Jade Star (Star Quartet 4)

He drew a sigh of relief when she slumped against him and began to cry. He was becoming stiff in the kneeling position, and slowly sat down, pulling Jules down beside him. He kept her face pressed against his chest, his arm supporting her.

“He’s sending me to Canada,” she whispered in a deadened voice, “to Toronto, to live with his older sister Marie, who’s a spinster and does good works. He said he wouldn’t abide my shame here, wouldn’t abide all the shame I’ve brought on his family.”

Saint closed his eyes a moment. God, what was he to do now? He said, “I will speak to your father, Jules. He will not send you to Canada.”

Jules wanted to tell him that there was absolutely nothing he could do, but she didn’t say it. He’d already saved her; he’d already done much too much for her.

“John said that I’d given it to you.”

What a way to talk about sex, Saint thought, so angered at John Bleecher that if the young man had appeared, he would have started beating him again, with great relish. He clamped down on his anger and said quietly, “John Bleecher is a spoiled, thoughtless little rich bastard. I don’t know what your sister said to him, but I fully intend to speak my mind to her!”

He felt Jules’s head shaking against his chest. “No, please, Saint,” she said. “Sarah loves him and she . . . let John have her. He’s got to marry her. She’s just afraid that he won’t, now that I’m still alive.”

“She deserves to be hors

ewhipped.”

To Saint’s relief, he heard Jules laugh. It wasn’t much of a laugh, but it was a start. She was resilient, his Jules. “I agree,” she said. “And you may be certain that I’ll blister her ears.”

“Good. And you may be certain that I’ll speak to your father. Canada, for God’s sake!”

Saint faced Reverend Etienne DuPres across the man’s huge mahogany desk. What a paltry, mean-spirited specimen he was, Saint thought. No humor, no love, just the kind of fanaticism that kills the spirit, doesn’t save it. He said without preamble, “I’ve come about Jules.”

“Her name is Juliana,” DuPres said, distaste plain on his face.

“Fine. In any case, I’ve come to speak to you about your younger daughter. She told me that you intend to send her to Canada.”

“Yes, that’s right. I will not abide her presence here any longer than I must. She is a blight on her family. My sister will take her in hand.”

“May I ask why you consider her a blight?” Saint asked calmly, too calmly.

“Come, Dr. Morris,” DuPres said, his hands shaking with disgust, “I have no doubt that you, along with many others, have enjoyed my daughter’s body. I will abide no harlot in my house.”

“Didn’t you listen to her? Didn’t you hear what she had to say? None of it was her fault, and, I might add, she is still a virgin. She is the furthest thing from a harlot. She is pure and innocent.”

And she’s been hurt, God, hurt so much.

“Dr. Morris, I understand that many men, once they’ve taken a woman, don’t wish to be bothered with her anymore, you included, evidently. I am her father, more’s the pity, and I shall do what I believe best. Now, Sir, you will excuse me.”

Saint wanted to hit him, but he remembered John Bleecher’s bloody face and moans of pain. He remembered how he’d sworn never to hit another who had not his strength. He stared a moment at Jules’s father, wishing he could fathom the way the man’s mind worked, but he couldn’t, of course. He also realized that there was nothing more he could say. He knew now what he had to do. He knew he had absolutely no choice in the matter. He said nothing more, merely turned and strode out of the man’s study and his house.

Etienne DePres stood quietly for a long time, staring at nothing in particular, his mind working furiously. He had absolutely no doubt, just as he’d said, that Saint Morris had debauched his daughter. And Juliana, with her grandmother’s wild blood . . . well, he knew her for what she was, had known since she was a little girl what she would turn out to be. And now, he thought, nodding at himself in approval, he knew what he would do. He sat down at his desk and began to write.

10

Saint quietly slipped into the back of the Waine’e Church. It was cool inside, for the building was of stone. It could seat nearly three thousand Hawaiians, most of them packed together on the floor. There were calabash spittoons for the tobacco-chewing chiefs and ships’ masters on the far side of the huge room. This Sunday morning, however, there were only about three hundred souls waiting to hear the Lord’s words. Saint thought cynically that the souls gathered were so few because Dwight Baldwin, who normally preached at the Waine’e, was across the island ministering to a dying woman, leaving Etienne DuPres to exhort the flock.

He spotted Jules with her family at the front of the church, her face, beneath her plain bonnet, pale and set. He sat back, crossed his arms over his chest, and prepared himself to be bored.

But he wasn’t. He was enraged.

After two hymns were sung, Reverend DuPres walked to his pulpit, read from the Scriptures, and spoke briefly and generally of the sins of the flesh. Nothing new in that, of course. It was one of Reverend DuPres’s favorite sermons. Then he paused a moment, and Saint could have sworn that he smiled.

“It is difficult,” Reverend DuPres said, his voice rising and filling the large room, “for a man of God to be cursed with an offspring who has no moral responsibility, despite all the pious teachings she’s received, despite the model of a virtuous mother and father.” He paused a moment, aware of the gasps of surprise, aware that he had everyone’s attention. Saint tensed. No, he thought, DuPres won’t, he wouldn’t, not to his own daughter!

“As most of you know, particularly those of you who know my family well, we believed my younger daughter dead. Just as that virtuous woman Kanola is indeed dead, and with our Savior in heaven. The difference between these two women is obvious. The one chose death rather than submit to the wanton evil of the flesh. The other chose to debauch herself, to wallow in sin.”

Saint heard a snicker from one of the sailors. He looked at Jules and saw that she was rigid as a statue. Her mother’s head was bowed, but Sarah, curse her, was smiling. Thomas’ face was red. Saint was barely aware that he had risen and was slowly walking the long distance toward the pulpit. He felt his rage pound through him like storm-tossed waves to the shore.