The Charleston Chase (Phantom Knights Book 2) (27 page)

“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.”

Bess

S
am
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 book 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.