Mr. and Mrs. Richards to make her welcome, as they had done admirably. When she found herself looking at the huge stately columns of palms, the cascades of clematis and passionflower, the laughing faces all around, and thinking again:
If only
. . . she gave herself a good mental shake.

Mrs. Richards sipped at her fruit ice. "I know I've said so a hundred times, but you can't imagine what a shock�a delightful surprise!—it is to us that Mr. Gerard should marry. You've no notion of how the girls here have moped themselves to death over him, and he never looked at anyone of them twice!"

She had indeed said so a hundred times. Leda hadn't known quite how to reply, and finally did no more than smile and nod in as gracious a manner as she could manage each time this never-ending wonder was mentioned.

"That was such a sweet thing, to give him your lei. Everyone says you must have a Hawaiian heart. And you tell me that Lady Kai is engaged. To a lord! She's very young, don't you think? Not yet twenty. Of course, I married Mr. Richards when I'd just turned seventeen, but that was different."

She didn't explain why it was different. The spirit of benign curiosity seemed to be a guiding force among the European and American ladies—and gentlemen—of Hawaii, with everyone's business carefully investigated, relayed, and commented on freely. Leda had already been called upon by six females and seven gentlemen, including Dickie's parents, who wished to thank her for her care of him.

Just now, she wasn't being interviewed for all available information in her possession on any topic whatsoever because Samuel had telephoned again. He was on his way to take her on a tour of her new home, and while they waited, Mrs. Richards had found her this hiding place behind the bougainvillea.

"This way," she said, "you'll get off more speedily when he arrives, because if there's someone here visiting you, you'd never be able to move for an hour or two, you know, and I know how keen you must be to see it. It's away up the valley—three showers up, that's what we say, because no doubt it will rain on you that many times before you get there. But you mustn't mind—you'll dry out before you know it. Ah! There he is!" She sat back with a sigh as Samuel walked out through the open lobby, carrying his summer straw under his arm. "He is the most romantically dashing man! It's positively indecent to be that good-looking. Not that anyone blames
him;
he never encouraged any girl in the slightest, I assure you, but you can't imagine how many hearts he's broken, Mrs. Gerard."

Leda half-suspected that Mrs. Richards' heart might be one of them, but she only smiled and nodded.

He greeted her so pleasantly that her spirits rose on the instant. No one wore gloves, on account of the tropical climate, and it felt strange and yet familiar to have his bare hand beneath hers as she stood up. For the time that it took to pass with him down the curving stairs to the lawn and waiting fringe-topped carriage, held by a barefoot Hawaiian in an otherwise immaculate uniform, Leda walked on air.

As Samuel drove them out of the hotel grounds, though, a delicate silence prevailed between them. Leda gazed at the king's palace across the avenue, a handsome, modern building with towers at each corner and deep stone verandas. They plunged into the shade of overarching trees, with the sunlight flashing down through.

"What is that?"' Leda asked, staring at a tree that looked as if it had dozens of white trumpets hanging downward from all its branches.

"A trumpet tree," he said.

"Oh." She fiddled with her closed parasol, and then pointed at a tree covered with gorgeous clusters of golden blossoms. "What's that one?"

"It's called a gold tree."

"Oh." Somehow, the obviousness of the names made her feel foolish for asking. He didn't expand on the information. Obviously, his earlier friendliness had been for Mrs. Richards' benefit—naturally he wouldn't like it to appear to his manager's wife that there was anything irregular about his marriage.

He would be thinking now that it should have been Lady Kai whom he was escorting to her first view of her new home. He would be thinking of his plans and dreams. He would be wishing that it was not Leda in this carriage with him.

The air held all the scents of gardenias and lilies and roses. Beyond the somewhat tipsy white fences, houses lay in deep shade, under bowers of flowering vines. She caught glimpses of open rooms beyond the ubiquitous wide verandas.

"Is everything satisfactory?" he asked abruptly. "The hotel is all right?"

"Oh, yes."

"You have a decent suite?"

"It is an excellent suite. Perfect."

"Mrs. Richards is taking good care of you."

"Indeed, she has been everything that's kind. It's all lovely!"

He clucked to the horse. It picked up a quicker trot, splashing through a mud puddle. Leda pretended to watch the raindrops that suddenly cascaded from nowhere out of a blue sky, bright drops with sunlight glistening through them.

Lovely
, she thought dismally.
Perfect
.

It was the shower that caused the watery shimmer in her vision. She was not undignified. She was
not
weeping.

"This is the upstairs parlor," Samuel said. He glanced back to see that Leda had reached the top of the stairs. His footsteps echoed on the polished wood of the central hall.

"Oh, no." She shook her head as she walked past him through the doorway where he'd stopped. Light filtered in the shuttered French doors, laying bars of white glitter across the floor. "No, on the plan, you told me it was to be your study. You remember that we measured the partners' desk, to see that it would not interfere with these doors."

"I can put the desk in my office downtown."

He watched her stop, the light blue dress she wore trailing out behind her on the wood. She'd already abandoned the padded bustle. Few women wore that kind of thing here—because of the heat, he supposed. She held her white parasol tip propped on the floor. With her wide-brimmed hat and pensive downward look, she seemed something out of an elegant painting.

He felt a need to sound decisive, so that she could not see how this cost him. "The desk was all you'd already ordered for my use, wasn't it? Just furnish the room as a parlor. I won't—need it. You don't have to make it a study."

She remained looking away at some spot on the floor for a moment, then picked up her parasol and walked slowly toward the opposite door. He couldn't tell what she thought, if she understood what he was trying to offer her.

"It's not necessary that I spend a lot of time here," he said.

She passed into the next room. He heard her measured footfalls.

He followed her, found her standing before a door, the shutters opened onto the second-floor lanai. She stood looking out at the view.

He walked behind her, stopping in the middle of the empty room. Beyond her figure, he saw the tops of trees on the slope below, then the vast sweep of the island and the sea. The
Kaiea
lay in her berth, her white decks toy-like at this distance. A half-formed rainbow hung in the air over the lower slopes and the red crater of the Punchbowl.

"Do you like it?" he asked.

For a long time she didn't speak. Then she said, without turning, "It is the most beautiful place I have ever seen."

He felt relief—and pain, slow and deep inside him. He could not look at her without thinking of touching her.

This room, at the corner, with a breeze flowing down from the green cliffs and the waterfalls behind the house-it was marked on the plans as Kai's bedroom. When they'd been building the place, he'd never even imagined himself in it, only thought of how to make it pleasant for Kai.

But now—now all he thought of was what it would be like to sleep here with Leda in a broad bed, with the cool air of the mountains on his back and her body warm beneath him.

"You might like to plant fruit trees," he said. "Mangoes, or something."

"I had a mango last night." She made a small sound that might have been a laugh. "It was messy."

"Papaya, then. Or maybe just something with flowers." He would have liked her to commit to a tree, as a sign that she saw a future here. "Plumerias grow fast."

"Do you like them?"

"They bloom a lot. The flowers have a nice scent."

She looked at him over her shoulder. "Yes, but do you
like
them?"

He didn't give a damn about them one way or the other. He wondered—if he went closer to her, would she move away? They were alone now, with no appearances to keep up. There was nothing to stop her from avoiding him.

He felt paralysis start at his feet and spread up through his body: his arms and hands, his throat.

And at the same time, a violent desire.

She still looked at him, over her shoulder, an inquiry on some topic that he'd forgotten already. Powder-blue and white, with the deeper sky behind her. Faintly, so faintly that he didn't know if it was his imagination, he saw the lithe outline of her legs beneath the muslin. And her breasts, the rosy aureoles—he knew that was fantasy—

"Sir?" she murmured.

He could not move. He saw her with her hair falling back, her shoulders bare and her throat exposed. She turned toward him—a supple, feminine sway of her hips beneath the dress.

He could not move. He could not; he would not. His body had turned rock-hard.

And then he did; he caught her shoulder; he pressed her to the bare whitewashed wall. She had no chance to shun him; he didn't give her time. The hat, with its ribbons and feathers, fell askew between her shoulders and the wall.

He kissed her. He imprisoned her against the surface. He couldn't look at her as he did it. He buried his face in her neck, pulling her skirts up, hating himself, loving her, the sensation of her, the softness.

Thrust to the wall by his urgency, she made a faint gasp, like a wordless sob. Petticoats, lace, mysteries, everything she was to him: fresh muslin, sweet bared skin beneath, his hands finding the round supple shape of her buttocks, the eyelet that released intricate female garments. The fire came over him like a fountain as he felt her soft hips, her waist, the light fabric crushed in his fingers.

He didn't stop to caress her. He was afraid; afraid that as she spread her hands against his shoulders she would push him away. He kissed her roughly: no words, he wouldn't let her say it. He caught her hands, shoved them off. Amid the yards of cotton he jerked at his strained buttons; he lifted her against the wood, sinking between her thighs, gripping her with his hands beneath her, his mouth and his tongue at her throat. She inhaled sharply as he entered her.

He couldn't open his eyes. He just did it, forced himself on her with her hips against the wall and her body crammed to his. The position drove him deep. In hard thrusts he took her. She made no sound; there was nothing but his impassioned breathing and the impact of the solid wall and the rising thrill, the crisis.

He came to the peak with a visceral groan that echoed in the empty room.

Pleasure and guilt, release.

Ruin.

He knew it the instant he knew anything. For once the dizzy relaxation of climax did not roll over him. Instead, it was wholesale loathing.

He leaned against her, his forehead resting on the wall, drinking air and fresh paint and the light salt of perspiration below her ear. Slowly, he released his hands from their tight grip on her, realizing at the same time that she held his shoulders just as tightly, as if she were afraid of falling.

Her feet touched the floor. The tangle of dress and petticoat was still between his fingers, her lacy linen a disorder that slid out of his hands.

He shoved away. He didn't look at her face. The white parasol lay spread in a feather-edged triangle on the floor.

He picked it up, using that and his coat as cover to adjust his clothing, hide himself, his back to her.

He stared out at the vista.

After a moment, he heard faint rustlings behind him. He imagined her restoring her skirts and linen, smoothing and brushing, trying to erase the vestiges of what he'd done. He closed his eyes, expelling a long breath.

"I'm sorry." It came out harshly, nothing of what he felt, the despair, the dread of having to turn and see what was in her face.

She didn't speak. He heard a footfall. He thought she was leaving; he had to turn at last, but she only stood leaning against the wall, holding her hat over her flattened skirt like a little girl, her face lowered. She plucked at the brim.

"I'll take you back to the hotel." He bent and retrieved his own hat. "You may wish to know—the
Kaiea
sails tomorrow afternoon for San Francisco."

She looked up, with shock in her face.

He shrugged. "We're efficient. The turnaround for this load is fifty-two hours."

Still she looked at him, as if the very thought of it dismayed her.

"I've promised you that you have my support. If you want to go, you still have it. Your account is open in London. You only have to tell me what you need beyond that."

The hat fell from her fingers. It settled at her hem, feathers nodding gently. "You wish me to go back?"

"I don't wish anything." He walked to another door, unlatched it, flung it wide. A brisk breeze carried the scent of water past his hot face. Around the edge of the lanai, the steep rise of the mountain showed a drift of mist across the green. "It's your decision. If you would rather stay, and live in this house, and—keep up a conventional appearance, I promise you that I won't—make any demands on you." His mouth curled. "I've been trying to say that, but—" A curt laugh escaped him. "God! I suppose I can hardly expect to convince you now."