The Serpent's Daughter (21 page)

“I certainly find it hard to believe that Patrido Blanco de Portillo is involved in any way,” Inez finally said. “He is a man of impeccable manners and breeding.”

“So was the kaiser,” countered Jade. “That didn’t stop him from waging war on half the world.” Her mother didn’t reply. “All I’m asking, Mother, is that you think for a moment with an open mind. Is there anything that you can recall seeing or hearing that might help us figure out not only who else is behind this outrage, but also why they have targeted you? Perhaps if you tell me what you know about your fellow passengers, it might help.”

“Surely you don’t suspect any of them?”

“Mother, we didn’t suspect de Portillo either, but
he
is a smuggler. Someone left a note for you with my name on it. Who else but one of the other passengers would know my name? And didn’t you say I apologized in the note? Who else but someone at breakfast would know you were perturbed with me?”

Inez sighed and ticked off a list of people on her fingers. “You met several of them already. Don de Portillo, the Kennicots, and the Tremaines. The Tremaines came over from America. The others embarked in London along with Mr. Bennington and his elderly aunt. I met the captain, of course.”

“Is that all?” Jade started to write their names in her book, then stopped when her mother didn’t present anyone new in the list.

“Well, those are all that
I
spent time with from when the boat left England. I met others coming from America, but several passengers got off in England. I shouldn’t think they would be of interest here.”

“And you didn’t meet anyone from steerage?” Jade asked. Inez’s raised brows answered that foolish question.

“Tell me about these people, please. Start with the Kennicots. ”

“Jade, how can you suspect them? They are missionaries. ”

“So they say.”

Inez released an exasperated sigh. “If you insist. I don’t know what church they represent, if that’s what you mean. But they are very devout in their own way.”

“Meaning?”

“They held prayer services every evening in one of the ship’s parlors.”

“You went to one?”

Inez pulled back in shock. “You know perfectly well, Jade, that I am very devoted to our Catholic faith.”

Making it all the more wonder that they associated with you, a known Papist.
“But you never saw one of these prayer meetings or noticed who attended regularly?”

“I saw some passengers come and go to it when I took my evening stroll around the deck.” She closed her eyes to conjure up a memory without the distraction of her present quarters. “I believe many of the second-class passengers and some of the staff attended regularly, but I never actually met any of them. I don’t recall seeing Mr. Bennington attend.”

“What about his aunt?”

“Oh, no. Miss Bennington suffered far too much from seasickness. I saw her only once at table with us, and once she took a turn around the deck. Otherwise her nephew sent for trays and dined with her in her room. He would stroll on the deck sometimes in the early morning and evening, poor young man. So pale. Never outside enough, and so used to whispering to his aunt that it became a habit with him, even with us.”

“Who else attended?” asked Jade, unimpressed by Bennington’s attention to his rich aunt. The prospect of an inheritance had a way of increasing devotion in people.

“I believe the Tremaines came on occasion. They are a pleasant enough young couple, but slightly common. So much slang. Mr. de Portillo seemed fond of them.”

This news piqued Jade’s interest. “Really,” she mumbled to herself, remembering that the planted note in the room had seemed to be signed by Libby Tremaine. Before she could press her mother further on this association, Inez took another avenue of thought.

“I did meet one perfectly charming lady when the boat docked in London. She came on board looking for a Mr. Buttersmythe. So disappointed to find he wasn’t on board, but she was charming, very elegant, very refined.”

Everything I’m not
. “You know perfectly well I don’t enjoy meeting such people, Mother.” Jade idly worked her pencil through her right-hand fingers.

“But you would have liked her. We chatted for a short while before she left. Now that I think on it, you have a common acquaintance. She knows Lord and Lady Dunbury. At least she mentioned them.”

“What was her name?”

“I believe she said she was a relation to your young pilot David. Her name was Lilith Worthy.”

CHAPTER 16

The
Amazigh
symbols are so important that the women mark them on
their hands and feet with henna, a substance with its own
baraka
. Finally a symbol
identifying a woman’s clan or one that gives her special protection might be
permanently tattooed in blue on a woman’s chin, cheek, or forehead.

—The Traveler

“LILITH WORTHY!” The words exploded from Jade’s mouth. “David’s murderous mother was on the boat with you? Why didn’t you tell me before?”

“Jade! Mind your tongue,” scolded her mother. “She stepped on board in London, and you were only interested in the people that came to Tangier with me. Besides,” she added, “you told me Mrs. Worthy’s name was Olivia. I presumed this was his aunt.”

Jade shook her head. “No. Her full name is Olivia Lilith Worthy, and she’s evil to the bone. She had her own husband murdered.”

Inez looked at her daughter with exasperation, her lips pursed, her brow furrowed. “That is preposterous. How can you speak of David’s own mother that way? She might have been your mother-in-law.”

“Praise the Lord for great favors she’s not,” said Jade. “And it isn’t preposterous. I told you and Dad about this already.” Then Jade remembered her mother had taken offense at Jade’s portrayal of her dead beau’s mother and left the room before Jade could go into detail. “You’ll have to trust me on that, Mother.”

Inez fidgeted with the sleeping rug. “From what you told me, David was a fine young man. I’m sorry for your loss, Jade. He would have been a good husband, I’m sure. But it’s time you put him behind you and accepted someone else. You need to marry and settle down.”

Jade tossed her pencil in the air and let it fall in a display of frustration. “Don’t start on that again, Mother. I have a good job. I’m perfectly happy.”

“Gallivanting around Africa, chasing wild animals? It’s dangerous.”

“It’s exciting. It’s adventurous. Remember adventure, Mother?”

“It’s not appropriate for a young woman of your age. You should be married.”

“Like Libby Tremaine?” Jade let out a derisive snort. “Now, there’s a wonderful example for me. She flirts with anything in trousers.” She shifted her overskirt and revealed her own pair underneath. “Would probably chase me if she saw me dressed like this.”

Inez waved a hand in a dismissive gesture. “I grant you she is a silly girl and you’re not, thank heavens. But why are you so obstinately against getting married?”

Jade stood up and started pacing the floor. “Because marriage changes people, at least the women.” She turned and met her mother’s gaze. “Consider what happened to you.”

Inez shuddered. “I am aghast that you would say such a thing. How dare you speak to me that way.”

Jade hurried over, knelt down, and sat back on her heels beside her mother. “Mother, I love you dearly, but it’s true. Remember when you and Dad first took me to Spain? I was only five. I saw you dance the flamenco one night. I was supposed to be in bed, but I crept over to the railing to look down at the party below and listen to the music.” Jade’s eyes glowed and a smile played across her lips as she recalled the scene. “You were wonderful, your skirts flaring, your heels clicking out the rhythm. You have no idea what an impression that made on me. For years I used to practice at night after you put me to bed. I’d swish my nightgown and tap my bare heels on the floor.”

Jade placed one hand on her mother’s arm. “I wanted to be like you, Mother. Maybe that’s why I always got into trouble. I was trying to emulate the woman I saw that night. The woman you still are if you’d just look inside.”

Her mother sat silent beside her, her eyes wide at Jade’s revelation. Finally she spoke. “That’s foolish. I’m a Spaniard. I danced a Spanish dance. What is so unusual about that?”

Jade shook her head. “It’s
how
you danced, Mother. You had passion and a zest for life that night. You know, Dad told me once that you used to dance with the Gypsies. That’s how he met you. What happened, Mother? Now you host boring dinner parties and sit on committees with tiresome, self-righteous busybodies. You deserve better than that.”

“A wife has responsibilities, Jade.”

“Yes, but that doesn’t mean a wife must become tedious.” Inez turned her head aside, and Jade instantly regretted her choice of words. “Mother, let’s not fight. I am who I am partly because of you, partly because of Dad and the ranch hands, and partly because of that horrid war. Maybe I’m also the way I am because of my ancestry,
our
ancestry. If Zoulikha’s story is true, it could explain your youth, as well as mine. Maybe it’s why I love Africa so much. Anyway, I have an interesting job. I can travel. Traveling helps when the war intrudes in my mind.”

Inez kept her head turned away. “But your father misses you at home.” She sniffed once, as though she were fighting back tears.

Jade stroked her mother’s back in a gentle caress.
And you do, too, but you’re too proud to admit it
. “I get home. I’ll get home again. Don’t worry about that, Mother.” Jade stood and extended her hands. “Come on. We’re in Morocco in a
kasbah
having our own adventure, frightening as it’s been. Let’s go up to the roof and look out at the night.”

Inez turned around and gave a weak smile. “You go on, dear. I’m tired. I think I’ll just go to sleep.”

“I’ll stay with you until you do.”

After her mother dozed off, Jade picked up her notebook and a pen, scooted closer to the coals, and poured out on paper everything she could remember seeing in Marrakech and in the village. If she hoped writing down her thoughts would help cleanse her mind and let her sleep, she was sadly mistaken.

She looked at her mother, lying on her side on the rug, her beautiful aristocratic face softened in sleep.
How can one woman be so wonderful and so exasperating at the same time?
Jade felt an ache in her chest and realized it was pity for her mother. She knew her father missed the Inez of yore, as well. She could read it in his eyes when he watched her take one of the horses through its exercises.
When this is over, I’m going to write to Dad and tell him to whisk Mother away somewhere. They could ride down into the Grand Canyon and camp with the Havasupai Indians
. The plan gave Jade some peace of mind, and she decided to try for sleep herself.

For more than half the night she tossed and turned on her mat, chasing sleep and Lilith Worthy. Ever since Jade first went to the Protectorate in search of David Worthy’s half-brother, she’d found herself treading on his mother’s shadow. But that’s all Jade ever managed to uncover, a shadow.
A shadow eclipsing the sun
. The woman operated through others, people like Roger Forster, whom she hired to murder her husband, Gil, before he could find his bastard son. She kept her own lily-white fingers clean back in London, hiding her criminal existence under the veneer of an aristocratic widow in a high-end London neighborhood.

Inez hadn’t recognize Lilith’s name, but even if she had, Inez would not have been suspicious of Lilith’s behavior. In her mother’s mind, good breeding and manners made up for everything else. And now it seemed likely that Lilith had spied on her mother long enough to set up plans for her here in Morocco. Patrido Blanco de Portillo was involved, but who else had Lilith hired to do her dirty work? The Tremaines? The Kennicots? Someone in steerage?

Jade gave up trying to sleep. She tugged on her boots and crept up the winding stairs until she reached the corner rampart tower. From there she stepped out onto the flat roof and leaned on the rampart wall. The gibbous moon threw its pallid light over the
pisé
walls, transforming them to a warm golden red. She felt as if she’d stepped into a Maxfield Parrish painting and she was the girl on the wall.

The cold mountain air cleared her head and allowed her to sort out her questions. The bigger question in her mind was what in tarnation was Lilith up to now? That she still smuggled drugs seemed obvious based on the hashish hidden in the pouch. But what about those ancient Roman coins? Jade’s pouch contained five of them. Judging by the number of bags she had seen, Lilith’s people must have uncovered a hidden treasure trove of them, and Lilith wanted to get them out and back to her in London without anyone knowing. Or was the unknown man in charge of operations here doing that under her nose? That seemed dangerous and consequently unlikely. Did de Portillo know about them?

Yet Lilith could have done all this and more, and Jade would never have been the wiser. She and her mother would have gone over to Andalusia after a few days’ tour. So there must be more to that other woman’s plan.

The underlying answer came to Jade as she stared up at the thick belt of stars overhead, twinkling like the glowing coals in her room: revenge and a chance to remove Jade from any future interference.

And Mother was the bait
. That tore it. As much as Jade objected to someone trying to kill her, she was almost accustomed to it by now. After all, several of the kaiser’s air squadron had tried bombing most of the ambulance drivers at least once. But her mother? That went beyond good taste in her estimation.

“You want a fight, Lilith? Be careful what you wish for. It might come true,” she whispered to the moon. She’d go back to Marrakech, find that missing amulet, round up de Portillo and whomever he worked for, and clear herself and her mother. Then, she’d head to England and, with Avery Dunbury’s help, root out Lilith from wherever she was hiding and kick her drug-smuggling fanny from there to perdition.