phantom knights 04 - deceit in delaware

by Amalie Vantana

  Jericho’s face softened a fraction, but he still stood resolute. He did not want me to do what I planned. He knew, without my having to tell him, what I planned. It would not have been difficult to understand.

  “You should allow the constables to deal with her. You do not want her blood upon your hands,” he said, as if trying to find my compassion. If I had any left, it would not have been wasted on the black widow.

  “She deserves worse,” I rasped out through gritted teeth. “Nothing they do to her will be enough, for it will not bring Henry back. But this will assure that no more of our family is harmed by her.”

  “You cannot know that, Jack. What if she is not enough? What if you do this and crave more justice as you call it. We need to stay together on this. We cannot stray from our path.”

  “I do not want any of you harmed,” I told the group at large. They were my Phantoms family and it was my duty to keep them safe.

  “You cannot stop us from going with you, Jack,” Levi said resolutely. “We began this together, and now let us finish it together.”

  There was no way to deny them, for they would have followed me regardless of what I said. “Then mount up.”

  “You wish to assist me, Levi?” I said, and Levi’s black eyebrows rose. “Bind her hands,” I looked over my shoulder at Martha, “and use a long rope.”

  As I went to climb onto my horse, Levi did as I asked. Levi’s knots, I knew, were intricate enough that Martha would not escape.

  When Leo approached Martha with a long coil of rope, she struck at him with a knife, then bounded to her feet as if to run. Quickly angling my horse toward her, I cut off her escape. With the threat of making the horse kick her, she stilled, fear finally showing on her face. It did nothing to alleviate my fury with the woman.

  Pulling a pistol from my holster, I pointed it at Martha’s head while Levi went to work binding her hands.

  When he finished, he brought me the end of the rope. I looped it around part of my saddle until I had enough that Martha would not be able to fall too far behind.

  Looking at Martha, I made sure to keep my fury in my eyes and my words. “You will keep up. If you fall, I will drag you. Do you understand?”

  Martha raised her chin in the air and looked away. That was reply enough.

  “Are you certain, Jack?” Mariah asked as she moved her horse closer to mine.

  I was not certain that things would end satisfactorily, but I knew that Martha would never harm any of my family again and with that I had to be content.

  I kneed my horse into a cantor.

  What I meant to do was something that I would have never considered hours before.

  As we neared the wooden scaffold, Martha spoke up for the first time.

  “Please, Jack. Please, do not do this. There is still time to depart from this path. Leave Delaware. Forget you ever met Constance and Arabella.”

  The woman had to know what she said was not possible. I could no more turn my back on my wife than I could forget about her. She, no matter what had happened or would happen, was the best part of my heart. Without her, my life was not worth living.

  “My life is not my own,” I said, remembering what Guinevere had said to Nicholas Mansfield and Richard last year at Stark Manor.

  “Do not be an imbecile. You do not know, none of you understand what awaits you if Luther discovers what you are doing to me. It is enough to turn the tide of your futures. Only death awaits all who join forces against Luther.”

  “As opposed to joining forces with you? Are you not the same woman who tried to murder Arabella and Constance? The very girls that you swore to protect,” Levi spat at Martha.

  The closer we got to the scaffold, the more desperate Martha became, pleading, crying, and shouting for us to choose a different path.

  When she begged that I spare her, I lost control of my temper.

  “Spare you! Did you spare Henry? Did you spare Bess, who had never been anything but kind to you?” We reached the scaffold and when I pulled up on my horse, Martha dropped to her knees as if that would protect her from her fate.

  Climbing down from my horse’s back, I walked toward Martha. She recoiled, but could not go far for the rope binding her to the horse. When I got close, I knelt before her.

  “You do not know. You do not understand,” she moaned.

  “Oh,” I said with a sinister voice that would make William proud, “I do understand, rather better than you. Now, stand!”

  She slowly rose.

  “You think you are so clever, you Phantoms, but you are no match for what you will find when you reach Lutania,” Martha shouted.

  I uncoiled the rope from the saddle and pulled it toward the scaffold. When Martha dug her heels into the dirt, I gave a great tug on the rope. Martha was jerked forward and fell onto her face at the foot of the stairs. She looked up at me with her hair askew and a wild terror in her eyes.

  “You cannot possibly know what you face, or you would not be here,” she said.

  “You no longer have the right to speak,” I said to her, and then looked to Levi. “String her up.”

  Levi took the rope and pulled Martha onto the scaffold. She was sobbing as Levi removed the rope from her hands and made a loop to place around her neck.

  She contemplated running, for I could see it in her eyes, but I held my pistol upon her. If she tried, I would shoot her.

  Once Levi had strung the rope, he mounted his horse, leaving me alone on the scaffold with Martha.

  “Martha, formerly of Lutania,” I said, drawing her terrified gaze toward me, “your crimes have led you to this place of execution. May your sins be purged in death, and may God have mercy upon your soul.”

  With the eyes of the Phantoms upon me, I reached for the lever that would plunge Martha to her death.

  Hesitation rose within me. Could I truly do this? Could I kill a woman? She had enacted so much deceit, not only upon me and my family but upon Guinevere’s family. The family that she had taken an oath to protect. Martha had been a lady in waiting to Guinevere’s mother. She had journeyed with the girls to America. She had chaperoned Guinevere for years, stayed with her when the girls were separated. So why would she choose to betray them? What had changed?

  It struck me like a sudden wind. It was me. I had come into Guinevere’s life, and she no longer relied upon Martha. I had married Guinevere, taken her away from Martha, and disbanded the Holy Order, banishing Martha from America, but by then the damage had already been done. At what point had she changed sides? I knew that she had not been working with him for years, for he would have found the girls long before now.

  Why would she set Bess up to take the fall for Henry’s death? Why would she want Bess to be ostracized from Philadelphia? That, too, struck me a blow. The answer had been in my mother’s journal. Martha was Marta. She had been a childhood friend of my father’s. He had gained her employment in the palace, and she had contrived to keep my parents apart. She had wanted my father. But Mother had won him in the end.

  Could a person hold a grudge that long?

  Glancing over to Martha’s face, I had my answer. One definitely could.

  She had been spurned in love, but that was not reason enough to exempt her from her crimes.

  With my decision made, my hand began to slowly pull on the lever. There was still time to back away, to not have her blood on my hands, but I would not. I would never allow her to hurt my wife and my family again.

  The air crackled and exploded in gunshots.

  “Guards!” Jericho, Levi, and Betsy had pistols out in an instant, returning shots. A ball flew past my face, stealing my breath. Dropping down onto my stomach, I shouted at the others.

  “Go!”

  Levi was off his horse at once, running up the steps. “Get them away,” he demanded of Jericho, and then grabbed my arm, pulling me up.

  Levi and I fired upon the approaching men on horseback, drawing their attention to us so that the others could escape
.

  The guards were surrounding a carriage. As it thundered past us, I saw Luther’s face, and then my mother’s in the window. Relief was pure and sweet as it filled me, for a moment.

  The guards rode toward us.

  “Lower your weapon, Levi.”

  Levi shot me a defiant glance, but I dropped my pistol onto the scaffold and raised my hands in the air. The guards dismounted and ran toward us. When they reached us, I did not struggle, but Levi did. Four of the guards wrestled against him, one striking his gut. I moved forward instinctively, and received a blow to the back of the head that made everything go dark.

  CHAPTER 23

  GUINEVERE

  Arthur had seen us when Monroe’s guards were chasing Luther’s carriage, and he had turned his horse around and come back. As soon as he saw Bess, he slid from his horse and began checking her wounds. When he pronounced that no bones were broken, he helped me to get Bess upon a horse, though she clenched her teeth against moans and sobs the whole time. Arthur decided to ride with Bess to ensure that she did not fall off her horse and injure herself further. We rode to the cottage that Bess had been staying at, and when we stopped outside the door, it opened at once and my aunt appeared.

  “What has happened? Constance?”

  Arthur shot me a confused glance as he helped Bess from the horse. She took one step toward the house, and then collapsed.

  “Bess!”

  Arthur caught her before she hit the ground. Scooping her up into his arms, he carried her into the cottage and up the stairs to the second bedchamber. When he laid her upon the bed, my aunt and I hovered over her.

  “Fetch the doctor, and her husband, at once,” Aunt Johanna instructed.

  Arthur left, and Aunt Johanna had me assist her in removing Bess’s boots, stockings, hat, and gloves. She unbuttoned the waistcoat that Bess wore beneath her simple black coat. There was nothing else we could do, for neither of us wanted to touch her coat and risk waking her. Aunt Johanna said that it was best if she rested, so long as her breathing did not halt.

  I told her about what had transpired and how Bess had come to be injured. When I mentioned the blood, Aunt Johanna turned away and left the bedchamber without a word.

  Pouring some water from the basin into the wash bowl, I dipped a cloth into it and began cleansing Bess’s brow and face, pleading, as I had done so many times as a child, that if there be a Lord, that He not allow Bess to die.

  Sometime later there was a thundering in the yard, and then the front door burst open. I heard several voices at once, and then someone was running up the stairs.

  As the door flew open, Sam stood there, his face seeking out his wife. He moved toward her as if in a daze, before dropping to his knees beside her bed and lifting her hand to his lips. There her hand remained even when the doctor appeared in the doorway.

  Listing Bess’s injuries for him, I faltered when it came to the blood. Sam’s gaze never wavered from Bess’s face, but he did lower her hand to her side.

  The doctor thanked me and told me that I could go. I did, but at the door I paused when Sam told the doctor that he was remaining in the room with his wife. And should the doctor think to try to force him out, he would find himself tossed out the window.

  Closing the door, I leaned against it, allowing my eyes to drift closed.

  When I opened my eyes, Betsy, Mariah, Jericho, and Leo had joined me.

  “How is she?” Mariah asked, her gaze focused upon the closed door at my back.

  I motioned down the stairs and everyone went to the parlor where we found James Wilson seated with my aunt.

  “Her arm was grazed when the she was shot at, but I am afraid that her most painful injuries came when she fell from her horse.”

  No one spoke for several minutes. Jericho sat with his arm around his wife’s shoulders as she gripped the front of his coat. Betsy and James sat beside each other, their hands clasped. Leo paced before the window, clenching and unclenching his hands.

  “Where is Jack?” I asked when the silence lengthened.

  Leo would not look at me. Betsy gazed down at her hands. Mariah kept her eyes focused upon the stairs. Only Jericho favored me with a reply.

  “I am afraid that he is still a prisoner.”

  That could not be. We were taking out the guards. My uncle had ran. We were winning the battle.

  A door creaked above and everyone sat forward. When the doctor appeared, everyone rose in anticipation.

  His expression was grave as he took us all in. “Mrs. Mason will live,” he said first, and there seemed to be a unanimous sigh of relief.

  “She suffered some contusions to her spine and back, but when she awoke she was able to lean up. There is a lump upon the base of her head, and a graze upon her arm, but they are minor in comparison.”

  “Comparison to what?” Leo surprised me by asking. His blue eyes were intent upon the doctor, as if he was soaking in every word, processing them to find a different conclusion.

  The doctor met my gaze, and my heart lurched. “I am afraid that Mrs. Mason has lost her child.”

  Biting my lip, I fought the tears that wanted to fall. The injustice of it all settled upon me. Why was it that when I was knocked down by that guard that my child was spared, but Bess, who had only ever wanted a family of her own, had lost her child? I was grateful that my child was still alive within me, and that made me feel selfish.

  “You should know that as a physician I am often called to make difficult observations. I am only telling you this because, as her family, it will help you to assist her in her grief. In such cases as these, it is unlikely that she will conceive again.”

  Mariah gasped before burying her face against Jericho’s chest. Leo grasped the wall behind him. Betsy’s tears fell in silence.

  Aunt Johanna rose and walked with the doctor to see him out of the house. I heard him tell her that he would return after checking on his other patient.

  Grief was mounting as a builder would stack bricks to form a wall. Making a fist, I struck against the arm of my chair as the injustice surrounded me.

  “No.” I did not mean to say it aloud, but it drew everyone’s attention. With their eyes upon me I had to go on. “This has gone too far, and I, for one, will see to it that it stops at once. My uncle wants a fight? A fight he will receive. Are you with me?”

  Mariah wiped away her tears with the back of her hand as she stood. Jericho jumped up to stand with her. Betsy rose quietly with James at her side. Leo moved to my side and nodded his agreement.

  “Leo, do you still hold that key?”

  He produced it from his pocket.

  It was time to go find my husband, and end my uncle’s tyranny.

  ****

  We rode to the house through the woods, following a path that Leo had found earlier in the day. We came to a place where Leo said that we would have to finish the journey on foot.

  It was on that path that we met Dudley and Hannah, being pursued by five of my uncle’s guards.

  Tired of this endless chase, I pulled a handful of knives from my belt. Dudley and Hannah leapt over a fallen log, saw us, and split in two directions. Gripping a knife in my hand, I took a slight step forward and threw the blade. It struck home in one man’s leg.

  Knife after knife was thrown at the two guards cowering behind a tree. When my last knife was thrown, they came around the tree. Two arrows flew toward the men, but did not harm them. The arrows struck their coat sleeves, and then buried in the tree trunks behind them, holding the guards against the trees. Two silver discs hurled across the distance from Hannah, striking one man’s arm and another’s thigh.

  When the five guards were otherwise engaged, I questioned Dudley and Hannah.

  “Where are the others?”

  “Five of our group are dead,” Hannah said as she swiped a hair from dangling in her eyes.

  Dudley was huffing as he drew in a breath. “Two of Monroe’s, one constable, and one of them who came with your sister.�
��

  “There they are,” someone shouted through the trees.

  “Yes, about that,” Dudley said quickly, “the rest of your uncle’s guards are on our trail.”

  Searching our surroundings, my eyes fell upon a good climbing tree. “Make haste,” I said as I grabbed at the nearest branch and pulled myself up.

  Without a word of protest, the others began swinging their forms into the trees. Climbing higher, I kept going until I was high enough that the men below could not see me well enough to shoot me.

  “I know they’re in here somewhere. Spread out and find her. The others don’t matter. Just the girl.”

  My branch shook as a form struck it. Jerking, I barely kept myself from falling out of the tree.

  “What are you doing,” I hissed to Leo. “Find your own tree.”

  “It is my duty to protect you, your highness. Even if it be in a tree.”

  The branch below us shook, and then Jericho’s head appeared between us. He was standing on his branch. He grinned up at me as he leaned his arms over my branch.

  “You showed yourself to advantage, Guinevere. Almost as if you have done this before.” When Jericho smiled you could see that smile all the way to his eyes. I understood why Mariah had fallen for him, though he was too broad for my taste.

  “I have been doing so since I was eleven. It was my refuge, a place that they could not find me,” I replied softly.

  “They who? Harvey?”

  “The instructors hired by Harvey. To teach me how to become the white phantom.”

  “Will you two be still,” Hannah admonished from her tree next to ours. “You will give us away with your adorable and heartrending chatter.”

  “She’s right you know,” came Dudley’s voice from next to Hannah.

  “How did you get up there, Dudley?” Jericho asked in a voice just above a whisper.

  “Climbed, old fellow, though I’m sure I have a splinter.”

  “Over here,” shouted a voice not far from our trees that silenced us. “I heard something.”

  “I believe it is time for a wolf attack,” Jericho whispered before pulling on his wolf mask and swinging himself down the tree as if he had been raised with monkeys.