The Charleston Chase (Phantom Knights Book 2)

by Amalie Vantana

  “No,” she said immediately.

  I ran my lips from her palm to her fingers and kissed each one slowly. Her whole body quivered, and that drove me on. I turned her hand and kissed her knuckles.

  “Marry me, and I will help you protect your secret.”

  “No,” she replied with a little less firmness.

  Smiling, I released a deep breath against her knuckles, allowing the warmth of my breath to seep into her skin.

  “Marry me.”

  “No,” she said, as more of a question.

  My lips parted, and I slowly traced them along the length of her fingers. I linked our fingers and bent our arms, drawing her closer to me. Our foreheads touched and her eyes slipped closed.

  “Marry me,” I whispered as our noses touched.

  “Hmm,” she responded, and I knew she was close to agreeing.

  I kissed her cheek and made a soft and slow procession down her cheek to her jaw, across her chin and then up the other side of her jaw. I kissed the edges of her mouth, but not her lips. Those I was saving. Her body was leaning against mine, and her eyes were still closed.

  “Marry me,” I said against the tip of her mouth.

  “You do not know what you are asking,” she whispered.

  Starting my trail along her jaw and chin again, I said, “I do know. I vow to you that I will cherish you, and protect you, and love you without restraint, and together we will protect your secrets.”

  Her chin tilted up slightly so I could have better access to her jaw, and I smiled.

  “When?”

  My lips paused against her cheek, and then I pulled back. My heart was beating fiercely in my tight-feeling chest. It was as if I were standing on a precipice, knowing that my greatest dream was waiting for me at the bottom of a ledge, but if I did not fall the right way, I would miss the ledge completely. I was terrified to place all my trust in what had for so long felt like an unattainable dream. What if she changed her mind? After a moment, her eyes opened and she smiled. My hands came up to cup her cheeks, and I leaned until our foreheads were together again.

  “Tomorrow,” I said.

  “If I say yes, will you cease torturing me and kiss me?”

  “Absolutely.”

  Her body sighed against mine. “Yes.”

  My lips crushed hers as I pulled her against me with my arm around her waist. Her arms were pushed up against my chest, and she returned my kisses with a fervency she had never shown. When she pushed against my chest, I started to pull back, but she only wanted her arms free. She wrapped them around my neck, and her fingers wound through my hair.

  “I love you, Jack,” she said for the first time, causing my greatest dreams to transform into my reality.

  “I love you, Guinevere, and on the morrow I will be free to show you how much.”

  Chapter 19

  Bess

  Sam arrived on horseback after breakfast to ask if Charlotte and I would go riding with him. It was my first opportunity to show off Pegasus to him. He was impressed with the strength and beauty of my horse. He helped Charlotte to mount a lovely gray with spirit then helped me into the saddle.

  We rode, not into the country, but through the city streets. Sam told me about when the city had a great wall surrounding it and the only way in was over a drawbridge. We rode by Planter’s Hotel, built where the Dock Street theatre building once stood. Sam assured me that the theatre was the first of its kind in America, to be used only for theatrical performances. We rode by where a branch of the second bank of the United States was being built, and we stopped at Sam’s mercantile.

  It was a brick building with two stories, and stepping inside, the smells of fabric, oil, ink, and lemon assaulted my senses bringing a whirl of contentment. It was like being back in Philadelphia, walking in the stores there with my mother or Mariah or Edith Harvey.

  Sam’s mercantile was large with rows and rows of goods. A large selection of fabrics and ribbons in one section of the store drew Charlotte to it immediately. As the shopkeeper bustled forward greeting Sam, I moved away to look around. There were two large front windows that let in the bright morning light as I walked down an aisle with jars of different foods. Each aisle was neatly stocked and tidy. Not a speck of dust touched the wood shelves.

  Stopping at a jewelry case with a glass window, I admired a set of silver bracelets. When Sam appeared beside me, he told me to choose anything I liked, and it would be mine. I would not do so, but his generosity touched my heart.

  Possessions have never meant much to me. Living my life working, there were few things that I was attached to. My sapphire stone ring that my father had given me, a knife that I had taken from Jack when I was fifteen, and a small portrait of my mother were my most treasured possessions.

  Charlotte had no qualms over choosing whatever caught her eye, and as I watched Sam carry parcels for Charlotte, I wondered how it had taken me so long to realize my love for him. There was a soft smile on his lips as he watched Charlotte enjoying all of the lovely treasures that he could give her; treasures that he had worked for nine years to acquire.

  When Charlotte's choices were piled on the counter, and Sam had told the shopkeeper to have them delivered to Rose’s house, we left the mercantile.

  Sam, Charlotte, and I rode to the port where Sam gave me a tour of one of his warehouses. He shipped all manner of cargo from silks to tea and coffee that he bought from merchants in the Caribbean, France, and all across America, but cotton seemed to be what was most sought after. He was in partnerships with four cotton plantation owners both in Charleston and Savannah.

  When we left the port, we ended our tour by riding past where the pirate Stede Bonnet was hung nearly a hundred years ago on one end of the land before Sam’s house.

  As we dismounted, Charlotte ran ahead into the house, but Sam and I walked slower. Standing on his porch, I looked out over the land and the water beyond. It was such a perfect house with a perfect view. I had never thought about what kind of view I wanted from my house. Mostly, because, for years, I never thought I would have a house of my own, but, if I ever did, I knew I wanted it to have a view of the ocean, like Sam’s did.

  “Bess, I have something for you.”

  Sam removed a small brown wrapped parcel from his pocket and handed it to me. As I unwrapped the parcel, two perfectly smooth silver bracelets were laying on the paper. Sam was an observant man indeed to know what I had been admiring among all of the treasures to be had in the jewel case.

  Looking up into his gray eyes, I had the strongest desire to kiss him, but I refrained. “Thank you, Sam. I shall treasure these.”

  He only smiled and held the door open for me to pass through. We found Jack seated in the book room. Sam looked at Jack in an appraising way with a faint lift to his brows. Jack smiled, and I knew there was something passing between them, but neither spoke to the other.

  “Has Sam been impressing upon you the virtues of living in his city, Bess? I hear he has plans to keep you here for a long time,” Jack said to me, but his eyes were on Sam.

  “Jack, behave,” I told him as I took off my gloves and laid them and my bonnet on Sam’s desk, but with my back to the others, I slipped the bracelets on my wrists. “As it happens, I love this city and have decided to make my home here.”

  Jack looked at me in surprise. “You mean to set up house on your own?”

  I smiled, but said nothing to commit myself. Jack glanced behind me to where I knew Sam was standing, but he only nodded.

  Charlotte dropped down onto Sam’s desk chair with an enticing smile cast at Jack. “What can we do to persuade you to stay, Mr. Martin?”

  “If anyone could persuade me, I am sure it would be you, Miss Mason, but alas, I am a leaf in the wind, never knowing where next I shall land.”

  “Now you sound like your old self, Jack. I was beginning to wonder if the poet was gone for good,” I said as I sat before Sam’s desk, angled to watch my brother as he moved about the room with a b
ook in one hand and his fingers having to touch the spines of others.

  “Hoping, you mean,” Jack retorted. “Sam, could I see the sfære af lys again?”

  Sam moved to his desk and pulled my key from his pocket. He unlocked my portmanteau and brought out the black box, laying it on the desk. Jack picked it up and was examining it; his black brows bunched together. I leaned back in the chair, looking at the wall of windows behind Sam’s desk. Char had told me that Sam had worked with the architect to design the house, placing his own touches such as his book room and the wall of windows. The idea had come from his mother. A wall of windows to look upon the garden. Sam had made her vision his reality.

  A face appeared over the balustrade of Sam’s terrace, and my heart gave a tumble. Disbelief washed over me, then hope. Levi had come back to us.

  “Levi!” I shouted, starting to my feet.

  He grinned before dashing out of sight, and my heart sank. Jack handed the box to Sam and left the book room through the open window. I ran from the book room, going out the front door. Charlotte and Sam were behind me as I ran down the stairs searching for Levi. Levi astride a horse thundered past. Jack yelled something as he mounted the nearest horse which was Charlotte’s gray.

  “Char, stay with Bess,” Sam ordered as he ran down the stairs and climbed onto his horse. He rode away in pursuit of Jack and Levi.

  A churning had started in my stomach. Why would Levi come to Sam’s house? What could he have hoped to gain by getting Jack to chase him, for he must have known...

  It struck me like a slap. The black box had not been locked away. I turned and ran back into the house to the book room door.

  “Halt!” I shouted, but Guinevere only smiled at me as she walked through the open window with the black box in her hand.

  Turning, I ran back outside and down the front steps.

  “Bess, what is amiss? Where are you going?” Charlotte demanded.

  “Stay in the house, Char, and do not leave!”

  I used the block to mount Pegasus and rode after Guinevere, who was upon a black horse moving in the opposite direction of Levi. She was dressed as the white phantom in a white gown and white cloak, her red wig secured to her head.

  There were two horse carts ahead blocking the road, but they did not stop Guinevere. She moved her horse onto the sidewalk and around the horse carts. I followed her path, as the pound of hooves against the cobblestones was met with shouts from people for us to slow our pace. Some shouted out disagreeable names at us, but I had no intention of slowing until I had captured Guinevere and retrieved the black box.

  Her horse turned down Legare Street, and Pegasus almost overreached the street, barely avoiding a carriage with a shrieking woman and cursing man. Angling my horse around the carriage and a cart, I chased Guinevere down Legare to Tradd where she took a left turn. At King Street, she rode straight into the flow of vehicles making their way through the busy street. She narrowly avoided two carriages, a cart, and a man with a stand selling fish. Pegasus shied away from the shouting of the people, slowing and stomping angrily. I coaxed him to continue down Tradd instead of turning onto King Street. I knew I had lost Guinevere, but I did not relish being thrown from Pegasus.

  My anger was full, heating my blood as I started back toward Sam’s house, thinking morbidly of all of the ways I could hurt Guinevere if only I could capture her. When I reached Meeting Street, I caught a glimpse of a woman all in white. When she turned from Meeting onto Tradd, I had a feeling I knew where she was going. I pursued, but at a slower pace, not wanting her to know that I had found her.

  Following her to the port, she rode past Sam’s warehouse all the way to the north end where she dismounted and strode into a different warehouse. I was more than a little curious as I dismounted a few buildings away and tied Pegasus to hitching post. Some curious stares were cast my way from men standing before the buildings and some whistles from sailors, but I ignored them all.

  The wind coming off the water blew the wisps of my hair against my face that had fallen from the knot at the back of my head. What had started as a cool morning had transformed into a warm, sunny afternoon.

  Reaching the warehouse Guinevere had entered, I stopped outside the large, open doorway to peek inside. There were crates everywhere, making what looked like paths between them. Moving inside and down one of the paths between the crates, they were stacked three high so I could not see above them, but there were small gaps where I could see into the next path. When I was nearing the middle of the warehouse, I heard Guinevere speaking.

  “You gave your word,” Guinevere said with a great amount of despair and horror mixed in.

  “I do not make bargains with traitors,” a deep voice, thick with accent, replied. Whoever he was he sounded angry. “Lead us to her, and you may survive. Betray us, and you shall perish,” the man said.

  Her? Did that mean that the leader of the Holy Order was a woman? My suspicion leaned to Guinevere being the true leader of the Holy Order and only pretending to be a trapped damsel who had to do whatever they told her. Guinevere knew how to prevaricate as well as me.

  “Not if you perish first,” Guinevere snapped.

  Glass shattered, and a man’s agonized scream pierced the air causing me to jump. I heard feet pounding down one of the paths, so I retraced my path, following the sound of running.

  At the end of my path, there were two ways to go, out of the warehouse or down a path to the right. I chose the right, moving carefully, glancing through gaps between the crates for Guinevere, moving quickly past when the crates gapped enough to slip through to a different path. The smell of something burning reached me.

  Dread set in, forcing me to move swiftly. Rounding the corner, two paths down a man was standing with a pistol raised. He saw me, gave a shout, and pointed his pistol. I jumped back into my path as a ball hit the end of one of the crates, sending wood splinters flying. I ran down the path that wound around the warehouse, and at the end ran straight against Guinevere. As I stumbled, she grabbed my arm to right me. She showed no surprise at seeing me. Keeping her hold on my arm, she pulled me along with her through the maze of crates.

  “Something is burning,” I whispered.

  “I broke a lantern,” she replied equally soft.

  She was not moving us toward the door to the warehouse, and I could have captured her, but the determination on her face kept me following her. When the end of the path came into view, she paused to hand me a dagger that had a small pistol connected to the blade.

  “One shot,” she told me then moved out of our path and into another one.

  Each path wound until they all met in the center of the room where a circular opening was created by the surrounding crates. That was where the fire was and where three men were trying to stamp it out.

  Guinevere raised her pistol and fired. A ball hit one man’s chest, right over his heart. Guinevere charged forward, and after a slight hesitation, I followed her. She dodged a fist meant to strike her face and struck against him with a black iron that I had seen before. It was the weapon Jack had brought home the night he had seen Guinevere kill three men, revealing her identity to him at the same time.

  I moved around the flames that had caught hold of a crate and surged upward over the other two. The wood would burn quickly, spreading all over the warehouse. One of the men came at me, and I raised Guinevere’s dagger pistol. As I squeezed the trigger, he leapt to the side but the ball grazed his arm. He came at me again, and I swung the dagger up toward his chest. His arm deflected, and the blade cut him, but he captured my wrist and pulled the dagger from my grasp. He threw it away and roughly jerked me toward him. He grabbed my hair in his fist. I slipped down, and my hair came away from my head still clutched in his fist. I was thankful I had chosen to wear my wig. I drove my knee straight against his groin. When he released me and my wig, I threw my fist against his nose, hearing it break, a jab to his jaw, and then I brought my elbow against his eye. Blood was gushing from
his nose, but he reached out for me. I knocked his arm away and struck his broken nose. He screamed as he fell back against one of the crates. Grabbing my wig off the floor something black caught my eye.

  The black box, or sphere of light as Sam said the Holy Order called it, was lying on the floor by the burning crates. Glancing around, Guinevere was momentarily diverted striking her opponent. Using my wig as a shield against the flames, I reached down and grabbed the black box. Flames leapt at the wig, so I released it, but I had the black box. I ran down one of the paths, leaving Guinevere with the two guards still alive. I did not owe her any allegiance. She had betrayed me enough times for me to have no qualms about deserting her.

  The path wound around to meet another. The smoke was following me down the path, filling the air around me. The warehouse was stifling, and beads of sweat were slipping down my temples, my neck, and into the back of my dress.

  Relief was permeating me when I saw the door, for the fire was spreading swiftly, crackling, and causing crates to fall over. I could almost feel the cooler air rolling off the water. I reached the door, stepping into the open and sucking in breaths of smelly but fresh air.

  A hand captured the back of my dress and pulled me back into the warehouse, my arms flailing from the sudden movement.

  “I apologize for this, Bess, but you left us with no choice.”

  A foul smelling cloth covered my mouth and nose. I fought against her, but to no avail. I felt the black box slip from my fingers as I slipped into darkness.

  ***

  When I awoke, something was not right. My head ached atrociously, I could not feel my hands, my legs would not work, and my vision was black. I blinked a few times and moved my head. I felt cloth rub against my cheek and realized that some kind of dark cloth was covering my head. I pressed back, and my arms touched something soft. I could not feel my hands, realizing they were numb, bound too tight by what I guessed was rope. My legs were also bound.