He picked his way over a thorny bush without slowing his pace. "I told them you were crazy. That you'd escaped from Bedlam and stowed away on a banana boat before the attendants could catch you."
He topped the crest of the hill. "I told them insanity ran rampant in your family and one of your
ancestors thought he was a kiwi bird and tried to leap from the London Tower, not realizing, of course, that kiwis don't fly."
Emily suddenly knew what it meant to be blinded by rage. Or at least by the glint of the sun off a rifle barrel. She snatched the gun, cocked it, and aimed it at the tree nearest Justin that she thought she might hit without blowing his head off. She didn't want to maim him, just scare the hell out of him.
She squeezed the trigger. The lifeless click seemed to reverberate for miles.
Justin froze, his back rigid. As he came scrambling down the hill at twice the pace he'd climbed it, Emily tried to shove the rifle behind her skirt. It was a very poor fit indeed.
His eyes blazed as he reached around her and snatched the weapon. He leaned forward until his nose touched hers. "If you think I'd leave you alone with a loaded gun, you're loonier than they think you are."
He hurled the rifle into the hut and turned away, dismissing her with contemptuous swiftness.
"Justin?"
He stopped, his shoulders braced against the sound of her voice.
"You must hate me, don't you?"
He sighed. "I wish I could, Emily. It would make life so much simpler."
An odd glow touched her. As he ducked into the bush she felt a grin steal over her face. In all the confusion he hadn't forbade her to leave the hut. She gathered her skirt to muffle its rustle and slunk
up the hill after him.
* * *
Emily darted from tree to tree, running to keep Justin in sight. As she threw herself behind the trunk
of a kauri tree, her foot came down squarely on a twig. The crack resounded through the forest. The quivering silence warned her Justin had also stopped to listen. She shrank into herself, holding her
breath until his crashing path through the underbrush resumed. She poked her head out from behind
the tree, looked both ways, then ducked after him. This might be her only chance to discover how he spent the long hours of daylight.
The trees thinned, shrinking into thick clumps of broom fragrant with masses of delicate pink amaryllis. She dropped down, forced to scramble up the slope on hands and knees to avoid being seen.
The hillside ended abruptly in a sprawling fence of stakes, their points whittled to menacing sharpness.
"At least there aren't any shrunken heads on them," she whispered to herself.
Not yet anyway.
Less than comforted by the thought, she followed the curving line of the palisade, still shielded by
tangled growth. A yawning gate divided the stakes. Emily parted the fronds of a bush and watched
Justin disappear into its maw. Seeing no guards, she dared to follow.
Hugging the palisade, she slipped through the gate to find a small village drowsing in the midday sun. Across the courtyard Justin was entering a round hut thatched with wicker. As Emily picked her way
after him, a mangy dog lifted his head from his paws. Instead of barking, he greeted her with a pant
and a lazy wag of his tail. These natives must be a trusting lot, she thought. Just as her father had been.
She inched around the walls of the windowless hut. What reasons did Justin have for meeting with the Maori? Was he buying land with her father's gold? She had read of some diabolical white men turning
the natives against other whites so they could step into the carnage and steal their land. Her stomach tightened to a nervous knot. A trickle of sweat inched down her cheek.
Her groping fingers found a weak spot in the wicker. She tore it away, then knelt and pressed her eye
to the tiny hole.
Her gaze adjusted slowly to the cavernous gloom of the meeting house. Burning torches had been spiked into the dirt floor, casting an amber glow over the gathering. Skirted natives sat cross-legged throughout the hut. A handful of women wearing feathered cloaks were sprinkled among the men. She recognized
the stern chief and his white-haired companion. They all gave the center of the hut their rapt attention, their faces glowing with a common serenity. Even the fierce chief had allowed his expression to soften
to curiosity, although the skeptical glint never completely left his dark eyes.
A smoke hole had been cut in the domed ceiling and a single shaft of sunlight cut through the gloom, illuminating the finely hewn features of the man sitting cross-legged in their midst. Emily was tempted
to believe he had planned it that way, but realized he must need the light to read from the leather-bound book spread across his thighs. Trini sat beside him, translating Justin's English into Maori each time he paused.
Puzzled, Emily strained her ears to hear. She doubted if cannibals would be that enthralled by the life
and times of Mozart or Vivaldi.
She didn't have to strain long. Justin's voice carried like the rich, sweet tolling of a cathedral bell.
" '. . . she brought forth her firstborn son, and wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger because there was no room for them in the inn.' "
He paused so Trini might translate. The glowering chief shook his head as if saddened by the fate of the hapless child.
" '. . . And lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round them . .
Emily had squirmed through seven interminable Christmas pageants at the seminary. Pageants where Cecille du Pardieu played Mary while she got stuck as the far end of a sheep or donkey. But as she
closed her eyes, it was as if she were hearing the power of the old, old words for the first time.
". . . And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which
shall be to all people . .
She opened her eyes, blinking away the tears caught in her lashes. The hut seemed to reel, pivoting
slowly around a man with somber gold eyes caught in a web of sunlight. It sparkled across his hair,
glinted off the gold watch case that lay against his breastbone.
Emily shoved herself away from the hut, clapping a hand over her mouth. A hysterical giggle escaped
her, them another. The dashing rogue Justin Connor a missionary? Had her father bequeathed both his gold mine and his daughter to a madman? What had he done with the gold? she wondered. Given it to
the natives to buy supplies? Or Bibles?
She doubled over, clutching her stomach as helpless laughter crippled her. How could she have let her own suspicions and the gossip of London society blind her to the man's true character? He had opened
his life and heart to every stray who wandered past, taking in abandoned valets, reformed cannibals-even ugly lizards.
Everyone but his ward, she realized. There was no room at the inn for Claire Scarborough.
Until she felt the tears streaming down her cheeks, Emily didn't realize she was crying. She backed