Secrets In Savannah (Phantom Knights) (5 page)

JACK

20 May, 1817

Charleston,
South Carolina

O
n the morning of Bess and Sam’s
masquerade ball, I was walking down the stairs when the sounds of a
confrontation in the parlor came to my ears. My new brother was arguing with
Leo by the sounds of it. When Bess’s voice joined the confrontation, I paused on
the bottom step, for she had said Guinevere’s name.

“You are not to
tell him. He will do something to cause further injury, and that will distress
my wife, which I will not allow,” Sam was saying.

“With all due
respect, you do not know Jack well if you believe he will injure himself,” Leo
surprised me by saying.

“He is not to
know,” Bess said with finality. “Once she receives this, she will not wish to
see him.”

That was enough
for me. Whatever Bess was planning, I would not allow.

Walking into the
parlor, three sets of eyes rose to greet me.

“How are you
feeling?” Sam asked as if he had not been conspiring against me.

“Splendid, once
you tell me why you were quarreling with Leo, and why Bess has resorted to her
Phantom ways.”

Bess was seated
on the sofa with a selection of flowers on the table before her. She was
arranging them into a bouquet, one that held a questionable message.

“Charlotte tells
me that you have promised her a dance this evening,” Sam said conversationally,
though I knew what he was about.

Bess had
questioned me the day before about my feelings for Charlotte, Sam’s sister.
What my mother and sister did not seem to grasp, or did not want to, was that I
was betrothed to Guinevere.

Charlotte was a
dazzling young woman with enough vivacity for an entire court of women. She and
I had become great friends during my recovery, but so had I with all of the
members of the Charleston Phantoms. Char and I had spent hours together playing
chess, talking, or me listening while she read to me. She was a lovely girl,
but she was not Guinevere.

“If my sister
put you up to this, Sam,” I said as I cast a pointed look at Bess, “you may
give her the tidings that I
will
marry Guinevere or no one at all.”

“I am only going
to say this once, Jack, and then I will remain well out of your affairs.” Sam
received Bess’s frown with equanimity. “I have worked in proximity to
Guinevere, and I have found that the woman is without conscience and heart.”

“Not to me. You
do not know her,” I told him, feeling more annoyance than anger. No blame
rested at Sam’s feet. I could detect the work of a far more persistent force
prodding him along.

Sam sighed
before smiling ruefully. “That is what I told her, but alas, she is relentless
in her pursuits of your happiness.”

My happiness as
they called it would include my marrying someone I did not love so that I could
live a life without danger. What they failed to grasp was that loving anyone
was dangerous. What was life without risks?

“You have
received word of Guinevere?”

Bess rose with the
bouquet in hand. “She has returned.”

Those words
sprouted a new vigor within me. 

Bess held out
the bouquet to me, but I did not reach for it. “While I appreciate the
sentiment, flowers are not the best way to win me over.”

“Not for you,
imp. You will send this to Guinevere with your compliments.”

“I am not having
that delivered to Guinevere.”

“I, myself, do
not understand the message,” Sam said as my sister and I scowled at one
another.

“Allow me to educate
you,” I said as I snatched the bouquet from Bess. “The withered white rose is
to relay that no impression has been made, though we all know that is untrue.
The grass suggests uselessness; the dead leaves are to mean sadness. While the
yellow carnation relays disappointment, the hyacinth represents constancy.”
With a disdainful laugh, I dropped the bouquet onto the table.

“What about the
red rose?”

“That would be
crimson, and that would be for mourning. My darling sister has a taste for the
dramatic.”

Bess cast me a
withering look.

Sam smiled
fondly. “That she does.”

Bess picked up
the bouquet, tucked a note into it, and handed it to Leo with the instructions
to deliver it at once.

“Do not deliver
that atrocious excuse of a bouquet,” I warned.

“He will deliver
it if he wishes to attend my party this evening,” Bess countered artfully. “I
know of a certain someone who will be especially disappointed if he is not
present.”

To my utter
astonishment that remark sent Leo to the door, bouquet in hand.

I started to
pursue him, but Sam stepped in my way.

“I suggest you
allow him to go or my wife will make all of our lives uncomfortable.”

“I marvel at
your ability to marry such a shrew.” I threw the remark more at Bess than at
Sam.

Bess only
smirked.

The corner of
Sam’s lips inched up. “She does have her redeeming qualities.” He moved out of
the parlor, laughing as I tried to kick him.

Bess was
cleaning off the table when I turned to her.

“In whom does
Leo show interest?”

Bess grinned
conspiratorially. “Much has been happening while you have been laid up. Let me
say that you are not the only one she came to see.” Bess gathered the flower
scraps in her hands and left the parlor whistling.

Running through
the people who had come to visit me, I nearly laughed aloud. Leo had a
partiality for Rose Eldridge, and if Bess was to be believed, Rose returned his
regard.

Rose Eldridge
was a beautiful, graceful, brilliant widow whose husband had died during the
war. She and I had become friends and, truth be told, I could see why Leo had a
tendre
for her. If Guinevere did not consume my
heart, I would have developed one for her myself. She was without equal in
grace. If Leo wanted to court her, he would have my full support and blessing.

When Leo
returned to the house, I said nothing about Rose, but intended to watch them
throughout the party. It would be interesting to see how my staid friend
courted a woman.

Leo told me about Guinevere’s arrival
that morning in Charleston, but when he said she was not alone, I grew
concerned.

“I will not tell you who it was,” Leo
said as he helped me to dress for the ball, “but you should know that Hannah
and Guinevere were trained by the same man.”

It was half of an hour into the ball
when I saw Guinevere and her companion enter the house. At the bottom of the
stairs, Sam and Bess, dressed as King Alfred the Great and his wife
Ealhswith
for reasons all their own, were greeting a woman
dressed as Marie Antoinette and one as Athena. We all knew that Guinevere was
Athena, but we did not know who the other was.

When they entered the ballroom, I
followed.

Guinevere’s former chaperone from
Philadelphia had come to the house to see me after I had been shot. Martha
assured me that Guinevere was well and that she would return. When Bess issued
an invitation to Martha for the ball, I was perplexed. It was not until Rose
came in to tell us of her conversation with Martha that the pieces came
together. Martha had been probing about what costume Rose would wear. Rose, a
suspicious woman by nature, had told Martha that she would be dressing as
Athena. It was no surprise to see Guinevere dressed as Athena and wearing a
black wig to match Rose’s hair.

What she was about, I did not know, but
I was determined to find out.

When the dancing began, I made my way to
the group surrounding Guinevere’s companion. When I solicited her hand for the
dance just forming, she accepted.

When we took our places in the dance, my
gaze focused on an orange and pink stone attached to a black ribbon around the woman’s
neck. “What an interesting imitation,” I said.

Her voice was low and husky as she
tittered. “Darling, imitations are for the poor. This
padparadscha
sapphire was a gift to my great grandmother from Marie Antoinette herself.”

“What is your name?” I asked as I took
her hand in the dance.

Her powdered face smiled brilliantly.
“Sherry.”

“Sherry,” I repeated, disbelieving but
willing to go along with the ruse.

She nodded. “As delicious to say as it
is to drink,” she said as she cast me a flirtatious smile.

I nearly stumbled as realization struck
me dumb, but Sherry was too caught up in her performance to realize my blunder.

For a moment, I tried to assure myself
that I had not heard her right, that any number of women could have a voice
like that, but it was not so. There was only one Hannah Lamont, and she was not
only in Charleston, but traveling with Guinevere.

Hannah Lamont had been trained by the
same man as Guinevere? That in itself was a cause for caution, but the fact
that she was in Charleston, where the remainder of the Phantoms were located,
was cause for alarm.

When the dance ended and I had returned
Hannah to her seat, I went in search of Guinevere. Only she could explain what
game she was playing at in bringing Hannah to my sister’s house.

Guinevere was not in the ballroom, nor
in the parlor, but I found Sam.

“Have you seen Guinevere?”

“In the book room. Uncle George
requested to speak with her.”

“You told him that she was here?” I
demanded in a low, incredulous voice.

Sam shrugged, not seeing why it
mattered. “It is only George. He will not cause a scene in my house.”

He moved away and I turned to the book
room door. If it was only George, why then were there men guarding the door to
the book room?

Making my way out the front door, I
walked to the side of the house where a wall of windows looked into the book
room.

The two story book room was alight with
candles and seated behind Sam’s desk was George. Guinevere was standing midway
between the windows and the door. Her costume of Athena included a helmet that
she had worn over her wig of black hair, and a spear that was no longer in her
hand. Her face was strained as she listened to George.

Thanks to some unknown person who had
left a window open, I, too, heard what he was saying.

“Tell me, does Jack know who you are?”

Looking straight at George, she said
nothing, her mouth clamped in a tight line. I knew that George was referring to
the white phantom, but there was so much more to her than that character that
Harvey created, and I named.

“I thought not,” George said before he
tapped on the desk twice.

Guinevere sprang forth, running across
the room and out one of the door sized windows.

Guinevere knew something I did not, for
why would she run from George? When five men charged into the book room,
understanding filled me. George was trying to capture her, knowing she could
not make a scene in a house full of witnesses.

One of the men followed her through the
open window and wrapped his arms around her waist. She let out a growl and
threw her head back, slamming it against his nose. He let go with one hand, but
the other was still around her. My every impulse was to rush forward and
dispose of that fool who dared to touch her. I heard the fabric of her dress
ripping as two more guards grabbed at her arms and her waist, pulling her back
toward the book room.

Guinevere twisted her body one way and
then the other, swung her legs, kicked shins, got an elbow free and used it
against one of her assailant’s ribs. She got one entire side of her body loose
and pulled back toward the terrace.

The click of a pistol hammer being drawn
back froze her for an instant. George aimed the pistol at her chest and I
nearly lost all control on my emotions. Heat blazed in my head, filling my
face. That he would dare to point a gun at her had me reaching for my own
pistol.

“I had my suspicions about who the
sister would be, though to be honest I never hoped for this.”

My strong, iron willed Guinevere held George’s
gaze, doing her best to look unconcerned.

“There is no escape for you or your
sister. He is coming.”

My stomach twisted with revulsion and
disbelief at the hatred in George’s voice, and the truth there. George was the
man who had captured Edith.

Quickly examining George’s five men,
they were all large and unpleasant by the looks of them. I was not in my best
shape, but I was certain that George would let her go when I demanded it. I
started forward, but George’s hatred halted me.