Phantoms In Philadelphia (30 page)

Her chamber surprised me. It was decorated with
flower paper, embroidered bed covering, and two vases of roses all
in shades of yellow and pink. I do not know what I was expecting;
daggers and poisons perhaps. At the side of her bed, I laid the
bouquet on her pillow where she could not fail to notice it.

Once again on the ground floor, Martha was no longer
in the dining parlor. The door to the kitchen was open, and I heard
her singing.

Drat!

I stepped off the stairs, my eyes trained on the
kitchen door. I did not want to hurt Martha, but allowing her to
see me leaving the house was impossible. Taking her unaware and
knocking her out was the only way. Stepping toward the kitchen, the
front door knob jiggled, and Martha’s singing ceased. My heart
staggered. I panicked, ran into the parlor and hid behind the open
door.

“Martha,” Guinevere called out, “I have
returned.”

“Did you accomplish what you wanted?” Martha asked,
also in the foyer.

“Alas, no, but I will. I am going to my chamber to
change, and then I will help you with the bread.”

Martha went back to her singing, and I heard
Guinevere’s light tread on the stairs. Finding the foyer empty, I
ran to the front door and quickly departed; fear and joy mingled
together.

The white phantom
is
Guinevere
.
Guinevere resurrected Pierre. Guinevere had money, not the
poor orphan we thought she was, and
was
connected to the Holy Order, whatever they were, and she probably
was not Richard’s ward at all. I would put nothing beyond those
two.

Once across the street, and pausing to look at her
window, she stood with the bouquet in hand. She must have found the
card or feather, or both, for suddenly her head jerked toward the
window, and her eyes met mine. She was enraged. Good! Instead of
clapping or dancing a jig I put my gloved fingers to my lips and
released them toward her. I was wearing Jack’s mask, so she would
think it was Loutaire sending her that message.

***

The next morning, it was nearing eight when I went
down the stairs and heard Jack speaking to someone in his library.
“Who is the female? Do you know her?”

Levi’s eyes met mine over Jack’s shoulder, and he
clamped his mouth shut as I walked in to the library.

“Was your mission successful?” Levi asked, making me
want to choke him.

“What mission?” Jack asked.

“It was not a mission so much as a task,” I replied,
but both of them were staring at me, so I sighed and told Jack what
I had done.

There was complete silence for a few moments as
Jack’s jaw worked back and forth. Levi took a step back. “Why would
you do that?” Jack asked with deadly calm. Jack shouting was
something I could handle, but Jack’s low voice meant danger.

“It needed to be done,” I said, squaring my
shoulders and meeting his gaze without wincing at the ice in his
stare.

“That was not your call,
sister.”

“I will just...” Levi’s sentence hung as he nearly
ran from the room.

“Coward,” I hissed at him as he passed by me,
receiving a boyish grin in return before he disappeared around the
corner.

Jack dug his fingers into his black hair as he
lowered himself to the sofa. “I take it that you are the one who
stole the iron?”

“I did not
steal
it. I returned it to its
rightful owner.” With a cunning message that she would not be able
to ignore.

Before he could reply, the front knocker sounded
three times. It was too early for callers, but when Andrew stepped
into the foyer, everything within me twisted and turned until I was
one large knot of nerves and anticipation.

He is here to propose.

Was I ready? Looking at his fine form and kind
manners as he greeted my mother in the foyer, yes, I was ready. He
turned his head, and his eyes met mine.

He did not smile. He pulled his gaze away as my
mother led him into the library. I stepped to the side but watched
his every move. His shoulders were stiff, and he balanced on the
balls of his feet like he was about to run.

Mother directed him to a chair, but
he shook his head. “Thank you, but I am afraid that I cannot remain
long. I have come to bid your family adieu. Even now my carriage
waits to take me to my uncle.”

Everything within me stumbled, and
cold slithered from my stomach up to my chest taking a pick axe and
chipping away at my heart. He was leaving—
without
proposing.

“Surely you will not travel in this bitter weather,”
mother said, as she cast me a pitying look.

“I have put off my departure for too long, but I
could not leave without bidding your family farewell, for you each
have been so kind to me during my sojourn in the metropolis.”

Kind?
For
each spoken word, there were a hundred unspoken ones. With each
moment that he would not look at me, I saw my future slipping
away.

“Do you mean to stay away long, Mr. Madison?” Jack
asked, doing nothing to hide the anger in his voice.

“My plans are, as yet, unsure. I never know how long
my uncle will require my company. It may be many months before I am
at liberty to return to this fair city.”

A sob threatened to burst from my
throat, but I held on. I would not break down. I could not. Andrew
moved to my mother and bowed over her hand and then turned to me. I
extended my hand mechanically, and when his fingers touched mine, I
willed with everything inside of me.
Look
at me. Look at me!
But he would not meet my
eyes. He released my hand almost as soon as he had touched it. My
eyes burned as the moisture built.

“I do hope that we shall meet again one day,” he
said to the room, then smiled, but there was no warmth. He walked
from the room with Jack on his heels.

Mother sank to a chair moaning audibly. “That is it
then.”

Saying nothing, I moved to the
door. Giving up was not me; I had to do something, say something.
When I reached the door, Jack was speaking.

“Surely you will stay long enough to speak with my
sister. You gave me reason to believe...” Jack let the rest trail
and something inside me broke, shattering into tiny slivers that
cut me all over.

Andrew shook his head as he picked
up his hat from the side table. “I regret...truly. I had hoped—” he
broke off, shaking his head again. “I must go.” Andrew held out his
hand, but Jack crossed his arms scowling up at him. Andrew lowered
his hand, smiled sadly, turned and stepped out of the door, taking
my dreams for a future away from the Phantoms with him.

I looked down at the floor,
noticing that my hands were shaking.
I
will be strong. I will be strong. I
will
be strong
.
I could not be strong. A sob caught
in my throat.

“Please, excuse me,” I whispered to no one in
particular before running up the stairs.

In my chamber, sobs wrenched my chest, but no tears
came. Heat and pain swirled all around me, forcing me to my knees.
I covered my head with my hands, pushing as hard as I could, and
screamed into my hands. My heart ached so much that I screamed
deeper.

What have I done? What could I have possibly
done?

A voice in my head sounding like my
father said,
‘You have failed again.
Always failing.’

My forehead dropped to the floor as I sobbed. It was
not fair. Three times. Three times had I opened my heart and lost.
First, with my father, then Ben, and now Andrew. Rocking on my
knees, I kept my eyes closed, my cold hands covering my face,
willing the pain away.

When my knees hurt, I laid on the floor curling into
a ball. My body felt like a hollow cavern with a cold wind surging
through all the emptiness.

Someone came to my door, but I ignored them until
they went away, and I was left alone. Always alone. I lay on my
floor for an hour before finally shoving my hair away from my face
and pushing to my feet. How I gained the will to rise I do not
know. Numbness was covering me, but grief had ruled me for too
long. I was a Phantom; a fighter. I would not spend years pining
for Andrew as I had Ben. Having suffered enough disappointment for
three lifetimes, my heart said no more. As I had been determined as
a child, I was determined once more never to give anyone the power
to disappoint me again.

Bess

S
ix days
passed in the same routine. I was trying to remain untouched,
detached, but it was increasingly harder as Jack watched me with a
look of deep hurt in his eyes; as if my pain was in some way his
fault. With each member of my team, it was the same. They had heard
of my disappointment, and they hurt for me. When one hurt, we all
hurt, but I did not want them to take on my pain. I wanted them to
help me destroy Levitas, so that I could leave the Phantoms behind
for good.

There had been no more Levitas
meetings, and I was close to deciding to spend time with Nicholas
Mansfield so that I could know when the meetings were to be held.
That, or capture Guinevere and force her, by whatever means that I
could create—and I was an exceptionally creative person—to tell me
all.

One pitfall to my plan to leave the Phantoms was
money. Being that I was not to be married, my fortune was tied up
until I was twenty-five. Six years. My mother could not marry
Richard, so unless Jack or I married, we would be destitute, forced
to sell the house, move some place smaller, and possibly remain
Phantoms so we could continue to receive our small stipend. The
answer arrived six days after Andrew had abandoned me.

A deep voice came from the open front door, and I
looked up to see Mr. Hobbs, my mother’s man of business, enter the
house.

He was a short, plump man with a
balding head and his brown suit too small. He shook hands with
Jack, and they congenially
came into the
library. I tried to smile at him, but failed horribly, having not
smiled in six days.

As Mr. Hobbs greeted Mother, Jack stood next to me,
but did not touch me, and for that I was grateful.

“Mrs. Martin, I come with good news.” Mr. Hobbs
opened his leather case that he was clutching in his hands and
withdrew a stack of papers. Those he handed to her.

Mother looked from Mr. Hobbs’ smiling face to the
papers and started to read. When she reached the second page, she
suddenly looked up, and Mr. Hobbs chuckled with glee.

“Is this God’s honest truth?” Mother asked, in a
whispered voice.

“Indeed it is Mrs. Martin. I am pleased to be able
to inform you that you are again an excessively wealthy woman.”

The room was completely silent as we stared at Mr.
Hobbs.

“How is this possible?” Mother demanded after a full
minute.

“If you will turn to the next page, you will see
where Captain Carter and Captain Townsend wish to buy your ships
from you.”

Ships?
I
looked at Jack, who was equally confused. Mother cast us an uneasy
look, then turned her attention back to Mr. Hobbs.

“I thought the ships were lost,” Mother murmured,
almost reverently.

Mr. Hobbs smiled, his fat cheeks
puffing out even more. “So too did I until last week. You will
remember that I had to go to Baltimore, and
while I was there, who should I
chance
to meet but Captain Carter. His story is intriguing.”

“One moment,” Jack said. “What are these ships you
speak of? My mother does not own any ships.”

Mr. Hobbs shifted uncomfortably while Mother
straightened the papers in her hands without looking at us.

“It is true that I own two ships. They were a
wedding gift to your father and I from a family friend.”

A wedding gift?
If she had two ships, why then were we so poor
when we first arrived in America?

“You may remember the
Lutania
.
It is the ship that we came to this country
aboard.”

Jack took a step back. Neither of our parents ever
once spoke to us about owning ships. “Where are these ships now?”
Jack asked.

“On their way to Charleston in the Carolinas. The
ships are merchant ships, and your mother had the fortitude to
secure captains to become privateers during the war. We had thought
that the British had captured them, as we had heard nothing from
the captains in three years.”

“Where were these captains in the last three years?”
I asked.

“After the captains made it through the blockade
successfully, other merchants heard of it and commissioned the
captains to sail their goods for them. The captains, being men of
honor, have finally returned from a successful time at the
helm.

“Together, we went over the account books of how the
goods sold and the list of how shares were divvied. The captains
split their shares with Mrs. Martin. You shall see the total sum,
if you will look upon the last page. With the selling of the ships,
which I have acted for Mrs. Martin in agreeing, knowing her
financial situation, the total is rather substantial.”

Jack and I both moved to stand behind Mother’s chair
as she shuffled through the stack of papers. She pulled out the
last paper, and we all read until we reached the total. I let out a
gasp in astonishment. Mother opened her mouth to speak, but nothing
came forth.

As if he could see our doubt, Mr.
Hobbs said, “The profit comes roughly to eighty
thousand—”