Secrets In Savannah (Phantom Knights) (30 page)

Charlotte knocking me out of the
path of George’s shot made my urgency to find my sister all the greater. The
same could happen to Edith if I did not find her, and who would be there to
push her out of the way?

Edith had not been raised as I
had. She had been protected, spoiled, her every childish desire granted, except
one. She had wanted to come with me instead of living with Harvey. She told me
so every time that I visited her. She said that she could learn to fight, but
she was the baby, the one who needed to be protected. Allowing her to endure
the things that I had would have been to treat her to the worst sort of fate.
Her sweetness and her goodness would have been tainted.

She was like our mother, loved by
everyone who met her. She was guileless, innocent in all her looks. She was
what we all would have been had our parents not been murdered. She had been the
only untarnished thing in my life until Harvey abandoned her.

Knowing that Levi was working with
George, I thought that he may have taken her back to Savannah, but as I walked
out of the temple, I heard Edith’s voice. There were trees all around us, but
just inside the copse was my sister.

“Please. Please let me go to my
sister.” Edith was begging as Levi pulled her along with him.

“I cannot do that. You do not
understand this now, but this is the only way.”

Taking out my dagger pistol from
my belt, I walked toward them. As I stepped into the clearing beyond the trees,
Edith gasped, and Levi shifted around to me, raising a pistol.

When he saw who it was, he
released a breath and lowered his weapon. That perplexed me, but not enough to
make me lower my own.

As he noticed that I was not
lowering my weapon, he scowled. “What are you about, Guinevere? I am on your
side.”

“Certainly you are,” I retorted,
“and George just happened to know that Frederick was in this temple. The only
side you are on, Levi Martin, is your own.”

“Truly, sister, he is on our side.
Please, lower your weapon,” said my sister, showing bravery for the first time
since she was a child by stepping in front of Levi.

It had the opposite effect upon me
as I was sure was intended. I steadied the pistol, but aimed it just beyond
them, not wanting to point it toward my sister.

Levi stepped to her side and took
her hand. The defiance in Edith’s eyes and the intent in Levi’s made me want to
laugh and groan at the same moment.

“What the devil is this?” I
demanded.

Edith’s eyes grew large. “Bella!”

Hearing her childhood name for me made
me smile. “Forgive me, sister. What in all that is lovely is this?”

Edith shook her head as she always
did when she thought I was being ridiculous, and Levi snorted.

“It would seem that the men in my
family were meant to love the women in yours,” Levi informed me and my hand
faltered, dropping down to my side.

“
Love
? For the Lord’s
goodness, this is not what we need,” I replied, exasperated beyond words.

“I love her and, what is more, she
loves me.”

There was not a single thing more dangerous
to my sister than being in love. I prayed that Levi was lying. It would be
difficult enough persuading our Queen to accept Jack. I could not believe that
she would give Levi a second glance.

Edith was far too young to be
thinking herself in love. Love was complex, and Edith had been guarded, she did
not know the ways of the world.

“What he says is the truth,
sister,” Edith said, and I wanted to shake her then hug her, but undoubtedly
shake her.

Blonde curls bounced around her
shoulders as her hair was hanging in disarray. She had smudges of dirt on her
dress, but she appeared unharmed. She had always been the prettiest of us. Her
natural curls, and her brown eyes the color of chocolate accentuating her pale
skin. She may have been sixteen, but she looked all of fourteen.

“You will help us, will you not? I
was sure that you would, because of Jack.”

There was no guile in her
expression, but she knew she had convinced me. The words were like a fist to
the gut. All hope of getting her through this unscathed was gone.

“I cannot say how Jack will feel
but for myself, my sister is in the right. I do know what it is to love
someone. If you are whom my sister has chosen, then we will try to get through
this somehow. We must go to the others.”

“No,” Levi said earnestly. “We
need to get Edith away from here.”

“So you will,” a deep voice spoke
from behind me.

George stood in the clearing as
calm as he always appeared to be.

Levi pushed Edith behind him.
“George, do not be a fool.”

“I will take the girl, but you will
not be leaving here, Levi. You told me this would work. You assured me that
Harvey could not stay away.”

I moved next to Levi, but I cast
him a glance that assured him we would be speaking about that later.

“Step aside. I do not want to hurt
you,” George said.

“You will not hurt any of us. It
is not your way. No matter what you have done, you are not a murderer,” Levi
replied, holding George’s gaze.

George motioned toward me with his
gun. “You would stand with her? You do not know her ways, but I do. She is all
pretense, playing like she is on our side until she acquires her goal, and then
she will betray us without a second thought.”

“You are wrong,” I said. “I would
have a second thought, but I would squash it.”

George’s face was mottled red.
“The girl will leave with me. We will disappear, and you will never find us.”

“You will take her only when I am
dead,” I shouted, raising my own pistol.

“It will be as you wish,” George
retorted, giving me a mock bow.

Frederick ran from the trees,
sliding to a stop between us and George. “I cannot allow you to harm her.”

George sputtered. “You would risk
your life for her? She is the enemy.”

“No. She belongs to a Phantom, and
that makes her family. We are bound to protect her.”

George gulped like a fish caught
in a net. “She is Harvey’s pawn. He is using her to manipulate us all, and in
the end he will rise and claim what is ours.”

“The only power that Harvey has is
the power that you grant him,” Frederick said with more wisdom than I ever
credited him for.

As George’s attention was on
Frederick, I grabbed Levi’s arm, and we backed toward the trees, our bodies
shielding Edith.

George noticed us moving and let
out a vicious cry. A lithe figure darted out of the trees and leapt onto
George, knocking the pistol askew.

A gunshot blasted through the
clearing, going wide of its mark. George dropped the pistol and reached for a
second that he raised toward Hannah’s head.

My mouth opened to shout, but
Hannah, moving as swift as a wave, slammed her hand against George’s neck. When
she released him, an emerald and gold brooch was sticking out of his neck. He
stumbled around, pawing at his neck, his face turning gray.

Hannah waved us on as Sam and Jack
came into the clearing, shouting.

Levi and I each had one of Edith’s
hands as we ran through the trees away from the temple, toward where Levi said
was a road.

A quarter of a mile and he was
right. Seeing Gideon standing on the road beside a traveling carriage, I came
up short.

“What is this?”

Gideon came toward me, taking my
hands in his reassuring way. “Levi and I worked this out so that no one would
see us depart. I offer my protection to your sister for as long as she requires
it.”

The enormity of the weight that
lifted from me caused me to gasp. “Are you certain? To align yourself with us
is to align yourself with possible death.”

“My dear, I have been a spy for
forty years and I am not dead yet. One final mission will do me more good than
harm, I assure you.”

The sound of another carriage
approaching sent me into a panic. Grabbing my sister and hugging her, I refused
to cry, though she was. “I love you from here to the end of all time,” I
whispered as our mother used to do.

Levi assisted her into the
carriage and then helped Gideon before facing me. “We will protect her with our
lives.” He pulled an envelope from his pocket, handing it to me. “If you would,
please give this to my brother and sister.”

“Do me one favor in return,” I
said, and Levi nodded. “Do not marry my sister until I can be present.”

Levi grinned as he hopped into the
carriage. “I make no promises.” He shut the door, and the carriage lurched into
movement. It passed the second carriage at the bend in the road, and I turned
to run back toward the temple, but a familiar voice halted me.

“Milady.”

Pierre had the carriage door open,
and hopped down before it came to a halt. “We must get you away from here.
Come.”

“Where is he?” I asked Pierre
before I moved, for that was the only reason he would be in Savannah.

“At his ship,” Pierre replied, his
gaze unwavering.

There were some questions that I
needed answered before I could wholly give up this life, and there was only one
person who had those answers.

Once seated inside the carriage
beside Pierre and on our way back to Savannah, I was able to voice a question
that had long been burning within me.

“Pierre,” I said with a biting
tone and he gave me his attention. “You knew that Jack was not dead when you
took me from Charleston, did you not?”

“
Oui
.”

There was no remorse, no
explanation, but none was required. Harvey had sent him to fetch me, and if I
had known Jack was alive no force could have taken me from him.

The carriage rumbled its way
through the city streets until we reached the harbor. Several ships were
anchored, and Harvey’s was among them.

When I stepped onto the deck of
Harvey’s ship there was no one aboard to greet us.

A door to below the ship opened,
and Harvey walked regally forward. My heart skipped a beat, for Harvey was not
alone. Things were beginning to piece together.

“Ah, how kind of you to come
aboard,” Harvey’s deep voice said.

“What do you want, Lucius? I gave
you my resignation. I am finished playing your pawn.”

The scar that ran down the left
side of Harvey’s face was more pronounced when he sneered, which he was doing.
He did not approve when I called him by his name instead of Lord or General.

“If you mean to declare war
against the Phantoms let me assure you that I will stand with them, and it will
be by my hand that you meet your fate.” It was a promise, one I meant with all
of my heart.

“What shall you do, little one?
Stab me? Shoot me?”

“All of the above,” I returned, to
which the person standing beside Harvey laughed.

The melodious sound raked over my
skin like fingernails scratching too hard.

“As much as I approve of your
defense of the Phantoms, do try for some decorum, Guinevere,” Ma
belle
said.

“It is Mrs. Martin to you, if you
please.” It felt thrilling to say those words to her and to see her surprise.

Her lips turned down. “You have
done it then? You have married him?”

My lips pressed into a defiant
line. She may have been my future Queen, but at the moment I saw only my elder
sister.

“We now have the ability to change
our nation, and you would throw all of that away for a man?” she demanded.

“Jack is not just a man. He is my
husband, and he can help us for you know who his father was,” I implored.

She smiled, but there was no good
in it. She looked far too much like a monarch about to be diplomatic even
though their words did not match their true feelings.

“Where is he? I would like to
present myself to my new brother, or is that asking too much of you?”

“Have you come here to disrupt my
life?” I returned with disregard for our blood bond. She may have been my
sister, but all I saw was a foreigner. She did not react to my disregard. She
had far too much self-control to allow anything I said to upset her.

“No. You have made your choice,
and now I will take a few days to consider, and let you know my ruling soon. I
only hope that you do not regret your impulsiveness.”

My gaze went immediately to
Harvey, and the memories of my life with him. “You may be sure that I never
shall.” I curtsied to my sister, and walked toward the gangplank, but paused to
look over my shoulder. “Harvey.”

He stepped forward, all eagerness.

“As promised, all is in readiness.
Meet me at the temple on Tuesday at midnight. You and I have one final task
together.”

Harvey bowed with a pleased grin
on his lips, and my sister smiled. I left the ship knowing that my sister held
my fate in her hands, but I found that I did not much care. All that mattered
was returning to my husband and finding a way to tell him that the woman he
married was not a spy or an assassin, but the sister to a future queen.