phantom knights 04 - deceit in delaware (4 page)

Mrs. Martin was to sell the house and had asked Jack to prepare it for the sale.

This day Jack was packing the parlor while Rose and I went up to where Jack had put a pair of trunks that he had taken from his family’s plantation. Every manner of weapon that I could imagine was in there. Rose started handing me pistols, which I set on the bed. We went through the first trunk until there was nothing left and the bed, dressing table, and part of the floor were covered in weapons.

Working so close to my sister felt strained and unfamiliar. We had spent only short times together over the last seven years since we had been separated. She to the Phantoms and me to be trained for the Holy Order.

When I lived in Charleston was when we had spent the most time together, stealing away from our guardians and meeting in secret. She would tell me about life with the Phantoms and I would try not to envy every word she said. My life was not as carefree as hers sounded to be.

It was those two day visits every year when Leo and William Martin came to meet with us that we could act as sisters, when we agreed. As time passed, Rose and I stopped agreeing and began arguing every time we met, until we stopped meeting altogether. She knew some of what the Holy Order was making me do, and she could not understand why I agreed to do their bidding.

My life was far from the picture of serenity that Rose painted when she spoke of her own life.

“Why did you keep the portrait of Mother hanging on your wall?” I asked as we cleaned the dust and grime from some of the weapons.

Rose stopped polishing a set of knives to look over her shoulder at me. “How did you know about that?”

Shrugging, I went back to wiping the barrel of a pistol. “I visited your house a few times over the years.”

“Broke in you mean,” she retorted without heat. My sister was rarely riled enough to raise her voice.

“It is not breaking in when the door is unlocked.”

She went back to her task. “I am not ashamed of my past, so I placed it in my parlor as a place of honor.”

Twisting around toward her, my face filled with heat. “And I am ashamed? I was there when Fader was murdered. Not you,” I hissed, slipping for a moment back into Danish. It was a trait that William had tried to wash from me, but he never could wipe it all away.

Rose went back to her polishing, ever the emotionless, unfeeling woman. “You should not have been there.”

“Someone had to try to stop them,” I replied, my voice cracking as the memories rushed at me, breaking through the reservoir that I had built to keep them away.

“Has Jack seen the scar? Has he asked how you received it?”

A shudder coursed through me. Yes, Jack had seen the four inch scar on my side above my hip. Though he did not know how I received it. It was one of the reasons I despised Uncle Luther.

When my father was being tortured before my mother, I tried to stop my uncle’s men. Being ten, my sense was not as it is now. Now I could see the folly of my decision, then I did not stop to think. Grabbing a torch from the wall of the tunnel where I was hiding, I went through the secret door behind the tapestry. No one saw me until I charged out and lit one of the guards on fire. My uncle’s men captured me easily after that. Uncle Luther was not in the room, so I did not know if he would have stopped what happened. One of the men held my mother while the other placed a knife against my bare skin. They said that there was no need for all of us to live. I fought and received a cut across my side. Uncle Luther came in when I was passed out on the floor, or so I made them believe. I kept my eyes closed as if I had gone unconscious. Uncle Luther made the pretense of objecting to what was happening to my father, but when the guards made a circle around my father and uncle, I saw. I saw the knife that Uncle Luther forced into my father. I watched my father’s last breath.

Rose huffed out a sigh and shoved the barrel of the pistol I was holding away from being pointed at her. “You are not ashamed, but neither can you see the larger picture. You are so clouded by hate that you cannot see what must be done.”

Twisting around toward the bed, I clenched the gun in my hand, willing myself not to strike my sister. How dare she say that to me? Me! All I have done has been for my family, to protect us until the time came when we could return home.

“I know what must be done, better than you. It was forced into me for ten years, and then Harvey made certain that I never forgot my past or my place.”

“Why then would you marry Jack? Why would you risk everything on him?”

How could I describe it to her in a way that she would understand? “Have you ever wanted something so much that your heart continually aches? You know that until you have it nothing in your life will feel in place?”

“Yes,” Rose said, surprising me. “That is how I feel about home.” She came to face me. “If you love him so much, why did you deceive him? You should have told him the whole truth when you were confessing our past.”

There was no explanation that I could give that would be acceptable to her. The truth was that I knew Jack would not marry me if he knew every detail of my past, and I was too afraid to risk my future with him.

“Jack is going to be hurt no matter what you do, Constance, and you know what must be done.”

Placing the gun on the bed, I left Rose and went down the stairs, needing to breathe and not go back into that chamber and throttle my sister.

After I had been stabbed, Uncle Luther had me taken to my bedchamber and locked inside. Martha was there and she tended to my wound. She came with me through the tunnel, back to the room where my mother was being kept. That was when my mother told me to take the artifacts, my sisters, and run. Martha pledged to watch over me for the rest of her days. We found Leo in the tunnels with my sisters. After getting the artifacts, we ran, and I never looked back at our home.

When I was halfway down the stairs, the knocker on the door sounded. Jack came out of the parlor with a pistol in one hand and a fireplace poker in the other. He unbolted the door, then slowly opened it.

It was Leo returning from the harbor where he had been gaining information about each ship.

Jack asked Leo to finish the parlor, and then he smiled as he came up the stairs and took my hand. He wanted to see what weapons we had found.

The bed, chest, and dressing table were covered with guns, knives, daggers, hair clasps that were really knives, rings with knife points, poison rings, a few iron rods like mine, and a dozen dart guns. There was a collection of jewelry; necklaces, bracelets, earbobs, rings, jeweled shoe buckles, and a selection of hat pins.

The muskets that Leo had carried up were in a row on the floor along with some swords.

The selection of lorgnettes, quizzing glasses, and a few pairs of spectacles drew Jack to them. He picked up a pair of spectacles and raised his brows.

Rose smiled as she showed him how they worked. The frame came apart from the lens. One side had a pick and the other had a small needle on the end. When she put them back together you could not tell how dangerous they could be. One of the lorgnettes had a knife in the handle. A few of the others had handles that were like a bottle for poison.

Rose said Abe and William had been making special weapons for the last few years.

Jack was impressed with the collection, and said Sam would have more tucked away at his house. He asked us to pack everything up and then have Leo carry the trunks down to the foyer to await transport.

Jack went to speak Leo while Rose and I began packing the weapons in trunks in silence.

When the last of the jewelry, glass, and pistols were packed, I rose to leave the chamber, but my sister halted me.

“I do not wish to fight with you, Constance. Can we not put aside our differing pasts and act as sisters once again?”

A piece of my heart squeezed in response. “I cannot promise that we will never disagree.”

Rose laughed. “We are sisters. Disagreeing is as natural as breathing, but we do love each other. We can put aside our disagreements, can we not?”

“For queen and country?” I asked, with a raised brow as I faced my sister.

“Let us say rather, for Phantoms and freedom.”

“Yes. I believe that is best.”

Rose smiled at me and we left the chamber to go in search of Jack.

In the foyer, Jack and Leo were stacking trunks.

“Dudley sent word about a suspicious group of men staying at the Pirates House. We are going to inspect it.” Jack came over to me and kissed my cheek. “We will not be long. Remain here.”

Rose closed the door behind them when they departed and bolted it. “What was that about? I thought we were having tea with the Stantons.”

Shaking my head, I walked into the parlor. At the window, I watched Jack mounting his horse.

“I believe he wanted me to remain here to protect you.”

Rose scoffed. “He does not know me at all.”

“No one knows you, Arabella,” I said, calling her by her true name, “and that is your mystery.”

“Does he not trust us to be able to protect ourselves as far as across the square?”

“I believe that my husband knows us only too well. Enough that he does not trust us. Though I cannot blame him for his distrust. That rests entirely with me.” The feelings of grief and regret were greatly pressing against me. I had lied and deceived Jack to the point where he no longer trusted me.

“Do not be hard upon yourself. What we are doing is best for everyone. Jack will forgive you. Consider the lengths he has gone to marry you.”

Turning away from the window, my sister was seated leisurely on the sofa. “How do you know so much about love? You thwart it every chance that you get.”

Rose’s grin fell as her brows came down low over her eyes. She never showed her anger to anyone but me. It was a part of being a twin. Only I could drag such emotions from her.

“I know what love looks like even if I do not embrace it.”

Mrs. Short, the housekeeper, entered the parlor carrying a tray for tea. She poured tea for Rose and then me. When she was gone, Rose and I sat quietly for half of an hour, with no sound but the ticking of the clock.

It was not difficult to hear the carriages that were coming down the road.

Standing, I walked to the window, squinting to see the driver of a carriage that had halted before the house. It was not Dudley’s man, or anyone I recognized.

When a second carriage stopped behind the first, and two outriders besides, Rose shoved me away from the window. We leaned against the wall before any of the men climbing out of the carriages could see us.

“Who are they?”

Rose said nothing as she grabbed one of Jack’s belts and pulled several knives from the sheaths.

When the knocker sounded on the door, Mrs. Short appeared, wiping her hands on her apron.

“Mrs. Short! Do not open that door,” I demanded as I charged into the foyer.

Mrs. Short glanced at me after she had pulled back the bolt, but the door opened from the outside, and several men came into the house.

“Run!” I shouted at the stout woman as I shoved her back toward the door to the kitchen.

One of the men reached for her and she shrieked. He grabbed her arm, and she threw her wide hip against him. She wrenched herself free and fairly flew to the back of the house and down the stairs to the kitchen.

There were ten men who came into the house.

“What do you want?” Rose demanded regally from the doorway to the parlor.

“We’ve come to escort you to where my lord is awaiting you,” one of the men replied. His name, if I remembered right, was Charlie. He had been one of Lucas’s guards.

“Where is Luther?” I asked, sizing up my opponents. They would not take me willingly. If they took me, Jack would return home and think the worst had happened.

“Will you come willingly or do you mean to resist?” Charlie asked.

Rose laughed melodiously. The guards smiled at her, seeing before them a regal, elegant, stunningly beautiful woman, whom, I had no doubt, Luther told them not to touch. “My dear sir, you show your idiocy with such a question. The fact that you consider it a question at all tells us everything we need to know about the state of your intellect.”

He stared at Rose, but the others began to understand. Rose met my eyes … and winked.

Pushing away from the wall, I ran up the stairs and straight into the bedchamber where all of the weapons were to be found. Kicking closed the door, I quickly threw open a trunk and pulled out all of the weapons that my arms could carry. Dropping them behind the trunk, I raised a knife. As the door flew open, I threw the knife. The blade buried itself in the wood, beside the first guard’s face.

He got one look at the weapons surrounding me and raised his hands. “There be no need for violence, Miss, if you will come with us willing.” He smiled as if trying to appear as a friend. Fool.

Throwing the remained of my knives one after another, he used the door to shield him from the flying weapons of certain pain.

Swiping up an iron rod and a hair dagger, I charged. The first guard dodged around my swinging arm, making his way into the bedchamber. Using the ball on the end of the rod, I smacked it against the second guard’s hand that was gripping the door. He screamed and I leapt against his shoulder, stabbing the man behind him in the shoulder with the hair dagger.

The first guard grabbed me by my hair, pulling me toward him. He twisted me in his arms until my body was pressed against his.

“You have fire for such a little thing,” he said as he smiled. The stench of his breath could make flowers wilt.

Smiling up at him, his smile increased, until I threw up my hand and slammed the ball of the iron against his temple. He released me as he swayed and I leapt toward the bed, rolling across it and landing on my feet on the other side. Three more guards crowded into the bedchamber, trying to approach me.

Glancing down toward where Rose’s leftover tray from breakfast still sat, I swiped up the silver lid and threw it at the closest guard. He knocked it away with his arm as I threw the plate at the guard beside him. There was no knife so I picked up the only other sensible utensil to use in a fight. The fork.