Jade Star (Star Quartet 4)

“My daughter Juliana DuPres,” Reverend DuPres continued, his voice stern and cold, “has debauched herself. Indeed, she has a true sinner’s disregard for what is good and Christian, and dared to come back to Lahaina—in the company of one of the men who taught her the way of the flesh.”

“You goddamned bastard, shut up!”

“I will not shut up!” Etienne DuPres shouted back at Saint, slamming his fist on the wooden pulpit. “No, I will speak the truth, Dr. Morris! My daughter has proven herself to be a harlot, a slut! And you, sir, have added to her sins! Even yesterday, she tried to seduce, yes, seduce, my virtuous daughter’s fiancé, John Bleecher! A fine upstanding young man who was appalled and who would have none of her, of course!”

“Father, that’s a lie!” Thomas DuPres roared, jumping to his feet. “He tried to rape her!”

“She is to be reviled, cast out—”

Reverend DuPres got no further. Saint rushed to the pulpit, grabbed him by the lapels of his black frock coat, lifted him a good foot off the floor, and shook him as he would a rat. “You miserable lying worm!” Saint hissed at him. He drew back his arm and slammed his fist into his jaw.

Etienne DuPres collapsed unconscious to the floor.

The place was pandemonium.

Saint turned and very calmly walked to where Jules was sitting, both the white community and native Hawaiians scurrying out of his way. “Jules,” he said very gently, “come with me now.”

She raised wide, empty eyes to his face.

“Come,” he repeated, taking her hand.

“Juliana, no, you can’t,” her mother whispered, but Jules ignored her. She placed her hand into Michael’s and he led her unresisting from the church.

His heart was pounding against his ribs, and he could feel himself trembling. He closed his eyes a moment against the bright sun, unaware that he was squeezing Jules’s hand painfully.

When he opened his eyes, he didn’t look down at her beside him, merely kept walking toward the beach. The sound of the breaking waves usually soothed him, but not this time. He led Jules to a palm tree and said quite calmly, “Sit down, and stay out of the sun. It’s quite strong today. I don’t want you to get sunburned.”

“I have my bonnet on,” she said vaguely, but she moved to stand beneath the palm fronds.

“All within the space of twenty-four hours I’ve wanted to kill two men,” he said in that same unnaturally calm voice. “I, a physician, a saver of life.”

She raised her head and saw the pain in his hazel eyes.

“It is my fault,” she said simply. “You mustn’t blame yourself. You are . . . too good and kind. Perhaps he was right—my father, that is. I did choose to live instead of end my life as Kanola did. I suppose I would have allowed myself to be . . . debauched to survive. No, Michael, don’t blame yourself. I am truly sorry.”

Saint shook himself. He was a damned fool, carrying on about himself when it was Jules who was suffering. “God forgive me, I’m sorry.” He pulled her against him, comforting the both of them. She was utterly passive, unresponsive.

“Jules,” he said quietly after some moments, his breath warm against her temple, “I was there only because I wanted to speak to you after the service, away from your family. I arranged with Reverend Baldwin yesterday to marry us. When he returns from tending his patient, he will.”

Jules wanted to howl and laugh at the same time. She knew what her father had said to Saint the day before; her mother had told her. She knew why he wanted to marry her. He was honorable; he felt responsible for her; he felt pity for her.

“I should have killed myself,” she said. “Then no one would hate me and revile me now.”

His arms tightened painfully around her and she cried out, unable to help herself.

Saint didn’t apologize. He said furiously, “Don’t you ever say such a stupid thing again! Listen to me, Jules. Even if you had been raped by a dozen men, it wouldn’t have been your fault, and I wouldn’t feel any less respect for you. For God’s sake, if a woman dies in childbirth, is she to blame?”

“But it’s true, Michael. All of them, except for Thomas, wish I were truly dead.”

“You are not to die. I won’t allow you to die until you’re well over eighty. You will forget your damned father, your weak, silly mother, and that mean-spirited sister of yours.”

She pulled away from him and he let her go. She said over her shoulder, her voice utterly without emotion, “It isn’t fair that you feel constrained to make me your wife. I will go to Canada.”

“No, you will go nowhere, save back to San Francisco with me.” He paused a moment, then asked thoughtfully, “Did you guess that your father would treat you as he has? Is that the reason you wanted to stay in San Francisco?”

“I . . . I don’t know. I can’t see that it’s particularly important now. I do know that my father was closeted with John Bleecher last evening. Michael, how could John lie like that?”

“Forget the little bastard,” Saint said sharply, uncomfortable with the renewed rage he felt. “Jules, will you marry me? Will you do me the honor of becoming my wife? Will you come home with me to San Francisco?”