The Serpent's Daughter (31 page)

“A hundred dinar? Fifty?”

Just as Jade thought she had a chance to strike another blow and completely destroy all chances of being sold, someone from the crowd tossed a leather bag at the auctioneer’s feet. A gold coin spilled partly out of the open mouth and glittered on the stone floor.

“Sold,” croaked the auctioneer.

CHAPTER 23

—The Traveler

NO SOONER HAD THE AUCTIONEER GASPED the word “Sold!” than the burly assistant released Jade as readily as he would a nearly grown and very scrappy Barbary lion cub. Jade dropped to the stone floor with a thud, her face just inches from the little leather sack.

“Do not let her escape, Ahmad,” shouted the auctioneer. Before Jade could recover her breath and get up, the big Arab planted a foot on her back and pressed down. The auctioneer squatted and reached a tentative hand towards his money. Jade snarled at him, and he scrambled back.

A pair of booted feet stepped in front of her. There was something familiar about them. “You may release her,” said a man in very poor French.
Something very familiar
.

“Sam!” exclaimed Jade to the boots’ occupant. “Am I ever glad to see you.” Sam extended a hand, which she took, and helped her to her feet. The auctioneer made good use of Jade’s preoccupation and snatched his money before she could revert back to a wild beast.

“Sam, my mother—”

“Is safe outside with Bachir,” he finished for her. “Let’s get out of here.” He took the key from the auctioneer and unlocked the wrist irons.

He started to lead her away but she dug in with both feet planted firmly. “No,” she said, shaking her short black curls. “Those other girls. I can’t let them be sold.” She pointed to the adjoining room, where even as they spoke Ahmad was leading out the younger and more timid of the women. She pulled back from the man’s grip with all the force of a mewling kitten, a striking contrast to Jade’s behavior.

“By all means,” said Sam. He stepped quickly around to the auctioneer. “The sale is over.”

“What do you mean?” demanded the auctioneer. “If you want this girl, buy her as you did the wild cat.”

Sam inched closer, maneuvering behind the man’s left side. “I said, the sale is over.”

“Your French is very bad,” retorted the auctioneer with a sneer.

“But my aim is not.” Sam pulled a Colt revolver from his holster and shoved it into the man’s flesh just below the ribs. Ahmad took a step towards Sam, but the auctioneer waved him back.

“The sale is over,” called the auctioneer, waving his arms to disperse the crowd. “Please go home.”

The crowd disbanded without too much grumbling. After all, it had been a far more entertaining sale than usual. A few coins exchanged hands as the previously made bets on Jade versus Ahmad were won or lost.

Ahmad didn’t back away with the crowd until Sam pointed the gun at him. The size of the huge pistol clearly intimidated the guard, who was more used to bullying chained men and helpless women.

“And I will take the other girls with me,” added Sam.

As the crowd left the building’s courtyard, Inez and Bachir pushed their way inside while Sam kept his Colt trained on the two slavers. Inez ran over to her daughter, opened her mouth to say something, decided against it, and settled for stroking Jade’s hair.

Jade saw her mother’s lower lip tremble and knew that her mother had undergone a tremendous amount of emotional and physical pain to get to her. She longed to hug her mother as she could her dad, but settled for something that would not likely be rejected. She took her mother’s hand and gave a gentle squeeze. Her mother returned it and held on tightly while her other hand caressed her daughter’s wrists where the irons had bruised them. Even that gentle touch hurt, but Jade wasn’t about to wince and end the first maternal touch she’d experienced in several years. She fought back the tears welling up behind her eyes and swallowed down the tightness in her throat.

“Mother,” said Jade with a tender smile. “Why am I not surprised to see you here?” She gently pulled her hand free of Inez’s tight grip and kissed her mother’s hand. “It’s a wonderful surprise at that. Will you let the other young ladies out, please? And Sam, I think our two friends here should see what it is like to be locked up inside for a while.”

Inez coaxed the girls outside while Jade kept an eye on Ahmad, swinging the wrist irons in a way that suggested she’d like to strike him with them. “Jade, there’s an old woman in here,” said Inez. “What do we do about her?”

“Leave the hag in there with these two. They deserve each other.”

While Inez shushed the young women, who huddled about her like chicks around a protective hen, Jade and Sam prodded the two slave dealers into the little storage room and drew the bolt across the door.

“That won’t hold them for long,” said Sam. “They’ll be pounding on the doors as soon as we leave.”

“Let them. By the way, Sam, thanks again for your timely rescue.” She touched his arm, then his chin as though she needed tangible proof that he really stood before her. “My stars! I can’t believe you’re here. How did you know where to look? How did you find Mother? What—?”

Sam hushed the last question with one finger on her lips. Jade felt giddy and light-headed, a sensation she might have attributed in large part to fatigue and hunger, except it increased when he drew nearer. Her pulse quickened.

He took her hands in his and came closer still, his dark eyes gazing into hers. Sam leaned in to kiss her, saw Inez standing off to his left still occupied with the girls, and quickly pulled Jade off to the opposite room. “Best make sure there are no more slaves in this room, as well,” he called over his shoulder.

No sooner had he drawn her around the corner than he enveloped Jade in his arms and pulled her close. His lips found hers, his pencil-thin mustache brushing her upper lip, cheek, and neck as his mouth explored and caressed every available exposed inch.

Jade, still relatively breathless from her rough handling by Ahmad, found his gentle but urgent kisses equally disarming. Only this time, still caught up in the surprise of seeing him, her reaction was to surrender. She responded to his caresses by clinging to him and letting her senses take over. His scent of soap, sweat, and leather smelled like an intoxicating perfume to her, one that made her breath come in short, panting gasps. Her skin noted the tickle of his mustache, the scrape of his chin and cheek stubble. She felt his body heat and the warmth of his breath. Her ears concentrated on the gravelly bass murmurs, and all this rushed in to fill the void left behind when release replaced fear.

Her heart pounded faster just as it did during her fight and her skin grew flushed and warm. Her pores opened to release the heat and carry away her own musky scent. Every hair stood alert to receive a caress, each nerve alive, and, for a moment, everything dissolved from around her except for his scent, touch, and her own heartbeat.

Then a stray sound intruded, her mother’s querulous voice calling for her to help with the girls.

“Um, Sam,” she managed in between his kisses.

He nibbled at her neck. “What?”

“Sam, my mother is out there.”

“Very nice lady.” His lips strayed to her earlobe.

“She’s calling. She’ll be in here any moment.”

Sam released her and stepped back, his face tight with passion, his movements conveying self-restraint. “Sorry,” he said, a bit sheepish. “I’m just so damned happy to see you alive.”

With her mother nearby, Jade’s usual reserve took over and she widened the space between them. “That makes two of us. I hate to think what would have happened if you hadn’t shown up in time.” She patted down her errant hair, more out of nervousness than from concern for her appearance.

Sam grinned. “Yes, that guard might have ended up in a very bad way if I hadn’t stopped you.”

Jade chuckled and discovered that it hurt to laugh. “Presumably you are the aid Dunbury mentioned in my telegram. ” She took his arm and walked with him back into the courtyard. Her mother arched one brow and inspected them both from across the room. Jade’s free hand instinctively went to her uppermost shirt button to see if it was still fastened. It wasn’t. Her fingers fumbled with the button. “I must admit you were the last person I expected to see, Sam. The last I heard, you were back on Marsabit, filming the elephants.”

“That’s right,” he said, slowing his pace to extend his time alone with Jade. “Stayed about two weeks and made a dandy film. Then I headed for Mombasa and caught the first boat that eventually took me back to the States.”

Jade stopped and turned to him. “You went back through Nairobi and didn’t say good-bye?” Hurt and disappointment seeped into her voice.

“Well, to be honest, after our last meeting, I wasn’t sure you wanted to see me again. I sort of made a promise to myself that when I came back, and I had
every
intention of coming back,” he added, “it was going to be as a whole man and not some pinioned bird.” He patted his right leg, the one that was wooden from the knee down.

Jade knew about his prosthetic leg, a fact she had discovered when they were chained together in the desert last January. But she didn’t know what he meant by this promise to himself. She looked up into his eyes, as dark as ebony shadows and filled with their own secrets. “I don’t understand.”

Sam grinned, his white teeth flashing in what could only be described as an ornery, cat-and-canary grin. “Wait till you see her. My Jenny is the prettiest thing you ever laid eyes on.”

Jade knew that his “Jenny” referred to the pilots’ beloved Curtis JN4-D2 plane in which many American pilots had trained. “Your plane?” she gasped in an excited breath.

Sam nodded, as happy as a kid with his first bicycle. “You bet. My friends in Indiana, the Bert Boys, fixed me up.” Seeing Jade’s confused look he explained, “That’s what I call them. One is Ro
bert
and his twin brother is Gil
bert
. They got the rudder pedals rigged up for hand controls, and I sold the elephant movie to an outfit in California for enough money to make the payment. I own her free and clear.” He paused and his dark eyes twinkled. “I own you, too, now. Bought and paid for.”

Jade made a soft scoffing snort and folded her arms across her chest. “And just where did you happen to get the money, Mister?”

“Um, your mother had this bag of coins and …”

“So if anyone owns me, it’s Mother. Come on, Sam, she’s waiting, and it’s never a good idea to keep Mother waiting.”

Jade and Sam joined Inez, Bachir, and the covey of animated young ladies. Jade made the formal introduction of Sam to her mother, and Sam explained how he had managed to come to the rescue.

“After I got my plane, I wanted to head back to Africa and show it off to, er, the Thompsons,” he said, referring to the coffee-farming couple that he and Jade knew. He cast a sheepish glance at Inez, who studied him with the intensity of someone who wasn’t the least bit fooled by his pretenses.

“Madeline Thompson is the one who wrote that adventure book,
Stalking Death
, based on me, Mother,” explained Jade.

Inez nodded. “Ah yes, the one I had to read to find out what you’ve really been doing in Africa.” She smiled at Sam. “Please continue your story, Mr. Featherstone.”

“Yes, ma’am. I put my plane on a freighter and headed to London first to show the Dunburys. By the way, Beverly is doing fine with her impending motherhood. Anyway, I was on the point of leaving for Mombasa when Avery got your telegram, Jade. We took the plane off, and I flew to France and on to Spain.”

“You flew? How did you manage fuel?”

“Avery took care of all that. He’s got a lot of pull. He arranged for a shipment of gas to go out of France to Casablanca. It was all in place by the time I took off from Spain.”

“What about your return trip?”

“Some soldiers are supposed to bring gas down here to Marrakech in their next convoy of supplies.” He reached into his trouser pocket and pulled out a sheet of fine paper, now slightly crumpled. He unfolded it and tried to smooth out the creases. “Before I forget, I have another message from Avery. Seems he’s been busy investigating Mrs. Worthy and found some information you might find interesting.” He offered the paper to Jade.

She snatched it from his hand, her entire focus on Avery’s letter. She read silently, poring over each word. When she stopped, her eyes held a distant look, as though trying to see beyond time and place.

“What does it say, Jade?” prompted her mother.

“Oh, sorry, Mother, Sam. Not much really. I’ll read it to you.”