Secrets In Savannah (Phantom Knights) (16 page)

My father had long ago taught me
that when I could not fight with my hands, that I had a much more powerful
weapon at my disposal. My mind. I could use it to sway people to do my bidding
for me, if only I went about it the right way. Some would call it manipulation,
my father called it being a leader. So when Dudley asked about Lucas, I went
along with my training. I told Dudley that I was not thrown from a horse but
wounded in a duel. I told him that Lucas Marx had tried to run away with Guinevere
on the day of our wedding and that he and I had fought. It was partially the
truth. Dudley was so outraged that he said something should be done, but first
I should see to my wife.

“The ladies, you know, sensitive
constitutions and all that,” Dudley had said with a knowing wink. He told me to
stroll back around the square in an hour, and we would see what could be done
to teach Lucas his place.

Dudley and I had a long standing
appointment when we lived in Philadelphia, to go out shooting at night. It had
come about quite by accident when we were both a trifle bosky. Dud had wagered
that he could hit more bottles than me, so we had set them up on the street in
front of his house. It turned out that he was a brilliant shot. He did not want
anyone to know, and in turn I showed him my skill with a pistol. Since neither
of us wanted our reputations as poets besmirched, we had kept our little
outings to ourselves. We would pick a different street each week and shoot at
bottles. Not the most constructive use of our time, but fun. We even boxed the
watch on the few nights that they chased us through the streets of
Philadelphia.

As I walked across the square, I
thought about what Guinevere had murmured before drifting to sleep. She said
she could never marry without her sister’s permission. I understood that she
loved her sister, but that seemed rather extreme to me. Bess was my closest
friend and ally, but she knew that I would marry Guinevere whether she approved
or not. I had thought that she had come around to my way and was if not eager,
at least encouraging about my marriage to Guinevere. Until I was shot.

Gideon and I had told only Bess,
Sam, Leo, and my mother how I came to be injured. After that, Bess and my
mother had set to the task of finding me someone else to marry. If they thought
I could be so swayed, they did not understand the depth of my feelings.

Guinevere’s comment would be
something to ask her about when she was not so drunk on Mrs. Short’s
concoction.

As I crossed the park in the
middle of the square, I saw Dudley leaning against a tree, his large form not
well hidden in the shadows.

“What do you say, Jack?” Dud asked
as I stopped beside him. “Will one in the breadbasket do the trick, or should I
darken his daylights?”

“You quite have carte blanche, my
friend. Do as you see fitting.”

Dudley stepped into the moonlight,
and I got a look at what he was wearing. A long black coat that went to his
ankles covered his evening attire. He pulled up a muffler around his mouth and
nose, then pulled up the collar of his coat. He gave me a nod before trotting
across the street to wait in the shadows of one of the houses.

Leaning against the tree, I
watched as Lucas stepped out of the house alone. The sound of carriage wheels
coming down the street could be heard, but the pace was slow. Lucas began to
walk down the road when Dud came out of the shadows and walked as if to pass
him, but they bumped shoulders. Dud’s large shoulder knocked Lucas aside.

“Have a care, man,” Lucas said as
he brushed off his shoulder.

“
Oy
,
watch
yerself
,
fatwit
,” Dud
grumbled.

Lucas drew himself up, staring at
Dud, who was an inch or two shorter. “What did you call me?”

“
Fatwit
,
but now I see ye, I think it
ain’t
an apt enough
description. Nincompoop be better.”

Lucas raised his walking stick,
cursing Dud.

“Oh-ho, what ye be
meanin
’ ta do
wit
’ that? Strikes
me down? Wit’ togs like ‘
em
, ye sure
ye
know what ye be ‘bout? What are ye? A rat, a prig, or
just stupid?”

Biting my lip to keep from
laughing, I leaned forward a little, not wanting to miss a moment. Where Dud
learned to talk like that, I did not know, but I knew there was more to Dud
than just some foolish dandy. Dud had brains and brawn. He could box better
than any one of our society friends.

Lucas swung the stick, and Dudley
caught it. He jerked it away and threw it down the street. “Be ye wise or be ye
stupid, the truth will out so let’s get to it.” Dudley raised his fists and
began to dance around Lucas. Dud jabbed at him with a fist, and Lucas jerked back.
Dud cackled because his fist did not come close to striking Lucas. He was
toying with him. “When left is right and right is left, from whence does pain
strike its best?”

“What the devil are you on about?”
Lucas demanded, and I was nearly rolling from holding in my enjoyment.

“The correct answer is from the
west,” Dud said and struck a blow to Lucas’s side, naturally from the west. The
answer was obvious to me. Lucas bent over, expelling a loud breath and grunt as
he held his side. Dud grabbed the back of Lucas’s head and pulled it up so
Lucas had to look at Dud. “Ye been warned. When ye mess with the best, ye mess
with the rest.”

The front door to Dudley’s house
opened, and Hannah, and Mrs. Stanton were coming out. Dudley shoved Lucas away,
knocking him to the ground as Charlotte, coming through the door, saw him and
let out a shriek. Dud ran down the street laughing hysterically and when he
reached the end of the street he leapt in the air and clicked his heels
together.

I rounded the tree, holding my stomach
as I silently laughed.

Watching from around the tree,
Char helped Lucas to his feet while Mrs. Stanton scolded him like it was his
fault that he had been set upon. The carriage that stopped before the house was
a hired vehicle, and I stared at the man on the box, memorizing what of him I
could see. Knowing what that man looked like would aid in my search when I went
hunting Lucas.

Lucas climbed into the carriage,
and it pulled away as Leo arrived with my mother’s carriage. Hannah ushered
Char into it and once it pulled away, Dudley appeared in the doorway behind his
mother; his muffler and coat removed.

“Highly irregular that young man.
Wherever did you meet such an oddity, Dudley?”

“Never set my sight on him until
this night. He told me you had invited him,” Dudley replied to his mother.

“As if I would consort with such a
man. It is all highly irregular.”

“Highly,” Dudley replied as his
mother passed him, but his gaze was fixed on my tree. Once his mother was
inside, he closed the door and trotted across the street.

When he reached me, we both
exploded with mirth. I realized how much I had missed my friend as Dud leaned
against the tree beside me and mopped his brow with his lemon scented
handkerchief. Dud was always good for a laugh, and that was something that my
life was sorely lacking.

“Did you hear what
m’mother
said? That Marx fellow was not invited. What I
want to know is how he got in.”

Also why he was there. What was
his game?

We were silent for a few minutes
as Dudley produced a flask and drank then handed it to me.

“You were never serious about
Bess, were you, Dud?”

He jerked, jumping away from the
tree and twisting to face me. “
Oo
-of course I was.
Worshipped at her feet, did I not? Pined for her, wrote verses to her.”

“Yes, I remember all that, but now
that I think back on it, it all seemed so ... rehearsed. Like you felt you
should do those things even though you did not feel them.”

Dud’s mouth was hanging open, and
he jabbered incoherent things before snapping his mouth shut and running a hand
through his carefully pomaded brown hair. Examining him in the moonlight, I
noticed that he was not wearing his usual corset, for there had been no
creaking, and that he had lost some weight. His face, too, had thinned. Perhaps
the scandal that surrounded Bess had taken a toll on him after all. He had
packed up and left Philadelphia, and he had offered for her hand no less than
ten times. Just maybe I was wrong about him.

“Never could fool you,” he said.

Not wrong then.

“I did love your sister, but it was
the feelings one has for their sister. It was the mode to worship her, you
know, Bess being all the crack, but I’m afraid that my feelings have long been
engaged elsewhere.”

I threw caution to the wind. “It
is Hannah, is it not?”

If Dudley had jumped before, he
quite leapt then. I would have laughed if he had not looked like a squirrel
caught between a pack of hounds.

“How—why—where—what,” he broke off
and cleared his voice. “No.” He tried to say it nonchalantly, but his voice
cracked giving him away.

“It is nothing to be ashamed of,
Dud. I’ve gotten to know her and can see that she is quite extraordinary.
Though I must ask, are you sure you truly know her?” She had turned out to be
nothing like how she presented herself in Philadelphia. She had come across
there as rather a light-skirt, but it had been a ruse.

Dud moved back to the tree,
sighing quite loudly. “You could say that. She and I were—involved.” He
shrugged, appearing miserable in the moonlight. “It was a summer romance, one
that swept us both away with its tide, but then she disappeared without a
trace, so I gave up, packed up, and came to join my mother here. Never did I
expect her to pop up with you and your new wife of all things. I had thought
that she and Miss Clark—err, Mrs. Martin—did not get on.”

“So, too, did I, but they are
great friends now,” or they wanted me to think they were. I had yet to discover
what Hannah was doing with Guinevere. Other than the truth that they were
trained by the same man, a man who had left Guinevere to the Holy Order when he
died, their connection was a mystery. Did that mean that Hannah was also a
servant of the Holy Order? Was that why she was here? If so, I was afraid that
Dud would be the one ending with a broken heart, or a broken neck.

“If you would not mind not
mentioning this to anyone? My mother does not know, nor would she care for it
to be honest.”

“Mum’s the word,” I replied, and
Dud smiled.

He glanced toward his mother’s
house then pushed away from the tree. “I’d best get back. It has been a good night,
Jack. I’m glad we had this chat.”

“Me, too, Dud, me, too.” He
stepped back, saluted me, and walked away, leaving me with about a thousand
unanswered questions, and one large problem. Could we trust Hannah Lamont?

guinevere

M
y head was pounding when I opened
my eyes, wincing at the sunlight streaming onto my face. For a moment, I had no
notion of where I was. Seeing my ivory gown across the chamber, it came to me
that I was in my own bed at the Martin’s house.

My head ached something fierce as
I pushed to a sitting position. Examining my chamber, no remembrance came of
how I had got to bed. My ivory gown was hanging over the wardrobe door, and my
shoes and stockings were tossed on the floor. Looking down, I was still dressed
in my undergarments which drew only one conclusion. Jack.

A knock sounded on my door, and I
closed my eyes as my head reacted to the noise in a thundering like bolting
horses.

When the door opened, Hannah stuck
her head in, saw me, and came into the room carrying a tray.

“You are awake at last. I have
been checking on you every thirty minutes for three hours.”

“The time?” I asked hoarsely.

“Past eleven. Whatever Jack put in
your tea worked wonders, you have been out solid.”

I grunted in reply as I tried to
focus on choosing a gown for the day from the four Hannah brought to me. I
chose a green morning dress with little blue flowers, but that expended my
mental strength.

“Tell me what you did last
evening,” I said as she handed me a cup of tea.

Hannah’s smile was nearly
blinding, making me blink a few times and look down at my tea that was not as
bright.

“After I put you to bed you mean?”
She laughed as I sighed. “That Lucas is a devil, but as smooth as silk.” Hannah
sat on the edge of my bed. “He has Charlotte under his spell. After you and
Jack departed, Lucas and she never left each other’s sides.”

I gave another grunt in response.

She hesitated a few moments before
saying, “It is a wonder the effect that champagne has upon the weak. It quite loosened
her lips. Lucas has persuaded her that you are not to be trusted. He claims
that he has come here from your country, where you were married to his brother,
but poisoned him then ran off with all of the family jewels.”