We had thought Richard was nothing more than a prancing peacock, until Bess saw his anger. She had been kept in his cellar dungeon and was forced to watch Levi being beaten.
“When did my mother discover the truth?” I asked, for there was no way he would have agreed to accompany me to Bess’s house if she did not know. We had not known at the time that my mother was away.
My mother had become betrothed to Richard on a trip to visit our plantation in Savannah. She had sailed on his ship, at a time when she knew he would be there. In the end it had been by my mother’s hand that Richard had died. She claimed that she was righting the wrong that Richard had done to our family. She had known that it was Richard who had supposedly murdered my father. Now I suspected that there was more to it than that. William had a hand in her betrothal, I would swear to it.
“Your mother found me out about a year after my death. She had suspected for a few weeks before she finally charged into my house and threw a knife, a coffee pot, and an urn at my head.” William smiled affectionately as he reminisced, as if my mother’s attacking him was a sign of her love and devotion instead of her rage and betrayal. “After that I confessed the truth. It took your mother about six months to forgive me, and when she did, we began working together to plan Richard’s downfall.”
“Their meeting and betrothal, that was all you,” I accused.
“The meeting, yes, but your mother takes the merit for snaring Richard’s interest. She always did allure the greatest snakes.”
The way he said it, he had to be including himself in that category.
“Why stay away so long, and why ask Guinevere to make me believe you completely evil when all you would have had to do to gain my aid was trust me with the truth?”
William turned his attention to the parlor window for a silent minute. I waited and watched him.
He was still a good looking man, even with the scar. As my mother would say, it added a story to his face.
“You have nothing more to say to me?” I asked when the silence lengthened.
William did not remove his gaze from the window as he spoke. “What I have done was done for a purpose. You must accept that or you will live your life disappointed.”
“Then you must accept what I will do to you, for it, too, shall be done for a purpose.” I turned on my heel and marched into the foyer.
William called out to me before I could shut the parlor door. “Jack, everything I have done has been to protect my family.”
Looking back at the man who had once been my father, who had once demanded my respect, I could see the shell of the man that he had once been. His former self was there no longer. It was as if I was looking at the face of a foreigner. “You may keep telling yourself that, but you are not innocent of wrongdoings. I should lock you up for your deceit, but I will not. Yet.” With that said, I left him alone, for that was to me where he belonged.
Guinevere was still in the book room with Rose, Bess and Hannah so I decided to go up and see how Sam was faring.
When I entered his bedchamber, he was leaning against a pile of pillows, with scrolls around him, and a few large papers that turned out to be plans for a new warehouse.
“Does my sister know that you are working? She gave the impression that you are to be resting.”
Sam smiled in my direction as he motioned me in, and then motioned for me to close the door.
Pulling a chair to the side of his bed, I looked over the plans that were different than his last warehouse. This one was made of bricks instead of wood.
“Can you tell me anything about the men who attacked you?” I asked.
Sam picked up a pad of parchment and wrote out a message.
I do not remember much of what happened. They came upon me from behind and I only caught a glimpse, but I am certain they were Luther’s guards.
Then it was as I feared. Luther knew that the artifacts had been kept in Charleston, and he had sent his guards to find them.
“Are the artifacts still safe?”
Sam nodded. He and Rose were the only ones who knew where they were hidden, and I did not ask, for I did not want the responsibility of them. My every contact with the artifacts had been uncomfortable. From trying to steal the black box from the giant, to stealing one from Nicholas Mansfield’s house, and then the fire, I had little desire to ever lay eyes on them again.
An hour passed as Sam showed me different plans, before we had a visitor. There was a knock on the door, and then another when Sam did not call entry. I had a feeling that I knew who was on the other side of that door. Only Dudley would continue to knock until someone called entry. Even when the occupant of the chamber was ordered not to raise his voice.
Rising from the chair, I went and opened the door. Dudley stood on the other side with a tray before him. He smiled broadly as I stepped back for him to enter.
“I’ve brought your gruel,” Dudley said to Sam as he entered. He winked at Sam. “I’ve added some cold beef that I’ve acquired from the kitchen. Though I’d eat it quickly if I were you,” Dudley said, expelling a huff of air as he placed the tray on the bed. “Be a good fellow and lock the door, Jack. Your sister is on to me. Had Mrs. Lacey guarding the stairs when I emerged from the kitchen so I had to do some quick thinking.”
I locked the door, chuckling as Dudley sat upon the chair between the bed and window and crossed his boots at the ankles. Leave it to him to have Bess in an uproar and him only having been in the house less than two hours.
“Bess had a maid barring the back stairs, but I got past her.”
Sam mouthed the word ‘how’.
Dudley took on an affronted expression. “I believe that you underestimate the power of my charms, Sam old fellow.”
In response, Sam raised his brows.
Dudley grinned sheepishly. “Too knowing you are. I paid her off.”
Sam choked on a spoonful of broth that he had just placed in his mouth. I patted his back and Dudley leaned forward, his face alarmed.
“Do not worry, I gave her my word that it would stay between the two of us. Word of a gentleman.”
Sam’s choke turned into a soft laugh as he pushed the broth away and began to cut the meat. As he bit into the meat, he smiled his thanks to Dudley. He began to cut another piece when there was a firm rattling on the door handle.
“Sam, is Dudley in there with you?” Bess demanded.
Glancing toward Dudley, his eyes had widened their length.
“What am I saying?” Bess said as if speaking to herself. “You cannot respond.” Then she raised her voice and said, “Unlock this door at once!”
Dudley snatched the plate from the tray and rose, turning to the left and right quickly. He looked like a rabbit searching for a place to hide from a fox.
Dudley spun in a half circle. “Ah-ha!” he exclaimed and then tossed the plate out of the open window.
My mouth dropped open.
Dudley turned and let out a relieved sigh, but then he saw Sam’s raised fork with a piece of meat still upon it. Dudley jerked the fork from Sam’s hand as I unlocked the door and it began to open. Dudley dropped the fork on the floor then gave it a swift kick with his boot to hide it beneath the bed.
Dudley underestimated the power of his kick, for the fork slid from one side of the bed to the other. Bess stomped on the projectile fork before she bent and retrieved it.
“Dudley,” she said accusingly, as she held up the fork.
Dudley looked at me in astonishment. “Jack! You know that the good doctor has forbidden meat and here you are, aiding Sam to partake behind your gracious sister’s back. For shame!”
Looking between all of us, Sam snapped his mouth shut and continued chewing the piece still in his mouth.
“Dudley Stanton, I know it was you,” Bess said, and then she held up a purse that jingled when she shook it. “My maid has told me how you tried to bribe her.”
“Turncoat.” Dudley murmured, before going on to say, “Bess, my d
ear, you really should consider the sort of servants you keep. What good are they if you can’t trust them to keep their tongue between their teeth? Disloyalty. That’s what I call it.”
Bess placed a hand on her hip. “She is quite loyal to me. Why, even now the girl is crying her eyes out because she even considered accepting your bribe.”
“A watery female? Definitely be rid of her.” Dudley looked at me. “Can’t stand a female who persists in the waterworks.”
“I insist that you cease trying to bribe my servants. First it was my stable lad when you paid him to follow Freddy, and then it was my cook to aid you in this plight when my butler and my housekeeper refused. Now the maids.”
“You’ve forgotten the footmen,” Dudley said, and then cringed, his shoulders nearly rising to his ears.
“I demand that you cease at once.” Bess looked down at Sam’s tray, and then she lowered to her knees, searching under the bed. Sam and Dudley both leaned over the side to see what she was doing.
“Where is it, Dudley?”
“Where is what, dearest Bess?” Dudley’s expression was the closest to angelic that I had ever seen him display.
“The plate. Where is the plate?” Bess rose up with both hands on her hips.
Dudley glanced to the window and then back to Bess. “Sam must have eaten it.” Dudley shook his head as he formed a face of solemnity. “When a man is driven to distraction by being deprived of his meat, one never knows what oddities he will succumb to.”
Bess was shaking her head in disbelief and then threw her hands in the air. She expelled a disgruntled huff and stalked out of the bedchamber.
Dudley lowered himself back to the chair and pulled a blue spotted handkerchief from his pocket. Mopping his brow, he smiled. “Came through that quite well, if I do say so myself.”
“Why did you pay the stable lad to follow Freddy?” I asked once we were seated again.
“Because he’s an ugly customer, thinking he can slink away without anyone seeing him. He’s not to be trusted, mark my words.”
“Consider them marked.” I was curious as to where Freddy had gone, but it would not be long before I discovered the truth, and before I would be wishing never to have discovered his secret at all.
CHAPTER 7
GUINEVERE
Having spent luncheon apologizing to Bess about my part in her father’s deception, Bess magnanimously forgave me. Though not before she told me that should I find myself feeling the need to lie to her again, to remember our fight in the field in Philadelphia.
Grimacing at the memory, for those bruises had taken two months to fully heal, I gave her my vow that I would never again lie about things that she should know. It was the best I could do. My secrets were not hers to know. Though they could affect her, her feelings would be a ripple in comparison to how Jack would take the truth.
Bess, Rose and I closeted ourselves in the book room until we were joined by the others, except William and Hannah.
“Heaven,” Dudley whispered as he turned in a circle to take in all of the room. He had been too consumed earlier with the arrival of his father to fully take in the beauty of Sam’s book room. “Name your price, and it shall be yours,” he said to Sam.
“I tried that one, Dud, but the man will not sell,” Jack said from his place perched on the arm of my chair.
Dudley stared, aghast, for a moment, and then went to the door and began to shout. “Hannah! Hannah, come at once!” When he was through, Dudley came to the desk and lowered himself into a chair. “If anyone can persuade you, it will be my wife. Her powers of persuasion are unmatched.”
Sam’s gray eyes widened as if in horror, and I laughed. Until Hannah came charging into the book room carrying a pistol and a long military sword.
Her blue eyes were narrow in concentration, her wide mouth pressed in a determined line. “What is it, Dudley? Where is the attack?”
“No, no, my love. I need for you to persuade Sam to sell me this house,” Dudley said at once.
“Is that all?” Hannah lowered her weapons as her face showed her disappointment.
“All? Take in the serenity of this heavenly abode. I need this room in my life. I crave it. I yearn for it!”
Hannah smiled in a placating style as she patted Dudley’s cheek. She tried for five minutes to convince Sam to sell the house, but she gave up when Freddy was let into the house. The others would not know where he had gone that morning, but I had my suspicions.
“Where have you been?” Hannah asked, rather accusingly, as Freddy entered the book room.
Freddy looked down his nose at her. “You reveal your secrets and I shall reveal mine.”
Hannah stared at Freddy with thinly veiled contempt, but Freddy’s contempt toward Hannah was open for all to see. They disliked each other for two reasons. One, Hannah had bested Freddy in a mission that they were each sent on, and two, Hannah knew Freddy’s secret.
“Do you have something you wish to tell us, Hannah?” Jack’s question redirected her attention, and I could see the battle warring in her blue eyes.
She pulled a dark curl away from her shoulder and began to twist it around her finger.
“I was never married to an older gentleman as society believed. My parents spread both of those rumors about. You see, they worked for Mr. Martin, and now they work for you,” Hannah said to Jack. “My parents are Jeanne and Pierre.”
Bess’s mouth gaped, and Jack was staring at Hannah as if she had developed two heads.
Hannah Lamont was the daughter of the Martin’s former housekeeper, and their informant for the Phantoms.
“Any other family that you wish to divulge? Is Freddy your brother perhaps?” Jack asked with a large amount of sarcasm.
Freddy shuddered, but Hannah was more vocal with her scathing view of Freddy.
“Him, a Beaumont?” She gave a contemptuous laugh. “No, the heavens be praised.”
“You should be so fortunate,” Freddy retorted, in his languid fashion of stretching his boots out before him and inspecting his nails. “The house of Beaumont could use some culture.”
Hannah’s expression held equal parts venom and danger. “You dare to malign my family again and I will let slip a certain detail sure to astonish all. Shall I tell them?”
Freddy’s lip curled. “Harpy.”
Dudley and Hannah jumped to their feet, but it was Hannah who berated Freddy. “You are the sort of man who would make his own parents wish that they had drown—”
“Enough!” I shouted, and everyone glanced at me in differing emotions. “I do not want to hear your bickering.”
Seated before the desk, calmly surveying the pair, I said, “Tell them your secret, Frederick, since you care so much about sharing.”
Freddy met my gaze and there was a cruel twist to his lips. For a moment, he thought that I meant his greatest secret, but the challenging look faded as he began to understand.
When he looked toward Jack he was all unconcern. “It is nothing really, only that I have one of the artifacts.”
For a moment, no one spoke. No one knew that I had entrusted one of the sacred pieces from my country into Freddy’s hands. No one would understand why I had done it, but Freddy knew and that was enough for the moment.
Freddy smirked at Jack. “Did your wife never tell you that she gave me Sfære af lys in Savannah? She thought it would be safer in my hands than wherever you were keeping the rest.”
Jack’s battle for restraint was evident in the way he leaned forward. He looked near to rising and throttling Freddy. He thought Freddy was lying, until he looked at me.
“Why?” Jack put the question to me, and no one else moved while we focused on each other.
It was not the moment for the full confession, so I said nothing. I refused to look in my sister’s direction. There was no need. I could feel the heat from her stare boring into the side of my face.
Freddy must have seen Jack’s anger for he grinned. “Do not look so green, Jack
. She did so before she discovered that she could not trust me.”
Hearing the admission caught me by surprise, but Freddy winked at me. To anyone else, it would look as if he was baiting me, but that was not so. Freddy was reassuring me, and Rose, that we could trust him.
“If we cannot trust you, why tell us about the artifact? What game are you playing, Frederick?”
He hated when Jack called him Frederick. Usually it gave Jack joy to rankle him, but his joy was missing this day.
“I seem to have suffered a change of heart. The moment you took control of the Holy Order.”
“You always were more interested in what others could do for you,” I said, for it was the truth. He was like his parents in that respect.
“Where is the artifact now?” Jack asked.
“It is nearby. If you wish to accompany me this evening I shall retrieve it and bestow it into your hands.” Freddy smiled, and plans were laid for the recovery of the artifact.
Now, if Jack could keep from throttling Freddy before he turned over the artifact, it would be a miracle.
As everyone else spoke of the possible danger ahead of them, Jack drew me out of the book room and away from listening ears. Once enclosed inside the parlor, Jack turned toward me and placed his two strong hands on his narrow hips. “Why would you do such a thing?”
The best explanation was also the one I could not admit, for it was not my secret to tell. So I went with the second best. “Because I knew that eventually someone would come for the artifacts, and I was correct.”
“Why Freddy?”
“No matter what he tries to make you believe, we can trust him. He does not want people to depend upon him, so he tries to act aloof, self-absorbed.”
Jack’s gaze narrowed as his jaw tightened. “How do you know so much about Frederick Nolan?”
I wanted to admit the truth. I opened my mouth to do so, but then shut it, for I gave my word, and that had to stand strong. “We have known each other for a long time.”
“I will remind you of that when he turns on us. For that reason, I will be taking Dudley, Abe, Sam, and William with me tonight.”
phantom knights 04 - deceit in delaware Page 7