phantom knights 04 - deceit in delaware

by Amalie Vantana

  “As you wish. That will give me some time to make plans with Hannah, Rose, and Bess for Luther’s capture.”

  Jack released his tense stance and came over to me. Running his finger down my cheek, he smiled. “If I was not curious as to what plans are running through your beautiful mind, I would remove Freddy from our lives and think no more about him.”

  Jack kissed me before I could reply. Leaning into his embrace, his love swept everything else from my thoughts.

  “Kissing again, I see,” Bess said, smiling at us from the door.

  “If you see then you should not interrupt,” Jack retorted, releasing me and walking over to tug on Bess’s ear.

  She swatted his hand away, and announced that supper would not be until eight.

  Jack and I spent the remaining hours before supper with Sam, Rose, Bess, and Abe. Abe was showing me his newest selection of weapons. He was a master craftsman, and he had been the one who had made my dagger pistol for me. That weapon had saved my life more than two dozen times. This time Abe had a selection of masks, one of which Dudley snapped up when he came into Abe’s workroom that was near the servants’ dining room. It looked like the face of a bear and Dudley would not remove it from his face until dinner was announced.

  After we ate, Jack and the other men departed for the place where Freddy kept the artifact.

  Jeffrey, Bess’s butler, bolted the front door, and carried a musket with him as he went to oversee the clearing of the dining parlor dishes. We did not expect an attack, but Sam and Jack had been adamant that we be protected while they were gone. In Jeffrey’s years of service for Sam, he had come to learn about the Phantoms.

  “What did you do when Sam admitted the truth?” Hannah asked Bess, as the four of us sat in the parlor.

  Bess smiled. “Threw books at his head. It was the evening before our wedding so you may imagine my anger. It nearly ended our relationship, but my mother encouraged me to hear him. After he told me the whole truth, I knew that he was not to blame.”

  Bess did not say it, but we all knew that she blamed her father. After what he had done to her at the plantation, it did not surprise me. I did not know what I would have felt to learn that my father was still alive. Our situations were entirely different, so our emotions would not have been the same.

  What her father had done at the plantation was beyond what I could endure. I fought him for hours, trying to convince him to free her. I promised him that she would never forgive him, but he had said that since he had never expected her forgiveness, what was a little more anger?

  When I entered her prison chamber and saw what that guard was doing to her, I knew right then that she would not be the only one who never forgave him. His single-mindedness had caused immense harm to his daughter, if not physically, mentally. The vision was imbedded into my mind, and that was why I left the Holy Order, or tried to. William Martin knew what strings to pull to get me to do his bidding, but no more. He had no control over me, over the Holy Order, or over my sisters. He had played a dangerous game, and he would find himself to have lost when the end came.

  “What can you tell us about the Holy Order locations?” Bess asked me.

  The Holy Order of Levitas had locations in Baltimore, Philadelphia, Washington, Charleston, and Savannah, before the Phantoms disposed of most of them. The temple in Baltimore had been deserted when Richard moved to Philadelphia to marry Nell Martin. Though the throne room had been one of the more ornate, it had the smallest number of members. When Richard poisoned the leader, William stepped in and closed the order. It was never proved that Richard had done it, but I suspected him. William suspected that he might try something again, so, to keep him under control, William had Richard made the leader of the Philadelphia branch of Levitas.

  “Richard had planned to make Nicholas Mansfield the leader of the Delaware branch, before their deaths,” I told them, and both Hannah and Bess stared at me. They each had dealings with Richard and Nicholas, which had led to Bess being branded. Thankfully my sister had never met either man.

  Bess angled herself toward Hannah, as her brows lowered over her eyes. “You never did have a sister that was taken by Levitas.”

  Hannah smiled and gave a shrug of her shoulders. “I had to tell Jack something. The truth was that your father sent me there to become close to Richard and Nicholas, and so he gave me that story to tell. The girl that I had claimed as my sister had been taken by Richard’s men, but we are not related.”

  “How did you know that Nicholas had taken on the role of Monroe?” Bess asked me.

  “I had been having him followed from the moment I moved to Philadelphia, as well as Mrs. Lewis and Richard. I learned of his acting past from Richard, and the rest was easily discovered.

  “What I did not care for was the Phantoms’ plan to capture Levitas. Though it presented me with the perfect way to do away with Nicholas, I knew that someone would be hurt. I tried to have as few casualties as possible.”

  “That is why you shot Jack,” Bess said, without a hint of anger or annoyance in her voice.

  “I shot him because William wanted him captured and surrendered to the Order. Your father wanted him out of the way.”

  “Why did you not follow his orders?” Rose questioned. My sister would have expected me to follow William’s every order.

  The truth was that William would have never allowed us to be together if he got his hands on Jack. He would have turned Jack against me, and I could not bear to let that happen. William wanted control in all things, and my loving Jack threatened his control over me. That was not what I told them.

  “I loved him, so I shot him, hoping that William would let him alone. I was trying to protect him, though he did his best to thwart me continually.”

  “If shooting him is how you protect him, I do not wonder at his thwarting you,” Hannah murmured, releasing the tenseness of our conversation.

  When my sisters and I were children we placed complete faith in William, doing whatever he bid because we thought he had our best interests in mind. As we grew older, we began to become independent in our thinking and that threatened William’s control. He had been promised a way to return to Lutania and nothing was going to stand in his way. He had not been a violent or vicious man to us, but greed was a powerful persuasion, turning even the nicest of men into animals.

  A crash from the direction of the book room startled us into standing. I grabbed for a pistol that was on the table beside the sofa.

  “It is probably nothing,” Bess said as she led the way across the foyer. “Sam often leaves the window open and the neighbor’s cat likes to knock over Sam’s books.” As Bess spoke, she pushed open the door, and paused.

  Six people, who were in varying positions in the book room, stopped what they were doing to stare at us. Understanding stacked within me in quick succession, and we all moved at the same moment. Bess turned to the bookshelf at her left and grabbed what was hidden behind a book. Someone grabbed her from behind. Hannah picked up a book and beat the man holding Bess on the back of the head. I came in, aiming my pistol at the man who I knew was the leader, but another man struck my arm and I dropped the pistol as pain heated the injured place. Bess turned with a pistol in hand, but the guard knocked it down while a third man kicked Hannah in the stomach and out of the door into the foyer.

  “Hannah!” I made the mistake of looking over my shoulder. A body smacked against my back, shoving me into the foyer, and then the book room door was slammed shut, and I heard the key turn in the lock. We were separated from Bess.

  The man who had kicked Hannah held a pistol on us and motioned for us to walk before him into the parlor.

  Rose was not there, and I did not know where she had gone.

  Helping Hannah, who had a hand against her stomach, we advanced into the room and sat upon one of the sofas.

  “Mrs. Mason will not be hurt, if you two don’t make a ruckus,” the man said, leaning against the wall beside the door.

 
We neither of us had a weapon, but we could not allow those men to harm Bess, or to succeed in whatever reason brought them to the house.

  Rising from the sofa, I crossed my arms. The man straightened from his slouched position and pointed the pistol at my head.

  “You will leave this house at once, or you will force my hand, and I assure you that I am not someone you want to challenge.”

  The man had the audacity to laugh, a breathy, low sound. “Yes, so I have heard. Though I do not believe us to be fairly matched. You are a woman, after all.”

  “Why not let us test your conviction,” I said, taking a step forward.

  From the book room, we heard a crash, and then Bess shout.

  “Those are first editions!”

  We needed to get into that room and help Bess. But first we had to find a way around the man with the gun.

  “What do you want here?”

  He smirked. “Why, I thought that would be well known. The artifacts.”

  “Mrs. Mason does not know where the artifacts are to be found,” I informed him, but he laughed.

  “She does, and she will tell us, or she will die.”

  A shot fired in the book room and Hannah was on her feet in an instant. Hannah threw a pillow at the man’s head. He knocked it out of the way with his arm and aimed the pistol at Hannah.

  A loud clang sounded, and then the man before us stumbled forward before dropping to his knees as his eyes rolled back in his head. Mrs. Lacey was standing there with a copper pot.

  Hannah grabbed a fireplace poker and I took the pot as we thanked Mrs. Lacey.

  “Mrs. Eldridge has snuck into the garden to help Mrs. Mason,” Mrs. Lacey said at once.

  We ran past her to the front door, then out to the porch and down the steps. In the yard, we ran toward the garden.

  The men had Bess between them, pulling her down the steps of the terrace. Hannah knocked me behind a bush with her hip, and charged toward the men with her poker raised. Looking around the bush, I saw Hannah swipe at one of the men, while another slipped past her swinging arm and struck her a fierce blow to the face. Hannah fell backward, striking hard against the ground.

  Bess saw me, and shook her head. “He has Edith.”

  One of the men slapped Bess’s cheek. “Shut up, you!”

  Her words stalled me. Luther had my sister? No, he could not. Gideon Reid and Levi Martin were protecting her. It was not possible, unless … unless they had been killed.

  I was about to jump out at the men, but Bess jerked the men forward, toward the gate that led to the road. “Find Loutaire! Bring them to the place all of gold.”

  “Quit your screeching,” the same man said to Bess. She allowed them to toss her into a black carriage. I ran around the bush toward Hannah. She was still upon the ground, unconscious. There was swelling on her cheek. Running to the open window that led into the book room, my heart sank. It was in shambles. Hopping over books on the floor, I unlocked the door and threw it open, calling out for Jeffrey. Jeffrey, the two footmen, and Mrs. Lacey followed me into the garden.

  “Go for the doctor,” I told one of the footmen, for I had a terrible feeling that Hannah’s wound would not be the only injury this night.

  Running toward the street was when I saw my sister. She had two horses saddled and waiting.

  “What are you doing?” I demanded.

  “Saving Bess. Are you coming or not?”

  CHAPTER 8

  JACK

  It was nearing eleven that night when our group made our way toward where Freddy had hidden the artifact. He had positioned William, Abe, Sam, and Leo at different points leaving only me and Dudley riding with him to the exact location.

  When he turned onto Queen Street, I knew where he had put the artifact. Martha and Guinevere had lived in a little house on Queen Street earlier this year. It was there that Bess had saved Martha’s life.

  “How long have you served the Holy Order?” I asked Freddy as we dismounted from our horses.

  “Five years,” Freddy said, and I halted on the street to stare up at him.

  Five years? Since before the war. He had been betraying us for that long. It was no wonder that my father knew our every step with Freddy telling him anything that he would wish to know. I knew that I should have felt more anger, but the truth was that I had always thought there was something off about Frederick Nolan. He and I never agreed, and deep inside I always knew that he was not with us. He did not have the makings of a Phantom.

  Freddy unlocked the door to the house with a brass key as Dudley held a lantern for him to see. “Are you certain this place is abandoned, Freddy?”

  “Yes, for I hold the only key, and the lock has not been removed,” Freddy said as he swung open the door and then took the lantern from Dudley. “Wait here. I will be but a few moments.”

  Freddy left me and Dudley standing guard on the front steps to the house.

  Staring at the dark houses that surrounded the street, I balanced my boots on the edge of the top step. My balance was good, but when I balanced on one boot it seemed that I was making Dudley nervous.

  “Will you cease? You’ll slip and break your neck, and then your wife will blame me.”

  “Why would she place blame upon you?” I asked as I kept balancing on that top ledge.

  Dudley’s voice mimicked my wife, though in an exaggerated way. “Dudley, she says, watch over Jack for me, she says. Be sure that no harm comes to him, she says.”

  Laughing, I balanced on the toes of one boot. “When did she say this?”

  “Just before we left Savannah. Got my wife in on the threats as well. Had Hannah promise to do me a mischief if I allowed any harm to come to you.”

  I chuckled as I moved back from the step to lean against the door.

  “Think of the injustice, getting my wife in on her threats. It’s not done, I tell you.”

  “Are you afraid of your wife, Dud?”

  Dudley sputtered. “Wouldn’t you be? The woman’s unpredictable.”

  “But you married her,” I reminded him.

  “That I did,” he replied, rather dreamily as he gazed up at the night sky.

  It took me some time to realize that Hannah and Dudley were not playing a jest upon us, but were indeed married. Though I could guess Hannah’s intentions behind marrying Dudley, I did not at all understand why Dudley would choose to marry Hannah. She was wild, headstrong, and impulsive. In short, she was a whirlwind. Dudley was staid, or so I had thought throughout the years of our acquaintance. Now I had my doubts that I had truly seen the real Dudley.

  “Why did you marry her?” That came out harsher than I wished, so I corrected my question. “What I mean to say is, how did you meet her?”

  Dudley’s smile blossomed as he sighed wistfully and leaned against the wall across from me. “She and I met at a masquerade in Boston. After a night of dancing and a moonlit stroll, I knew she was the woman that I would spend the rest of my life following.”

  “Did you know whom she was? Were you not masked?”

  “The masks came off quite early in our evening. We have no secrets between us, you understand.”

  That must have been a wondrous experience.

  “Hannah showed me a passion that I had never before encountered. For life, for love, for me.” His grin was lopsided in the moonlight. “I was not the greatest matrimonial prize, but she saw something in me that she found agreeable. The next day when I called upon her, I asked for her hand. She rocked both heaven and earth for me when she said yes.”

  Dudley paused, his brows creasing. “We kept our marriage a secret from everyone for a time.”

  “Were you worried that your mother would try to pull Hannah into the Holy Order?”

  “Yes. Though it was useless to try to hide her. Hannah was a tool for the Order before ever she met me. For a time I thought my mother set her on my trail, but she did not. It was fate that brought us together, and together we will remain.”

  It did
seem that Hannah genuinely loved Dudley, and he she. As strange as their relationship was to me, I envied them their infallible love and devotion.

  “If Hannah was in Boston, why would you move to Philadelphia? Unless it was your job… ” That was it. “It was your job to befriend me.”

  Dudley did not move, did not blink. He stared straight into my eyes and for a moment I saw a different Dudley. He was not the carefree, poetical joke. He appeared as serious as Sam, and twice as dangerous. There was something cunning in this glimpse of Dudley that put me on alert. When he blinked, it disappeared.

  “You have been good to me over the years, never thinking me beneath you, never treating me as if I was not intelligent enough to be your friend.”

  Dudley paused for a deep breath. “You are the closest to a brother that I will ever have. And I love your sister like she is my own sister. I even like that scamp Levi. I would like to become a Phantom. I would like to join your family.”

  “You are family, Dudley.”

  “I thank you for saying so, Jack. When I am gone, I hope you shall remember me fondly.”

  That took me aback. “You are not abandoning us, Dudley, surely.”

  “Things are coming to a head, Jack, and soon it will be time for me and my wife to go. A choice is coming for all of us. It is best that we be prepared.”

  “Jack!” Freddy called from inside the house. I rushed in with Dudley on my heels.

  The floor had a layer of dust, and there were cobwebs in the doorways, but it was the state of the parlor that gave me pause. I stopped so abruptly that Dudley barreled into my back, sending me stumbling into the parlor.

  Freddy was kneeling on the floor with his lantern placed beside. He was staring down at something before him.

  “Is that blood?” Dudley whimpered.

  “So it appears,” Freddy said without a hint of emotion in his voice.

  “Macabre,” Dudley murmured faintly.

  “What?” I used my handkerchief to wipe up some of the blood. It was fresh. I’d say no more than an hour. Taking the lantern, I began to search the dust, but there was no dust on this floor. Someone had swept it clean while the entry was left dirty.