Unclaimed Heart (23 page)

Shortly before noon, Constance left the house to go down to the beach again. Just to gaze at Alexandre's schooner and hope that he would read her mind and come to her with explanations. As she passed the spice garden, she thought she heard somebody weeping. Alarmed, she let herself into the garden and found Orlanda, sitting beneath a cinnamon tree, crying into her sleeve.

“Orlanda? Is all well with you?”

Orlanda forced a smile. “Yes, quite, quite well.” Then she liquefied into sobs again, and Constance went to sit with her in the shade and put an arm around her.

“There, there,” she said. “What has happened to you to make you so upset?”

“Nothing has happened to me.” She sniffed, wiped her face on her sleeve, and met Constance's eyes. “What does guilt feel like, Constance?”

“Do you not know?”

“I . . . I don't think I've ever felt it before now. Is it like a sick sadness, very low in one's belly?”

“What did you do?” Constance's skin prickled; she had the awful suspicion that she drew close now to the reason that Alexandre had failed to appear last night.

Orlanda seemed to be searching for words, her little mouth opening and closing like a fish drowning in air.

“Orlanda, what did you do?” Constance said more forcefully.

“I love Alexandre,” she said, screwing her hands into fists and beating her chest with them. “I love him until it hurts me. But he rebuffed me, he was so . . . he said he could never love me and it was like scales had been taken from my eyes and I saw . . . that he . . .” She took a deep breath, getting her thoughts in order. “I rather think you have his heart, Constance.”

“And this is why you are crying? What was all the talk of guilt?”

“I was angry, I wanted to hurt him for saying I was so unlovable.” She wouldn't meet Constance's eyes. “I accused him . . . falsely . . .” Haltingly she described the whole situation, while Constance grew more and more frantic. Alexandre without a job, without a passage home, without a place to live. Constance without a way to find her mother, and all because of Orlanda.

Constance rose to her feet. “Orlanda, you have done a terrible wrong, and you must make it right.”

“What can I do?”

“You can go and tell my father and yours that you lied.”

“Oh, no. I'll be in ever so much trouble. Father will be so disappointed to see I've been telling lies about boys again.”

“Again?” Constance's veins seemed to shake with angry injustice.

“In Colombo. I told you about the boy who tried to climb into my bedroom?” She at least had the decency to blush. “I invited him. It all came out much later, after we'd left town.

“If Father thought that I'd gotten myself in more boy trouble, he would be so angry, he would take away every one of my joys.” She shrugged. “Alexandre had nothing, so nothing is easy for him to endure again. But I am not schooled for deprivation. I can't tell Father.”

“Then I shall.”

Anger blazed in Orlanda's eyes. She climbed to her feet and set her chin defiantly. “And I shall deny everything.”

A million words leapt to Constance's lips, none of them complimentary. She swallowed them, turning wordlessly and stalking away.

“Constance? Please?” Orlanda whined. “Don't be angry with me. I don't have any other friends!” Orlanda sobbed and wailed, but Constance didn't turn back.

She tried to get her emotions under control before entering the library. It wouldn't do to go to Father too impassioned. She knew he already suspected that she had special feelings for Alexandre. She took deep breaths, paced eleven times outside his door, then knocked lightly.

“Come in.” Howlett's voice. She was unprepared for that. Her composure had begun to disintegrate before she'd even opened the door.

Howlett sat on the sofa; Father stood with his back to the bookcase. They had been discussing something important, she could tell. They were both tense. Her knees began to tremble, and tears pricked her eyes.

“Father,” she said, “I need to speak with you on a most urgent matter, in confidence.” She didn't meet Howlett's eyes.

“Now, Constance?”

She wavered. Good sense told her to wait, to come back when she was more composed. But before she could agree to return later, Father had asked Howlett if he'd mind leaving them a few minutes. Howlett agreed, closing the door to the library behind him.

Father turned to her with a steady gaze. “What is it, child? You look quite pale.”

“A terrible injustice—” she began.

“Another injustice?” he said quickly. “Concerning Alexandre, I presume?”

She nodded, all the while feeling that the situation was slipping beyond her control. She took a deep breath. “Just now, in the garden, Orlanda confessed to me that she had given Alexandre the necklace. Had, in fact, forced it upon him with declarations of . . . love. When he rebuffed her, she took her revenge by accusing him of theft. Now she has said she will deny the whole story, but she told me and it is the truth.”

“I've no doubt it's the truth, Constance. I am forty-two years old. I am a good judge of character. Orlanda is much more likely to concoct a story than Alexandre is to steal jewelery.”

It was as though clouds had parted, letting in sunlight. Constance cheered up. “Then you'll reinstate Alexandre? All will be as it was?”

Father shook his head. “I cannot do that.”

Despair again. “Why not?”

“Because it would show Howlett that I doubted his judgment, that I thought his daughter a boy-mad liar.”

“But what do their opinions matter when Alexandre's life and happiness are at stake?”

He shook his head, pacing away from her. “Constance, at least try to hide your passions. I am quite uncomfortable for you.”

Tears overflowed and began to run down her cheeks. She palmed them away.

“Alexandre will be fine,” Father continued. “He is strong and resourceful and, I dare say, a good deal more intelligent than Howlett has given him credit for. He will find another ship to make his way home on, and he has a pearl he can sell to help him with his new life.”

The pearl! How could she have forgotten? She had it, and Alexandre would need it. But he'd never dare to come near the villa to find her now.

And she could explain none of this to Father.

“Where do you think he's gone?” she asked carefully.

Father turned and narrowed his eyes, his mouth turning down at the corners. “If he has any good sense, he'll make his way to Colombo and put as much distance between himself and Miss Howlett as is practical. You would do well to forget about him, Constance. For there was never anything that could come of it.”

She felt transparent and flushed with shame. So Father knew she loved Alexandre. Could he also tell that her relationship with him had been so intimate? Of course not, but at that moment she was as embarrassed as she would have been were she wearing just her underwear.

“Is that all?” he said gruffly.

Wild emotions made her want to say too much. To defend Alexandre more fiercely, to tell Father about the hidden temple, to somehow make her midnight plans come to fruition, even though she knew it was impossible. She held her tongue. “Yes, Father, that is all,” she replied.

He sighed, turning away from her again. “My business here has gone badly, child,” he said softly, and she was reminded that Father had his own disappointments to deal with. “I am preparing myself to return to England in the very near future. I have a buyer coming for the pearler in a few days, and once that transaction is finalized, there is nothing to detain me here. You should prepare yourself, too. When you are home in England, I imagine this adventure will grow small behind you. Take comfort in that.”

The thought made her feel like screaming.
You don't know my heart! I can't forget him; I will never forget him!
She bit her lip, steeling herself. Father was wrong: Alexandre wasn't on the way to Colombo. He needed his pearl. He would be somewhere close by.

She just had to find him.

On the first day, it rained, so she stayed home. On the second and third days, she walked the muddy tracks into the village—alone because Orlanda was not speaking to her—and asked around at the markets. Too few of the locals spoke English, though many of them spoke Dutch, of which Constance had the barest grasp. It was almost impossible and, even when she could make herself known, nobody had any information about Alexandre.

On the fourth day, in despair of another day having half-conversations with local traders, she took an afternoon walk on the beach, aching to see him sitting in his regular spot, drawing. Of course he wasn't there, so she headed up the beach, letting her tears fall, her ribs crushed under the weight of her disappointment.

She tried to remember the exact place on the sand where he had first kissed her, but couldn't. It had been dark, mysterious, intoxicating. Now the beach glared under the sun, and every grain of sand looked the same as the next. She turned and faced the sea. The huge waves crashed in, a mist of spray hovering around them. The water stretched away forever, azure with an undercurrent of gold, laced with pristine white caps. Home was out there somewhere, miles and miles away. Cloudy skies and damp green grass. She did miss it: it was the landscape of her soul. But the thought of returning there without Alexandre, perhaps without ever seeing him again, made her sad beyond measure.

“Constance!”

She whirled around. At the edge of the beach, beyond the coconut palms and in the shade of the wild vegetation, Alexandre stood, waving his arms. It was like a dream, and she took a moment to understand that it was real.

Then she began to run.

In moments, she was in his arms, kissing him feverishly. He pressed her close, then pulled away, putting her at arm's length. “Are you sure nobody followed you here?”

“I'm sure. Orlanda and I aren't speaking. Father thinks you've gone to Colombo. He doesn't know I still have your pearl.” She kicked the ground. “I should have brought it for you. I'm sorry.”

“Don't worry. I will get it from you at another time.”

Her fingers touched his face. He looked tired. “Where are you sleeping? Are you hungry? Cold?”

“I've set up a little camp, a hundred feet into the jungle. It's not cold, but my food has nearly run out.” He grasped her fingers and squeezed them lightly. “But you must believe me when I tell you I have suffered much greater hardship, and you need not worry for me.”

“Oh, Alexandre. I'm so sorry. Father knows you are innocent. He cares more about Howlett's opinion than justice, though.”

“I suspected as much. It's easier to be rude to a pearl diver than a pearl trader.” He smiled, a weary expression. “Though the second cannot exist without the first.”

She sighed, leaning into him, listening to his heart beating through his warm chest. “It's so unfair.”

“Life is unfair.” He stroked her hair. “But what of you? How will you find your mother?”

“I don't know.” She stood back, gazing at him. His hair was loose, tickling his cheek softly.

“You could ask the Dutchman to take you there by elephant,” he teased.

“I should die if I had to spend two minutes together in his company,” she groaned.

Alexandre's eyes went beyond her, to the water. “I've been watching the tides these last few days,” he said. “Good sailing weather every morning an hour after dawn. Then the tide dips, and contrary winds blow in the afternoon.”

Constance turned to look at the sea.
Good Bess
and
La Reine des Perles
among the other ships in the curve of the harbor. “What are you thinking, Alexandre?” she said, though she suspected she knew.

“If you and I can get aboard the schooner at dawn, we can sail away to Ranumaran, and nobody can follow us. I can still take you, Constance. I have nothing left to lose.”

“And I should lose it all for a chance to find my mother,” she said under her breath, the sea breeze carrying her words away.

“There is one problem. First Officer Maitland is aboard my vessel. I cannot think of a way to get him off it. I have turned my mind to it again and again, but all my solutions are foolish or risky.”

Constance concentrated on the problem. Maitland was Father's most trusted crewman. Alexandre was right: it would be all but impossible to remove him from his post.

Unless . . . A light flickered to life within her. Maitland at the dance, making eyes at Orlanda. Father's grumbled complaint that Maitland had developed an attachment to her.