Jade Star - Catherine Coulter [0]
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
JADE STAR
A Signet Book / published by arrangement with the author
All rights reserved.
Copyright © 1986 by Catherine Coulter
This book may not be reproduced in whole or part, by mimeograph or any other means, without permission. Making or distributing electronic copies of this book constitutes copyright infringement and could subject the infringer to criminal and civil liability.
For information address:
The Berkley Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Putnam Inc.,
375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.
The Penguin Putnam Inc. World Wide Web site address is
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ISBN: 978-1-1012-0955-4
A SIGNET BOOK®
Signet Books first published by The Signet Publishing Group, a member of Penguin Putnam Inc.,
375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.
Signet and the “S” design are trademarks belonging to Penguin Putnam Inc.
Electronic edition: May, 2002
To a real-life Jules, daughter of Ildi and Alex DeAngelis, whose name, Juliana, inspired the heroine’s name. I will never forget all our good times together and all the love we’ve shared. See you in Tokyo.
1
Lahaina, Maui, 1854
The warm, coarse beach sand was the odd pinkish color of the squirrelfish, the ocean as deep an aqua as the bluefin trevally.
“Come on, Jules, stop dreaming the morning away!”
Juliana DuPres laughed with the pleasure of a now forbidden swim, tightened her kapa-cloth sarong more tightly over her breasts, and dashed into the swirling waves after Kanola. The tides were strong at Makila Point, but Jules, an expert swimmer, merely relaxed in the grip of the pulling crosscurrents until she was safely beyond them.
“Slow down, Kanola,” she called. “There should be a school of parrotfish here and I want to see them.” Without waiting for a reply from her friend, Jules drew a deep breath and dove down several feet to the coral reef below. She knew her eyes would be red and swollen from the salt water, but it didn’t matter. Not only were there parrotfish, but yellowstrip goatfish as well, a treat. She thought to herself as her head cleared the surface: Father, if you truly believed in the glory of creation, you would open your eyes to the incredible beauty that surrounds you.
She grinned at her thought, and spit out a mouthful of salt water. She could just see Reverend Etienne DuPres stripped of his sweat-soaked black broadcloth, cavorting in the ocean and calling out the names of fish. Or lying on his back on the beach, his sallow face becoming healthy and tanned.
“Well, what did you see, Jules? An eel maybe?” Kanola shuddered in distaste.
Juliana swam easily to where Kanola was resting on an irregular outcropping of coral that acted as something of a narrow breakwater. The coral was rough, pitted, and slimy. Jules dug her fingers into a crevice, holding tight to keep from being pulled back into the water. There was room enough for just the two of them.
Jules, her voice filled with enthusiasm as she pulled two soaked hunks of bread from a large pocket on the side of the sarong, told her tolerantly smiling friend, “Now, let’s see just how hungry all my friends are. Maybe even that zebra moray who was slithering between my feet.” She scattered the bread all about her. Within seconds more fish than she could count—even a whitetip reef shark—were swarming about her and Kanola. Jules smiled when their smooth bodies brushed hers. “More saddle wrasse than anything else,” she said in some disappointment.
Kanola regarded Jules with the same affectionate smile she gave her own sister. Jules was only two years younger than she, but she clung tenaciously to her childhood pursuits, and, Kanola admitted, Jules