Secrets In Savannah (Phantom Knights) (25 page)

“Bess, do you know of any boxes in
this house that did not have a key?”

Bess said nothing as she marched
out of the workshop. Hannah and I followed her into the front parlor where she
removed a small wooden box from the fireplace mantle shelf. To anyone searching
for clues into William Martin, a plain wooden box would not have been
considered suspect. Unless you knew where to look.

“My father told us that this box
had no key when he bought it so when we moved we left it here.”

Bess, Hannah, and I hunched over
the box as I inserted the pick into a tiny hole at the back. Twisting the pick,
the top of the box slid apart. Pushing the top open revealed a small palm sized
package wrapped in parchment.

My body stilled as I stared down
at the package. There was a faded charcoal drawing of a sword that meant more
to me than to either of them.

“Leave it to my father to have
such secrets hidden in our home even after his death.”

“What do you suppose it is?”
Hannah asked as she leaned forward.

I could have told them, but I
refrained. Bess did not deserve the pain that this package would give her. It
had nothing to do with the Holy Order. It had to do with a long history, one
that Bess had no knowledge of. It had to do with her heritage.

“Whatever it is, it belongs to my
brother and I. We will take it with us.”

“No, Elizabeth,” said a pleased
voice from behind us, “I will be taking that with me.”

My midsection clenched as I
cringed at the sound of his voice, a voice that never failed to disgust me.

Hannah and I turned; the box
gripped tight in my hands. Bess was slower to face Lucas. She knew him for he
had paid court to her in Charleston before she fell in love with Sam.

Now I knew the reason for his
interest in her. He was trying to discover me. He had nearly done so at the
race party held in Sam’s house. That was where Charlotte had met him. She was
bringing him toward me when I ducked into the book room. Confronting Bess that
evening had been a ruse to keep from running into him in the foyer.

“Min
kærlighed
,”
he said to me.

If he called me
my love
one more
time... “
Hæslig
tudse
,” I
replied with loathing. “
Hvad
med
vores
aftale
?”

Our arrangement meant he should not
have been there. I had warned him.

Bess glanced at me in such a way
that I had a sinking feeling that she could understand Danish.

“
Ugyldig
,”
Lucas said with a shrug of his shoulder.

Invalid.

He transferred his attention to
Bess, and I shifted mine to his guards. “Elizabeth. It is charming to meet you
again. How unfortunate it is that these are the circumstances with which we
meet.”

There were five guards and Lucas.
How they found us, I would put my mind to discovering later. Bess, Hannah, and
I could fight our way out if we must, but given such an opportunity, I did not
want Lucas to escape. Lucas would be easily conquered if we could get him away
from his guards, but how to accomplish that I had yet to work out.

Lucas took a step toward Bess. “It
is most unfortunate who your brother decided to marry. For your sake, I almost
regret what I shall do to him.” Lucas opened his mouth to say more, but no
sound came forth as his expression changed to one of surprise.

A deafening report exploded in the
room, and smoke wafted before my face. I twisted toward Bess, who was holding
the smoking pistol.

The guards began shouting, and as
the smoke cleared, I saw Lucas and terror ripped through me. Bess had shot him
directly through the heart.

Bess grabbed my arm, pulling me
toward a door in the wall behind us. The guards were shouting in Danish, as
horrified as I was, and trying to figure out what they should do. One of them
lowered Lucas to the floor, and Lucas’s surprised gaze was frozen on his face,
never to see again.

Hannah threw a knife at the guards
before slamming the door and helping Bess to barricade it. I stood,
open-mouthed, cold, and too shocked to move.

Bess had shot Lucas. She killed
him. She had done what I had always wanted to do, but where I thought about it,
she had gone through with it.

What began to encompass my mind
was one thought. My uncle would kill Bess if he discovered the truth. Lucas was
his nephew, his most trusted follower, and Bess had killed him.

“Do you know what you have done?”
I demanded.

Bess and Hannah succeeded in
blocking the door with a china cabinet. When Bess turned toward me, and saw my
shaking body, she gripped my hands.

“He tried to kill my brother
twice. I know precisely what I have done.”

Hannah was at the window. “The
cowards! They are running.”

“Which is what we must do before
the servants discover us,” Bess said as she pushed open a window and climbed
out.

“Hannah,” I grabbed her hand to
halt her from following Bess out of the house, “we must get Bess out of
Savannah. She does not know what she has done. She does not understand the
danger.” My arms were numb; my palms sweat-filled.

“She knows what she has done.
Lucas Marx threatened not only her brother but all of her family. She saw her
opportunity to stop him, and she took it.”

“My uncle will
kill
her, Hannah,
and there will be naught anyone can do to stop him.”

Hannah laid her hand on my
shoulder. “I can see the fear that you harbor for him, but you must release it.
Do not allow your past to confine you. You can be anyone that you want, but
first you must break free.”

People could be heard outside the
house, running. Hannah and I hid beneath the table as they ran past the open
window. When someone began screaming from the parlor, we climbed out the window
and ran to the trees where Bess had our horses.

We watched for a few moments as
people were crowding into the house, and women were screaming while men
shouted. When men began to spread out to search the ground, we rode away from
the plantation through the trees.

Hannah’s words ruminated in my
mind the entire journey back to town, and the more I thought, the stronger I
grew because Hannah was in the right. My past was just that. If I truly wanted
to be free, I had to stop allowing my past to confine me to this way of life.
If I truly wanted to be free, I had to do the unfathomable. I had to face my
uncle.

JACK

M
y wife was not at the house when
Leo and I returned, but Sam informed me that she had gone to the plantation
with Bess and Hannah. It irritated me a small amount that she had gone there
without me. I had wanted to show her the place myself, to see it again, with my
wife by my side. To show her to all of the places Levi, Bess, Mariah, and I hid
when we did not want to do our lessons. I made a plan to take her back and give
her a tour of the place, for I was considering making it our home after this
business with her uncle was at an end.

Leo and I were in the midst of a
game of chess when the girls came marching into the parlor, completely
disheveled and bursting with information.

“We have news, Jack.” Guinevere
said as she came to me, taking my hand. “Lucas is dead.”

My first instinct was to shout for
joy, but I refrained for the fear in my wife’s eyes. “How?”

Guinevere glanced over her shoulder
as Bess shut the door.

“He came to the plantation, so I
shot him,” my sister said as if it was nothing remarkable.

“Where?” I asked, unable to help
myself.

Guinevere released my hand and
tried to step away. I wrapped my arms around her and pulled her back against my
chest, trapping her.

“Clean shot to the heart. Mother’s
steward will no doubt bury him as I did not stay around to give directions.”

“No one saw you?” Leo asked,
watching Hannah as if she were the one who would give them away.

“Not us, but they may have seen
Lucas’s guards fleeing. There is more.” Bess brought out a small parchment
wrapped parcel from her reticule.

She began to unwrap it, and
releasing Guinevere, I stepped closer to watch. When the parchment was pulled
away, there was a ring sitting on her palm. It was silver with a crest. A pair
of crossed swords were in the center with an eagle on one side and a lion on
the other. On the top were two words in Danish. Translated, it said,
the one
.

Bess and I turned toward
Guinevere, who was clasping her hands and biting her lip.

“If I am truly to be a part of
this family, the Phantoms, I believe it is time that I tell you about the Holy
Order,” Guinevere said and I knew it cost her dearly.

That she was finally ready set my
pulse soaring.

“Should she be here?” Leo asked,
directing his attention to Hannah.

“She knows much of what I am about
to tell you.”

Hannah settled upon the sofa
casting Leo a smirk.

Once Guinevere had our full
attention she began. “In my country there are certain things that the ruling
monarch requires to secure their place on the throne, more than just
bloodlines. Those things are what my uncle is after, those things, if placed in
the wrong hands, will grant power to a dictator.”

“The artifacts,” I said, knowing
it was the truth, but feeling wound tighter with each word she said.

She nodded, biting her lip again.

“How did you get the Holy Order to
agree to help you?” Bess asked curiously.

Guinevere expelled a deep breath.
“My first guardian had sworn to protect us and on his deathbed Harvey swore
that he would see to it that the promise lived on.

“The twelve were brought in around
the time that I joined the Order. One by one they swore to protect the
artifacts against all odds, but never have they all been together. It would be
far too dangerous.”

“What role do you hold in all of
this,” Bess leaned forward as if recording everything in her mind, “and why are
the artifacts not in your country with the ruler?”

All of us stared at Guinevere but
none hung upon her response as I did.

“I am guardian of the artifacts,
as was my mother before me,” she said.

My world, which I had felt was
finally right by marrying her, shifted. What the devil did that even mean?
Guardian of the artifacts? As her mother was before her. What kind of person
would place such a task upon a woman?

“I told you that my family had
long served the royal family. The King believed that no one would ever expect a
woman to be guardian, so he named my mother.

“When my mother knew she would
die, it was her right to name her successor and she chose me. I knew where the
artifacts were hiding, I took them and my sister and I escaped with some
trusted helpers.”

Leo spoke up. “Where does Hannah
fit into this?”

Guinevere and Hannah exchanged a
look and Hannah nodded.

“Hannah and I were trained by the
same man, but never at the same time. I never knew of her existence until
Philadelphia, but she knew about me,” Guinevere explained. “She was to be my
double, my aid.”

“I spent two years acting like I
was Guinevere at the Holy Order meetings while she was sent out on missions,
until last year when I was able to break free from Harvey,” Hannah said, and
astonished us all.

“That was why
Levitas
took your sister,” I voiced.

Hannah nodded. “I followed
Guinevere to Philadelphia and had my own spies alert me to her movements.”

Remembering the day when Bess and
I went riding with Guinevere, and Hannah raced her across the field, her sudden
appearance was explained. She had followed us there. It also explained how she
knew so much about the Phantoms. She had been following us without us knowing
it. Unless Levi knew it, which I did not doubt.

“Where are the artifacts now?”
Hannah’s curiosity was suspicious to me, but it did not appear so to Guinevere.

“About that,” Bess said, and
seeing my sister’s expression, my stomach knotted. Bess appeared like one who
was guilty of a mischief. “I did not think it wise to leave them in the house,
not with Mother there alone.”

“They are here?” Guinevere clasped
her hands. “Could you bring them into the parlor? I believe it is time for me
to show you their importance.”

Bess and Guinevere went in
different directions leaving Leo, Hannah, and I to wait for them.

“Do you know about this?” I asked
Hannah as I paced the room.

“The secrets? Some,” she replied
as she leaned back at her ease.