Teresa Medeiros (13 page)

He hurled the rifle into the hut and turned away, dismissing her with contemptuous swiftness.

“Justin?”

He stopped, his shoulders braced against the sound of her voice.

“You must hate me, don’t you?”

He sighed. “I wish I could, Emily. It would make life so much simpler.”

An odd glow touched her. As he ducked into the bush she felt a grin steal over her face. In all the confusion he hadn’t forbade her to leave the hut. She gathered her skirt to muffle its rustle and slunk up the hill after him.

Emily darted from tree to tree, running to keep Justin in sight. As she threw herself behind the trunk of a kauri tree, her foot came down squarely on a twig. The crack resounded through the forest. The quivering silence warned her Justin had also stopped to listen. She shrank into herself, holding her breath until his crashing path through the underbrush resumed. She poked her head out from behind the tree, looked both ways, then ducked after him. This might be her only chance to discover how he spent the long hours of daylight.

The trees thinned, shrinking into thick clumps of broom fragrant with masses of delicate pink amaryllis. She dropped down, forced to scramble up the slope on hands and knees to avoid being seen.

The hillside ended abruptly in a sprawling fence of stakes, their points whittled to menacing sharpness.

“At least there aren’t any shrunken heads on them,” she whispered to herself.

Not yet anyway
.

Less than comforted by the thought, she followed the curving line of the palisade, still shielded by tangled growth. A yawning gate divided the stakes. Emily parted the fronds of a bush and watched Justin disappear into its maw. Seeing no guards, she dared to follow.

Hugging the palisade, she slipped through the gate to find a small village drowsing in the midday sun. Across the courtyard Justin was entering a round hut thatched with wicker. As Emily picked her way after him, a mangy dog lifted his head from his paws. Instead of barking, he greeted her with a pant and a lazy wag of his tail. These natives must be a trusting lot, she thought. Just as her father had been.

She inched around the walls of the windowless hut. What reasons did Justin have for meeting with the Maori? Was he buying land with her father’s gold? She had read of some diabolical white men turning the natives against other whites so they could step into the carnage and steal their land. Her stomach tightened to a nervous knot. A trickle of sweat inched down her cheek.

Her groping fingers found a weak spot in the wicker. She tore it away, then knelt and pressed her eye to the tiny hole.

Her gaze adjusted slowly to the cavernous gloom of the meeting house. Burning torches had been spiked into the dirt floor, casting an amber glow over the gathering. Skirted natives sat cross-legged throughout the hut. A handful of women wearing feathered cloaks were sprinkled among the men. She recognized the stern chief and his white-haired companion. They all gave the center of the hut their rapt attention, their faces glowing with a common serenity. Even the fierce chief had allowed his expression to soften to curiosity, although the skeptical glint never completely left his dark eyes.

A smoke hole had been cut in the domed ceiling and a single shaft of sunlight cut through the gloom, illuminating the finely hewn features of the man sitting cross-legged in their midst. Emily was tempted to believe he had planned it that way, but realized he must need the light to read from the leather-bound book spread across his thighs. Trini sat beside him, translating Justin’s English into Maori each time he paused.

Puzzled, Emily strained her ears to hear. She doubted if cannibals would be that enthralled by the life and times of Mozart or Vivaldi.

She didn’t have to strain long. Justin’s voice carried like the rich, sweet tolling of a cathedral bell.

“ ‘… she brought forth her firstborn son, and wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger because there was no room for them in the inn.’ ”

He paused so Trini might translate. The glowering chief shook his head as if saddened by the fate of the hapless child.

“ ‘… And lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round them …’ ”

Emily had squirmed through seven interminable Christmas pageants at the seminary. Pageants where Cecille du Pardieu played Mary while she got stuck as the far end of a sheep or donkey. But as she closed her eyes, it was as if she were hearing the power of the old, old words for the first time.

“ ‘… And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people …’ ”

She opened her eyes, blinking away the tears caught in her lashes. The hut seemed to reel, pivoting slowly around a man with somber gold eyes caught in a web of sunlight. It sparkled across his hair, glinted off the gold watch case that lay against his breastbone.

Emily shoved herself away from the hut, clapping a hand over her mouth. A hysterical giggle escaped her, then
another. The dashing rogue Justin Connor a missionary? Had her father bequeathed both his gold mine and his daughter to a madman? What had he done with the gold? she wondered. Given it to the natives to buy supplies? Or Bibles?

She doubled over, clutching her stomach as helpless laughter crippled her. How could she have let her own suspicions and the gossip of London society blind her to the man’s true character? He had opened his life and heart to every stray who wandered past, taking in abandoned valets, reformed cannibals—even ugly lizards.

Everyone but his ward, she realized. There was no room at the inn for Claire Scarborough.

Until she felt the tears streaming down her cheeks, Emily didn’t realize she was crying. She backed away from the meeting house. The emotional carousel she’d been on since her guardian had stepped out of the shadows was spinning out of control and, dear God, she had to get off.

The village blurred as she pelted past the gate into the tangled arms of the forest. Behind her a dog barked, the sound hollow against the blood rushing through her ears. She might have heard a man’s frantic cry, or it might have been only the careening slam of her heart. Dappled shadows lured her deeper into the bush, promising escape. Vines swatted her face, but she barely felt their sting.

The land climbed and Emily scrambled upward, digging her nails into a naked root to keep from falling. This narrow finger of land jutted high above the island, giving her a breathtaking view of a slim ribbon of beach below and rolling hills of grain to the west. The shimmering crowns of the fern trees waved over the emerald forest to the east, giving it all the illusion of a tropical paradise. The air was cooler here, sheltered from the sun by a tall stand of trees.

At another time Emily might have delighted in its beauty, but now it only pained her—like gazing at something she wanted desperately but could never have. She
claimed the farthest tip of land as her own, flinging her arm around a tree and digging her toes into the cottony moss. A snowy bird hopped off a vine and went dancing into the sky. She stood aching and adrift in a whisper of birdsong as the breeze cooled her flaming cheeks. She had to flee the island, flee Justin before her own defenses were replaced by the tender adoration she had seen on the faces of the natives.

A shrill giggle rang out, mocking her heart’s turmoil, only to be followed by the maniacal patter of little feet. Emily whirled around. The hill was shaded, the surrounding trees rife with shadows.

On the other side of the bluff a bush shuddered. Emily moaned. What now? she wondered. Pygmies? Gnomes? She’d been awake only since noon, and the day had been one disaster after another. She was beginning to feel like the little girl who had tumbled down the rabbit hole in Mr. Carroll’s novel. She wouldn’t have been surprised if a white lizard had bolted out of the trees, pulling her father’s watch from his waistcoat pocket.

She scanned the tangled undergrowth. It trembled as if alive. Tiny invisible eyes bored into her like poison darts.

She turned to flee and ran straight into a tree, eliciting a demonic ripple of laughter.

“It’s not funny!” she cried, spinning around.

Straight ahead of her a low-slung bush quivered with mirth. Anger surged through her. She narrowed her eyes. “Wouldn’t be laughing so hard if I had an ax, would you?”

Gathering her skirt in her fists, she dashed toward the bush. At the last possible second she jumped, clearing it in one leap, catching the barest flash of tanned skin and shocked eyes.

The hunt was on.

The forest erupted in running feet. Emily hurtled through the dense brush, leaping bushes and dodging branches with an agility that surprised even her. She expected an arrow to tear through her tender flesh at any
second. The trees thinned, but she didn’t dare pause to look behind her.

She burst out of the cool canopy into the warmth of sunlight and an endless vista of aqua sea. There was an instant when she might have stopped, but the stampede of little feet spurred her on. The land tilted beneath her and she went tumbling head over heels down the sandy slope. Flashes of brown and blue spun in her vision. After an eternity of undignified grunting she caught the land and held it still beneath her stomach.

Eyes closed, she turned her face to the side, gasping for breath. Her fingers curled in the warm sand. A breeze stiff with salt caressed her aching legs. A curious silence assailed her.

She eased her eyes open to find herself surrounded by toes—dozens of plump little toes browned like raisins by the sun.

She lifted her head. Her eyes widened in shock to find a little boy wearing nothing but a necklace of shells and an impudent grin.

Naked children ringed her. Emily had never seen so much baby fat in one place.

These children had never been swaddled in corsets and crinolines. They’d never been stuffed into stockings or endured the torture of hooking a dozen buttons on high black boots that pinched their toes. They stared at her, and Emily stared back, shocked but fascinated by their freedom.

A solemn little girl gazed shyly at her from behind a fall of dark hair. Her belly pooched out in the swayback posture of a toddler. She popped her thumb in her mouth, sucking it noisily.

Groaning, Emily flopped to her back in the sand. “Why couldn’t you have been Pygmies? I hate children.”

The little boy offered her his hand. “Isn’t it a bit intolerant of you to condemn an entire echelon of society based only on their collective ages?”

She jerked her head up. She hadn’t expected him to understand her, much less answer in anything more than childish jabber.

She warily took his hand and climbed to her feet. “Let me guess. Justin must have taught you English.”

“Justin?” he repeated.

The little girl spat out her thumb and squealed, “Pakeha!”

The children’s faces lit up as they joined in her joyful trilling.

“Oh, for heaven’s sake. Stop that, won’t you? You’re making my head ache.” Emily backed away from them, throwing out her arms in a helpless gesture. “Of course. It only makes sense that Justin would be the almighty, magnificent, all-holy Pakeha!”

They lapsed into silence. The boy stared at her vacantly. Apparently, his tutor had yet to teach him the sting of sarcasm. The little girl gazed up at her with something akin to awe.

“Must she stare so? It makes me fidget.”

The boy gathered the toddler to his side. “She is my sister, Dani. They call me Kawiri.”

Emily bobbed a reluctant curtsy. “They call me Emily.” She rested her hands on her hips. “Why were you chasing me?”

“We weren’t chasing you. We were following you. We had no idea you’d be asinine enough to fall off the hill.”

Emily couldn’t find an argument for such evenhanded logic. “Neither did I,” she muttered. “Asinine. Now, there’s a good word. Did your mighty Pakeha begin with the
A
’s?”

Dani opened her mouth to chirp. Emily didn’t think she could bear another hymn to Justin’s goodness, so she squatted and plugged the child’s thumb back in. While the other children experimented with Emily’s name, the little girl pulled a crimson flower from behind her ear.

She tucked the bloom in Emily’s hair, weaving it among the curls. Emily felt a hesitant smile touch her lips.

As a new excitement rippled through the children, she straightened. A plump boy pointed toward the waves, yelling in Maori.

“High tide,” Kawiri explained.

“High tide?”

At Emily’s blank look, he added, “A natural phenomenon initiated by the waxing and waning of lunar forces which in turn—”

“I know what a tide is,” she interrupted.

He shrugged and jogged after the others. They pounded across the beach toward the waves, whooping in sounds that needed no language.

Emily watched, envying them their freedom and fighting a wistful sense of abandonment.

She felt a shy tug on her hand. Dani gazed up at her, grinning toothlessly. “Emmy,” she said.

Her heart contracted.

Kawiri had spun around to jog backward. “Make haste, Emily. The day won’t last forever.”

“For a while it seemed like it might,” she said softly.

Clinging to Dani’s hand, she pelted after him, scattering sand in her wake.

Justin sat high atop the sandy bluff overlooking the beach. The wind raked his hair from his eyes, but not even the ocean breeze could cool his fevered musings. His gaze was locked on the beach below, drawn like the tide to the enchanting child-woman dancing through the waves.

Who the hell was she?

Had women changed so much since he’d left England? Emily was so little like those he had known in London that she seemed to be some exotic species, both irresistible and mysterious. Her mercurial moods both compelled and exhausted him. She was nothing like his addle-witted mother and even less like his vapid sisters. Their only
concerns in life had been which gentlemen were going to sign their dance cards for the next ball. His stunning fiancée, Suzanne, had slapped his face in the lobby of the Theatre Royal when he’d informed her he’d rejected his inheritance, but at least he had understood her motive—healthy greed.