The Secret of the Villa Mimosa (22 page)

Nick called the London bank and arranged to meet with the administrators of the Flora Beale Trust the next morning. “Maybe now we shall find out what happened to little Johnny Leconte on that far-off island,” he said hopefully to Bea seeing him off at the airport.

19

A
few days later, when Phyl returned to Paris, her hotel room looked as though it had been invaded by a florist. There were fragrant bouquets on every table and even a Hawaiian-style lei of white orchids on her pillow. And there was a message. “I miss you. Please forgive me. Brad.”

She stripped off her clothes, took a cool shower, put the orchids around her neck, and called him. “Thanks for the extravagant welcome,” she said with a smile in her voice.

“They were also an apology. I didn’t dare hope you would call. I don’t deserve it. I guess I was just plain jealous.”

She shook her head and said with a sigh, “But, Brad, you knew I wasn’t going to see another man.”

“I’m jealous of anyone who takes you away from me.

She asked, with a sudden flash of her old cool independence, “Isn’t that a little unreasonable?”

“It is. But then I’m an unreasonable man … where you are concerned.”

She laughed, touching his orchids lying against her
breasts, and heard him sigh with relief as she told him to come over.

She opened the door to him half an hour later, naked but for his orchids, her long hair a smoky cloud around her pale shoulders, wondering if she would feel different about him since she had been away and had had time to reassert herself. But he was still as attractive, still as charming, and still as sure of himself as before. He looked her slowly up, then down. He shook his head in disbelief at her beauty and told her he was the luckiest man alive. Then he picked her up in his arms and took her to bed.

The next day Phyl canceled her flight home and all her appointments for the next week in San Francisco. She checked out of her hotel and into Brad’s apartment.

They scarcely moved out of it for an entire week. When they did emerge, it was only to stroll around the corner to the bistro or to wander along the boulevards, hands clasped, eyes meeting every now and then to send each other private messages of desire.

Phyl thought of no one else. She knew she was behaving irresponsibly for the first time in her life, but she just couldn’t help herself. After years as the “ice maiden” she had become a sensual woman whose body rippled and responded to every nuance of Brad’s lovemaking.

Yet there were times when she was aware that even though she knew every inch of his body intimately, she did not really know the man. Brad Kane was a stranger she had known only a few days.

Sometimes she got the feeling that their lovemaking was not enough for him, that he wanted to go further, into dangerous games she did not want to play. The psychiatrist in her became uneasily aware that there were hidden depths and undercurrents in his personality. His unreasonable jealousy about the trip had already shown her that. But she was too infatuated to
care. She told herself she didn’t want to analyze her lover; she only wanted to enjoy the moment.

Then one night, after they had made love and were finally exhausted and were lying entwined in bed, Brad began to talk about his family.

He told her his grandfather Archer Kane had been a Yankee adventurer. He left home at age thirteen and made his way out west. “My grandfather panned for gold, dug for coal, picked fruit, worked on a ranch. You name it, Archer had done it,” Brad said, smiling proudly. “He ended up in San Francisco, and from there he worked his way to Hawaii on a cargo vessel, transporting horses and cattle to the Big Island. He was only nineteen when he met his future bride.”

Phyl turned to look at him, her head propped on her hand, listening with fascination as he told her about Archer’s bride.

Her name was Lahilahi. In Hawaiian it meant “Delicate One,” and she was the treasured daughter of noble Hawaiian parents. It was only when the sweetfaced seventeen-year-old threatened to die of a broken heart that they reluctantly agreed to allow her to marry the yellow-haired foreigner.

Brad said, “My grandfather told us they gave them an elaborate wedding, appropriate for a girl of Lahilahi’s position and weàlth. There were four days of feasting and dancing, with luaus and dozens of pigs baking in the imu, many gallons of poi, lomilomi salmon, haupia, and much more. The bride wore a sarong of brilliant blue with many leis of imperial feathers, and orchids and maile, with a wreath of fragrant pakalana flowers crowning her glossy black hair that my grandfather said fell like a rippling waterfall to below her knees.

“Archer was a very handsome young man, and he wore a bright flowered shirt, also with many leis, and as a wedding gift, he gave his lovely young bride a lei of pearls—small, it’s true, but of a beautiful color.”

Brad laughed, breaking the spell of the story as he added cynically, “No one could think where Archer got the money for such an expensive gift. They knew he was not one of the rich haoles. But they were just simple Hawaiians; they didn’t know the backstreet places Archer knew about, where men could go to pledge their futures—and even their souls—for the loan of a few hundred dollars.

“Archer was smarter than they were: In return for his pearl necklace he gained an island. True, it was small, but it was off the coast of Maui, and it had been owned by the bride’s family since the time of King Kamehameha. It was their wedding gift to the young couple. They hoped Archer would grow sugarcane and pineapples there and make his fortune.

“After the four days of festivities were over, the bride and groom set sail for their island in an outrigger canoe. They were accompanied part of the way by hundreds of other gaily decorated canoes, filled with wedding guests singing traditional songs of aloha and farewell. Grandfather said it was a tremendous sight. He truly felt like a king.”

“Soon the scent of their maile leis was drowned by the crisp salt smell of the Pacific Ocean. And when the other canoes turned to go back home and his bride waved a final farewell, Archer saw a tear slide down her face. He turned her impatiently around to face their island and their future. He had had enough of Hawaiian weddings, and he was already counting profits on crops yet to be sown.”

Brad smiled indulgently. “That was my grandfather Archer. I guess you could call him a pragmatic man.”

“I would call him a hard man,” Phyl said, thinking of his romantic little bride, so beautiful and so sad to be leaving her loving family behind.

“That’s true,” Brad agreed. He turned to smile at her. “Am I boring you? I’ve heard this story so many
times. It’s part of the Kane family lore, passed down from generation to generation.”

“No, no. Tell me more,” she said, curling happily into the crook of his arm and burying her face into his neck, loving the smell of him, the feel of his skin, the sound of his mellow voice.

“Then I shall tell you about our island. It’s the heart of our family, our soul, you might say. If we have one,” he added with an abrupt, cynical laugh.

“Can’t you just see Lahilahi looking eagerly at her island as its rocky outline emerged from the ocean? She saw that it was small, a mere twelve miles at its widest and maybe seventeen miles long. The northeastern tip was rocky with fierce waves hurling themselves at the precipitous cliffs, and there were dangerous currents that could pull an unwary canoe deep under the ocean within seconds. But the tranquil southeastern shore was rimmed with talc white beaches, fringed by palms, with sea grapes and flowering koalis, morning glories.

“A series of small, cone-shaped mountains, once volcanic, ran like a spine down the center of the island, dividing east from west, catching the incoming storms from the Pacific Ocean and trapping the rainfall on the western side. And the lower slopes had gradually become covered in dense thickets of hau, hibiscus, and their red, yellow, and orange flowers ringed the mountains. Lahilahi said she thought they were like leis around the neck of Pele, the goddess of volcanoes, whose spirit she was certain must live there, waiting to emerge once again.

“Beyond those mountains the western side of the island was a place of deep gulches and tumbling waterfalls. Spanned by rainbows and dense with fiddlehead ferns, it was forested by thick trees and vines and creepers. In between were wide grassy acres interspersed with the gleaming cooled black lava that had flowed
years ago from the volcanic peaks to form a river of stone all the way to the ocean.

“The gentler eastern side would have been barren if it were not for the habit of an ancient traveler. He was exploring the island, and as he scrambled over the slopes on his wiry little pony, he scattered the seeds of the pine trees of his native land. The seeds took root, and the trees grew, holding the soil from erosion. And so the valleys were shaded from the fierceness of the sun by tall trees, and grasses and fruits grew readily in the runoff of the rainfall from the mountain slopes.

“As young Lahilahi stepped from the canoe onto her island, she clasped her handsome yellow-haired husband’s hand. She gazed around at the curving white beach, at the tall palms and bright flowers ringing the mountain slope and the bare conical volcanic peaks, like the goddess Pele’s breasts surmounting her island. And she breathed a sigh of happiness.

“‘Ah, husband,’ she said softly, ‘we must call it Kalani—“heaven”—for that is surely what it is.’”

There were tears of compassion in Phyl’s eyes as she looked at Brad. He was lying on his back, hands clasped behind his head, staring up at the ceiling as though he were seeing the heavenly island. “That’s the most romantic story I’ve ever heard,” she whispered.

He threw her a skeptical glance as he got up and poured a glass of brandy. He lifted the decanter, offering her some, but she shook her head.

“I didn’t expect a woman of your scientific mind to be thrilled by such soap opera,” he said mockingly. “The reality is that the romance was already over. Archer Kane had got what he wanted. He was consumed with pride of possession in his land. The first thing he did was organize the islanders, a mixture of shiftless Hawaiian and Chinese, to help him build a small lodge of koa wood and stones with a palm thatch roof.

“He worked hard that first year, but his crops didn’t
do well, and he was impatient and angry. He had thought his island would be the stepping-stone to a fortune, and now it was all going wrong. So he took off for Honolulu, to carouse with whores on the waterfront, trying to forget his problems. And that’s where he was, little more than a year later, when they came to tell him about his wife.

“The servants said Lahilahi had dressed herself in her wedding sarong. She had placed maile leis around her neck and threaded fragrant plumeria flowers in her hair. There was a violent storm with huge winds and towering waves. Lahilahi set sail alone in her outrigger canoe into the stormy night.”

Brad’s pale blue eyes were enigmatic. “She was never seen again,” he said quietly.

“Oh, my God,” Phyl whispered. “The poor young girl. She killed herself?”

Brad shrugged carelessly. “My grandfather said he didn’t know. Of course, Lahilahi’s family blamed him. They said he had broken her heart. Archer didn’t attend the funeral feast, but he heard that the family cursed him and his offspring into eternity. He just laughed and said what was more important than their curses was that Kalani now belonged to him.”

Brad, sipping his brandy, smiled icily at Phyl. “And that’s how Kalani became the cornerstone of the Kane family fortune.”

A chill ran down Phyl’s spine as she watched him prowl the room like a restless cat. She was puzzled that he seemed to see nothing wrong in his grandfather’s actions. The only thing that mattered to him, as well as to Archer, was the island and its role in establishing their fortune.

“Don’t you pity that poor young girl?” she exclaimed angrily.

He looked at her with surprise. “It was all very unfortunate,” he said calmly. “But let’s put it this way: If Lahilahi had not died, then my grandfather would not
have gone on to achieve what he did. He might have stayed a poor sugarcane farmer all his life.”