The Orchid Hunter

by Jill Marie Landis

  Although there was no real evidence to support her suspicions, she was certain that something was going on between Trevor and Joya, simply because her grandson appeared to be going to great lengths to avoid the girl. He was never home anymore, not even for breakfast. Adelaide resented his absences. Dinner discussions about his business endeavors had always been the most stimulating highlight of her day.

  Now because of Joya Penn, she was deprived of her grandson’s attention and company, cut off from all he usually shared with her about Mandeville Imports, the venture she had single-handedly saved after her inept husband died before he could run it into the ground. She wished Trevor had never sailed for Africa or found Dustin Penn and his annoying daughter in the first place.

  Adelaide was about to enter the drawing room when she sighed and thanked God that the Penn girl seemed to be unaware of the details of Clara Hayworth’s past, and that Trevor would be sailing for Venezuela in a few days.

  She had not encouraged her grandson to fortify his reputation and their great wealth just to have him throw it away on a nobody. She vowed to herself that one way or another, by the time Trevor returned with Queen Victoria’s orchid, Joya Penn would be out of their lives.

  As she opened the door, Monsieur Renault let go a high-pitched scream. The nervous, spoiled, little dog he carried everywhere, an obnoxious animal with curly white fur, had taken refuge beneath a chair. The dog raised its nose and began to howl in harmony with the oily-headed Frenchman.

  “I am sorry, Monsieur Renault,” Joya tried to yell over the racket, “but I’m never going to learn these English dances. If you want your toenails to stop turning black and falling out, then you must help me persuade Janelle and her grandmother to give up this crazy notion.”

  “Enough!” Adelaide slammed the door behind her. “Stop this noise.” She glowered at the dog. It gave a short yelp and ran beneath the settee with its tail tucked between its legs. “She has two left feet, Monsieur. I have told you all will be well if you remember to keep yours out from beneath them.”

  Joya looked as if she had been in a battle. Her long hair was mussed and tangled. One curl hung over her forehead and dangled across her face. Her right slipper was untied, her left sleeve pulled away from the shoulder seam. Her skin had faded, but no amount of almond paste was going to lighten it further before the party. She was staring down at her feet, turning them this way and that.

  The Frenchman limped over to a chair and sat down with a groan.

  “Joya!” Since Janelle was absent, Adelaide did not bother to disguise her displeasure.

  “Yes, ma’am?”

  “Where is your sister? I thought we had agreed Janelle would suffer through these lessons with Monsieur Renault.”

  “She left for a moment. She said she had something to see to in her studio.” Joya looked down again and then up at Adelaide. “Ma’am?”

  “What is it?”

  “I don’t wish to argue, but I do have a right and a left foot.” She lifted her crinoline and skirt to her knees. “You see?”

  Adelaide sighed. No stockings.

  The Frenchman groaned and rolled his eyes. His little dog ran out from beneath the settee and jumped up into his lap.

  “I suppose there is no need to ask how the lessons are coming along, Monsieur?” Adelaide asked.

  He burst into a stream of French and waved his hands around.

  “Just as I thought.”

  “What is just as you thought, Grandmama?” Janelle walked in and joined her sister.

  “Monsieur Renault does not like the way I dance,” Joya told her.

  “According to the monsieur, you cannot dance at all,” Adelaide looked down her nose. She waved the guest list at Janelle. “I see that you have added that Martin woman to my guest list.”

  “Lady Cecily is my dearest friend, Grandmama. Surely you do not object. I believe you said this was a welcome home party for Trevor and me. I can hardly retract the invitation.”

  Adelaide’s head pounded. What more could she have expected from Janelle? She had never had much influence over the girl. Her choice of friends was appalling, but then, water always sought its own level. Janelle was, after all, only the daughter of a common botanist and his wife.

  The girl had spent her early years either reading, whining, or suffering nightmares. She had been nothing but trouble since the night James had brought her to Mandeville House.

  “Who are the other two you saw fit to invite without asking me?” Adelaide pointed to the names in question.

  “Viscount Arthur is an art collector I met through Lady Cecily. The other man, Garr Remington, is his nephew.”

  Adelaide glanced over at Joya. “How old is this nephew?”

  “Twenty-nine.”

  “Without a farthing, I suppose?”

  Janelle’s chin went up a notch. “Poor as a church mouse.”

  “Handsome?”

  “I have never laid eyes on him.”

  “He’ll be after our money,” Adelaide snorted.

  She looked the Penn girl over from head to toe. Getting rid of the chit might prove easier than she thought. “Joya, you should use this party as an opportunity to meet as many eligible young men as you can. Catch yourself a wealthy husband.”

  “I don’t want just any man for a husband,” she protested. “I want—”

  “She wants to finish her dance lesson, Grandmama.” Janelle quickly walked over to Monsieur Renault. “Come, Monsieur. I will play the pianoforte and you shall dance with my sister.”

  Adelaide watched Janelle position her sister for a dance. Janelle was hiding something. She could feel it in her bones.

  Adelaide started to leave, then paused in the doorway and frowned. “I have enough on my mind without having to worry about what your friends might do, Janelle. Please make certain that they do not embarrass me.”

  Adelaide left the room hoping that Joya Penn would prove to be the greatest embarrassment of them all.

  * * *

  Joya turned to Janelle the moment Adelaide was out of earshot.

  “I’ll never learn these dances,” she moaned.

  She threw a dark glance at Monsieur Renault. He was still seated upon the chair, kissing his little dog on the lips and muttering to himself. Nothing she did pleased the man. Was it her fault his shins were so very delicate? Should she be blamed because he bruised so easily?

  “Come, I’ll play the pianoforte and you can show me what you have learned,” Janelle offered.

  “I will not dance if he is going to keep hitting me on the ankle with that stick,” Joya declared.

  Janelle pulled out the stool at the pianoforte and sat down before she admonished him.

  “Up, Monsieur Renault, and do not use that reed on my sister. She is doing her best.”

  “Her best? Her best? My furry little Jolie dances better,” he said in heavily accented English. With a sigh, he kissed the dog and set her on the floor. She immediately ran to disappear beneath the settee.

  Joya had no heart for dancing in the English manner. It felt stiff and unnatural, having to hold one’s head just so, lift the skirt, dip, curtsy, and execute the steps of confusing patterns. Her dark mood did not make the lessons any easier.

  She had rarely seen Trevor, even in passing, since the night he had kissed her in the conservatory. When she had last seen him, which had only been long enough to bid him good-bye one morning, he had behaved very formally.

  Later, Janelle had tried to explain that Trevor was a busy man, that he had much to do after spending so much time in Africa. But Joya didn’t understand why, if he desired her as much as she did him, he had not found some time to be with her.

  And surely he did desire her, or why else would he have taken her in his arms and kissed her so deeply? Why had he put his mouth upon her breast?

  “Joya?” Janelle called.

  She realized she had her palm pressed over the amulet pouch hidden beneath the bodice of her gown. Monsieur Renault offered
her his hand. His mouth was pursed into a terrible pout. He smelled of sour wine and musk on wool.

  Joya tried to smile. Janelle began to play a lively tune. The dance instructor stepped to his left. Joya stepped to her right. Things were going well until Monsieur tried to guide her in a turn she had not anticipated. The man crashed into her elbow and she inadvertently knocked the wind out of him. The Frenchman gasped for air, doubled over, and sat down hard on the floor.

  Janelle stopped playing. She was laughing so hard she did not rush to the man’s aid. Joya quickly knelt beside him, asking forgiveness.

  “Roll back and forth,” she cried, remembering an old Matarengi cure. “Your breath will come back.”

  The Frenchman recovered without rolling, enough to curse in a mixture of French and English. The little dog was howling.

  Joya looked up and thought she would die when she saw Trevor standing in the doorway. She covered her face with her hands but she could hear his footsteps as he crossed the room.

  “Trevor, thank God you are here,” Janelle cried. “We are in desperate need of your help.”

  Joya finally dropped her hands to her lap and looked up from where she knelt beside Monsieur Renault. Trevor was frowning down at them. She thought him beautiful, even with his forehead all wrinkled and his dark brows pinched together.

  “Are you purposely trying to kill the dance instructor?” he asked.

  “That’s not the way of it at all,” she told him, hoping to smile. “I think that he’s trying to kill me.”

  The Frenchman slowly rose to his feet. He straightened his cuffs, ran both hands over his oiled hair, and bowed to Trevor.

  “Monsieur, I queet. Nothing you can do or say, no amount of money is worth these…thees, torture.” He snapped his fingers at the dog. “Come, Jolie.” The poodle jumped into his arms. After pausing to collect his hat and bamboo switch, the monsieur was gone.

  When Joya dared look up at Trevor again, he offered his hand. Embarrassed, she took it and let him pull her to her feet.

  “I’m sorry,” she said softly, unwilling to move away from him just yet. “I didn’t mean to hurt him.”

  Janelle had left the pianoforte and walked over to join them. “Trevor, I have never been so glad to see anyone in my life. We have quite a dilemma brewing here. I hope you’ll help us.”

  “I’m not staying. I’ve just come from a meeting nearby and stopped to collect some papers.” He spoke without looking at Joya again. “I have to get back.”

  “Surely you can help for half an hour?”

  “Impossible.” He still refused to look in her direction.

  She was already on the verge of tears after the fiasco with the dance instructor, and now Trevor was not even trying to hide the fact that he wanted nothing to do with her. “Janelle, he has no time.” She was afraid her voice would break.

  “Nonsense.” Janelle planted her hands on her hips. “Trevor, you can spare a few minutes. We’ve seen little enough of you these past two weeks.”

  “Please, Janelle,” she whispered. “I don’t need to learn to dance in the English style. I’ll be happy just to watch the others. Trevor, be on your way. Please.”

  “If Monsieur Renault could not teach her, how do you expect me to help?” Trevor looked from Joya to Janelle and back.

  Joya’s shame intensified as Janelle continued to argue with him.

  “Because you are far more patient than the monsieur and far less temperamental. Poor Joya has been subjected to both the instructor’s switch and Grandmama this morning. She deserves a little kindness. Trevor, the party is tomorrow night. I would not ask if I were not desperate.”

  “You have no ulterior motive at all?”

  “None.” Janelle shook her head. Her curls bounced gaily.

  Joya had no notion how her sister managed to keep her hair perfect all the time. She also marveled at the way her sister seemed to choose her words so carefully when she spoke to Trevor and Adelaide. It was a trait she had not yet mastered.

  “Your grandmother says I have two left feet.” She looked up at Trevor and realized he had been staring at her.

  He made no comment about her feet. “It isn’t your fault that you never danced on Matarenga.”

  “Of course I did. I danced at the marriage ceremonies, whenever new children were born, even at the initiation rituals. I was only forbidden to dance at the full moon fertility ceremony.”

  “Trevor, why don’t you dance with Joya for a few moments at least, see if there is any hope for her while I play?” Janelle started for the pianoforte again.

  “A quarter hour only,” he said as he set his hat on a chair.

  “Let’s forget the quadrille,” Janelle suggested, “and concentrate on the waltz.”

  Trevor sighed. Joya waited for him to take her hand before laying the other lightly on his shoulder and stepping close.

  “Please, feel free to yell out if I hurt you,” she told him. “If you move fast enough, I may not step on your feet.”

  “Thank you for the warning.” He fell silent while Janelle shuffled through the pages of music.

  Joya was aware of the soft sound of his breathing, his hand upon her waist. His touch was solid and firm and nothing like Monsieur Renault’s, which had as much substance as a butterfly’s. Trevor smelled far better, too.

  “Delicious,” she whispered.

  “Pardon me?”

  The music started before she could explain and they began. Three seconds later, her foot collided heavily with Trevor’s shin.

  “I’m sorry.” She pulled away. “Your grandmother was right. I’ll never be ready by tomorrow night.”

  “You will do just fine. Perhaps we need thirty minutes.” Trevor and Janelle exchanged a look Joya could not fathom. Her sister laughed as he shrugged out of his coat and draped it across the back of a chair.

  “Now, shall we start again?” He held her hand tight, kept his arm about her, and continued with the same steps, forcing her to catch up when she faltered or lost count. “You have to relax,” he told her, “and let me lead the way.”

  They moved in time with the music—one, two, three, one, two, three, one, two—until she stepped down hard on his foot.

  “I’m sorry,” she mumbled.

  Unlike the dance instructor, Trevor did not scream at her, nor did he stop dancing.

  “Listen to the music,” he told her. “Trust me not to run into the furniture.”

  “The monsieur told me to count inside my head.”

  “The monsieur is an idiot. Close your eyes and listen and I will take you where you need to go.”

  She closed her eyes and did not think about the room, the party, or her left feet. She thought only of Trevor and the thrill of being in his arms. She gave herself into his care, moved when he moved, followed where he led, and did not try to anticipate his steps.

  “You see, you haven’t stepped on me for a good two minutes,” he said after a little while. His voice, so close to her ear, sounded deep and full and sent chills down her spine.

  She nodded, listened to the music and let him waltz her around the drawing room, wishing the dance would go on and on forever. Gradually his hand tightened on hers. He drew her so near that she was leaning into him, dancing close to his heart.

  Then, after what seemed too short a time, the song ended and Trevor stopped. Joya opened her eyes and looked up into his face.

  “I think that is quite enough.” He was frowning again as he straightened his shoulders and stepped back. “You seem to have mastered the basic waltz steps.”

  She could see that he was not happy in the least. He was quite formal, but appeared confused.

  “Thank you,” she said, trying to hide her own turmoil and hurt, afraid that he could hear her heartstrings breaking.

  As if aware of her pain, Janelle walked over to her. They stood shoulder to shoulder as Trevor picked up his coat and hat, gave them both the same even good-bye, and left the room.

  “Did I do
something wrong?” Joya asked after he walked out of sight.

  “Not at all,” Janelle said, smiling. “You did everything just right.”

  * * *

  The evening of Adelaide’s dinner party, Trevor was dressed on time but lingered in his room for a moment of solitude. He walked to his dresser, pulled open a drawer and took out a folded handkerchief. Then he carefully opened it to reveal a silver filigree hair comb with the letter C emblazoned upon it.

  His mother’s comb. The only part of her that he had ever possessed. His father had told him little about her, except that her name had been Carissa and that she was a lovely Italian aristocrat with beautiful dark eyes. She had angered her family when she married an Englishman, and when the beautiful Carissa died in childbirth in Italy, his father had to fight a host of Italian relations in order to keep Trevor and bring him safely home. Contact with any of his relatives on his mother’s side had been severed.

  After Carissa, his father never showed any interest in remarrying. Trevor often wondered whether that was because his mother had been so very exquisite that James never found anyone to compare.

  Trevor ran his thumb over the silver C and tried to imagine the face of the woman who never held him, who had never sung him a lullaby.

  It was not like him to give in to melancholy. Perhaps he felt low because he would rather be on the moon tonight than dance attendance on his grandmother’s guests, but she had devoted her life to him and the Mandeville holdings. Where would he and Janelle have been without her?

  As he rewrapped the comb and tucked it away, he knew that he had been skirting a hard truth. His obligations tonight did not disturb him as much as the knowledge that he had hurt Joya with his evasion and would, no doubt, hurt her even more when he left for Venezuela in a few days.

  Janelle was upset with him now, too, for not having spoken with Joya about his plans. His sister had stopped him on the stairway not an hour ago and given him a severe dressing down. He had let her go on only because she was right. He did owe Joya an explanation, and he owed it to her as soon as possible. What he did not tell Janelle was that he had not spoken to Joya because he wasn’t certain that he trusted himself to be alone with her yet.