Secrets In Savannah (Phantom Knights) (31 page)

JACK

G
eorge Crawford was dead.

Even though I had witnessed it, I
could not believe it. George had been a part of my life from the time that my
father formed the Phantoms.

Sam and I had run forward as
George began gurgling, his eyes wide in horror as he clawed at his neck that
was swelling. Within a matter of seconds, his hand stilled, the fear in his
eyes frozen, and his hand dropped to his side as death claimed him.

Sam tried to revive George as
Hannah knelt down and plucked the brooch from George’s neck that had swelled to
twice its original size. I had to look away; it was too grotesque.

“What the devil is that device?” I
demanded as Hannah stood beside me.

Frederick was pulling Sam away
from George.

“It is a family secret, as I am
sure that you can understand.”

“What is that supposed to mean,
Hannah?” I asked without a hint of emotion in my voice.

Hannah’s shoulders squared. “Do
not take me for a fool, Jack. Your father created the Phantoms, and the name is
Annetta
.”

Hannah’s words hit me like a
squall. “Does Dudley work for you?”

Hannah grinned. “Dear Dudley works
for no one. His mother, though, now that is a story for another time.”

Hannah and I had found Leo sewing
up Dudley’s arm, and when Frederick joined us, he assured me that he and his
men would see to everything.

As it happened, Frederick was true
to his word, and he was not on the opposing side. He was not working with
George, but trying to contain George by pretense.

Frederick poured forth George’s
plan. George never intended to turn Edith over to Lucas, but to use her to draw
out Harvey.

I, for one, did not believe that.

From Hannah I learned that my wife
had run with Levi and Edith, but it was from Mrs. Stanton that I received a
note from Gideon. He was bidding me farewell as his new mission would take him
far away. He never wrote about Edith or Levi, but I knew that is what his
mission was.

Where Guinevere was, I did not
know. After scouring the surrounding area, we found two separate sets of
carriage tracks and deduced that she had found her own way back to Savannah. I
wanted to ride in search of her at once, but Bess refused to let me out of her
sight, sending Leo instead to follow the tracks on horseback.

We were a subdued lot as Mrs.
Stanton’s carriage lumbered toward Warren Square. Hannah had decided to move in
with her husband, and Sam, Bess, and Charlotte would stay the night at the
plantation before sailing back to Charleston on the morrow.

As my mother’s house came into
view, my chest squeezed, for the door opened, and my wife came down the steps.

Not waiting for the carriage to
come to a complete halt, I threw open the door, leapt down, and ran to her.

As I held her against me, I felt
her tears on my neck where her face was resting. Taking her face in my hands, I
kissed her, tears and all. Her arms wrapped around me, squeezing me for a
moment before she pushed back.

“Please, Jack,” my wife said with
desperation in her voice as she gripped my coat, “tell me that everyone is
alive.”

“Everyone except George.”

She said something in Danish that
sounded like a prayer.

When the carriage halted, everyone
had alighted, and we gave our thanks to the Stanton’s for their aid, Guinevere
led Charlotte into the house.

In the parlor, Guinevere had
Charlotte sit upon the sofa, and wrapping a blanket around her legs, she asked
if there was anything she could fetch for Char.

Surprised, I stood inside the door
watching my wife work to put Char at ease. Something had happened in that
temple to change Guinevere’s perception of Charlotte.

“I want you to know, Guinevere,
that I regret, most sincerely, the part I played in your capture. If I had not
been such a fool, Uncle George would still be alive.”

Guinevere knelt down before
Charlotte, taking her hands. “His death is not your fault. You did not tell him
to abduct my sister. You did nothing but believe what you thought to be the
truth. You have my forgiveness.”

Char sniffed. “You are not as
wretched as I thought. I am glad that Jack married you.”

Guinevere’s grin was playful.
“Thank you.”

Sam came in to sit beside
Charlotte, and we left them alone to express their grief.

In the dining parlor, Guinevere
brought forth a letter, handing it to me.

“Your brother asked that I give
you both this.”

Bess and I sat at the table as I
tore the seal and spread open the sheet.

Levi opened with an apology. He
wanted Bess to know that he did not blame her for anything that had happened to
him. His placing blame on us had been part of his escape plan so that he could
join the Holy Order to try to destroy them from the inside. Picking up where
our father had left off.

To me he wrote that he now
understood why I had loved and married Guinevere, for he had fallen for Edith
and meant to marry her as soon as it could be contrived.

Bess laughed aloud, for all the
men she had thought would suit Edith, Levi had never been considered. If Edith
had any spark of fire like her sister, I did not envy my brother the dance she
would lead him on.

Levi wanted us to convey to Mother
his regrets that he had not seen her before he went away, and his earnest
desire that the Martins be reunited one day.

“There is one more letter that I
must give you,” Guinevere said as she laid a second envelope on the table.
Sliding it across to us, she took a deep breath. “As promised, that contains
the names and locations of the Holy Order, the branches, and the dates of
meetings. What you choose to do with that information, I will not stand in your
way.”

After supper was through, and we
had seen Sam, Bess, and Char off, I lifted Guinevere in my arms, carrying her
up the stairs to my chamber. Settling her on the bed, I held her as her tears
fell. When she was able to speak, she apologized for crying all over me, and I
kissed her, and did not halt for a long while.

When dawn came, I found my wife
awake and sitting on the edge of the bed. As I leaned into her back and kissed
her shoulder, she sighed.

“Jack, I need you to know that the
night after we fought in the temple, I heard what you said about me.”

To what she was speaking of, I did
not know, but whatever it was had upset her.

She saw my confusion, for she
said, “When you told Sam that you could not trust me.”

Relieved laughter spilled over my
lips, making my wife frown. “My darling, no. We were speaking of Hannah.” Her
brows creased and confusion was on her face. “Dudley, whom I suppose that you
did not see, was here bemoaning that Hannah had run from him. They were
involved in Philadelphia, though I learned this day that they are married.”

She moved so that she was facing
me, and took my hand. “You were right in what you said though. You should not trust
a woman who runs from you.” She withdrew her hands to clasp them against her
chest. “Please remember that I love you.”

“Guinevere,” I said with a note of
despair. Her words did not bode well.

“I have told you a little about my
family, but now you need to know all.”

What she was about to say had me
taut as I waited.

My wife’s hands were shaking as
she blurted out, “I have another sister.”

The wave of relief I felt made me
laugh. “Is that all? My dear, you must not do such things to me. My heart
cannot take it.”

“I am afraid there is more.” She
swallowed, inhaled, exhaled, and spoke. “My sister is the future Queen of my
country, and, what is more, you are acquainted.”

GUINEVERE

H
e did not want to believe me, and
there was only one way to convince him.

With a breath for strength, the
story tumbled out. “I was born in a country called
Lutania
.
It is a small island near the borders of Denmark and Sweden.”

“
Lutania
?”
Jack asked with a hint of wonder, for surely he was thinking of the name of his
mother’s ship.

I nodded and went on with my
story. Our little country had gone through much over the years, having broken
from Denmark to make our own kingdom. My father’s grandfather was the one to
lead the revolution.

We were threatened more than I
cared to recount. My father’s family were Danish, but my mother was Swedish.
Our country had an alliance with Sweden, and that was the only reason that our
country survived for so many years.

It was true that my father was a
great landholder, but that was not the whole truth. When our country broke away
from Denmark, there were artifacts forged to celebrate our independence, but
there was a hidden secret among the artifacts. My great grandfather wanted us
to become a free country, like America had turned out to be, but all he had
ever known was a land ruled by Kings. He decided to try to join the two.

When the country’s accords were
being written, a law was made in our kingdom that, should there be no direct
heirs, the one who held all of the artifacts on the day of independence could
be named King or Queen if the council approved that person. To protect our
family, the artifacts were hidden and only the king and the protector knew who
had them.

On the eve of the Independence
ball, a group of men came to the castle dressed as guests, and attacked the
king and the council. Their goal had been to capture the king during the
traditional ceremony with the artifacts, but that had not happened. My mother
had yet to fetch them from where they were hidden.

Somehow they had discovered that
my mother was the protector of the artifacts. When she refused to give up the
artifacts, they tortured my father before her. It was not until my uncle
stepped forward to protest that we discovered his true nature. He turned on my
parents and murdered my father.

My parents had discussed what they
must do should something like that happen, and my mother knew that she must at
all costs protect the artifacts. They left my mother alone with my father’s
body, saying they would bring her children in for the same fate.

What neither my uncle nor his
guards knew was there were tunnels running beneath our home. I had watched the
entire thing from behind a tapestry. As soon as the door locked, I ran to my
mother. She knew that they would torture us if they found us, so she did what
she must to protect us.

The protector had the right to
name their successor, and my mother named me. She told me where to find the
artifacts, and she made me swear to protect my family. She gave us money and
told us to take her trusted guard and run. When I tried to get her to leave
with us, she refused. She would give us as much time as she could to make our
escape. She shoved me into the secret passage and closed the door. The only
thing I could do was to get my family out, but we did not make it.

For three horrific months, we were
kept prisoners in our own home. When torturing my mother proved fruitless, and
she refused to give up the artifacts, my uncle did the most despicable thing
imaginable. He forced my elder sister into marriage.

As Gideon had told Jack briefly
what had happened the night of their wedding, he realized it had not been me
who was married.

“If your sister is here, what
happened to her husband?” Jack asked the one question that I would not tell
him. He would never see me the same if I did.

“He is of no import,” I said at
once, but Jack jumped up to his knees, startling me.

“I know who your sister is,” he said
slowly. “I know, but I want to hear you speak her name.”

Closing my eyes against the ache
of betrayal that I was doing, I said it. “Rose Eldridge.”

Jack was silent, and opening my
eyes, he was motionless as he stared down at me. “How old were you,” Jack asked
without heat, “when you poisoned your sister’s husband?”

Leaping off the bed, I spun to
face him, my arms crossed defensively over my front. “How do you know?”

“When I asked Sam how you knew
Rose, he told me that you had killed her husband. Then Gideon told me that the
man the eldest was forced to marry had been poisoned.”

Stepping back, he could have
slapped me, and I would not have felt more pain. Leave it to my sister to use
that truth as part of her identity. As if she blamed me for what I had done.