“That’s what she said. It was definitely a coral snake in her bedroom. Somehow its fangs didn’t penetrate through the leather soles of the slippers she was wearing,” Aurora Lee answered.
“The gardener cut off its head and burned it,” Maggie Jane added helpfully.
“I’ve never heard of a coral snake on the second floor of someone’s house,” Aurora Lee said. “Maybe a pygmy rattler in a basket of firewood, but never a coral snake.”
“Did you tell her that?”
“She was so sure of what she was saying that I didn’t insist. Really, Lawrence, I still think it could have been a kingsnake. But neither of us wanted to argue the point with her too much. She’s a very insistent kind of person.”
“The worst kind of Yankee female,” he muttered. “Can’t keep her mouth shut or her nose out of business that doesn’t concern her.”
“At any rate, will you speak to Father for us?” Aurora Lee pleaded.
“About what?” he answered absently.
“About the trousseau,” Maggie Jane said. “How could you forget?” She looked down at the darned black mourning dress she was still wearing. “The clothes are so beautiful. And poor Eleanor doesn’t need them anymore.”
Lawrence looked at his two spinster sisters and saw burdens he would have to carry for the rest of his life. Aurora Lee was well past the age for a first marriage, and Maggie Jane was only two years younger. Perhaps if they dressed themselves up in the dead woman’s finery and he shipped them off to relatives in Savannah or Atlanta they’d manage to find husbands who wouldn’t protest the lack of a dowry until it was too late. He didn’t care whether they wore silk gowns or ragged cotton dresses unless it meant the difference between securing a future out of his sight or remaining at Wildacre for the rest of their lives.
“Of course I’ll speak to him,” he promised, flinching at Maggie Jane’s squealing giggles. “I’ll point out to him your generosity in offering to spare Mrs. Dickson the sorrow of clearing out her daughter’s effects and the obvious advantage to you of being able to profit from what Eleanor would certainly have wanted you to possess.”
“Don’t use the word profit,” Aurora Lee chided. “It sounds like something a Yankee would say. Father will get his back up.”
“I won’t forget,” Lawrence agreed. Profit was such a foreign concept to Elijah Bennett that he would indeed bristle if the word were used in his presence. “Was there anything else I need to know?”
Aurora Lee shrugged her shoulders. “Nothing important.”
“Don’t you remember, sister?” Maggie Jane asked. “Mr. Hunter sent for that voodoo woman, Queen Lula, and she came. Mixed up some kind of juju medicine and fed it to Miss Prudence. They’re saying that maybe that was what saved her.”
“And the amulet,” recalled Aurora Lee.
“What amulet?” Lawrence queried. Dragging information out of his worthless sisters was like trying to empty the ocean with a teacup.
“Aunt Jessa gave her something against the evil eye. Some sort of bracelet made of shells and painted stones.”
“And she’s wearing it,” Maggie Jane chimed in. “All the time, apparently. She never takes it off.”
“You’re sure about that?”
“We saw it with our own eyes,” Aurora Lee insisted. She wanted to light into her contentious brother for the way he was picking at them, but then she remembered what he had promised to do.
Getting and keeping Eleanor’s trousseau was worth any sacrifice.
CHAPTER 15
Geoffrey took his time riding back to Seapoint. He would have to tell Prudence that he’d found Jonah and that Queen Lula claimed both Jonah and Aunt Jessa were killed to keep them quiet. He was of two minds whether to insist once again that she continue to wear the amulet against the evil eye, at least until they were safely away from the island.
She’d looked so fragile this morning when he’d taken his coffee to her room. He knew she had remarkable powers of recuperation; he’d seen her rebound in days from situations that would have left other women clutching their smelling salts for weeks. But two practitioners of the arcane art of voodoo had warned that her life was in danger. Would reminding her of that make her exercise caution or irritate her into reckless, impetuous behavior? He didn’t know. And he didn’t want to take a chance. He had to read her mood correctly. Not always as easy a task as it sounded.
Philip Dickson called to him from the library as he went in the front door.
“Those Bennett girls were here,” he said, pouring Geoffrey a whiskey. “They arrived just after you left, asking for Prudence, but obviously wanting to build bridges for their brother. I can’t stand women who are obvious, Geoffrey. I have to believe that Teddy loved Eleanor, may still love her, but I don’t want him hanging around my neck for the rest of my life. I’ve written him recommendations and introduced him to contacts on the Cotton Exchange, but I’m not willing to do any more than that. He can sink or swim on his own.”
“How do Aurora Lee and Maggie Jane fit into the picture?” Geoffrey asked. He’d expected something like this from Eleanor’s father, and couldn’t really blame him for cutting Teddy Bennett loose. Everything he had planned to do for the young man had been for his daughter’s sake. Now that was no longer necessary.
“They didn’t mention him by name, but I’m sure they were trying to worm their way into my good graces so I’d see to it their brother could still make his fortune on the Exchange. Well, it won’t work. Eleanor will not be laid to rest in their family burial ground and Teddy is past history. What kind of ridiculous names are those, anyway? Aurora Lee and Maggie Jane?”
Geoffrey didn’t say that Southern girls were often called by two names, and that he found the lilting cadences of Aurora Lee and Maggie Jane pleasing to the ear. Philip was shaking off the immediate emotional devastation of his daughter’s death and reasserting the high-handed temperament that had made him a successful businessman. Geoffrey wouldn’t interfere with whatever Eleanor’s father needed to do or say to heal himself. If Abigail were to have any hope of future happiness, it would only come through the strength and devotion of her husband.
“You said they asked for Prudence?”
“They went up to her room and stayed there for a good two hours. I don’t see what she could have found to talk to them about.”
“Perhaps they’d heard that Prudence was indisposed and they came to pay a get-well call.”
“How would they know what happened?”
“Women seem to have their own ways of finding things out,” Geoffrey said. “I don’t think they need telegrams, the telephone, or even a newspaper. Just a cup of tea.”
“You’d best go up and see if Prudence survived the visit,” Philip said. “Another whiskey first?”
The smooth golden liquid slid easily down Geoffrey’s throat. He knew what he was doing. Putting off the moment when he’d have to share with Prudence what he’d found out today, the warning he was feeling more and more obliged to deliver once again.
The whiskey would help.
* * *
He knocked on Prudence’s door, then knocked again. No answer. No invitation to come in, though he thought she would have been expecting him to check on her by this time.
Feeling as if he were breaking some unwritten law of propriety, he knocked a third time, then turned the knob. Pushed lightly, and as the door opened, called out her name. “Prudence?”
He stepped inside the room, fully prepared to withdraw quickly if Prudence were in a state of dishabille, rather hoping that might be so.
But the bedroom was empty, the chaise longue devoid of extra pillows and the light blanket she spread over her legs. The bed was neatly made up, not a single article of clothing left out of armoire or chest of drawers.
His first thought was that she had gone to spend a quiet hour with Mrs. Dickson.
Eleanor’s mother still grieved deeply and openly for her daughter, but after her husband had forbidden the co
ntinued use of laudanum she no longer lay in her bed for hours at a time staring at nothing. She moved wraithlike about the house when she could be persuaded to leave her room, but she was at least dressed and on her feet for most of the day. Prudence, recalling her own experience with laudanum, looked in on her frequently.
Geoffrey was about to leave Prudence’s room for Mrs. Dickson’s when he caught a glimpse out the open window of a figure walking slowly along the sandy Atlantic beach. Dressed in a cream-colored, ruffled gown and a wispy mohair shawl that fluttered in the breeze, Prudence carried a parasol against the afternoon sun and seemed to be searching the sand for shells. As he watched, she stooped once, examined her find, then tossed it aside.
Relief washed over him as Geoffrey stepped out onto the veranda. Relief, and then a surge of anger so strong it made his hands tremble. He wanted to shake Prudence’s stubborn self until she realized that it wasn’t safe for her to be alone anywhere on Bradford Island. Amulet or no amulet.
Aunt Jessa had claimed she was in danger. Queen Lula had reaffirmed it. And someone had put one of the deadliest snakes in North America into her bedroom! What more proof did she need?
He stood for a moment rethinking what he had almost said aloud. Someone had put one of the deadliest snakes in North America into Prudence’s bedroom. Knowing full well that if it bit her, she would die. He leaned over the veranda railing to look more closely at the trellis on which the cape jessamine had climbed and where the gardener had spotted the trapped and wounded coral snake. The vine had been cut down, and the trellis itself would also be removed so that no other creature could gain access to the bedrooms that gave onto the veranda.
Though strong enough to support the weight of the cape jessamine, the trellis was far too flimsy for a man to be able to use it as a ladder . . . which meant that if the snake had been deliberately planted in Prudence’s bedroom, someone who wouldn’t arouse suspicion had carried it through the house.
He had to remember what Prudence constantly reminded him—women could be just as dangerous as men. And they were better at concealing their intentions.
Seapoint’s staff hadn’t come with the Dicksons from New York. They were local people, a skeleton crew hired to live permanently at the house to ensure year-round upkeep, others who worked only when the Dicksons were in residence. They had no long-term ties to their employer, no history that would make them personally loyal. Any one of them could have been bribed to deliver a package to Prudence’s bedroom, almost certainly not knowing what it contained.
He’d questioned each of the indoor staff once already. Nothing but shocked denials and protestations of innocence. No one admitted to anything out of the ordinary.
He wondered if, after the interrogations, one of them had given notice, perhaps simply disappeared. The housekeeper would know. He made a mental note to check with her later.
Right now, he had to get to Prudence.
* * *
Looking out to sea, the wind buffeting her ears, Prudence didn’t see or hear him coming. A strong hand on her arm was the first indication she was no longer alone on the beach.
“Don’t sneak up on me like that, Geoffrey,” she scolded, not really angry but needing to say something. She recognized that certain look he assumed when he was annoyed with her. He wore it now.
“You shouldn’t be out here by yourself.”
The hand on her arm tightened. It felt as though he were about to pitch her into the waves. “I’m perfectly all right. I haven’t been dizzy or felt weak all day.”
“That’s not what I meant and you know it.”
“I don’t know any such thing, Geoffrey. Perhaps you’d better explain it to me,” she said, matching him remark for remark, striking back hard at the acerbic tone of his voice. She tried to shake off his hand, but the grip was too strong. It only made her more determined not to let him win whatever confrontation he had in mind.
“The amulet you’re wearing was given to you for good reason,” he began, not one bit less pugnacious.
“I’m well aware of that,” Prudence answered. “I’m not the fool you sometimes mistake me for. And definitely not the weakling. What happened to me was no accident. Someone put that snake into my room. I know what it was meant to do. But here I am, alive and well,” she finished triumphantly.
“By the sheerest combination of serendipity and good luck,” he retorted.
“Don’t forget the leather sole of the slippers I was wearing,” she reminded him. “I had the common sense to know you don’t walk barefoot anywhere in this wretched climate. Eleanor warned me about the snakes. She also mentioned spiders, roaches, ticks, midges, chiggers, deerflies, and mosquitos. Have I left anything out?”
Geoffrey stared at her, furious but unable to refute a single thing she had said. Prudence’s face was inches from his own, her eyes snapping bolts of gray lightning, cheeks flushed with emotion, mouth parted to fire another riposte.
He wanted more than anything to hold her tightly in his arms and silence her lips with his own. But before he could draw her closer, she stomped viciously on his foot. When he let go of her in pained surprise, Prudence flounced off in a perfect expression of high dudgeon. He didn’t know whether to laugh or swear.
Instead, he caught up with her in several long strides. But this time, he slipped his arm through one of hers with unmistakably gentle concern. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have come down on you like that. Your room was empty. I didn’t know where you’d gone. Or what else might have happened to you.”
“I’m armed, Geoffrey,” she said in a thoroughly disgusted voice. “Look.” She held up a small cream-colored satin reticule in which he could see the outline of the derringer he’d given her. “I’m tempted to use it on you,” she threatened. Then smiled.
However often they disagreed or quarreled, they couldn’t stay truly at odds with each other for very long. It had always been like that, from the first time they’d met.
The derringer was only effective at nearly point-blank range, but Geoffrey decided not to point that out. Again.
“I found our ambushed man,” he said. “The one we saw pitch into the sound when he was shot. It was Jonah.”
“I wondered,” Prudence said. “I had the strangest feeling that we’d put him in danger just by talking to him. He didn’t tell us anything that would lead us to suspect someone, but whoever was responsible for Aunt Jessa’s murder couldn’t be sure of that.”
“I think he was trying to escape the island that night. He was terrified the killer would come after him because of what he could have told us. And it turns out he was right to be afraid.”
“I wonder what it was. What secret he knew. And who decided he had to die,” Prudence mused.
“Aunt Jessa kept secrets, too.”
“It seems that everyone we’ve met on this island is hiding something. Showing one face to strangers and another when we’re not around.”
“Preacher Solomon sent me to Queen Lula.”
“He wouldn’t reveal anything, but he thought she might?” Prudence asked.
“That’s one way of putting it.”
“Is there any other? These people are all living in fear, Geoffrey. I’ve never felt anything to compare with the atmosphere of this island. And I’m not talking about the midges and mosquitos this time!”
“Can you understand that people of color in the South have always lived this way, Prudence? Before the war, their sole value to their owners was the amount of work that could be wrung or beaten out of them. Then freedom came. But it was only the titular freedom of not belonging legally to another human being. Not much more than that.”
“Why don’t more of them leave?”
He shrugged his shoulders eloquently. “No place to go. No money to get there. And, believe it or not, this is the only home most of them have ever known. It’s been eighty years since laws prohibiting the importation of slaves were passed. These people were born into slavery right here in America. Africa isn�
�t even a memory any longer.”
They walked in silence, Prudence’s hand resting comfortably on Geoffrey’s arm, her skirts swishing against his legs, her body occasionally brushing against his.
“Tell me about the Bennett girls,” he said. “Philip mentioned they’d come to call.”
“Oh, Geoffrey, I wish you’d been here to listen to them.”
“What did they want?”
“Eleanor’s trousseau.”
“I don’t believe it.”
“It’s true. They made up some long story about not wanting Mrs. Dickson to have to face the agony of going through her daughter’s clothes and having to decide which charity should get what, but anyone could have seen right through it.”
“I hope you didn’t promise them anything.”
“Only that I’d talk to Abigail about their offering to take that chore off her hands. You should have seen the looks on their faces when I brought them into Eleanor’s room to show them what was involved. I swear it was all they could do to keep from trying on the hats right that minute.” She looked down at her own expensive skirts now damp and sandy around the hem. “They’re living in near poverty, Geoffrey. Desperate for pretty things to wear. I think they still cherish hopes of catching husbands if they can only dress the part of eligible young ladies.”
“Catch a husband? Shame on you, Prudence.”
“You have nothing to worry about. I wouldn’t stoop to anything so mortifyingly undignified.”
He choked back a laugh at the thought of independent-minded Prudence landing a man like some great big fish.
“I told them about the coral snake,” she said. “Not everything, but enough.”
“They’re sure to carry the tale back to Wildacre.”
“I hope they do.”
“There may be consequences.”
“If anyone there wants me dead, he or she needs to know that I’m someone to be reckoned with. I don’t go down easily.”
Please God you don’t go down at all, Geoffrey thought.
CHAPTER 16
Death Brings a Shadow Page 14
