The Charleston Chase (Phantom Knights Book 2) (3 page)

Opening my mouth to retort, no sound came forth. My
cheeks were full of heat. I could have been standing before an open
fire instead of an intriguingly honest man. My heart was throwing
itself around, trying to escape, or knock some sense into me.

He tilted his head to the side, his lips lifting on
one side and curiosity filling his face. “What is your secret wish,
Miss Martin, one thing you want above any other thing?”

My brain and my mouth did not seem
to be working together at the moment, for I did not mean to
respond, but I said, “I want a quiet life where I never have to
tell another lie as long as I live.” As I lowered my eyes, my
cheeks filled with even more heat, and pain filled my chest. I
fought the tears that sprang to my eyes. I had never admitted that
to anyone other than Jack, and Ben my first betrothed.

He smiled a real smile without
smugness. Even his eyes smiled, replacing the intensity. He was
alarmingly handsome when he smiled like that. My heart beat with
the fierceness of a war drum.
Stupid,
traitorous heart.

“I hope that we can work together, Miss Martin,” he
said softly.

“So too do I, Mr. Mason.” My words came out
breathless, and I mentally berated myself. I could not allow a man
with intense eyes and a smile that could melt the ice around my
heart if I focused on it, to affect me. As my new leader, I would
treat him with the respect that his position demanded, but nothing
more.

“As we are now on the same team, I hope you will
call me Sam.”

“I find that any form of intimacy between a leader
and his team is misplaced.”

“Is that so?” He sounded amused. “Is that how you
led your team?”

“Of course not. My team was my family. You, however,
are not.”

He came toward me; his every move calculated. He
knew how to work upon a woman’s resolve; I knew that without a
single doubt. The closer he came, the more I wanted to run out of
the room. He was smiling that annoying smug tilt to his lips as if
he were enjoying my discomfort, although I knew none of my emotions
were showing.

“Do I make you uncomfortable, Miss Martin?”

Completely
. “No, sir,” I lied, before stepping closer until we were toe
to toe and was rewarded by a slight lift to his brows. Tilting my
head to the side and smiling how I had seen Hannah Lamont, the
society minx of Philadelphia, beckon to so many men, Samuel’s eyes
widened. “Do I make you uncomfortable, Mr. Mason?”

“Just so,” he replied, his voice sounding
distracted, like he was far away in his thoughts. His eyes
refocused on me, and he ran a finger carefully, softly down my
cheek over the place Guinevere had struck me.

Behind us, the door slammed against the wall. “Step
away from my sister!” a sharp voice demanded.

Jack?
My
gaze flew to the door, hope in my heart, but it was only Levi. He
had sounded like Jack. Suddenly, realization struck me that he was
holding a pistol; the barrel pointed at Samuel. Samuel had turned
and was staring at the pistol.

“I take it you are John Martin.” Samuel spoke with
calculated calm.

Stepping in front of Samuel, I moved to Levi’s side,
laying my hand on his extended arm. “Levi, lower the pistol. Mr.
Mason, allow me to present Levi Martin.”

Levi stared at Samuel for another moment, then
lowered the pistol and moved forward with his other hand
outstretched. Samuel shook it.

“I had not heard that you have two brothers, Miss
Martin.”

Not in blood but in our name. When my father brought
home orphans to train to become spies, he not only provided them
with a home, but with a name if they did not have one. Levi was the
only orphan without a name, so he was made a Martin. It was a risk
once we moved to Philadelphia, but there were many Martins in the
city.

“Now I remember,” Samuel said after a moment of
looking at Levi, “you are Hades.”

Levi grinned. “My exploits reached all the way to
Charleston, have they?” I could not stop the smile that touched my
lips. Levi was sixteen and incredibly spirited. Wild was how Jack
described him, the reason he was given the name Hades. Levi’s black
hair was what was wild at the moment, wind-blown, and his narrow
cheeks were pink from being out in the chilly air. His green eyes
were filled with mischief as he spoke with Samuel. He was shorter
than I by three inches; the same height as Jack. The resemblance
between the two was remarkable considering that we were not blood
related to Levi. Their similarities had served them well on many
missions over the last seven years that we had been Phantoms.

“Are you joining my team as well, Levi?” Samuel
asked.

Levi laughed. “You make it sound like Bess is
joining your team, and wouldn’t that be something.”

“Levi,” I said sharply. When he looked at me, I gave
him a hard look. His laughter stopped abruptly. “Be so good as to
fetch me my reticule from the carriage.”

Levi looked from me to Samuel,
then turned and
left the book room without
a word.

“Levi was only my escort, Mr. Mason. He will not be
staying long as he is part of the Washington Phantoms.”

There was a small smile playing on Samuel’s lips and
a look of curiosity covering his face. “Bess,” he murmured. “It
suits you.”

I chose to ignore that.

We silently regarded each other until Levi came back
into the house. He handed me my small, blue reticule that matched
my traveling gown that I had worn earlier on the ship. I opened it,
removed a folded letter, and held the letter out to Samuel.

As he opened the letter, I said, “A little over a
month ago, I was sent to meet with a former member of my team who
had some information to give me. After we had parted ways, I heard
two shots fired, so I went back to investigate. I found Henry’s
body, but there was nothing to be done.”

“Look up?” he asked as he looked over the
letter.

Here was the difficult part of my story. I knew he
had seen the Holy Order crest on the paper. “That letter was left
on Henry’s body for me to find. Then, someone I knew came upon me
beside the body. The only thing for me to do was to tell him the
truth, and that is why I had to leave my home.”

Samuel’s face remained emotionless throughout my
recounting. It was not until I looked down at my clasped hands that
were shaking that he spoke. “I do believe that this is a fortunate
occurrence.”

My gaze shot to his, and a burning
fire rose within me.
Fortunate?
That my life had been torn apart in a matter of
hours? That I was driven from my home and that I lost my betrothed?
I wanted to do more than slap him. He smiled, and it took all my
restraint to keep from scratching out his intense eyes.

“You see, Miss Martin, you have come to the right
place. The Holy Order is in Charleston.”

Jack

13 February 1817

Baltimore

O
ver the
last few months, Leo and I had been in New York, Washington,
Baltimore, and everywhere in between, it seemed. The Holy Order had
left us a trail to follow and one that ended in a giant circle. We
had gone first to the mercantile in Baltimore where Guinevere had
directed me and found it deserted in what looked like
haste.

The throne room was a room two stories below the
mercantile that had also been deserted. We had found our first clue
there that had led to another, then another until we ended back in
Baltimore. We did not find the Holy Order, but we did find a group
of foreigners who had long been a source of trouble for us. They
had murdered the man my sister was going to marry when she was
sixteen, threatened my sister’s life, and were searching for the
woman that I loved. What they wanted with her, I had yet to
discover, but they had a name for her. Ma belle.

It was late, nearing midnight, when Leo and I
followed them at a discreet distance. When they stopped at the back
door of the two-story mercantile, Leo and I paused. They unlocked
the door and the four of them went in, without looking around
first, to see if they were being followed.

Fools!

Leo and I waited a minute before moving to that
door. We each took out a handy pistol before entering the
mercantile. The door led into a dark storage room, but there was a
hint of light coming from an open door to the right. There was a
light moving down a staircase, and as we descended, we could hear
mumbled words coming from the cellar.

To anyone who went down the first
flight of stairs, they would come upon a stocked cellar. Whoever
carved the underground rooms did a fine job of masking the door
that led to a second staircase, for if you pushed a shelf that was
on a track, the shelf moved to reveal a hole cut out of the
stone.

The lower we went, the cooler the air became. As we
stepped off the last stair, we were in a stone-carved hallway that
ended at a black door with a gold knob in the center. Painted in
gold around the knob was the crest of the Holy Order. The door was
standing ajar, and we heard voices, but not clear enough to
decipher what was being said. As we walked toward the door, all was
momentarily silent on the other side.

“We understand you have information for us,” came a
voice that did not sound American.

“All knowledge comes at a price,” replied a voice
that I knew well. I felt my lip curl. Frederick, who was the leader
of the Washington Phantoms. I always said Frederick was a fool, but
even he could not be so foolish as to be working with those rogues
who wore the serpent ring.

“As agreed upon,” the foreign man said. Then he
added, “Den hellige orden.”

“Charleston,” Frederick replied, followed by a sigh
of long-suffering.

That dirty cad!
Frederick knew where the Holy Order was, and
instead of telling me or Bess or Leo, he gave that information to
the ones who were after Ma belle.

“We can’t let them go,” Leo whispered beside me.

“I know. Follow my lead.”

The throne room was as I remembered it, with the
exception of five men in the center of the room. It was a large
square room with a vaulted ceiling rising two stories above. Twelve
golden thrones lined the walls facing a large golden chair on a
raised platform in the center of the room. Candles were aglow on
gold wall sconces illuminating a mural painted on the far wall. It
was a battle scene of angels fighting demons.

As I sauntered into the throne room, Frederick was
seated in the center throne chair. The other four men were
standing. As expected, those four men were wearing a gold snake
wrapped around their index finger. Frederick’s eyes widened, but he
did not move. When five pairs of eyes stared at Leo and me, I
smiled.

“Den hellige orden?” one of the men asked.

“Fantom,” I replied.

The four men drew their weapons, and I braced myself
for the fight, but I had not taken a step, when pistols exploded
from beside me. I leapt to the right, my shoulder bumping into the
wall as my heart beats exploded in surprise and distress. Leo had
shot the four standing men, but Frederick was unharmed.

I put my pistols in my holster as I ran forward.
Three were dead, shot in the heart from Leo’s triple barrel pistol
no doubt, but the fourth only had a flesh wound.

“Have you lost your senses?” Frederick demanded of
Leo, staring down at the men with a horrified expression upon his
face.

Leo moved past me stopping beside the wounded men
without replying to Frederick. Leo dropped to his knee and pulled a
long dagger from a sheath on his weapons belt. He placed the sharp
edge against the wounded man’s throat. I took a step forward, but
Leo held up his other hand to stop me.

“Hvordan gjorde han finde os?” Leo asked, and I took
a step back.

Leo had never before spoken Danish
around me. Neither had he ever sounded so angry, and we had been
working together for four years. Leo was the silent type, only
speaking when he had something important to say.
How did he find us?
Of
whom was he speaking?

“De tilhører ham,” the man replied.

They belong to him.
I was lost in confusion. Obviously, Leo had
secrets that he had not shared with me, if he personally knew who
these men were. We had been hunting them for nearly four years, and
never once did Leo let on that he knew whom they were.

Leo responded to the man by doing something he had
never done as long as I had known him. He struck the man until his
face bled. Frederick jumped up shouting. I moved forward, trying to
pull Leo back, but he would not release him. When he did stop
beating him, Leo pulled a cord of rope from his belt. As Leo bound
the man with intricate knots, I turned on Frederick.

“What the devil were
you
about? You knew
where the Holy Order was, and you told
them
! My sister has been searching
for these men for years. They tried to kill my sister, and they
murdered Ben, you cad.”

Frederick’s face distorted as he
sneered. “
My sister, my
sister
,” he mocked, “do you think I do not
know that? This is larger than your sister’s problems; this is
larger than any of your once Phantoms could ever
understand.”

Frederick was taller than me by a good four inches,
but he was not as quick as I was. I threw my fist against his jaw,
sending him stumbling back against the chair.

“You are no Phantom, Frederick.”

Frederick spit blood from where part of my fist had
busted his lip. “I could make the obvious retort, John, but I will
not”