“No. The doctor thinks she may be unconscious for a while yet. He is going to sit with her until she wakes. It was a blow to the head when she tried to stop Freddy’s capture.”
“So Uncle Luther does have him.”
“Yes. Which I suspect is where you are sneaking off to.”
Shrugging, there was no need for words, for Leo knew me well enough to know what I was about.
“Wait by the barn for me.” Leo went back into his bedchamber and I hurried from the house. By the time that I had saddled both of our horses that Levi was allowing us to use, Leo joined me.
We rode away from the house through the back woods, cutting across the countryside in the direction of the house where my uncle was barricading himself.
Leaving our horses in a dense part of the forest, we traveled on foot until my uncle’s hideaway came into view. My breath caught as I took in the country house. It was rambling, stone, and something out of a fairytale.
“What is this place?” I whispered.
Leo did not respond, but moved forward, out of the forest and onto the lawn. We ran across the lawn to the side of the house where we leaned against the house beside a window. Leo motioned for me to follow him as we skimmed across the side of the house and around the back. There was a door, which Leo opened without reserve. No guards were around to halt us as we stepped into the house.
We entered into a stone hall that was narrow with doors on each of the four walls. Leo motioned me to the left as he went to the right. With pistols out, we each opened the nearest doors. Mine led into an empty and small bedchamber that would belong to a servant.
Leo’s led into the kitchen. We moved as one toward the third door, which Leo opened while I held my pistol ready to fire should the need arise.
It led to a staircase, narrow with worn stone steps.
At the top of the stairs we entered into a hall that was filled with paintings of foreboding looking people. Faded wallpaper was hanging from the walls, and the rug covering the floor was frayed and dirty.
The end of the hall was open to a large, formal staircase, and a balcony that overlooked a large room. Leo motioned to some heavy damask curtains hanging beside a pair of doors on the balcony. Ducking behind one, Leo placed a finger over his lips and then touched his ear. He wanted to listen for a while.
Leaning against the wooden wall at my back, my finger played with a piece of fringe that ran along the edge of the curtain.
“I will not be party to your sinister dealings!” Freddy shouted in Danish, though that was my interpretation of what he said.
“You will or you will end your days long before I suspect that you had planned,” came a voice that I would know at any moment. It had been in my nightmares enough. Uncle Luther.
“You are a phantom,” Luther said. “You know the way they think. Lead them to me and you may have whatever you wish.”
Freddy spat something in Danish that I had never been told the meaning of. When I was ten I had asked Leo what that word meant. He had told me that it was too terrible for my ears.
There was an audible slap, and then Freddy shouted, “Do not touch her!”
“You still refuse to comply?” There were only sinister notes to Luther’s voice.
“Place me in your dungeon, for I will never comply,” Freddy replied, and I looked around the corner of the curtain in time to see Freddy being led away. When Luther did not come into view, Leo pointed for me to go.
Darting out from behind the curtain, I ran around the corner of the wall, into the hall, and straight into a body.
My body bounced off and I lost my footing. My backside struck the floor, causing pain to echo through me. Groaning, I leaned onto my elbows and looked across from me. A girl was staring back. A girl who did not appear to be a friend.
Her eyes narrowed, and she opened her mouth. Shooting forward, I tackled her to the floor, throwing my hand over her mouth.
“Make a sound and risk my wrath,” I whispered harshly.
I felt her lips turn up under my hand, and then pain shot through my finger. Jerking back, I shook out my hand. There were small teeth marks on my finger.
“You bit me!”
She smiled as she pushed herself up to sitting. “At least I did not make a sound,” she said, antagonizing me.
My eyes roamed over her, taking in her plain dress, a faded white apron, her brown hair with reddish streaks, and her sparkling brown eyes.
“Are you a servant?”
Those sparkling eyes turned to a blaze as she glared at me. “I am no one’s servant … but I am confined to this house.”
“You are a prisoner?” A prisoner allowed to roam free? What was Luther about?
“You could say that.” She tilted her head and stared at me.
“Guinevere,” Leo hissed from around the corner, and then he appeared, looking from me to the girl. “Friend or foe?”
“I am unsure as of yet,” I said.
“Does it have to be one or the other?” the girl asked. “Can I not be a friendly foe?”
Leo’s scowl caused the girl to lean away from him.
“Melly!” shouted Luther from the large room.
The girl’s face took on a look of pain before she pushed herself up and walked around us.
“Time to go,” Leo said, pulling me up and ushering me down the hall. Each door that we tried was locked, including the door to the stairs that we had used.
“Yes?” the girl called down.
“Who is up there with you?”
The girl looked over her shoulder and met my gaze. She smiled before turning back to look down the stairs. “Why, no one.”
“Are you certain? I heard voices.”
“Quite. Unless you do not believe me. Then come up and look for yourself.”
“I am in no mood for your games.” Luther said nothing for a moment, but then yelled, “And change out of those rags.”
“Yes, sir,” the girl called Melly replied before turning back toward us. When she reached us, she was smiling. “You see, a friendly foe.”
“A friendly foe who is willing to help us find a way out?” Leo asked.
She nodded vigorously. “Follow me.” Melly led us not to the stairs but to one of the locked doors. Pulling a chain with keys from the pocket of the white apron, she unlocked the door and pushed it open for us to enter ahead of her. Leo was having none of that and made plain his distrust of the girl.
Melly followed me into the bedchamber, and then she walked over to a wardrobe and shoved on it. For a moment I thought she was mad, but then the thing began to budge. It was on a track. A gap appeared behind the wardrobe, leading to a stone staircase that went both up and down.
“Take the stairs down and it will lead you to a hatch. The hatch will dump you out into the side yard. This key,” she said, handing a key to Leo, “will unlock the hatch.”
“Thank you, Melly,” I said as I stepped into the opening, but Leo did not follow. He was staring down at the girl.
“I know you,” he said softly, curiously.
Melly sparkled up at him. “One never knows where they will meet a friend … or a foe. Remember that, Kendrick Adamsen.”
Leo’s gaze did not change but I stumbled back, my boots knocking into the stairs and causing me to land hard on my backside again.
She knew his name! She knew his true name. The one he had left behind when he had sailed away from Lutania. None of us had dared to breathe his name in all the years since that night, but this girl had just said it. As if she knew him.
Leo said nothing as he joined me on the staircase. It was covered in spider webs, but at least it was a way out. Or so I hoped.
“Come with us,” Leo said after a moment, startling me, but not the girl.
She grimaced. “And risk his anger? No, I thank you.”
“Will he not be angry with you regardless,” Leo ventured, as if he truly did know this girl.
She laughed as she began to pull the wardrobe across
the track, closing off light in the secret passage. “Fortunately I know how to temper his anger.”
I gaped at her. No one knew how to temper Luther’s anger, for he cared for no one but himself. He did not give a thought for those he hurt. Especially his family. He had murdered his brother and his brother’s wife. He wanted me and my sisters out of his way. He had no scruples and less kindness.
“How?” The word slipped past my lips without thought.
She laughed again. “Because I am his daughter.” With that said, she placed the wardrobe over the opening, shutting herself away from us.
Leo’s hand guided me down the stairs by the small light that came through many of the cracks in the walls.
That girl. Melly. If she was to be believed, she was Luther’s daughter. But that could not be so. Luther had but one child, and I had met that one.
“Do you believe her?” I finally asked Leo when we were back in the dark forest. The sun had set a while ago.
“Yes,” Leo said simply.
Luther’s daughter. Which made her my cousin.
CHAPTER 20
JACK
We had cleaned up the yard as best as we could after the guards were taken away. Mrs. Stone, a fierce looking woman who was the housekeeper, was none too pleased to see the state of her china when she had emerged from the kitchen. Most of it was salvageable, but the broken pieces were beyond repair.
When Jeanne, Pierre, and Arnaud arrived from wherever they had gone, they did not appear surprised to see us all, or the state of things. They each jumped into helping us clean. It was when I saw my wife and Leo riding up to the house that I realized that she had been gone. I had thought her with her sister. That proved to be untrue the moment she approached me and said that I needed to call a meeting at once.
When Leo agreed with her, I did as she asked. We all gathered in the yard for the house would not hold all of us.
Levi was standing beside William, having not left his side since he arrived. Jericho and Mariah were staying as far from him as they could get.
Guinevere conducted the meeting, telling everyone where she and Leo had gone. My jaw clenched hard when I heard her say that she went into Luther’s house. That she made it out again was nothing short of miraculous. She had an answer for that as well. A girl assisted her, a servant. Or so Guinevere said, but there was something in her eyes, in the way she held herself that assured me that she was not telling the full truth. And she refused to look at William, which was a sure sign that she was wanting to keep whatever secret she had from him.
“Did you see my mother when you were inside that house?” Bess asked.
“No, but we did see Freddy. He is unharmed, for now. Luther wants to use him against the Phantoms, but he refused and demanded to be placed in confinement.”
That meant nothing to me. Freddy could change his tune just as quickly. Years of working together had taught me not to underestimate Freddy’s selfishness.
“What are your plans, Jack?” William asked, turning the attention away from Guinevere.
“My plans have not changed. We will surround the house with everyone except the Phantoms. The Phantoms,” I stared into my father’s eyes, “and only the Phantoms, will be the ones to enter the house and take Luther by surprise.”
All of the Phantoms nodded their approval, but it was my sister who was the first to speak against the plan, in a way.
“We need someone inside that house. Someone who can keep Luther from harming Mama when he realizes that we are attacking.” Bess met my gaze, her own stern and unyielding. “You may be certain that he will use her against us.”
“I agree with Bess,” William said, but his agreement did nothing to soften him toward my sister. She grimaced at his words. “Now, who do we send inside the lion’s den, and how do we get them inside?”
Everyone began to speak their names or the name of the one they thought best suited to the task. With their discussion holding their attention, William came to stand beside me.
“I have my own suggestion.”
Meeting his gaze, I smirked. “You? Is that not exactly what Luther wants?”
“As much as I wish to remove Luther from this world, our meeting is not yet at hand. No. My suggestion is you, and this is how I propose to get you inside that house…”
****
Standing on a wooden platform with my hands bound before me, I squirmed against the feel of rope around my neck. William had added an extra touch of what he called believability by making me stand on the platform shirtless. The breeze that blew through the trees caressed my naked chest and had me clenching my shoulders.
When I had agreed, I had left Sam and Bess in charge, and made certain to tell everyone that they were to follow their every order. If William was not pleased to be overlooked for the role of leader, he did an admirable job at not showing it. No, my father was quite at his ease as he oversaw the building of the platform.
My mission was to be a simple one according to William. He said that I would be rescued by Luther’s people, and then, once I was inside that house, all I had to do was to find my mother, Charlotte, and the young woman who Luther thought was Mary Edith. Bess had come to me and told me she was certain that Charlotte was also being held in the house. She refused to consider that Luther had disposed of Charlotte when he had captured our mother. I promised to do my best, and she vowed to do the same.
William assured me that even if Luther did not send his guards, the woman residing with Luther as his second in command would never allow me to hang. When I questioned William about her, having not heard of her existence, he shocked me with his response.
“She is the one responsible for Henry Shultz’s death. She is responsible for Bess’s ostracism from Philadelphia society. The rest of her crimes will reveal in time.”
Time was a luxury that I did not have.
Time begged the question: when would they come?
William had the platform built within sight of the country house’s front door. The guards had not attacked us, but watched with interest as Arthur and his guards built the platform, and then led me and two of Luther’s captured guards into position. We each had a potato sack covering our heads so that the guards at the house would not know that I was one of the men.
As one of the constables stood beside me at the lever, for he kept whispering reassurances to me, I moved my head toward the right, to where I knew William was hiding, as was my wife.
A man stood before the platform with a drum, beating a horrid tune to count down to my execution. When the beat changed into a drumroll, I knew that he was signaling the time of truth. The constable beside me whispered that the time had come. He began to pull on the lever that would plunge me to my death, for I heard it moving. For a moment, I began to suspect that this had all been a great trap that I had dumbly walked into. Then again, Guinevere would never have agreed. She was armed and prepared to kill any who stood between us. I kept my faith in her as I prepared for the drop. My rope was severed so that even if I did drop, I would, hopefully, not die.
Where are you?
With a loud gulp of air, the man beside me pulled the lever.
An explosion sounded from somewhere behind me and I was certain that it was my eardrums exploding from the jerk of death, until I landed on my feet and then dropped to my knees beneath the platform. Feeling my body for a sign that I was alive, I felt my heart beating in my chest.
I began to laugh rather hysterically. I was saved! The Lord be praised.
Horses’ hooves pounded upon the ground and shots fired from all around. The drummer fell to the ground before the platform. I heard him and his drum strike the ground.
“Bring him,” shouted a woman.
Boots hit the ground, and then hands were pulling from beneath the platform. When they placed me on my feet, someone removed the sack and rope from around my neck. They pulled me by the rope around my wrists.
Glancing toward the trees, I saw my wife’s face peeking thro
ugh the low branches of a willow tree that stood near the platform. With the early morning fog, she truly did appear as a white ghost behind those branches.
My captors led me toward the two story stone mansion and through the front, double oak doors. Once inside, the doors shut firmly behind me and not only were bolts slammed into place, but a long piece of wood barred the door.
The men tugged me through a great hall with tapestries embroidered with family crests. The wood paneling was dark, and there were two large fireplaces, one on each end of the long room. There was a wide staircase at the far end of the room, but the men pulled me into a sitting room. It was smaller than the great hall, but would be the size of many houses. Bright blue walls and white carved trim running around the room gave it a cheery feel. Porcelain figurines lined the top of the marble fireplace, and the furniture was all covered in white fabric.
There was a man standing before the window with his back to me. When I was forced to sit on a chaise, he turned and I found myself staring into Luther’s face.
His dark hair was slicked back, his clothing was all elegantly cut, if rather foreign in the style for my taste. His boots were so polished that you could see your reflection in them.
“Young Jack Martin. How charming it is to see you again. Tell me, how is my niece faring?” Luther asked kindly. That was something I was coming to understand about the man. He could sound as kind as you please. Until he did not get what he wanted. Then he was a viper.
He sat across from me and ran a hand down his silver waistcoat that was embroidered with a motif of couples dancing.
“I thank you for saving my life,” I said, adopting his way of speech.
“I did not save you. She did.” Luther was staring over my shoulder, but I did not turn. As I expected, the woman walked into the room and stood behind Luther’s chair. She wore a veil over her face. Her black gown looked like widow’s weeds, as if she was in mourning. I could not see her face, but that was her intent.
“Good morning, Jack,” she said softly. Hearing her voice sparked a bit of recognition, but it ran off before I could place it.
phantom knights 04 - deceit in delaware Page 20