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compliment their coloring. Drifting amid vague and whirling fancies of silk and foreign voices, she started awake with the room gone to darkness around her. It confused her a moment, for she felt she'd hardly slept a minute, instead of hours passing.
    Her heart was pounding again, filling her ears in the dead silence. Far away, the thin whistle of a train rode on the night, disembodied from itself.
    Her eyes slid shut, impossible to keep open. Lady Catherine seemed to be smiling somewhere, that frank, pretty smile, laying her hand on Leda's arm. Miss Myrtle urged her to wake up. There was someone in her room. She must wake up.
Wake up; wake up; wake up—
but she could not open her eyes. She was so tired; she would sleep in the street. It didn't matter. Silver scissors glittered in the gutter. She reached down to pick them up… and a man's hand intercepted. He was here, really here, right in her own room. She must wake up… she must… she must…
    In the dream he caught her wrist and pulled her near, held her close against his chest. She wasn't afraid. She couldn't see him; she simply could not open her heavy eyes. But she felt so safe, cradled in his hold. So safe and comfortable… so safe…

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Chapter Four

     
Mano Kane
    Hawaii, 1871
     
    It was a big house, but he was becoming accustomed to
big houses. He loved them, the airy, empty rooms with their woven
lauhala
mats beneath his bare feet, the white pillars and broad porches called
lanai
, the way voices echoed back from the tall ceilings and the sound of the ocean was always in his ears.
    He wore shoes today, going as he was on a visit with Lady Tess, and a white sailor's suit with navy-blue and red braids. It was so clean that he was reluctant to move. He did not want to spoil it. He had lots of clothes, but he preferred that they stay untouched and perfect in the wardrobe or chest. It was nice to look inside and see them neatly folded, so pure and crisp.
    He sat in a chair with his eyes or. the beautiful crisscrossed weave of the floor mats while Lady Tess talked with the grand Hawaiian lady Mrs. Dominis. Their conversation drifted past him, adult talk, of no particular interest. Lady Tess had asked him if he wouldn't rather stay home and play, but he hadn't. He wanted to be with her. That was what he always wanted. The very best was when she swept him up in her arms and hugged him, but he also liked it if she held his hand, or if he could just keep a fold of her dress in his fist.
    Today, she'd brought Master Robert and little Kai, too. The Hawaiian lady enjoyed seeing them, Samuel could tell. He wondered if Mrs. Dominis had another name, in her own language, instead of the name the foreigners called her—the one she'd gotten from her bearded Italian husband. When he'd asked Lady Tess, she'd said Mrs. Dominis' Christian name was Lydia. That was all right, but he would rather have heard her true one. All the Hawaiians had strange and lovely names. She was a gentle lady too, with a low, rich voice and the golden-brown skin of the islanders. When she bent down to gather Robert and Kai close into her large embrace, they both seemed very pink and small.
    Samuel himself had held back behind Lady Tess when Mrs. Dominis had wished to hug him. He didn't know why, because he was quite certain he would have liked it. But Robert and Kai were Lady Tess's real children. Samuel didn't have a proper last name. He felt a sham in his fine clothes.
    Little Kai snuggled in Mrs. Dominis' lap and laid her cheek against the broad expanse of the Hawaiian woman's bosom. Robert fussed at being left out until she gave him a kukui-nut
lei
. The four-year-old sat down at her feet and applied himself to unraveling the knots between the black, polished nuts.
    "Have you been fishing, Samuel?" Mrs. Dominis asked.
    He nodded. The American and English ladies never spoke to the children in the drawing room, but the Hawaiians always wanted to know what he'd been doing, as interested as if they