He saw that quite well and nodded, but he would do it again to see her safe.
“I know you are only keeping your promise to my father, but I see no harm in what I was doing,” she argued.
“The harm was not in what you were doing, but in what might have happened. When you act so…so relaxed around men like that, with any man for that matter, you give the wrong impression.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean…” Totally frustrated, he ran his finger around his collar. “I mean that they may get the idea that you are the type of woman who might... the sort of woman who would let a man…that you might want to…let them…”
“Mate with them?”
With three words she rendered him speechless again. Joya was staring at him in shock. “I don’t think they were thinking any such thing. Besides, I do not believe myself to be a highly desirable woman.”
“What? Why on earth would you think that?”
“I am twenty years old, far older than any Matarengi bride would ever be. Not one Matarengi ever offered for me, even the men who could afford a high bride price.” She looked out to sea as she went on. “I know Papa would have refused them, but still, no one even offered. Neither did any of the white sailors who came to the island. I am certain that they must have found me unappealing.”
Trevor sighed, wondering whether he should risk the problems that might arise if she knew how desirable she really was.
“The men on Matarenga were ordered by their chief not to touch you. One day during our discussions, your father told me he made it quite clear that the penalty for as much would be death. You were protected on your island. These sailors don’t give a hoot who your father is, nor do the men in England. I have a business to see to when I return, and I cannot be everywhere at once playing bodyguard. Not only that, but I’ve planned an expedition to Venezuela. You are going to have to take some responsibility for yourself and try to abide by the rules of English society.”
When the light in her eyes dimmed, he almost wanted to take back every last word. He reminded himself that his warnings were meant for her own good.
That did not make seeing unshed tears shimmering in her eyes any easier.
“My father actually threatened the men on Matarenga?”
“Through their head man, Faruki.”
“All this time I thought I was undesirable.” She spoke in a voice barely above a whisper.
They were under full sail. She reached for the rail and leaned against it, watching the water rush by. The wind blew her hair back off her face. Like spun silk, it tangled and tempted.
“Joya, I am sorry if I have hurt you by telling you the truth.” He started to reach for her hair again, to pull it back away from the side of her face. When he realized he was about to touch her again, he dropped his hand. How could she truly believe she was undesirable?
“You needn’t feel sorry,” she told him. “I would rather hear the truth than continue to live a lie. You have not hurt me, Trevor.”
“But you look so sad.”
“I grew up hating my white skin because it made me different from the other children. One by one, I watched my friends marry. My parents forbade me to even consider marriage to one of the Matarenga. Do you have any idea what it was like for me growing up? My mother and father and I existed on two islands; one was Matarenga and the other was inside our white skins. For as long as my parents would allow, I tried as hard as I could to be one of the tribe. If I do not know your English rules or customs, it is because I grew up trying so hard to be something I could never, ever be. I rebelled against the white English ways. Now, I must learn to be something entirely different.”
She pushed her hair back off her face. Her skin was damp with mist from the sea spray. She sighed. “Perhaps I don’t belong anywhere.”
He reached for her, gently touched her shoulder, and urged her to turn around.
“You will learn. You are an intelligent, capable young woman. All you need is time.”
“Time to learn the rules, you mean? If I do, do you think an Englishman would find me desirable enough to want to marry me and do the things that husbands and wives do together?”
He shook his head. It was hard for him to believe he was actually having this conversation.
“What do you know of what husbands and wives do together?”
“Everyone on Matarenga knows what happens between a man and his wives, but I am twenty years old and have never even been kissed. I still hold little hope of ever finding a mate. And I think you are wrong, Trevor, I doubt any Englishmen will be attracted to me.”
“Of course they will.” He did not think he sounded very reassuring at all, especially when he hoped that for his own peace of mind they would not.
“But Janelle and I look alike and she is still unmarried. Is that because men do not find her desirable, either.”
“Janelle is unmarried because she is headstrong and opinionated, not because she is undesirable. She has refused so many marriage proposals that no one in our circle of acquaintances will approach her anymore.”
“Opinionated?”
“She says exactly what she thinks.”
“Being headstrong and truthful is not an admirable trait?”
“Not in English drawing rooms.”
“Then I suppose I will not be any more desirable than my sister in English drawing rooms.” She laughed, but it was hollow, not joyous. “I am beginning to think that life plays cruel tricks, like Bimjuu, the trickster spirit. I grew up with a mother and father who truly loved one another. I saw their love for one another and I was certain that somewhere in the world, that kind of love existed for me. But now I have learned they weren’t even my true mother and father. They loved me, but not enough to tell me the truth about my past. How do I know what is real anymore? Especially love?”
He could name the genus and species of over twelve hundred orchids. He had survived some of the world’s most formidable jungles. He could outbid a business competitor without flinching. But he had absolutely no idea what to say to her about love.
How could he convince her that there was such a thing as a deep abiding love when he had never experienced it himself, nor even witnessed it? How could he convince her that enduring love existed, when he wasn’t at all certain that it did?
“These are things you should really speak to Janelle about.” He wished he could say something, anything to help.
She tipped her face up, pulling a stray curl away from her lashes. “I’ve embarrassed you.”
“No.”
“You look as if you have eaten a bad beetle, Trevor. I have spoken of the wrong things and I’m sorry.” She took a deep breath and squared her shoulders. “I must go and see how Janelle is this morning. Thank you for trying to help me.”
He stood there mute as she bid him good-bye.
* * *
After that day, Trevor spent many long nights aboard ship lying awake, reliving their strange conversation and trying to forget just how desirable Joya Penn was.
Finally the long voyage ended. As they stood at the ship’s rail for her first real glimpse of England, Joya plied him with questions. She wanted to know where the palm trees were, why there was no lagoon, and if it was summer, why was it still so cold?
Because she had never seen a moving vehicle in her life, it took a quarter of an hour to convince her that she would survive a coach ride. In the carriage on the way to Mandeville House, the twins were so excited, so lost in an ongoing, high-pitched conversation about where they would go, what they would see, that he felt left out.
Surreptitiously he took sidelong glances at Joya as they mounted the steps to Mandeville House. She gasped at the size of the house, touched the brickwork and the brass lion holding the door knocker in its mouth. Trevor watched her straighten her borrowed bonnet and the bow beneath her chin. She patted her hair into place and smoothed her skirt. Then she fell silent and touched her breast where her amulet pouch lay hidden ben
eath the bodice of her gown. When she glanced up at him, he saw that there was fear in her eyes.
“Janelle has told me about your grandmother. I don’t want to offend her,” she confessed in a hushed tone.
Janelle was still beside the carriage, gossiping with their young coachman, Joshua.
“Grandmother’s bark is worse than her bite,” he said offhandedly.
“She bites?” Joya stopped dead still. She stared in horror at the front door.
“That is just a figure of speech,” he said.
By now Janelle had rejoined them.
“Oh, Trevor, Joshua just told me that Darcy has had a little boy. She and her husband moved to the country.”
“Who in the world is Darcy?”
“Mrs. Billingsley’s eldest daughter.”
“Who is Mrs. Billingsley?” Joya asked.
“Our housekeeper.” Janelle and Trevor answered at the same time.
Trevor opened the door and stood aside while Janelle swept in. He waited as Joya followed cautiously, carefully stepping over the threshold into the entry hall. The foyer was a crowded affair, filled with an array of large mahogany pieces that included a large hall tree off to one side and a huge circular table in the center of the room. The floors were marble, the walls covered in gilt and scarlet. Colorful paintings hung from thick tasseled cords anchored just below the ceiling. An ancient Saxon sword, generations old, was on display near the staircase.
Trevor found himself taking a deep breath as he watched Joya walk to the center of the room, where she placed one hand on the table and then curiously bent to peer beneath it.
Sims, their butler for as long as Trevor could recall, descended upon them as if he had been lurking behind the door, hiding in wait for someone to appear. Ageless, he was tall and still as straight as a lamppost with thinning silver hair.
“There you are, Sims, just as I expected. Do you know, when I was a lad, I thought you lived here in the foyer?”
“I do, sir,” Sims said without pause. “Welcome home.” Then he turned to Janelle. “Welcome home, miss. You are looking well.”
“Thank you, Sims. I must say I’m much better now that I’m on dry land.”
“How is my grandmother?” Trevor inquired. When Sims did not answer, Trevor realized it was because the butler was staring at Joya, who had righted herself.
“Sims?” Trevor had never known the man to be at a loss for words. By now, Joya had begun to wander slowly around the room. She walked over to a near-lifesized statue of a winged Mercury and began to run her palm slowly up and down its smooth marble thigh. Trevor had to look away.
Sims blinked rapidly and then turned back and forth from Joya to Janelle, who had paused to strip off her gloves.
Trevor tried to distract Joya’s attention from the statue.
“Miss Joya Penn, this is Sims, our butler. Miss Penn is Janelle’s twin sister.”
“Her…twin. Ah, that explains it, then…of course.” Sims began to direct the footman who was carrying in the luggage. He turned to Trevor and added, “Perhaps, sir, you and the young ladies would like to join Mrs. Mandeville in the drawing room where she is taking tea. I’ll have Cook prepare more.”
“Thank you, Sims.” Trevor was finally forced to guide Joya away from Mercury.
“I thought you told me that the English did not go about naked,” she whispered.
“That is not an Englishman,” he informed her. ‘Take off your hat and gloves and hand them to Mrs. Billingsley, that charming older woman bearing down on us from the stairs.”
The housekeeper fluttered into the room to greet Janelle with a hug. She was about to welcome Trevor when he stepped aside and she had her first glimpse of Joya.
“Oh, my. Oh, my!”
“Miss Joya Penn, this is Mrs. Billingsley, our housekeeper.”
Joya smiled. “Hello, Mrs. Billingsley. My mother was a housekeeper, too.”
Trevor sighed. “Miss Penn is Janelle’s twin sister,” he explained.
By now, Mrs. Billingsley had dropped her hands from her cheeks to her apron and had begun to twist the material into a knot.
“Every happiness to your recently married daughter, Mrs. Billingsley,” Joya added. “May Kibatante keep her as fertile as a hen and her man’s rod as straight and strong as a spear made of ebony wood.”
Trevor closed his eyes and bit the inside of his cheeks. Sims emitted a strange wheezing sound, somewhere between a bark and a gasp. By the time Trevor recovered, Janelle had Joya by the arm and was leading her toward the drawing room.
Before Trevor could race across the hallway to intercept the butler, Sims had sidestepped the twins, opened the drawing room door and announced, “Madam, the adventurers have returned!”
Chapter Twelve
At last, my grandson is home.
Adelaide wanted to box Trevor’s ears for being away so long, but she had not been able to reach his ears for quite some time and had given up boxing them years ago.
Upon hearing Sims’s announcement, she set down her teacup and saucer and turned in anticipation. But it was not Trevor she saw coming through the door, but Janelle, who appeared to be walking arm in arm with…herself?
Immediately, Adelaide put her hand to her forehead, certain that she had taken her last breath. She had never wanted James to adopt the Oates girl in the first place. Was this, then, her punishment for never truly loving her adopted granddaughter as much as she did Trevor? Was her last earthly vision to be that of two Janelles?
A small moan escaped her. Thankfully there was only one of Trevor bounding through the door, quickly skirting the two Janelles. With his long sure strides, he rushed to her side.
“Grandmother, you are looking wonderful.”
“Don’t be foolish. I think I’m dying,” she snapped. “You look perfectly healthy to me.”
He kissed her cheek.
She pressed both hands to her temples. “Why then, am I seeing double?”
Janelle tugged her likeness closer. “You aren’t seeing double, Grandmama. I have the most wonderful, most fantastic surprise.”
Adelaide turned to Trevor. “Please tell me, what is going on here?”
Trevor shot a dark glance at Janelle, then another at Sims, who hovered in the open doorway.
“I had planned to tell you myself, not surprise you like this.”
Behind her little round spectacles, Janelle was smiling like a cat in the cream. The young woman beside her, who Adelaide had decided upon closer inspection was not exactly Janelle at all, had the nerve to rudely stare back.
“Someone had better explain this and very quickly.” She was an old woman. She did not need a shock like this. She reached for Trevor’s hand.
Janelle pulled her likeness closer and said, “Grandmama, this is Joya Penn. Joya Oates Penn, my twin sister. I can hardly believe it myself, but we found her on an island off the coast of Africa, where we also discovered Dustin Penn. And my father’s grave!”
“You are telling me this girl…this twin…has existed all these years without anyone’s knowledge? Surely, Trevor, your father must have known, for he was there the night Janelle was born.” She looked back and forth between the young women. “There must be some reason he did not want to keep them together.”
She frowned. It was highly unlikely that James would have separated the sisters unless this new one was deformed, or perhaps mad. Even so, she would not have put it past James to have kept the second girl anyway. He would have felt compelled to raise both infants.
Her dear Trevor had seated himself beside her on the settee and began to explain.
“Father had no idea that Janelle had a twin because one of the Oates servants secreted her out of the house and ran off to Africa with the orchid hunter, Dustin Penn.”
“The man you were searching for, dear?”
“Yes.”
“Joya, say hello to Adelaide Mandeville.” Janelle gave the other girl a nudge. “You may call her Grandmama.”
&nb
sp; “She may not,” Adelaide snapped.
The chit stepped closer. Adelaide looked her up and down. She recognized the girl’s gown as one of Janelle’s. She supposed the rest of the ensemble belonged to Janelle as well.
On closer inspection, she saw obvious differences between Joya Penn and Janelle. Her eyes were huge, round, and blue, and filled with an ingenuousness Janelle never exhibited. Her sun-darkened skin was an acute embarrassment. Her hair was shades lighter than Janelle’s, far thicker and curlier. One of her ribbons had come untied and was dangling precariously against her cheek.
She fidgeted where she stood, looking around the room with undisguised curiosity and wonder. At a glance, she appeared to be neither deformed nor mad. Only time would tell.
Then, of a sudden, Joya Penn’s gaze met and held Trevor’s, and Adelaide saw more in that brief exchange than she wanted to see. Beside her, Trevor stirred and shifted positions.
Adelaide quickly turned to him and caught a brief, unmistakable flicker of carnal heat in his eyes. It was immediately extinguished, but the fact that the spark was there at all ignited her determination.
She had not molded her grandson to become the man he was, to make the strides he had made, the connections—not to mention a fortune—to have him throw everything away on the orphaned twin of his adopted sister.
Oh, how she wished James were alive! She would look him in the eye and say, “I you nothing good would come of you bringing that Oates child into our home.”
“Grandmother?” Trevor had laid a hand on her shoulder. His touch startled her back to the moment.
“Yes, dear. I’m fine. This is all quite a shock, you know.” She forced herself to smile at Joya Penn, to appear civil. “Welcome to our home, Miss Penn. I hope you have a pleasant holiday here.”
The girl stood there like a simpleton. Janelle’s smile instantly faded. “She’s not here on holiday, Grandmama. Joya has come to live with us.”
For Adelaide, staying calm suddenly became an effort.
“How nice. Step closer, Joya Penn. Let me get a look at you.”
The Orchid Hunter Page 9