The Shadow and the Star (58 page)

"Oh, you mustn't go to so much trouble. I can come to your shop and see it."

"No, no! I bring! You say me, put there, put there, look-see, you no like, take-go."

"Well, that's most kind of you. I should like to see how it would look in place, I imagine."

Mr. Dojun bobbed. "Tomorrow,
ne
? You come this house. I bring."

Leda hesitated. With this sudden cornucopia of furniture, was it not possible…

She would make everything look very handsome—and Samuel liked Japanese things; she remembered Lady Kai saying that he did his own woodwork in the Japanese style. But she didn't know—she acknowledged herself sadly deficient in the comforts that might tempt a man to run tame about the house.

In the accustomed way of things, feminine delicacy would not have endured a discussion with strangers of something so personal as her husband's tastes. However, experience taught that a familiar retainer, a maid or even a cook, often would be more conversant with her mistress' private inclinations than the closest family relations. It seemed likely that the same would hold true of gentlemen. She looked shyly at Mr. Dojun and Manalo. "I wonder�if you don't think me impertinent for asking—is it possible that you and Mr. Manalo have known Mr. Gerard for some time?"

"Time?" Mr. Dojun repeated.

"Some years? You, and Mr. Manalo, work for Mr. Gerard a long time?"

"Ah. Much year. Sixteen, eighteen year. Before, twenty year, work my lady—work my lady Ashlan', she been take-care Samua-san."

"Ah, Lady Ashland!" She lost her last reservations about Mr. Dojun. If Lady Tess had employed him, Leda felt that she could be assured of his excellent character.

"Manalo-kun, he more young. No full thirty year, eh?" Mr. Dojun bowed slightly toward the Hawaiian. "Maybe, six, seven year work Samua-san."

Manalo grinned good-naturedly. "Too much time. No swim, no ride, no sing.
Auwe
! All work!" He passed his hand over his brow.

"Perhaps… if you know him well—" She lowered her voice. "I'm rather in a quandary, you see, as to how a gentleman would prefer the house to be done up. I wonder if you might have some suggestions for the primary choices."

They both looked at her blankly.

"What particular furnishings a man would prefer—" She saw that she was making no progress. "What furniture a man likes," she exclaimed at last. "What man like in house?"

"Bed," Manalo said. And positively winked at her.

"Ah!" Mr. Dojun nodded. "Number-one thing, bedstead. Husband like!"

Leda felt herself blushing to her ears. While Manalo laughed himself silly at her confusion, Mr. Dojun began an intricate and indecipherable description of a bedstead that he happened to have "on hand."

For all Manalo's vulgarity—and she would have been surprised if he wouldn't eat raw onions in a front parlor�he seemed quite sincere. It was his opinion that tables, chairs, what-nots, and chests of drawers were of no consequence. Mat of palm or feather tick, a bed was the first article of furniture that a husband required.

"I suppose," she said to Mr. Dojun at last, "you should be certain to bring the bedstead."

"Bring bed." Mr. Dojun bowed. "Got bed, make home."

"Well, yes," Leda agreed. "That's rather what one hopes."

"And Mr. Dojun tells me that he has a particularly handsome bedstead of fiddlestick wood," she said, making a swirl in her ice cream with a spoon. "I'm not precisely sure what that is."

"Fiddleback wood. It's a top-grain koa." Samuel watched her. She wouldn't look up at him; she hadn't met his eyes once since he'd handed her into the buggy to return her to the hotel. "Expensive."

Her spoon stopped its aimless circle. "You think it too extravagant?"

"Spend whatever you like."

The spoon went back to its slow swirl. She took a small bite. He didn't know why he was sitting here. He had work, Dojun's and his own, but he just kept sitting, gazing at her hands, her neatly parted hair, her pink-and-white striped skirt: drinking in her presence.

"I thought, perhaps, an Oriental motif would be attractive," she said. "Would you like that?"

"Anything you want. I don't care."

He was aware of the churlishness of his reply. For her to be present now, at a risk he couldn't calculate, couldn't believe in and couldn't discount—he didn't want it. He didn't want her at the house in particular. His instincts shouted at him to lock her into a room and mount ten guards at the door; his reason and his training agreed with Dojun's terse advice: that any guard at all, any indication that she was of interest or value, would be mistaken.

He didn't want her here, and he sat losing himself in the sound of her voice, the sweet drift of inconsequential talk: what colors did he think might be attractive in the curtains, was it going to be possible to find an experienced cook at reasonable wages, did he know whether it was likely that wallpaper would not stick in the climate, as Mrs. Richards had warned her?

He felt the pull of it. The gentle seduction of her interest in his opinions. The delicate beguilement, the simple affinity. She was staying. All she spoke of was a future, in his house, as his wife.

The ice cream had melted in her dish. Outside the dining room, a sunset blazed and faded in the soft air that flowed through the open windows. Still she trifled with the spoon, her conversation gradually dwindling, until they sat silently amid the clink of glasses and murmur of other voices.

"Perhaps, if you have no business this evening—" She looked at him from under her lashes, "—you might like to take coffee in our suite?"

He thought it unlikely that she was in any jeopardy. And he thought: if he stayed, he would know she was safe. He nodded briefly and stood, pulling out her chair.

The suite was the largest in the hotel, with high ceilings and a sitting room suitable for a royal reception. Huge bouquets of flowers in Chinese vases adorned every table. The coffee had mysteriously arrived ahead of them on a silver tray—the boy poured and served, and vanished.

Samuel prowled along the floor-length windows that opened onto the lanai. Anyone could walk in here, with no effort whatsoever. It wouldn't require the stealth of a baboon.

Leda sat with her coffee, illuminated only by the light from a red paper lantern filtering through the half-closed Venetian blinds. It gave a rose tint to the cream-colored gardenias in her lei, and left her skirt in shadow.

"Why did you come back?" he asked.

She stirred sugar around and around in her cup. "Because it would be wrong of me to leave."

"I told you that you were free to go."

Her mouth took on a small, stubborn curve. "That does not make it right and proper that I do so."

"You should have gone." The blinds rattled as he snapped them closed and open. "Damn it, I'm not—I can't promise—" He tilted his head back. "God, you saw what it would be like! Get out of here, go away, you don't have to stay with me."

"Marriage is a solemn vow," she said, with a trace of defiance. "I don't see how I am to comfort, honor, and keep you in sickness and in health if I am not in the reasonably near vicinity."

"It was a farce!" He swung to face her. "Would you have made any vows if you'd known?"

She stood up. "It was not a farce. I will not have you say so!"

"You're too admirable! A regular saint."

"I daresay that you mean to be sarcastic. I daresay you've forgotten common cordiality in your regret that I'm not the person whom you hoped to wed."

"I don't regret that," he muttered.

"Do you not? I suppose I'm to believe that you've only been treating me to an ingenious imitation of the fact. And there," she exclaimed, turning away, "you've made me lose my temper and lower myself to mockery also. I hope you may be satisfied!"

He gazed at the distorted reflection of himself in a convex pier mirror. He could see her warped image behind him. "I don't regret it," he repeated. He stared at the spiral of colors in the mirror until his vision seemed to go dim. "I don't regret it. I love you."

Blood suddenly began pumping hard through his body. He felt himself hanging in midair, ten feet off that bottomless cliff, no footing underneath him.

"I know that doesn't change anything," he uttered sharply, throwing himself back toward solid ground. "I don't want you on this island. I don't want you in my house. Do you understand?
Is that clear
?"

The mirror reflected immobility. Impossible to see her expression. The palm trees in the grounds outside made a clattering rustle in the breeze that stole through the transoms and the blinds.

She spoke gently. "Dear sir—I've never thought of you as muddleheaded, but it seems a very muddleheaded thing to say."

"Forget it," he said. "Just forget it." He walked through to the bedroom, intending to check there for points of entry.

As he stood in the dusky rays of lantern light, scowling at the mosquito-netted bed and the same ludicrously vulnerable floor-length windows, she came up behind him. "I really don't think I shall be able to promise that."

"Forget it! Stay. Go. Do anything you like."

"I never wished to leave at all. I love you very much also, you see."

He shot her a glance. "My God, your manners are impeccable, aren't they? 'When a gentleman declares his affection,' " he mimicked her aphorisms ruthlessly, " 'a lady should instantly respond with a suitable lie—pardon me—a suitable "prevarication," in order to save him looking a complete ass.' "

She gazed at him, and then lowered her head. "You think—that what I said—isn't true?"

"I think that knowing what you know about me, it's impossible."

She remained looking at the carpet. "Everything I know of you is admirable."

He laughed out loud, fiercely. "Right."

"Everything," she said.

"You know, don't you? She told you."

She lifted her eyes. He waited for her to say something, braced himself for it, but she only looked at him with a tender, patient gravity.

The shaking was there in his gut, just below the edge of feeling. He stood still, forcing it out of his muscles, fighting it. His throat held onto words.

"I love you, dear sir."

"That's impossible."

"It is not impossible."

Air seemed to come hard, as if he had to think, to remember to draw each breath into his chest. "You don't have to say this. I've told you; I've told you that you don't have to say it."

Her chin tilted up. "Nevertheless, I do say it."

He made a furious move away. "You're wrong. You're lying. You—cannot."

"I do not wish to grow heated upon the subject with you." She kept her chin lifted obstinately. "On our wedding night, Lady Tess mentioned to me several things which she felt were relevant to our—to our union. She said that you would not like it, and I see that you don't. I'm very sorry if you feel that it is a character defect in me, but I found, and still find, that nothing of what she said�and nothing that I have learned in my acquaintance with you—nothing, dear sir!—could make me feel anything but—" Her voice began to lose its steadiness. "But a deep regard and respect for you. My very dear sir!"

The shudder inside him threatened violently; to shut it out he reached for her. He dragged her close to him. "Even this?" He brought his mouth down on hers, kissed her hard, gripping her arms with a force he knew would hurt.

The crushed gardenias in her fading lei filled the air with heavy fragrance as he held her tight to him. He slid his hand downward and molded her body. His fingers found the provocative valley at the base of her spine. He rubbed his thumb and fingers up and down in it, pressing deep through the pink-and-white skirt, pulling her lasciviously against his already turgid sex.

Deliberate crudity and instant passion, his tongue in deep penetration… he pushed her away as suddenly as he'd seized her.

In the rosy shadows, she was tousled and pretty, her eyes wide.

"Yes." She turned away and smoothed at her cuffs. "Even that. Because—I am half-French, you see." She bent her head over her hand. "And I know it would grieve you to hurt me on purpose."

It grieved him. It revolted him. He wished to cradle her and smooth her hair, but he did not dare touch her. She wouldn't want it; she couldn't; what being half-French had to do with it he didn't hope to understand. It was just Leda, she would say such things, nonsense and innocence—stubborn, gentle, resolute, oblivious innocence, to know what was inside him, what he had been and what he was, and call him admirable.

To say she loved him.

He felt afraid when he thought of it.

What if I'm afraid
? he'd asked Dojun once, a long, long time ago. And Dojun had said:
Afraid
? as if he did not know the word.
Fear comes of fighting
against.
Always go
with,
not against
.

And long ago, he'd understood it. In a fight, become the situation; be with the adversary.

He didn't understand now. He looked at Leda and felt everything inside him flame and fuse and flow away, flow out the cracks in himself, until there was going to be nothing left.

She looked over her shoulder at him. "I wish, dear sir, that you would stay here with me tonight."

Too vulnerable, this hotel room was too vulnerable. He glared, at the window blinds. "I'll wait in the parlor while you change."

A glad smile spread on her lips. She ducked her head. "Of course. I won't—that is—you need not—I'll only be a few moments!"

He walked into the parlor. At the door, he stepped outside into the lantern light. The paper lamps swung softly, alternately, shedding circles of illumination along the length of the wide lanai. At the far end, a couple stood looking over the fairy-like lights of the grounds. Samuel appraised them:
haole
and innocuous, residents from one of the other islands on holiday. New bars of light fell on the lanai floor as the electric lamp came on in Leda's bedroom.

He watched the white drift of waiters over the lawn, looking for a certain essence of movement, a telltale balance, like the animal grace of Dojun's natural stance. He saw nothing but a Chinese server scolded for bringing an ice water instead of a lemon ice.