Jade Star - Catherine Coulter [42]
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.
“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.