The Charleston Chase (Phantom Knights Book 2) Page 18

  “No, you?”

  “Not particularly.”

  He reached out, and I took his offered hand, lacing my fingers with his. Rose and Betsy reached us. After asking after Sam, Rose told us what she and Jack had found. There were rooms full of weapons on the third floor. As if the Holy Order were planning a battle.

  Jack returned, looking furious. I went to him, but all he said was that Levi had escaped with a carriage he had waiting for him on the road behind the factory. Charlotte cried out. Jack and I turned toward them. Sam was out cold, his head on Charlotte’s lap.

  With a cry, I moved to his side and checked his wound. My hand came away from the back of his head with blood. Jack pulled out a handkerchief and placed it against the wound. He sent Rose and Betsy to find a hackney coach.

  We bound Sam’s head as best we could, and when Rose returned, we lifted Sam between us. All of the muscles in my arms were straining as I carried his legs out of the building, following Jack to where the carriage was waiting. The driver looked absolutely mortified as he climbed down to help us get Sam into the carriage. Jack stayed at the factory while Rose, Betsy, and I squeezed on one side of the carriage, and Charlotte sat on the other with Sam’s head in her lap.

  Once we arrived at Sam’s house, Abe and Leo carried him inside, then Abe left to fetch a doctor. Rose and I tried to clean Sam’s wound as best we could. He winced and moaned, but he never opened his eyes.

  When the doctor arrived, he allowed Leo to stay in the room, since Leo’s father had been a doctor, but sent the rest of us out. I sat on the stairs with my arm around Charlotte. Her head was resting on my shoulder. Abe stood against the wall staring at the door, Rose paced the foyer, and Betsy stood silent beside her brother.

  Fifteen minutes passed before the door to the parlor opened, and the doctor came out followed by Leo.

  “He will recover,” the doctor said. “He should rest, but first he wishes to speak with Miss Martin.”

  Glancing at Charlotte, I could see her envy, but she nodded to me.

  In the parlor with the door firmly shut behind me, I fought tears. Sam was resting on the sofa; a large white bandage wrapped around the top portion of his head and forehead. His eyes opened, and he held out his hand. I rushed to him, taking his hand and sinking down beside the sofa.

  “Thank you, Bess,” he whispered.

  “I did little.”

  “You did more than you know.”

  His eyes closed, and his chest rose and fell heavily, and I blinked back moisture that continued to rise to my eyes.

  “I never thought to see you again after Philadelphia,” he said without opening his eyes, “but I wished it would be so, if only to apologize to you.” When his eyes opened, I could see how tired he was. “I knew who you were, and I apologize for how I treated you.”

  His eyes met mine, and there was an earnestness there that filled me with love. I never truly knew what love felt like, until I saw those men hitting Sam. Love was doing anything and everything in your power to protect those you cared for, to want to be with them every day, to love them despite their faults and for all their quirks. It is to love all of them for whom they are and how strong they make you by being near. I knew without a single doubt that I loved Sam Mason, and I would for the rest of my days.

  “I need you, Bess. Say you will stay, even after we find the Holy Order.”

  The moisture filling my eyes was persistent to fall. “I will stay for as long as you wish me here.”

  “Then you shall stay forever.”

  I watched him while his breathing evened out, and he fell into a deep sleep. It was over an hour later when I rose from his side. He was still sleeping, and Leo promised to tell him I would return on the morrow, when I had every intention of showing him the artifacts, and together we would discover their truth.

  Chapter 17

  Bess

  It had not been possible to go over the artifacts until two days after Sam was injured. When Charlotte and I arrived at Sam’s house, she ran off to find Jack, but Jeffrey showed me into the book room. Sam was not there, so I walked over to the bookcases and began to peruse his extensive collection as I drew off my gloves. The first case was entirely on agriculture with each book alphabetized by the author’s last name. When I reached the third case, the one closest to the window, I was wondering what kind of man I had fallen in love with. Jack always said that you could discover anything you want to know about a man by the literature in his library. If he had no library that was all you needed to know.

  Sam was the opposite. He had the largest library I had ever seen, but such a diverse collection, that I did not know where to begin trying to understand his intellectual side. There were books on Agriculture, Anthropology, Economics, Greek Mythology, Medical Science, Nautical, Ontology, Zoology, and many more research books in all categories.

  Now that I knew I loved him, I wanted to know everything about him; all of his likes, from his favorite books to his favorite foods. A person’s likes were like the little touched hidden in a painting that the onlooker would only see if they stared at the painting long enough. They added depth to the main focus; a silent beauty.

  There were many things that I knew about Sam. He liked to sit on his mother’s bench when he needed to think, and he was both intellectual and business savvy, having succeeded in growing a large shipping company by the time he was twenty-five. He knew how to sail his own ships. He also liked to have his own way far too often and was stubborn. He knew how to raise my ire, and at times, I had a suspicion he was doing it to see how I would react. He tended to enjoy baiting me, and he was annoyingly calm when I was heated. How could you love someone so much and be annoyed with them in the same breath? Love was complex indeed.

  “All these books and no novels.” I murmured.

  “Those would be in the upper stacks, Bess,” Sam said from the corner of the library.

  I jumped, bumping my shoulder into one of the cases. He was standing on his rounded staircase, a book in his hand and a smile on his lips.

  “You should know that novels are a passion of mine,” he said with a tone of complete seriousness. “My sister says I keep them on the second story because they are closer to heaven.”

  I lowered my hand from where it was resting against my heart. “Were you standing there watching me this whole time?”

  He came down the last two steps. “Do you know that you bite your bottom lip when you are deep in thought? On the left side.”

  “Do you know that it is rude to watch someone without making your presence known?”

  He laughed. “We are spies, Bess. That is what we do.”

  “A hit,” I said, laying a hand over my heart while returning his infectious smile.

  His laughter was deeper as he moved to his desk and sat on the edge, crossing his feet at the ankles. He was not wearing a coat over his white shirt and black waistcoat. I did not know where to look, for his state of undress was not considered proper around any but men or his own family. Then again, we were spies; we knew how to be proper, but when you lived without conventions dictating your way of life, it was a battle to reform to what was considered acceptable living.

  There was something I had wanted to ask him for the last month, and it seemed like the most sensible moment since we were alone.

  “Did you know that the Queen’s Reward belonged to my mother when you sailed on it?”

  Sam’s dark brows rose, but he shook his head. “Not until after the war. Captain Carter is the man who taught me how to sail. I was his first mate on the Queen’s Reward. The success of those voyages through the blockade helped me to increase my company. So, truly, I have your family to thank for my success.”

  Warmth flooded me that not only did Sam help to bring my family back from the brink of ruination, but that my mother’s ship also helped him. “It is by your skill and fairness that you have your success, Sam, not my family.”

  A knock fell on the door, and when Sam called entry, Jeffrey
was there to announce the midday meal.

  “Shall we?” He held his arm out to me and escorted me into the dining parlor.

  Jack and Charlotte were awaiting us. As we ate, Jack told some stories from our childhood, like the time Jack broke his leg when he jumped off the barn roof with some ‘wings’ he had made strapped to his arms. He spoke about the time I released our neighbor’s cows because I thought they should be free, and when Jericho, Mariah, and I fought our way off of a smuggler ship after having dumped the captain’s clothes overboard. He had Sam and Char laughing until tears streamed down Char’s cheeks. When Jack asked about their parents, they each grew quiet. Jack did not know that their parents had died.

  Charlotte looked at Sam. “I would like to tell them,” she lowered her voice, but I heard when she said, “especially if Bess is going to be a part of our family.”

  Biting my bottom lip, my face and heart filled with heat. It was not a certainty that I would be a part of the Mason family, but I had hope of one day calling them my family.

  “You must do as you wish, Charlotte,” Sam replied, but I could see the brooding storm in his eyes.

  “Sam and I are only half blood related,” Charlotte said, looking between Jack and I. “The man responsible for my existence was a plantation owner up north, and Sam’s father was a minister in the nearby town.

  “Our mother, you must understand, was the most beautiful, sweetest woman ever to walk the earth. She was revered wherever she went, and Sam’s—our—father loved her very much. But so did my blood father—in his own demented way. He was a parishioner, but was sick with the gout that kept him from attending many church services.

  “One day our father was away, and one of that man’s servants came to say that her master was sick and needed the minister. Our mother thought that she might be able to help, as she was a healer and knew a way to lessen the pain of gout, so she went to him.” Charlotte looked down at her hands.

  “Charlotte, you do not need to go on,” Jack said quietly.

  I reached out and squeezed his hand in thanks for his words; words that I could not speak, for my voice would not work. I felt like I knew what she was going to say.

  She looked up, meeting Jack’s eyes. “Yes, I do,” she said. “That man was sick in his mind. When our mother arrived at his home, she thought that his nurse would be there. She did not know that he had turned her off, and there were no servants left.

  “He raved about how much he loved our mother, how much he knew she loved him because she had gone to him in his time of need. He—” her voice cracked, then lowered, “he attacked our mother.”

  Jack pressed my hand.

  “I was the product of that attack. When our father discovered what had happened, he went to that man with the constable, but in his lunacy that man had taken his own life before they ever arrived.”

  Charlotte leaned forward, gripping the edge of the table until her hands were blanched. “Our mother died giving birth to me, and our father lived in grief until it finally took his life when I was six.”

  She looked at Sam, who was staring out of the window, not looking at any of us. “For that reason, did I persuade Sam to let me join the Phantoms; for that reason, am I determined to right the wrongs of the world. For, as my father always told me, I may have come from a wrong, but to him I would always be a right.”

  I bit down on my bottom lip, staring down at my lap as a tear broke free and trailed down my cheek, followed by another. I picked up my napkin and pressed it against the wet before lowering it again. As I looked up, Sam was staring at me from his place across the table. Our gazes locked, and I tried to put all of my love, sorrow for what he had lost, and understanding into my look.

  “I know I speak for Bess as well as myself when I say we are honored by your trust in telling us, and to us you will always be a right, Charlotte Mason.”

  Jack placed his napkin on the table and rose, asking Charlotte to take a turn about the garden with him. They went out after Jack promised Sam that he could watch them from the window for propriety’s sake. When they were gone, Sam spoke.

  “I was fifteen when my father passed on. We lived with Uncle George, who introduced me to the life of the Phantoms. But, my life was shroud in darkness. I was too volatile, so George removed me from missions.

  “When I was old enough to go out on my own, I did so. I have worked for nine years to give Charlotte every good thing. When George announced that he was moving to Philadelphia, I bought his plantation so that Charlotte would always have a home and a means of support.

  “When I set about freeing the slaves, I did not know that I was placing not only my own life but my sister’s in jeopardy. She has long been the one bright spot in my dark life, and how do I repay her? By unwittingly making her a target for malice.” Sam leaned forward, his expression fierce. “Charlotte does not know of the threats that have been made against her life, all of our lives, and I do not want her to know.” His face hardened, like a mask slipping over the vulnerability that he had revealed to me. “So now you know the truth of my past, and the danger that will surround anyone whom I allow into my life. If you wish to leave, I will not stop you.”

  My heart was heavy, knowing that he must be carrying great burdens from his past. He was only twenty-five, and like me, he had known true tragedy. He had lost people he loved greatly, but he persevered, for Charlotte. When I rose, there was great pain that moved through the depths of his eyes before he looked away from me, as if he did not want to see me leave him, as if I actually would. I moved around the table to stand beside his chair. His gaze slowly rose until it met mine.

  I would not show that I pitied him, for I did not. He did not need words of remorse, for they would do him no good. Having lived on the trail with no less than four men at a time, I knew that men did not need grand professions of undying love. Most men thought women were fickle creatures, changing their minds as quick as the changing of the weather. Words were fine, but actions were infinite. He needed me to show him that I loved him and supported him.

  “Come with me.”

  His brows rose, and I could not mistake the look of utter relief that settled on his face before he followed me to his book room.

  When we were inside but the door was left open enough for decorum, I turned to face him. “I want you to know that we will never speak of it again if you do not wish, but first there is something I must do.” Moving forward, before he could speak, I wrapped my arms around his waist, hugging him as tightly as I could. His chest rose and fell in a great sigh as his arms came around me, securing me against his chest. We stayed that way for a few moments.

  When I pulled away, he released his hold on me. “I have brought my key,” I said.

  He smiled as he went to haul my portmanteau out from under his desk. I unlocked it and pushed back the lid, pulling out the artifacts and laying them on his desk. I told him how we came by each artifact, and when I handed the black box to him, I watched him examine every symbol in silence.

  “Sfære af lys. Sphere of light is the name given to this by the Holy Order.”

  I had not known that. We always called it the black box. He pushed my portmanteau back under his desk and sat down on his chair. Picking up a quill and dipping it in ink, he started writing, deciphering the runes. I stood behind his chair, watching him write.

  Without taking his eyes from his task, he started to explain as he wrote. The black box was a dodecahedron shape with a different symbol, rune, or Roman numeral on each corner, both top and bottom. The symbols on the box were a serpent, throne, spear, a lion, lightning bolt, ring, and two babies connected by a cord. There were two larger figures of an eagle and a phoenix. One was on the top and the other on the bottom, but the question was, which was the top?

  Each symbol represented a letter or a combination of letters found in different history books, but it was figuring out the sequence of letters that was the trick.

  Starting from the left and going across what Sam t
hought was the top, I watched him intently as he wrote out all of the symbols, letters and figures, stopping a few times to mend his quill.

  Watching him work, I thought about how much my opinion of him had changed in such a short time. If it were possible, I loved him even more after hearing about his past. He had a heartbreaking history just like me. His presence was like a strong tower, defending against all imposing forces. Mother would say he had a true heart of gold.

  When he glanced at me, I realized I had been staring, so I quickly lowered my eyes to the paper on his desk. He rose and moved to his bookcases, bringing over a book on ancient symbols. Opening the book, he began flipping through the pages until halfway through when he stopped on a page of runes.

  Dipping his quill in ink, he began to write. He found only eight runes in his book that matched those on the box. He stood again and walked to the same bookshelf. When he returned, he was holding an old copy of the Bible. Concealed in the back was a book that looked similar to the Levitas book of incantations.

  He wrote the matching letter for every symbol that he could translate. Several of the symbols were the same, so after he had marked how many symbols matched, he moved on to the next. In the end, there were fifty symbols that translated into forty-eight words.

  When Jack came in, Sam had set to the task of solving the riddle that the words made.

  “Where is Charlotte?”

  “Asleep on the sofa in the parlor. I received a letter from Gideon, and when I finished reading it, I looked up to see her sleeping.” Jack looked at Sam. “How is it translating?”

  “It is more complex than I could have ever imagined.”

  Jack sat in the chair beside me, looking over Sam’s list.

  We sat there for an hour, all three of us moving the cut up pieces of paper around to reveal what the black box said. The more words we placed in the right order, the more my brain reeled with the realization of what was there.

  Sam sat back. “It is not possible.”