Secrets In Savannah (Phantom Knights)

by Amalie Vantana

  “Yes, but I ask one thing in return.” Leaning down, I kissed the small mole beside her lips. “Have faith in me. I will never abandon you no matter what secrets you harbor. We are in this together until the end.”

  Now how to make that end as far away as possible?

  CHAPTER 23

  GUINEVERE

  We had been in Savannah for seven days, and I was no closer to locating my sister. George was in Savannah, but he was hiding himself well, and I was near to the limit of my patience.

  Charlotte had lied about George’s arrival, and finally everyone was seeing it and the danger of her situation. Jack and Leo had gone out to book passage for Bess and Charlotte to go back to Charleston. Sam was to stay in Savannah to aid us in finding his uncle.

  Sam and Bess had been spending all of their time keeping watch over Charlotte, so it was a surprise to see Bess standing by the parlor window, her attention fixed on something outside. “What do you make of our shadows? I have counted three this day alone. Two are on a loop, walking past the house every two hours, but the third perplexes me. He remains stationed on the green until one of us leaves, then he moves to the far corner.”

  “That one is my shadow,” I told Bess as I joined her by the window. “He only leaves when I do.”

  She wrote that down in a small leather bound book. “And the others?”

  “Royal guards, or spies for George, I do not know,” I said, watching as one of them walked past the house. His gaze met mine for a second before he looked away, continuing on his leisurely stroll as if nothing were amiss.

  “What say you to a little outing? I understand that you have yet to see the plantation,” Bess said, turning away from the window.

  There was mischief in Bess’s eyes that made me agree. She wanted it to be a girls outing, and she wanted to be gone before Jack returned.

  Twenty minutes later, we snuck out of the house, fetched our horses from a nearby stable, and rode out of the city. When we slowed our horses to a trot, Bess explained her reason for wanting to go to her family’s home.

  “My father kept a selection of weapons in his workshop that I thought might give aid in the forthcoming battle. Father was a craftsman, and created many weapons that the phantoms used.”

  Hannah, whom Bess had invited to join us, was intrigued by the Phantoms and asked Bess all manner of questions, which Bess did not answer. I was unsure why Bess invited her along until Hannah had dismounted at a place near the plantation where we were to leave our horses.

  “I choose to keep her close, and never allow her to be alone with my husband,” Bess told me before dismounting.

  As we ran across the front lawn, I took in the Martin’s plantation. It was a two story home neither grand or like the other plantations that I had seen. The only bit of beauty was the row of flowers lining the path to the door. The house was shabby compared to the beauty of Sam Mason’s plantation.

  After looking in the windows and finding the house empty, Bess pulled a key from her pocket and unlocked the door. As she opened the door, we saw a woman dusting a table toward the rear of the foyer. Bess backed out of the house, straight into me, and I bumped into Hannah, knocking her onto her backside amongst the flowers.

  Bess knelt below a window as I helped Hannah to her feet.

  “They must be preparing for my arrival. Sam and I were to spend our wedding trip here beginning tomorrow.”

  “How do you propose to get in without being seen?” Hannah asked as she bounced around like a puppet on strings. She would squat down, then pop up and look in the window. She crawled to each window and repeated her ridiculous, jerky movements.

  “What are you doing?” Bess was staring at Hannah as if she were an oddity from a country fair.

  “Spy maneuvers,” Hannah breathed as she rolled under the third window.

  “You are not a spy,” Bess informed her.

  “Perhaps not yet, but I am worthy.” Hannah rolled all the way back to us, climbed to her knees, and whispered conspiratorially. “Here is what I propose. We will climb in through the window, sneak up behind the woman,” Hannah slapped her hands together, “and club her on the head.”

  “You will not club any servant of mine over the head!”

  “Second proposition,” Hannah went on unperturbed. “I will create a suitable distraction and draw the enemy out into the yard. You two will climb through the window and make your way to the workshop. We will rendezvous there unless I am captured. In which case, they may do their worst. Unless it is branding, or hanging, or digging a grave with my hands.”

  “What?” Bess looked as if she was one ridiculous comment away from placing a muzzle over Hannah’s mouth.

  “Then I will betray your names without a second thought. These,” Hannah stuck out her hands and wriggled her fingers, “are too lovely to sacrifice for anyone.”

  Hannah marched into the house, and Bess shook her head as we followed. The servant was not in sight so we followed Bess down a hall to the back of the house even though Hannah whispered that she should pursue the maid and truss her up.

  When we entered William Martin’s workshop, I began to sense what kind of man he was. Nothing was out of order. It looked as if it had sat untouched since he left Savannah. Bess stood just inside the door, breathing deeply as her eyes searched the dusty room. There was a moment of pain in her eyes, before she blinked it away and marched forward.

  “Take anything that you believe could be of use,” she said as she began rummaging through a chest of drawers.

  While Hannah searched one table, I walked down the length of the second. There were hammers, screws, nails, broken clocks, boxes of different shapes and sizes, but nothing to say that a master of disguise had once worked there.

  Hannah exclaimed, and when she faced me, she was wearing a mask. It was black leather with the head of a peacock raised on one side and a long tail flowing down to beneath the opposite eye. It was painted exquisitely, but it made Hannah appear as if she were crossing her eyes.

  “That was one of Father’s first masks. He created all of our masks except Leo’s,” Bess said as she carried on with her search.

  “It is perfect.” Hannah tossed her head, striking a pose like a goddess statue. “My Phantom name could be feather, or blue enchantress.”

  “Or Crow,” Bess interposed as she searched through a pile of cloths. She met my eyes, and we both smiled.

  As the search went on, I had found a few pistols that appeared to be in good condition when Hannah exclaimed again. She held out an intricate gold ring with the crisscrossed band of a Celtic knot.

  When Bess saw it, she gasped, snatching it from Hannah. “That is my father’s wedding ring.” She held it up to the light coming through the window as if it were a rare golden treasure.

  “I take it that your father had a fascination with puzzles,” I said as I went back to my search for weapons.

  “Why, yes. He collected them. How did you know?” Her eyes were narrowed as if she suspected me of some misdeed. After all we had been through, still she did not trust me.

  “That is a puzzle ring.” Bess gave it to me, and I began to twist and rotate the ring until there were eight separate bands. I could have laughed when I noticed a crease in the eighth band. Pulling on the ring, the band came apart to reveal a small pick.

  “Bess, do you know of any boxes in this house that did not have a key?”

  Bess said nothing as she marched out of the workshop. Hannah and I followed her into the front parlor where she removed a small wooden box from the fireplace mantle shelf. To anyone searching for clues into William Martin, a plain wooden box would not have been considered suspect. Unless you knew where to look.

  “My father told us that this box had no key when he bought it so when we moved we left it here.”

  Bess, Hannah, and I hunched over the box as I inserted the pick into a tiny hole at the back. Twisting the pick, the top of the box slid apart. Pushing the top open revealed a small palm sized p
ackage wrapped in parchment.

  My body stilled as I stared down at the package. There was a faded charcoal drawing of a sword that meant more to me than to either of them.

  “Leave it to my father to have such secrets hidden in our home even after his death.”

  “What do you suppose it is?” Hannah asked as she leaned forward.

  I could have told them, but I refrained. Bess did not deserve the pain that this package would give her. It had nothing to do with the Holy Order. It had to do with a long history, one that Bess had no knowledge of. It had to do with her heritage.

  “Whatever it is, it belongs to my brother and I. We will take it with us.”

  “No, Elizabeth,” said a pleased voice from behind us, “I will be taking that with me.”

  My midsection clenched as I cringed at the sound of his voice, a voice that never failed to disgust me.

  Hannah and I turned; the box gripped tight in my hands. Bess was slower to face Lucas. She knew him for he had paid court to her in Charleston before she fell in love with Sam.

  Now I knew the reason for his interest in her. He was trying to discover me. He had nearly done so at the race party held in Sam’s house. That was where Charlotte had met him. She was bringing him toward me when I ducked into the book room. Confronting Bess that evening had been a ruse to keep from running into him in the foyer.

  “Min kærlighed,” he said to me.

  If he called me my love one more time... “Hæslig tudse,” I replied with loathing. “Hvad med vores aftale?”

  Our arrangement meant he should not have been there. I had warned him.

  Bess glanced at me in such a way that I had a sinking feeling that she could understand Danish.

  “Ugyldig,” Lucas said with a shrug of his shoulder.

  Invalid.

  He transferred his attention to Bess, and I shifted mine to his guards. “Elizabeth. It is charming to meet you again. How unfortunate it is that these are the circumstances with which we meet.”

  There were five guards and Lucas. How they found us, I would put my mind to discovering later. Bess, Hannah, and I could fight our way out if we must, but given such an opportunity, I did not want Lucas to escape. Lucas would be easily conquered if we could get him away from his guards, but how to accomplish that I had yet to work out.

  Lucas took a step toward Bess. “It is most unfortunate who your brother decided to marry. For your sake, I almost regret what I shall do to him.” Lucas opened his mouth to say more, but no sound came forth as his expression changed to one of surprise.

  A deafening report exploded in the room, and smoke wafted before my face. I twisted toward Bess, who was holding the smoking pistol.

  The guards began shouting, and as the smoke cleared, I saw Lucas and terror ripped through me. Bess had shot him directly through the heart.

  Bess grabbed my arm, pulling me toward a door in the wall behind us. The guards were shouting in Danish, as horrified as I was, and trying to figure out what they should do. One of them lowered Lucas to the floor, and Lucas’s surprised gaze was frozen on his face, never to see again.

  Hannah threw a knife at the guards before slamming the door and helping Bess to barricade it. I stood, open-mouthed, cold, and too shocked to move.

  Bess had shot Lucas. She killed him. She had done what I had always wanted to do, but where I thought about it, she had gone through with it.

  What began to encompass my mind was one thought. My uncle would kill Bess if he discovered the truth. Lucas was his nephew, his most trusted follower, and Bess had killed him.

  “Do you know what you have done?” I demanded.

  Bess and Hannah succeeded in blocking the door with a china cabinet. When Bess turned toward me, and saw my shaking body, she gripped my hands.

  “He tried to kill my brother twice. I know precisely what I have done.”

  Hannah was at the window. “The cowards! They are running.”

  “Which is what we must do before the servants discover us,” Bess said as she pushed open a window and climbed out.

  “Hannah,” I grabbed her hand to halt her from following Bess out of the house, “we must get Bess out of Savannah. She does not know what she has done. She does not understand the danger.” My arms were numb; my palms sweat-filled.

  “She knows what she has done. Lucas Marx threatened not only her brother but all of her family. She saw her opportunity to stop him, and she took it.”

  “My uncle will kill her, Hannah, and there will be naught anyone can do to stop him.”

  Hannah laid her hand on my shoulder. “I can see the fear that you harbor for him, but you must release it. Do not allow your past to confine you. You can be anyone that you want, but first you must break free.”

  People could be heard outside the house, running. Hannah and I hid beneath the table as they ran past the open window. When someone began screaming from the parlor, we climbed out the window and ran to the trees where Bess had our horses.

  We watched for a few moments as people were crowding into the house, and women were screaming while men shouted. When men began to spread out to search the ground, we rode away from the plantation through the trees.

  Hannah’s words ruminated in my mind the entire journey back to town, and the more I thought, the stronger I grew because Hannah was in the right. My past was just that. If I truly wanted to be free, I had to stop allowing my past to confine me to this way of life. If I truly wanted to be free, I had to do the unfathomable. I had to face my uncle.

  CHAPTER 24

  JACK

  My wife was not at the house when Leo and I returned, but Sam informed me that she had gone to the plantation with Bess and Hannah. It irritated me a small amount that she had gone there without me. I had wanted to show her the place myself, to see it again, with my wife by my side. To show her to all of the places Levi, Bess, Mariah, and I hid when we did not want to do our lessons. I made a plan to take her back and give her a tour of the place, for I was considering making it our home after this business with her uncle was at an end.

  Leo and I were in the midst of a game of chess when the girls came marching into the parlor, completely disheveled and bursting with information.

  “We have news, Jack.” Guinevere said as she came to me, taking my hand. “Lucas is dead.”

  My first instinct was to shout for joy, but I refrained for the fear in my wife’s eyes. “How?”

  Guinevere glanced over her shoulder as Bess shut the door.

  “He came to the plantation, so I shot him,” my sister said as if it was nothing remarkable.

  “Where?” I asked, unable to help myself.

  Guinevere released my hand and tried to step away. I wrapped my arms around her and pulled her back against my chest, trapping her.

  “Clean shot to the heart. Mother’s steward will no doubt bury him as I did not stay around to give directions.”

  “No one saw you?” Leo asked, watching Hannah as if she were the one who would give them away.

  “Not us, but they may have seen Lucas’s guards fleeing. There is more.” Bess brought out a small parchment wrapped parcel from her reticule.

  She began to unwrap it, and releasing Guinevere, I stepped closer to watch. When the parchment was pulled away, there was a ring sitting on her palm. It was silver with a crest. A pair of crossed swords were in the center with an eagle on one side and a lion on the other. On the top were two words in Danish. Translated, it said, the one.

  Bess and I turned toward Guinevere, who was clasping her hands and biting her lip.

  “If I am truly to be a part of this family, the Phantoms, I believe it is time that I tell you about the Holy Order,” Guinevere said and I knew it cost her dearly.

  That she was finally ready set my pulse soaring.

  “Should she be here?” Leo asked, directing his attention to Hannah.

  “She knows much of what I am about to tell you.”

  Hannah settled upon the sofa casting Leo a smirk
.

  Once Guinevere had our full attention she began. “In my country there are certain things that the ruling monarch requires to secure their place on the throne, more than just bloodlines. Those things are what my uncle is after, those things, if placed in the wrong hands, will grant power to a dictator.”

  “The artifacts,” I said, knowing it was the truth, but feeling wound tighter with each word she said.

  She nodded, biting her lip again.

  “How did you get the Holy Order to agree to help you?” Bess asked curiously.

  Guinevere expelled a deep breath. “My first guardian had sworn to protect us and on his deathbed Harvey swore that he would see to it that the promise lived on.

  “The twelve were brought in around the time that I joined the Order. One by one they swore to protect the artifacts against all odds, but never have they all been together. It would be far too dangerous.”

  “What role do you hold in all of this,” Bess leaned forward as if recording everything in her mind, “and why are the artifacts not in your country with the ruler?”

  All of us stared at Guinevere but none hung upon her response as I did.

  “I am guardian of the artifacts, as was my mother before me,” she said.

  My world, which I had felt was finally right by marrying her, shifted. What the devil did that even mean? Guardian of the artifacts? As her mother was before her. What kind of person would place such a task upon a woman?

  “I told you that my family had long served the royal family. The King believed that no one would ever expect a woman to be guardian, so he named my mother.

  “When my mother knew she would die, it was her right to name her successor and she chose me. I knew where the artifacts were hiding, I took them and my sister and I escaped with some trusted helpers.”

  Leo spoke up. “Where does Hannah fit into this?”

  Guinevere and Hannah exchanged a look and Hannah nodded.

  “Hannah and I were trained by the same man, but never at the same time. I never knew of her existence until Philadelphia, but she knew about me,” Guinevere explained. “She was to be my double, my aid.”