phantom knights 04 - deceit in delaware (7 page)

Once they had departed, Jack and I went up to our provided bedchamber.

Jack took me into his arms the moment we were alone.

“If anything had happened to you…” He said nothing else for a few minutes.

Holding him against me, I closed my eyes and soaked up his love, allowing it to chase away all of the pain, fear, and anguish from the last few weeks. He was the only person since my father had died who could chase away my fears just by holding me. Jack’s kindness and forgiving nature reminded me of my father. Tears burned my eyes, but I quickly blinked them away.

After a moment, I pulled back with a smile. “I love you, Jack, but you smell terrible.”

A laugh tried to burst from him, but it cracked and rasped.

“Why do I not ring for a bath, and while you wash away the grime I will read to you.”

Jack agreed readily, for I had discovered that when I read to him he relaxed his own fears.

The following morning, when we went down to breakfast was the first time that we were able to speak with Bess.

After hugging her, the first thing Jack said was, “Our father is here.”

Bess’s brown eyes turned hard, but the smile remained on her lips. “Sam has informed me. Where is he?”

“At Rose’s house, but he means to visit after breakfast,” Jack told her.

“Then we have at least an hour of peace.” Bess sat between me and Jack while we ate fruit, toast, jam, eggs, and Jack even consumed a sirloin of beef.

Bess told us that Sam could only speak in rasps and had been ordered by the doctor to rest.

“Where is Mother?” Jack asked midway through our meal.

“She has taken Charlotte and Betsy to Washington. Charlotte was not adjusting well to being back in Charleston, though she did try.”

Charlotte Mason, Sam’s sister, had caused a great deal of trouble for us in Savannah, and had nearly gotten Jack killed. She had placed her love and trust in the hands of a villain, and had reaped a broken heart as well as a great deal of regret.

“That is for the best,” Jack said. “Mother will keep her so occupied that she will not have time to consider her grief.”

“That is what Sam said when he agreed.”

A bell rang through the house, and Bess put down her fork and pushed away from the table.

“Time to confront the devil.” Bess snatched up a carving knife and left the dining parlor before we could halt her.

William was standing just inside the book room when we followed Bess into the room. William looked as if he would try to embrace her.

“You should know that if you touch me I will stab you,” Bess said to William.

“Now we are in the basket,” Jack whispered to me before stepping between the two of them.

When William had arrived to accompany us to Charleston, he appeared without the gray beard, and his hair was again brown instead of Harvey’s gray. He no longer walked with a limp, but he still had the scar on his cheek.

“Elizabeth, Elizabeth,” William tsked as if he was chiding her.

“No! You will not speak to me as if I am still your daughter. Our relationship died the day you tied me to that bed at the plantation so that your guard could attack me!” Bess’s body was shaking with a force that looked out of her control.

“I never meant for that to happen,” William said, and I heard the sorrow in his voice, even if Bess did not.

“You are trying to deceive me.”

“The deception was in making you believe that I was dead. In introducing you to a man named Lucius Harvey. He was the deception.”

Bess was taking in all of his looks, and I knew that she saw the truth.

“How did I not know? How did I not see?” It was more of a whispered plea than a question.

“You did not know because I did not want you to know,” William said.

They had not known even though they had been trained to see through disguises. To read people by simple hand movements and where their eyes looked. It was true that he had changed everything about himself but his eyes.

“You!” Bess charged toward him. I had never seen William move so quickly as he rounded Sam’s desk. “You are the reason that Andrew deserted me. You tried to kill me.” Her voice broke and she turned away from him.

“I did not try to kill you, Elizabeth. So far from wanting it, I have gone to great lengths to stop any such occurrence.”

Whirling around, she gaped at him. “That is a lie! You tried to hang me! How, pray tell, is that stopping my death? Or do you not know that people usually stop breathing when they are choked by a rope?”

“I find your sarcasm unbecoming, Elizabeth.”

“Well I find your presence absolutely abhorrent, but it seems that we cannot have everything that we want, William, or you would not be standing here now.” Bess retorted in a way that only Bess could. With the perfect amount of scathing and honesty.

“Whom do you believe gave Silas the harness that kept you alive?”

“Levi.” She looked as if she thought he were mad for suggesting anyone else had a hand in her rescue from the noose.

William spoke the truth, but I would never speak up and have Bess’s wrath turned upon me.

“Levi and I were working together. He has known about me since he came to Charleston with you.”

“That is a lie. Levi would have told us.”

Levi was devoted to their father, and William knew that.

“Does my mother know?” Bess demanded.

“Yes.”

“How long has Jack known?” Bess turned her accusing gaze on him.

“It was when Guinevere confessed who she was that I put the pieces together,” Jack told his sister.

“I find that I am rather proud of you, Jack,” William said, as if that truth baffled him. “You did not need someone to come out and say the words to find the truth.”

That drew another surge of wrath from Bess and she lunged for him again. William hurried away, placing the desk chair between them.

“Horrible wretch!” Bess sneered at William. “At least I have always known how intelligent Jack is.”

William had nothing to say to that. For several heartbeats the two stared at each other in a battle of wills that far surpassed any of my battles with William.

“Tell me about it all. How you succeeded, how the Holy Order was formed, all of it,” Bess ordered.

William complied. “The Holy Order was formed after the girls and Leopold arrived. I knew that they would be searched for, and that Luther would not halt until he found them. I could not put them in the Phantoms, for, as skilled as you were, you were still children. You could not be expected to fight Luther and his guards.”

But they had, I wanted to say, but I kept my lips compressed.

“Pierre was a friend from England. He and his family had followed me here. Together we formed the Holy Order to protect the girls. As keeping them together was out of the question, Arabella—forgive me, Rose—was made a Phantom and Guinevere was kept in the Holy Order.”

“All of the stories that Guinevere told us about your cruelty, are those true?” Bess asked.

I felt my face redden and I could not meet anyone’s gaze. I had lied more than I cared to remember.

“Most of the stories were untrue, but we are not yet there,” William explained. “I began with finding people who I could trust to help me protect the girls. It was George’s suggestion that we turn the Holy Order into a true secret society to throw any curious party off our scent.”

George. He had always been William’s puppet, until William had no more need for him and George sought financial gain from Luther.

William chuckled lightly. “All it took was finding the most sought after men, and they did the rest. Every man whose friends are in a club will stop at nothing to be included in said club. They did not even ask what the purpose was, so excited to be included were they.

“Everything went smoothly, until Luther’s guards arrived. I did not believe them much of a threat when I discovered that they were not from Lutania. I thought my children, who were trained by me, could do away with them. Until they murdered Benjamin.”

Bess’s eyes closed, and anyone could see her distress. My own chest ached at the memory of Ben. I had met him once when he came to speak with William and I had come upon them. William had lied about my identity. Shortly after that, they had left for Baltimore and Ben died. Luther’s guards had been the ones who shot Ben, Bess’s betrothed.

“It was then that I knew that we could not go on as we were. I began to make plans on how to get my children away from the fight. Richard made my disappearance possible. But you, my daughter, failed me.”

“How dare you!” Taking a step toward him, Bess would have struck him if William had not sensed what she was about and jerked back, putting distance between them.

“You failed me—”

“Say it again and see what happens,” Bess hissed.

“—by not disbanding the Phantoms,” he said, and Bess’s anger dropped down a notch, for her shoulders lowered. “It was because I knew of your desire to leave that life behind that I made you my successor, Elizabeth. If you would have disbanded them as I was sure you would, no danger would have come to you.”

We all knew what he was saying. Bess would not now have the Levitas brand on her back. Levi would not have been whipped and branded. Jack would never have been shot twice. Sam would not have been placed in that warehouse fire, but then, would Bess have ever met Sam? Would I have met Jack?

“You should have disbanded us, instead of being a coward and slinking into the shadows, leaving me to lead in your absence,” Bess threw at him, but he was untouchable when he placed a wall of indifference around him.

Words bounced off. He thought himself superior to everyone, he always had, but she was his daughter. His accusation was unpardonable, even if it was true, and that had been his plan. Bess had done her best with what had been forced upon her. Just as I had done my best, but my best felt empty. So much trial had been brought down upon them because I came to America and sought out William’s help.

“Are you not at least a little intrigued by the lengths to which I have gone to achieve such a glory?” William asked Bess.

“Intrigued?” She scoffed. “I am disgusted. Deceived. Furious. Grief stricken. Heart sick. My life is one large lie. I have lost Ben, Henry, Andrew, and my father. You and the Holy Order tried to steal my husband from me, but there you failed. Unlike you, my husband confessed the truth to me. Unlike you, my husband loves me.”

William was leaning heavily against the chair before him, with his hands braced over the top. Bess glanced down at his hands and then back up at his face. A cruel smile curled her lips, and then she threw her knife. It struck the chair just beneath his fingers.

“I have withheld my vengeance because I have entered an era of peace, but if you ever speak to me again peace be hanged!”

That said, Bess stomped out of the book room, slamming the door shut behind her, much as she had slammed down the wall around her heart against her father.

William was staring at where the knife had struck the chair, and in that moment I saw his pain. Neither Jack nor I moved as we each watched William reveal heartbreak, shame, and grief. All of the emotions flashed across his face like strikes of lightning. Gone as quick as they had come.

When the book room door opened, Mrs. Stanton, Rose, Hannah, Dudley and an elderly gentleman entered the room. Seeing that man filled me with foreboding. His presence never meant peace.

Mrs. Stanton laughed when she saw William. “Not the welcome you were expecting, I gather.” Mrs. Stanton looked at Jack and then back at William. “Is there somewhere in this house that we may speak in private?”

“The kitchen,” I said, then showered Mrs. Stanton with an angelic smile.

“This is no time for your humor, Constance. We have much to discuss before our boat sails.”

“Whatever you have to say may be said before my son,” William told Mrs. Stanton.

She shrugged as she seated herself on one of the chairs before the desk. The elderly man sat beside her.

It was Dudley who offered introductions. “Jack Martin, give me leave to introduce Gustav Augustus of Sweden. My father.”

The man bowed his head in a formal fashion, and Jack returned the bow before his gaze shifted to Mrs. Stanton, Dudley, and then to me. Taking his hand, we moved to stand before the wall of windows that took up part of the book room.

It was Rose who spoke next. “He is also our uncle.”

Watching Jack put all of the pieces together as his gaze moved about the room, I knew what he was realizing. Dudley was our cousin. Mrs. Stanton was our aunt.

My uncle had not changed in the years that we had been apart. He was in every way unremarkable. Gray hair combed to the side. Simple elegance in his attire, haughty in the way he carried himself, but there was a fragile air surrounding him. He was nothing like his son.

“How?” The one word was uttered to Rose, and she took pity upon Jack.

“Aunt Johanna is … was … our mother’s eldest sister. She and her husband were in Lutania when Luther attacked our parents. His men kept everyone away from us for weeks so they did not know when we ran.” Rose stopped, staring down at her hands, her dark head bowed.

“You are confusing the boy. Allow us to start at the beginning. I have known your mother for years, John,” Mrs. Stanton said, calling Jack the name that no one called him. “When I knew her first she was Eleanora. My sister and she were friends from their cradles. It seemed only natural that when Elisabeth went to Lutania to marry Eric that Eleanora went as her lady in waiting. It was there that she met your father. He was the chief guard for Elisabeth and her ladies. After he rescued Eleanora and Eric’s mother from an attack, he was knighted.”

Jack stepped closer to the desk as if drawn to Mrs. Stanton. She was willing to answer his questions. “How have the girls been able to live here as long as they have? Would not the country send their own emissary to find them and take them home?”

“Yes, and no, for the people of Lutania do not know that the girls are not there.” Mrs. Stanton spoke as if her words were nothing out of the ordinary.

“How can they not know that their princesses are missing, and have been for eight years?” Jack’s incredulity was expected, but my aunt and uncle had made provisions.