The Charleston Chase (Phantom Knights Book 2) (4 page)

Grabbing the front of his coat, I demanded, “What
are you involved in, Frederick?”

Frederick knocked my hands away as he pushed himself
up. “Nothing as sinister as you are thinking, Jack. I am working,
and you have disrupted my mission, not that I should be surprised.
You, your henchman,” he shot Leo a hate filled glance, “and your
annoying sister have always gotten in the way.”

A rush of deadly violence curled my fists, but I was
not the one to knock Frederick unconscious. Leo was up and across
to Frederick in a moment, dealing a blow that made Frederick’s eyes
roll back before he fell against the throne chair.

When Leo turned to look at me, the realization that
I did not know him struck me like a wave in a storm. All these
years that we worked together, I knew no more about him than his
name, his age, and his abilities with weapons. He had acted as my
valet, and I confided in him when I could not speak with Bess for
fear that she would get herself killed. I had thought we were
friends, but how could you be friends when you knew nothing of
significance about the person?

Leo moved away to check the pockets of the deceased
men, and I thought back to what Frederick had said to those men,
about knowledge coming at a price. I moved to Frederick’s
unconscious form and stuck my hand inside his coat, feeling for the
inner pocket that all Phantoms had in their coats. My fingers
touched three letters. I pulled them out and turned them over. My
breath rushed out of me.

The envelopes were addressed to me, from my mother.
I searched Frederick’s other pockets, but the letters were all that
I found.

So his payment was my correspondence? Why? What
could Frederick possibly want with my mother’s letters? I tore open
the one postmarked the middle of January.

Mother wrote with frenzied description of a mission
Bess went on that had turned into a trap. Mother wrote that the
Holy Order was behind it all. She wrote that Bess had confessed to
Andrew about the Phantoms when he found her with the dead body of
Henry Shultz. He had heard of us, but he never believed the tales
of our good deeds. Andrew had escorted Bess home, and the next day
Bess received a letter from Andrew, severing their engagement.
Andrew wrote to Bess that she had thrown his trust and admiration
in his face by her unforgivable involvement with a group of
murderers. He wrote to her that he deserved better than a woman of
wanton morals, a lack of conscience and consideration for the honor
he had done her by offering for her hand. My mother begged me to
come home.

My eyes closed for a pain-filled moment. First Ben
was murdered, and now his brother Henry. Bess must have been beside
herself with grief.

The second letter was postmarked the end of January.
Mother wrote briefly that Bess had left Philadelphia due to the
scandal that followed being jilted.

A woman could break an engagement to a man and
expect some scandal, but it would blow over as soon as something
else occurred to distract the gossipmongers of society. But for a
man to call off, there were only a few reasons, and most of them
had to do with one being unfaithful. A man like Madison, the nephew
of the former president, to drop my sister meant that Bess was the
guilty party without question. The repercussions would be felt for
months if not years.

Mother assured me that Bess was healthy and that
Reverend Gideon Reid, Levi, and Mrs. Beaumont had gone with Bess.
Bess would not hear of my mother going with her. Mother did not
tell me where Bess had gone.

When I opened the third letter,
Mother rectified that oversight. Mother wrote that her situation
had become too heated in Philadelphia, and friends for years were
cutting my mother due to the scandal. She was selling our family
home and joining Bess in
Charleston
, where George had sent
Bess to join his nephew’s team of Phantoms. My breath hitched as
fear spiraled around in my chest in cruel, taunting
leaps.

The Holy Order was in Charleston, with my sister!
Since Frederick was exchanging information for my correspondence, I
had a feeling that Frederick knew what had happened to Bess. Of
course he did if Levi had gone with Bess. Levi was on Frederick’s
team. Was there a deeper game afoot?

My thoughts took a turn into more startling and
breath-stealing ideas. If the Holy Order were in Charleston, then
Guinevere had to be there. With my sister, who blamed Guinevere for
everything that had happened to her.

Turning to Leo, I was about to demand that we leave
at once, but he was standing there with a black envelope in his
hand, his expression hesitant.

His blue eyes held apology. “There will be time for
explanations about my past, Loutaire,” he said, calling me by my
Phantom name, “but we have more pressing matters.” Leo held out the
envelope.

Curiosity was running rife as I took it, turning it
over. My name, John Martin, was in gold script on the front, and
there was something hard and bulky inside the envelope. My heart
began to beat an untimely tune of dread.

Running my thumbnail under the seal, I spread open a
single sheet. A flash of gold slipped from the paper and dropped to
the floor, bouncing once. I started to pick it up, when I noticed
an emerald stone. My heart accelerated, and my palms began to
sweat.

Hesitantly, I picked up the ornate
gold ring with a raised emerald stone. I knew that ring as well as
I knew my own that I always wore when wearing the mask of a
Phantom. Mine was the same ornate gold band, but had a sapphire
stone, as did my sister’s ring. I closed my fist around my father’s
ring; the ring that I had thought was buried with him almost three
years ago. With a slightly shaking hand, I raised the letter.
Immediately, I knew it was written by a man’s hand, but more than
that, the symbol of the pyramid with the lightning bolt through the
center was at the top of the letter. The letters
H
and
O
were surrounding the
pyramid.

To him who masquerades in the night,

What once you lost, I have found, in return, you are
bound. Your father tried to conquer me, but he is dead, and I am
free. A poet named John, a lady called Bess, you can pretend, but I
know the rest.

So starts this war, it begins with Bess, a lady no
more, in great duress.

I dropped the letter as if it were a cobra about to
strike, and stumbled back, running a hand over my face. This was
not happening. The only way they would have known my name, Bess’
name, was if Guinevere had told them.

Leo picked up the letter. His blank face transformed
into anger as he read.

“Bess is in Charleston, for reasons I will explain
later. After you dispose of them, we will make arrangements.”

“What should I do with Frederick?” Leo asked. We
each stared down at Frederick’s still form.

“He is no concern of ours. Leave him.”

Leo nodded, and though we neither of us said it, I
was sure we were both thinking it. Bess was in grave danger.

Leaving Leo, I walked out of the throne room. I
heard him deal the final blow to the last foreign man, but I did
not turn around. There were some situations that we could never
change, some circumstances we could never escape, and being a
Phantom was one of them. As I walked up the stairs, I knew there
was one more person I had to see before I could make my way to
Charleston, my sister, and the Holy Order.

Bess

17 February 1817

Charleston

T
he
morning air was crisp against my cheeks, as I rode across an open
meadow; the sun rising behind me and lighting my path like a
lantern brought into a dark room.

The last seven days had been
filled to the brim with activity, but it was my morning rides that
I looked forward to, that eased some of the tension of trying to
readjust my life to fit with my new surroundings. Levi had told
Samuel about my love of morning rides, so on my third day in
Charleston, Samuel had sent over a lovely horse for me to ride. She
was as white as the snow back in Philadelphia,
which but brought fresh pain to my chest, for she reminded me
of my own horse and the events surrounding how I had
acquired her.

Even though I had not seen Samuel since my first day
here, his generosity was not lost on me. I had every intention of
thanking him the next time he deigned to show his face. Levi
usually rode with me, but this morning, he did not arrive, and I
did not want to wait for him. Even if it was considered improper,
no one but the Phantoms knew me in Charleston, and my reputation
was already in tatters, so what could be the harm.

Shooting Star was a swift, strong
horse, and when I pulled on the reins, she did precisely
as directed. An hour had passed by the time the
horse had halted at the edge of a meadow. I was expected back in
the city soon, but I was not ready to leave the serenity of the
country.

When Shooting Star tossed her mane, I leaned
forward, stroking her head. The horse tossed her head and stamped,
letting me know that she was ready for another run. I gave Shooting
Star her head, and we soared across the green meadow. It was the
closest thing to flying that I would experience, and all of my
problems floated away at moments like that. It was me and the
horse.

A rider came through the trees, and I caught a
glimpse of a man astride a beautiful brown horse. He was unknown to
me, but it was clear what his intent was, so I held on, urging
Shooting Star forward. The man on the brown horse came up next to
me, a mere ten feet separating us. The hooves of our horses
thundered against the ground, and how I wished that I was riding
astride. I would have left him with nothing to look at but my
dust.

The wind whipped around my head, pulling my bonnet
off. It fell somewhere behind me. My hair came loose from pins and
flew over my shoulders. The man on the brown rode up a slight hill
that led to the road like he was on a straight stretch, edging
ahead of me. As I pulled on the reins, Shooting Star slowed. We
rode up the hill slower, and once we were on the road, the stranger
was waiting for me. His hat had flown off as well, and his light
brown hair was windswept. He was smiling, a marked appreciation in
his deep brown eyes. His white cravat was askew, and there was a
streak of mud on his square jaw.

“A fine race,” he said with a marked accent. He
flashed a set of slightly yellowed teeth. “Allow me to introduce
myself. I am Lucas Marx, newly arrived in Charleston. And you are?”
It was said in such a friendly way that I wanted to tell him my
name.

“Miss Martin, also newly arrived in the city.”

“Well, Miss Martin, new to Charleston, this has
indeed been a pleasure, but allow me to fetch your bonnet for
you.”

He rode off before I could say a
word, and I realized that I must look a complete mess. I slid my
fingers through my tangled hair, but there was no making it better
without my pins. Fortunately, I had not worn my wig, not needing it
when wearing a bonnet, and my mother was not there to scold me. She
did not like my shoulder length hair, insisting that I wear a wig
that she had made for me.

When Lucas Marx returned with both of our hats, he
was still smiling. His accent sparked something in my mind, a
fleeting thought that I could not grasp.

“Might I hope that you now call Charleston home,
Miss Martin?” My brows rose, and he laughed a rich, deep sound. “As
I know no one in this city, I would consider myself fortunate to
meet a friendly face when I go amongst society.”

The man presumed much. I was determined not to enter
Charleston society. “I will only be here a few weeks, and I do not
know what my plans may be.”

“Ah,” was all he replied as his head whipped around
as if he were looking for something, or someone. “No groom?”

I smiled. “No.”

“So that fellow there is not your
groom?” he asked with his focus on something over my
shoulder.

When I turned in my saddle, there was a dark man
atop a black horse a few yards away. He tipped his hat to me, and I
inclined my head in reply. I had met him, but had not known he was
following me. I perceived the work of Samuel Mason, for the man was
Abraham Coles, one of the Charleston Phantoms.

“Mr. Coles is not a groom, but the brother of a
friend. He kindly escorted me on my morning ride as my own brother
was otherwise engaged.”

“If that is how it is, will you allow me to join you
both back to town?” he asked, and I assented.

We rode toward the city with Abraham trailing us,
but not coming up with us even though I invited him to do so. The
journey was spent listening to Lucas Marx as he chatted about being
a captain of a vessel and only in Charleston for a few weeks while
his ship was refitted before a journey to the Bahamas. Listening to
his accent, I realized where I had heard the lilt that was placed
on all of his words.

“Sweden,” I said, and he looked at me sharply. “Your
accent, it is Swedish is it not?”

After a long moment, he looked away, laughing. “Your
perception is commendable. I grew up in Sweden before setting off
to explore new lands. My father, Miss Martin, was a captain, and
when he died, God rest his soul, I, being his first mate, was
promoted to captain.”

He kept up a constant flow until we reached the
house I was staying at on Meeting Street. He dismounted and came to
help me down. When my feet touched the street, I realized that I
was the taller. A part of me was disappointed, but I did not know
why. I was not interested, at all, in Lucas Marx. He was
personable, but nothing more. Mr. Marx stepped back but did not
immediately mount his horse.