Free The Charleston Chase (Phantom Knights Book 2) by Amalie Vantana

counter, and
he was inspecting a barrel of beans.
    “What are you about?” I asked as I looked the barrel
over. It was ordinary, not at all large enough to conceal a
person.
    “Listen,” Levi said, grabbing my arm lightly and
turning me so that my back too was facing the counter.
    “Will that be all, Mrs. Abbot?”
    “Yes, thank you,” replied a woman whose voice sent a
chill through me.
    “I do hope that your delightful charge is well,”
said the young man.
    “Yes, thank you. She is away visiting friends, so I
am doing a bit of shopping in her absence.”
    Without turning, I knew who that woman was. She had
been with Guinevere in Philadelphia in the role of chaperone. She
could lead us to Guinevere. Glancing at Levi, he nodded. He was
thinking the same.
    We left the mercantile ahead of Martha and walked
over to where Abe was standing at the horses’ heads. I climbed into
the carriage, but leaned my head out the door as we waited. When
Martha, as stout as she had been in Philadelphia, exited the
mercantile, I heard Levi tell Abe to follow her. He climbed in and
shut the door. We each pulled out weapons and loaded them as the
carriage moved sedately along the streets. Levi had recognized
Martha from all the times he had watched Guinevere’s house in
Philadelphia when Jack discovered that Guinevere was the white
phantom and not Hannah Lamont as we had been led to believe.
    When the carriage halted before a row of houses on
Queen Street, Levi opened the door, climbed down, and helped me to
alight.
    “She was set down before the white house,” Abe
said.
    The white house was one in a row all built against
each other like the houses in Philadelphia, only more colorful. As
I stepped up to the door, Levi spoke.
    “I’ll let you handle this, Bess.”
    “Are you frightened by a woman, Levi?”
    “A woman who wears turbans with knives tucked into
the lining? Completely.”
    He leaned against the front of the house while I
laughingly knocked on the door. I knew better than to ask how he
knew what was in the lining of Martha’s turbans. Levi had been
fifteen and highly curious when he was assigned to watch
Guinevere’s house. I had no doubt that he had searched the inside
when Guinevere and Martha were not at home. Levi had a way of
discovering useful information. I never asked how he came by his
information, and he never told me.
    The door opened by a young woman who was neither
Martha nor Guinevere. I requested to see Mrs. Abbot. She led me
into a small room where Martha was seated at a table with a cup of
tea before her, her large bonnet on the seat beside her as if it
had been tossed there carelessly. She looked up, met my eyes, and
groaned.
    “Miss Martin, what a surprise to see you in
Charleston.”
    Once the maid moved away, I advanced into the room,
inspecting it but moving so my back was never to Martha. “You knew
I was here, for Guinevere told you.”
    Martha stared at me with her mouth in a hard line.
As her red lips parted, she barked out a deep laugh. “Miss was
correct when she said you were a right forward speaker.”
    Facing Martha, placing my hands on the back of a
chair, I assumed an air of friendliness. “Where is she?”
    Martha looked down at her cup, lifted it to her
lips, smiled and drank. “Why would I tell you, miss?”
    I cocked an eyebrow. My meaning could not be
mistaken. I had spent time before my looking glass perfecting the
simple action to contain a mixture of hauteur, amusement,
seriousness and warning.
    Martha eyed me cautiously. After what had to be a
full minute she sighed. “She is not here. She has left the
city.”
    “You expect me to believe she left without you?”
    “She did not need me for what she has to do. She has
a different escort.” Martha’s lips twitched as if she was trying to
refrain from laughing.
    “Where has she gone?”
    “Boston.”
    It took me a moment to realize the
significance of her words. The walls of my chest felt as if they
were closing in on