phantom knights 04 - deceit in delaware (20 page)

The carriage took us into the heart of the town, past a lovely green and colonial style houses, before stopping at a row of buildings. They were set up in a square, with an alley between the two front buildings.

“Through the courtyard,” called the driver to Jack when he inquired which building was the Delaware Hotel.

We walked through a narrow alley that led into a courtyard walled in on all sides by brick buildings.

There were no signs on any of the buildings to tell us which one was the hotel. They appeared like private residences to me. The harbor master would surely know what hotels were in the town, but perhaps the coachman had misunderstood Jack’s directions.

“Steady on,” Freddy called.

From each of the buildings, doors opened and men stepped into the courtyard. Twisting around, men even blocked the two alleys which were the only other ways out of the courtyard.

We were trapped.

“What do you want?” Jack demanded as Dudley, Hannah, and Freddy tried to surround me.

They each faced a different direction as I watched over Jack’s shoulder. There were only ten men, but I had only my iron in my reticule and a knife in my boot. I suspected that Freddy and Jack had pistols, and one never knew the nefarious devices Hannah had on her person, but I did not want any bloodshed.

My heart was beating like the continual slamming of a door, my palms sweating in my gloves, but it was from mounting anticipation, not fear. These men did not make me afraid. They made me angry. Their kind had murdered Abe, attacked Bess, and taken my sister. They deserved whatever fate came upon them for this foolish ambush.

“We have no grief with you, little man,” one of the rogues called out to Jack.

He instantly stiffened at the disparaging name. “What then do you want?”

“The other men, and the girls. You, little man, are free to be on your way.”

Glancing around at the men, I saw a face through the window of one of the buildings.

It was a woman, but she was wearing a loo mask over her eyes. I squinted to try to see her better, but she disappeared from the window.

“What do you want with us,” Hannah called out.

What I found to our advantage was that none of them held weapons on us. They each had pistols and knives in their belts, and their hands hovered over them, but they were not threatening us … yet. My uncle must have told them to take us unharmed. Well, we would see who came out unharmed at the end.

“That is our own business,” called a different man to Hannah. “Surrender and no harm will come to ye.”

Freddy’s hand slipped toward his pistol.

Two of the men across from him noticed and began to reach for their own weapons. I started to grab my iron, but was forestalled by an unexpected commotion.

Pebbles began pelting the men in the faces, and on the heads, and then flaming arrows began striking the ground. As they tried to cover their heads, or run back into the buildings, Jack charged forward, his fists flying.

Hannah was gone from beside me, a hat pin in her hand. Dudley tried to keep me covered, but I ducked beneath his arm and charged forward with my iron. Two men moved toward me with their arms out as if they could corner me like some wild animal. Throwing my arm out, I struck the first man and then the second with the ball on the end of my iron in a circular move. Smiling, for I had caused no bloodshed, I spun around, searching for Hannah, but she was no longer in the courtyard. I found her in the doorway of one of the buildings.

The pelting and arrows continued, but the men who were guarding the alleys disappeared from view, and then a man appeared, and amazement spilled over me. For a brief moment, I found myself smiling. He ran forward, his focus intent upon three men trying to get into one of the houses.

I ran to aid Hannah, believing her to have been pulled into the building, but it turned out that she did not require assistance. She had one of the men by the ear and was giving him such a tongue lashing that I was certain he would think twice about accosting her again.

Grabbing a copper pot—for it had worked well for Mrs. Lacey—from inside the building beside Hannah, I grabbed her arm and pulled her with me out of the building and toward one of the alleys. One of the men was trying to escape down the same alley, though he would not get far.

He was half way down the alley when I leapt toward him, the pot coming down on the back of his head. He dropped to his knees as I landed behind him. Twisting around, he cowered against the wall. He was a boy; could be no more than fourteen.

Lowering the pot, I stepped back. “Run home. If ever I see your face again I will not be so lenient.”

He pushed himself up, but stared at me instead of running. I raised the pot, taking a step toward him. He glanced behind me, his eyes widened, and he stumbled backward then turned and ran.

“Come with me,” said a voice from behind me before my elbow was clasped in a firm hand. Looking over my shoulder, I smiled at the man wearing the horned mask. It was Jack’s younger brother Levi. Hannah was not with him as he ushered me out of the alley and toward the now deserted carriage.

Another carriage was standing beside it and with it were two men holding bows. They smiled and tipped their hats to us. I did not have a chance to speak to them before Levi lifted me into our hired carriage. Levi climbed onto the box seat and snapped the reins. At the last moment, Freddy swung himself up beside Levi.

“Where are you taking me?” I asked as Levi drove the carriage away from the others.

There was a moment when I felt as if this was a trap. That Levi was not truly on my side. Which was ridiculous. Levi and I had worked together for months before he left Savannah with my sister.

As Levi drove the carriage, Freddy sat beside him with a blunderbuss in hand. I held on to the seat as the carriage moved out of the town and down a country road. Dirt and rocks were kicked up at the speed we were traveling, but Levi did not let up until he turned onto a narrow lane.

When we arrived at a two story stone cottage that was surrounded by trees, the front door opened and Reverend Gideon Reid stepped out, followed by my sister Mary Edith.

Climbing down from the carriage, I ran toward my sister, touching her arms, her cheeks, even her nose to make myself believe that she was real and had not been taken hostage as those men had told Bess.

Mary Edith, with her blonde hair and brown eyes, looked little like me, but she had our family’s regal looks. She threw her arms around me and hugged me so tight that moisture stung my eyes. Blinking them quickly dried them for I refused to cry. My sister was safe and there was no need for tears.

Holding my sister’s hand, I moved forward to greet Gideon. He had once been Jack’s mentor. Jack had introduced me to him, and then I began visiting with him weekly. He knew more about me than most people, which meant that I trusted him.

He appeared older than I remembered, but that did not stop him from bowing low before me.

“Milady, it does my heart well to see you.”

Reaching forward and hugging him, he returned my embrace. When he looked down at me, his eyes were full of his usual kindness.

“Come into the house,” Mary Edith said, drawing me into the quaint cottage with fading wallpaper and old furniture.

A matronly woman appeared in the narrow foyer as I was removing my hat and gloves.

“Mrs. Stone, my sister has arrived at last,” Mary Edith said jovially.

The woman, whose face matched her name, nodded once. “Yes, miss. Does the young lady wish for a rest, or perhaps some tea?”

“Tea would be charming. Thank you, Mrs. Stone,” my sister said kindly before she ushered me into the parlor and sat upon a plush sofa.

We were joined by Pierre. When I saw him, I laughed. “Jeanne will be overjoyed that you are looking so well. She was quite disgruntled by your absence.”

Pierre smiled. “And my daughter?”

Levi came in then and told Pierre that the others were going to the Stacey House, whatever that was.

When we were gathered in the parlor, Freddy asked why we had been brought to the cottage and not the others.

“When we received word to expect you, we thought it best that we separate everyone,” Levi said, giving really nothing away.

“Why did you need Pierre?” I asked, trying to gain more information.

“We were attacked a fortnight past,” Gideon said when Levi refused to speak. “We had thought that they had come for Mary Edith, but that was not so.”

The room went so quiet that I could feel the silent information being shared between those who knew what had happened. Levi, Gideon, and Pierre were exchanging glances while my sister stared at her clasped hands.

“Who then did they come for?” Freddy asked.

“Me,” Levi said. Inspecting him better, I noticed the dark half-moons beneath his green eyes, the three creases in his forehead, and the way his black hair was angled in all directions as if he pulled it regularly. Though the wild hair was rather normal for Levi.

“Why would my uncle want you and not my sister?”

Levi and Mary Edith exchanged glances, driving me to distraction with their furtive looks and silent exchanges. So much so that I exclaimed, “Enough with the looks! Be a little more forthcoming, I beg of you.”

“Uncle Luther wants Levi because Luther believes that he has me,” my sister said.

“How is that possible?”

Gideon leaned forward, his hands clasped before him. “Because the person currently residing as his prisoner has told him that she is Mary Edith.”

That took me aback. Why would someone do that? What possible reason could they have for lying to my uncle and risking their life in such a care-nothing-for-their-safety way? “Who would do something so foolish?”

Levi’s expression turned dangerous, wild. “You will not be pleased with the answer.”

CHAPTER 16

JACK

M
y wife and I had been separated. That was all that was going through my mind when I looked about the courtyard and saw her gone. Was that their aim all along? To distract us so that they could take her? I thought that until I left the courtyard, going in search of my wife, but what I found caused me to slide to a halt.

There was a wolf standing in the street, holding a bow and an arrow.

Dudley hit my back as he ran out of the courtyard, stumbling when he saw the wolf.

When the man wearing the brown wolf face mask began to smile, Dudley leaned over my shoulder.

“Do you know this wolf man?” Dudley asked me.

“Dudley, Jericho. Jericho, Dudley Stanton.”

Jericho pushed the mask up his head until his face was revealed. “Ah, yes, I remember you. I drove you home often enough,” Jericho said with a laugh.

Dudley tilted his head to look Jericho over, but he appeared to still be lost, so I told him that Jericho had been our family’s coachman, as well as Fenrir, a deputy of the Phantoms.

Dudley’s head snapped up. One second Dudley was standing calmly beside me, and the next he jerked forward and swung his fist into Jericho’s stomach.

“What the devil,” I exploded, grabbing Dudley’s shoulders and holding him back.

“That’s for kissing my wife!”

What? I looked from Dudley’s angry, fuming face, to Jericho’s bent, panting form. Jericho had kissed Hannah? When?

Jericho leaned his hands against his knees, but met Dudley’s gaze. “Is that what she told you happened?”

“No. She told me that she kissed you, but your lips still touched hers and for that I hit you.” Dudley shrugged off my hands and straightened his cravat, though it was beyond repair.

“Fair enough, I suppose.” Jericho rose to his full height, but gingerly rubbed his stomach.

“I suppose it is self-explanatory if it involves Hannah,” I said. When Dudley bristled, I began to ask Jericho why he was in Delaware, but Hannah ran out from the courtyard.

“Why are we standing about? Let us away at once,” Hannah said as she ran toward us.

Dudley began to move toward the carriage that was not the one we arrived in, but Hannah did not. She was mesmerized by the sight of Jericho.

“I remember you,” Hannah said as she turned her attention upon Jericho’s face. There was a knowing smile on her lips as she looked him over.

Dudley marched over to her and took her arm in a firm clasp. He guided her away from Jericho.

As Jericho took up the reins of the carriage I climbed up beside him on the seat.

“Where is Mariah?”

“She went on ahead of us.”

“So it was she and you who sent those flaming arrows? Our thanks for that.”

Jericho smiled but said nothing as he guided the carriage away from the town and into the country for half of a mile. When he rounded the bend in a grassy lane, a two story stone house was before us.

When the carriage stopped, the front door to the house opened and a woman emerged.

“Mother!” Dudley hurried forward to greet his mother.

What was the woman doing in Delaware? She was supposed to have left the country…

It struck me like a ray of light breaking through clouds. Mrs. Stanton was the traitor.

“What are you doing here?” I asked.

“She is here for the same reason we are,” Jericho said as he ushered us all into the cottage.

“What reason is that then? And where is my wife?”

Mrs. Stanton led the way into a small parlor.

“My nieces have gone then?” Mrs. Stanton asked.

My gaze riveted upon Jericho with so much force that he raised his hands in a motion of surrender. “Do not look murder upon me, Jack. I assure you that your wife and her sister are safe. They are with Levi.”

“Levi is here? How is he? We heard that Luther had captured Edith. How is Gideon?” My questions flowed without ceasing until a woman exclaimed from behind me.

“Jackal!”

Twisting around, Mariah was standing upon the threshold with an impish grin upon her lips. She was the only person on the earth who could get away with calling me Jackal. It had been her teasing name for when I released my Phantom laugh.

Grabbing her around the waist, I lifted her feet off the ground as I hugged her. “Ria, you do not know how much I have missed you.”