Phantoms In Philadelphia (Phantom Knights Book 1) Page 2

  Chapter 1

  Bess

  20 May 1816

  Washington

  Seven years to the day it has been since the forming of the Phantoms. As I sat on my bed in the house that our team always occupied, while on a mission in Washington, I thought back to the night my father William had come home to our cabin in North Carolina. I remember it so well, because it was the day of my twelfth birthday.

  My father had been a spy in England until his identity was discovered, forcing us to flee. When we arrived in America, smuggled in during the night when I was nine, my father was determined to begin anew. He would disappear for months at a time searching for the perfect men to join him in a venture. In the end, he found three men, and together they formed the Phantoms.

  I was not surprised when I learned that I had been named the new leader; but neither did I wish for the charge. There were those who thought that Jack should have been named the leader, being the only son, but they did not know what we knew. My father named me his successor, because I was the most like him.

  The five members of my team accepted me without question, following my lead for the last two years without complaint, but I knew their faith in me would be shaken if they knew my deepest desire. To find a way out. To have the one thing that we fight so hard to protect. Freedom.

  A knock fell on my door, and when it opened, it was Jack. Seeing him never failed to bring me a moment of comfort. He had come through the war with nothing more serious than a graze to his arm. There was much to be thankful for that he was still with me. So many people had lost their loved ones to the ravages of the war that had lasted over two years. The war had ended over a year past, and we had entered into a time of regrowth and by the end of the year, new leadership, but we would never forget all that we had lost.

  “Many happy returns,” Jack said cheerfully.

  My teeth clenched together. His words were not meant to upset me, but my birthday was not something I wanted to remember—ever. It meant that I had been the leader for two years, but also that my father had been gone that long. It also meant that I was nineteen, considered by society to be an old maid with no marriage prospects; no way out.

  “What are you thinking, Bess?” Jack nudged my arm with his.

  I did not want him to know my dark thoughts, so I lied. “I wish that we were home with Mama. I have spent far too many birthdays away from her.”

  Over the last seven years, I had only been with my mother for two of the last seven birthdays, my being leader keeping me away for months at a time.

  “We will soon be home. When she returns from Savannah, I am sure that she will host you a large celebration. You are about to come out after all.”

  Groaning, I leaned my head against the bed post. I did not know why our mother insisted that I come home and play the demure daughter, about to make her debut in society.

  “It is useless for what I want I will not find,” I said seriously.

  “Someone to match yourself in strength and stamina?”

  “Yes, for I cannot give my hand and heart to a fool.”

  “Is it so important that you do find someone?” Jack asked quietly.

  “I am nineteen, Jack,” I retorted indignantly.

  “Undoubtedly an old maid,” he said with amusement evident in his tone.

  He was funning, but he knew not how true his words were. I was nineteen, three years older than what most of the other girls entering society would be. The war and then my father’s death offered me excuses for why I had not yet taken my turn being placed on display for all of the Philadelphia bucks to ogle me, but that could not change the fact that I was an old maid.

  Blowing out an exasperated breath, I frowned at my brother. “Be serious, Jack.”

  The light in his eyes faded. “If you want a man of strength and stamina, you must first be willing to let a man come close enough to show you his heart. You are so guarded that no man can scale the walls you have built.” He took my hand in his. “You will not allow the men who have shown interest to take Ben’s place.”

  Both surprise and alarm struck me a fierce blow to the gut. “Are you saying that I should trust some man with our secret?” It had been different with Ben. He had been one of us. A spy. A Phantom. It had gotten him killed.

  “Not some man, but the right man, perhaps. First, you must open your eyes to look about you, and when you see him, grant him a rope.”

  “To hang himself?” I quipped.

  “To scale the wall,” Jack said, nudging me with his arm again.

  My fingers twisted the ring on my right hand. Jack had a way with words; he always knew what to say to make me think. Jack touched his own ring, identical to mine. They were gold with ornate scrolls on the sides and a round sapphire stone raised in the center; the rings of our family. Our father had given them to us the night that he told us we were to become spies. I was twelve, and Jack was eleven.

  Jack rose and held out his hand. “Enough of the gloom. Come, I have a surprise for you.”

  He escorted me down the stairs and in to the dining parlor, where each member of my team was present to celebrate my birthday with a special dinner. Jack led me to a chair at the head of the table and sat beside me.

  Junto, whose real name was Leo and the only one of us with culinary skills, had cooked a wild turkey that Fenrir had killed during his morning hunting trip. As Leo bent over the table to place the turkey in the center, his dark brown hair fell across his square forehead. As he straightened; one of his eyelids dipped over his blue eye in a wink.

  Each mask that was worn by the Phantoms coincided with the wearer’s deputy name and the personality they would take on when wearing the mask. Such as the green leaves on Leo’s mask representing strength.

  Fenrir’s mask of a wolf face and his name both came from Norse mythology about the father of wolves. When Jericho wore the mask, he became a wolf, but when he was not wearing a mask, he was both kind and entertaining. Good looking, too. At eighteen, he stood taller than the rest of the team, with rich blond hair and a face that turned many maidens’ heads.

  Jericho smiled as he picked up his glass. “I propose a toast. To Bess,” his brown eyes lowered in sure sign of mischief, “a far prettier woman than Jack could ever hope to be.”

  Laughter spilled across the room as they raised their glasses to me. On one of our missions, we had needed three women, so Jack, being the shortest, and the others absolutely refusing, donned the role. He had made a fetching girl in a brown wig.

  “Those petticoats were the devil. I do not know how you women do it,” Jack interposed.

  Jericho chuckled and Leo, who was silent most of the time, smiled.

  Jack was saying something, and Mariah laughed, her sweet voice ringing out. My gaze moved to her, a smile touching my lips. When my father had formed the Phantoms, he had gone in search of children, orphans without family, declaring that no one would ever suspect children of being spies. Mariah was the first orphan my father brought home. He trained her along with Jack and I in weapons and self defense, and my mother taught her all the skills necessary to be a lady’s maid. Mariah worked as my personal maid back home in Philadelphia when not on a mission. Something Jack said made her head go back as her soft laughter filled the room.

  When meal was through, and everyone was moving out of the dining parlor, Levi, the youngest of our team at fifteen, stopped beside me. He held his hand out and dropped a smooth stone onto my open palm. He had painted a raven taking flight on the surface. I thanked him by rising and throwing my arms around his neck. He was the same height as Jack and could have been our brother, and was, in a sense. He had been given the surname of Martin when my father brought him home as a young boy of eight. He and Jack looked alike with their dark hair and narrow faces, but Levi’s eyes were green. Levi was the wild one on the team, and his name of Hades fit.

  When Jack and I were alone, I watched him as he drained his wine. A lock of his thick, black hair fell across his brow,
as it always did, making me think of our mother. She had the same dark hair and they each had blue eyes, but Jack’s were so light they were nearly gray. She was also the one that Jack received his small stature from, while I was taller like my father had been.

  Before we had moved to Philadelphia, we had lived in Savannah for a year so that my parents could test their acting skills in society. My father bought a plantation and set us up as a family of great means supposedly arrived from France. We had moved to the much larger and grander Philadelphia after my parents thrived in the ranks of high society and were confident in their deception. We were thought to be a wealthy family who owned a large plantation in Savannah. We did own the plantation, but the wealthy part was questionable.

  After Jack signed up to fight in the war when he was fifteen, my father assigned me to Baltimore, and my parents told their society friends that they had sent me to live with cousins for the duration of the war. Since the end of the war, my mother told her friends that I was traveling, but it was a lie. I had been living outside the city, dressing as a man and working to protect the good people of Philadelphia from dangers that they did not know threatened them. Not all of the threats left when we won the war.

  Jack left the house a little while later, and I had some time alone to think. Now that my mother’s two year mourning period had ended, and she would soon return to Philadelphia from her trip to Savannah, she expected me to return home. As the only daughter of the house, it was my duty to marry well. It sounded simple, but I was not like other young girls and my life was anything but simple.

  An hour had passed when Jack arrived back at the house carrying a letter for me. He sat across from me as I broke the seal and read the single sheet. The letter was dated 5 June, which gave me my first clue. As it was only May, it meant that every fifth word was the real message.

  Dearest Elizabeth,

  The carriage ride was the longest hateful mile of my wretched life. To find that Sarah’s beautiful orchard is part of Henry’s grown over property is reprehensible. Leads one to ponder if the heart does indeed give way. Guard your own heart.

  P.

  Ride mile to orchard grown leads the way. P could only mean one person.

  “What is it?” Jack asked.

  As I folded the letter, I replied, “Nothing of importance. A note from Penelope only.”

  Jack accepted my reply without question, and we discussed our plans to go home within the next few days, and then I took myself off to bed, but not to sleep, I had a meeting to prepare for.