“I want to go home.”
“Joya, we’re married, for better or for worse. I’m determined to see that this marriage succeeds.”
“By sailing away? Where is our marriage on your list of priorities, Trevor? Will you work to make it succeed after you no longer have to worry about your plans for the Mandeville business? After you have gone halfway around the world searching for the queen’s orchid? I think that this marriage of obligation is last on your list. I don’t want to be married to you anymore.”
It was a lie, but her heart was breaking. She was hurting and wanted to hurt him back.
“Please, let’s stop this, Joya.”
“I want to go to my room now.” Unable to get warm, she pulled the shawl closer.
“The woman I met in the jungle on Matarenga would not give up so easily. She wouldn’t run.”
“But that’s just the problem. I’m not that woman anymore, am I? I don’t know who I am anymore. Let me go, Trevor.”
He ran his hand through his hair and sighed, but did not move. She was pressed up against the table, unable to step around him without touching him. She was measuring the distance to the door when he surprised her by taking her in his arms.
She stiffened, determined not to give in to the urgency of his kiss, not to be moved by passion and forget all that she had heard this afternoon. Instead she concentrated on the things he had just admitted and the things Adelaide had said earlier.
She imagined that her heart was made of rock, of stone as hard and sharp-edged as a coral reef. She refused to feel anything.
* * *
Bewildered, Trevor raised his head and looked down at the unresponsive woman in his arms. Joya’s eyes were open but her stare was blank, as if she were looking right through him. She had not responded to his kiss at all.
Desperation almost made him want to shake a reaction out of her. He looked at his hands, at his fingers tightened on her upper arms. Afraid to lose control, afraid he might be capable of doing something he would forever regret, he abruptly let her go and backed away.
She flew by him and out the door without looking back.
The shattered look on her face kept him from going after her. He had hurt her deeply, but God help him, he had only been honest. Obviously he should have told her the truth long before now.
He picked up the shawl lying on the floor and balled it up in his hands. The clock on the mantel chimed seven. He would give her time to have a good cry, then go to her after she had calmed down. They would talk things over rationally.
There would be no more discussion of her leaving.
Chapter Twenty-three
Thirty-three-and-a-half minutes later, Trevor walked in the door of their suite. The orchids had been returned to the conservatory weeks ago. Now even the gold gauze that had been suspended from the ceiling over the bed since their wedding night was gone. So too were the palms, ferns, and vines. The room looked inordinately bare.
“Joya?” He called her name. Emptiness echoed around him.
Sims stepped out of the dressing room, his arms piled high with a rainbow of new gowns.
“She is not here, sir.” The old butler’s tone was cool, even brittle.
“Where is she?”
“Moved back into her old room, sir. Down the hall. I think one more load should do it.”
He walked past Trevor and out the door. No sooner had he disappeared than Mrs. Billingsley stormed in. She gave Trevor a tightlipped smile and a nod and went straight into the dressing room.
He walked over to the bed, leaned a shoulder against a bedpost, and stared down at the embroidered counterpane. Behind him, Mrs. Billingsley was crossing the room again. When he glanced over his shoulder, he saw that she was carrying a stack of frilly undergarments. The moment she cleared the doorway, Janelle walked in. His suite, it seemed, had become Piccadilly Circus.
“What in the world is going on?” Janelle demanded.
“Ask your sister.”
“I have a terrible urge to sob for no good reason, which leads me to believe it is Joya who is very, very upset. Where is she?” Janelle looked around the room.
“I believe she has taken up residence down the hall.”
Sims walked in again and went straight to the dressing room.
“What’s going on here?” Janelle followed the butler. “What are you doing with those hatboxes?”
The look Sims gave Trevor would have chilled a Lapplander. “I am doing your sister’s bidding, miss. She is no longer comfortable in this suite, with him, so she has moved back into her old room.”
Trevor watched Janelle’s eyes widen and was just thankful that she waited for Sims to leave before she closed the door and turned on him.
“What did you do to her?” she demanded.
“What makes you think this is my fault?”
“My sister believes you hung the moon and the stars. At least she did yesterday. Now she’s moved out of your suite and I want to know why.”
“She wants to leave me and go home to Africa.” He sighed, rubbed the back of his neck, and sat down wearily on the edge of the bed. “I was fool enough not to lie to her when she asked me if I had been obligated to marry her.”
“What made her ask in the first place?”
“I have no idea.”
“What exactly did you tell her?”
“The truth.”
“In other words, you were typically yourself—honest, cool, and above all, very businesslike.”
“I’m afraid so. She’s not happy that I’m leaving for Venezuela, either.”
“I hate to admit it, Trevor, but I am almost glad she wants to leave you. I thought that the two of you were perfect for each other. I thought that perhaps she could teach you not to take life so seriously. Above all, I had hoped she could teach you how to love, but I can see now that just the opposite is happening. You are not changing—Joya is. You have no idea what my sister can give you, nor what she needs from you.”
“And what’s that?”
“I’ll tell you what it isn’t. It isn’t money or a detailed business agenda. Nor is it a list of things you need to accomplish or orchid classification. She loves you, Trevor and that is all she wants from you in return.”
* * *
Down the hall, Joya sat in a tall wingback chair with a thick wool blanket wrapped around her shoulders. She was staring into the flames of a low-burning fire, trying to pretend that Mrs. Billingsley was not fussing and personally overseeing the upstairs maid as the girl put her clothes away.
When someone tapped on the door, Joya sat up. “Mrs. Billingsley, if that is Trevor, please tell him to go away.”
“With pleasure,” Mrs. Billingsley mumbled.
Joya turned her back to the door and listened to the housekeeper as she spoke to someone in hushed whispers.
“It’s your sister, ma’am.”
Joya sighed. Janelle, no doubt, had come to plead Trevor’s case, but she could not lock her sister out.
“Show her in.”
The housekeeper and the maid left them alone. Janelle drew a footstool up close beside her chair, took Joya’s hand, and sat down.
“Thank you for taking my place at the reception.” Joya had no other notion of where to begin.
“I am happy to do it if you insist.”
“I do,” Joya assured her.
Janelle took a deep breath and looked over at the door, which was still closed. “There is no use pretending I don’t know what is going on here. I just spoke to Trevor and I know you are upset about more than the reception.”
“I’m so confused. I have never felt so lost. But, then I have never been married before or in love with such a stubborn, goat-headed man, either.”
“I do know that he hurt you and that he’s sorry,” her sister said.
“Did he send you to apologize?”
“Oh, Joya, he did not send me. It’s just that I love you both and I don’t want to see either of you hurting.”
“Because I love my freedom and my friends. Thanks to our parents, I have money of my own, so I can be independent.” She shrugged. “Marriage would mean giving over control of my life and my freedom to a husband and I am not ready to do that.”
“Have you ever really been in love, Janelle?” The answer was important to her. She watched her sister closely as Janelle thought long and hard. When she looked up, there was confusion and more than a hint of fright in her eyes.
“Actually, I’m afraid I may be losing my heart to Garr Remington.”
“Why are you afraid?”
Janelle shrugged. “For all the reasons I just named. Besides, he is not in love with me. He’s only after money. Having never been in love. I’m not at all certain what true love is.”
“You and Trevor are very much alike. His father never remarried after his mother’s death, did he?”
“No.”
She was musing now, searching through threads of thoughts and ideas, trying to weave them together. “My mother and father were deeply in love until the day she died. I know what a happy union can be. I think that is why I’m so confused and sad now. What Trevor and I have is not a marriage, not when he was forced into it by obligation.”
“Did Grandmama tell you that Trevor felt obligated to marry you?”
Joya looked down at the edges of the blanket that she had balled up in her hands and wished she would feel warm. If she admitted the truth and told Janelle all the hurtful things that Adelaide had said, she was afraid that her twin might feel obligated to confront Adelaide and defend her.
Joya did not want to be the one to destroy a lifetime of family ties, so she omitted much of the story.
“I will never belong here, Janelle. Just as you would never feel at home on Matarenga, no matter how much we both might want to be together.”
“I will not believe it,” Janelle cried.
Joya shook her head. She had to make Janelle understand somehow. “Here you have Cecily and your friends. You are wise because you know the stories and the music, the songs and the history of this place. You know your way about the city. You feel safe and confident because you understand the customs and the clothing and the language and why people do and say what they do. And you have your work. How much would you know or have on Matarenga? If I took you deep into the jungle, how long would it take you to learn to survive on your own? A week, or a month? A year? Maybe two?”
“I would be forced to learn.”
Joya shook her head. “You would be lucky to survive a few days. Even if you did, that does not mean you would be happy away from all you have ever known.”
There was a wistful look in Janelle’s eyes when she said, “I would be terrified. Without help I would be lost and frightened out of my wits.”
“Perhaps now you can understand. I have tried. Given more time, I would eventually learn some of what I need to know, but to be a good wife it seems that I must learn everything at once in order not to shame Trevor. To make things worse, suddenly I find that I have a husband who did not really want a wife.”
“He understands this will take some time. What he doesn’t realize is that he loves you.”
“You think all it takes is more time for him to grow to love me? Or to realize that he already does? What if he never changes? What if he can’t?”
“He told me that you wanted to go home. I didn’t really believe it until now, hearing you talk like this.”
As soon as Janelle said the word home, Joya’s eyes filled with tears. “I do want to go,” she whispered. “That makes me a coward, I suppose, but I cannot stay.”
Janelle reached up and hugged her. “You’re not a coward. I’m as much at fault as Trevor. I should have spent more time with you. I thought that encouraging your relationship with him would be the best thing for both of you—because you already loved him so and because he needs someone like you in his life. I did it for selfish reasons too. I wanted to keep you here with me. I never stopped to think that you might not be happy or that you might never hear sweet declarations of love from my brother.”
Joya had given Trevor her heart, her love, and he did not know what to do with it. He had wanted her body, desired her in a carnal way and most likely still did, but he did not really love her. He might never love her as she loved him. She had to get out of this house, out of this marriage, and away from London before she lost her own ability to love.
“My mother taught me that love was the single most important thing in the world. She said that love gives us the power to do anything we need to do. I believe that, Janelle. I always will.”
“Then how can you leave him? You love Trevor, Joya. You are his wife. Why not use that power to teach him how to love?”
“Because my love for Trevor is so one-sided. He sees me as an obligation and our marriage as a duty. If I stay here, he will only become bitter and soon resent me. I will grow to hate England, and my love for him will slowly drain away along with the person I was on Matarenga and the person I really am inside. That is why I must go home, even though it will break my heart to leave him, and you, behind. I have to leave to save us all.”
Behind her spectacles, Janelle’s eyes glittered with tears. “Promise me that you will at least stay until after the reception and Trevor sails. I can’t bear the thought of your leaving as soon as tomorrow.”
“Because you’ve asked, I’ll stay until Trevor leaves for Venezuela, but then I am afraid that nothing will stop me. Not even you.”
Her sister hugged her and then left her alone. Joya shrugged off the shawl. Her heart ached but her mind was made up. Coming to England had been a mistake and so was her marriage. If being desirable to a man makes me this miserable, she thought, then it is far better to live out my life alone on Matarenga. At least there she knew who she was and how to survive. Here, she was hopelessly lost and so was her heart.
She glanced at the door, afraid that Trevor might try to talk to her again. She could not bear it if he did. He was, after all, her husband. No doubt the English had quite a list of rules against wives leaving their husbands and sailing off to Africa.
But Trevor did not come to see her that evening, and as she turned down the light and climbed into bed, Joya did not know whether to feel relieved or brokenhearted.
* * *
Trevor worked like a man possessed, going over figures with his new head accountant, setting up shipping schedules, and making last-minute additions to the load of trade goods that he would carry to Venezuela. As long as he was going on the expedition, he was determined to make the trip profitable.
In one way the voyage was already costing him far too much. He could only hope that the damage done to his marriage was not irreparable.
On the day of the Orchid Society members’ reception at St. James’s Palace, he left the warehouse earlier than usual so that he could bathe and change into formal attire. His wife had successfully avoided him for the past two days, taking her meals in her room and refusing to see him. Janelle had told him that if he wanted to save his marriage, he should think long and hard about it and then tell his wife that he loved her before it was too late. He had wrestled with the idea day and night, but he would be damned if he was going to shout professions of undying love through a door.
As Sims admitted him, Trevor stepped into the foyer and then handed the butler his hat. “Is my sister upstairs?” He suspected Adelaide and Janelle were in the process of getting ready.
“No, sir. Miss Mandeville left shortly after breakfast. She has not returned.”
Trevor halted just short of the staircase. “She’s not home yet?”
“No, sir. Your grandmother is upstairs, with her maid.”
He was almost afraid to ask after Joya. Sims had made it very clear without a single word that the rift between them was obviously all his fault.
“And my wife? Is she still locked in her room?”
There was a long, contemplative paus
e before Sims admitted, “I believe I last saw her in the library.”
Trevor thanked Sims and hurried upstairs. He started to knock at the library door but stopped himself. It was his library and his house. He’d be damned if he’d beg admittance.
She was seated at a small writing table beneath the window, drawing. When he closed the door behind him and walked toward her, Joya put her pen down, folded her hands on the table, and waited. If she felt anything at all for him, she was doing a damned good job of hiding it.
“Have you seen Janelle?”
“Not since breakfast.”
“Sims said she has not come in yet. Do you know when she was due to return? We cannot be late.”
“I think she is with the viscount somewhere. She said something about delivering one of her paintings to a grand house in the country.”
He picked up one of her drawings, a very detailed, wonderful likeness of Sims. Replacing it, Trevor noticed that there were also black-and-white line portraits of Mrs. Billingsley, Cook, and his grandmother. Joya had been working on a sketch of the library when he walked in.
“These are very, very good.”
“Thank you. Since I arrived I’ve been making a collection of drawings of things I have seen and places Janelle and I visited, of people, carriages, and cathedrals. I will show them to Papa when I go home.”
His stomach fell to his toes.
“Joya, you cannot leave, damn it.” Very badly put, he decided the minute it was out. He cleared his throat, as uncomfortable with the lump forming there as he was with the raw ache in the vicinity of his heart.
When she finally looked up and their gazes locked, he realized he had forgotten how very blue her eyes were. She quickly looked away and read the tall standing clock beside the door.
“You do not want to keep the queen waiting,” she said.
“Janelle’s gown will fit you if you’ve changed your mind—”
Before he could tell her that he wanted her beside him tonight, not Janelle, that he missed her in his bed, she interrupted with a very cool, very sure, “I cannot go.”
The Orchid Hunter Page 23
