Phantoms In Philadelphia (18 page)

“She is a treasure and a great credit to my uncle.
It is the wish of any politician, or man for that matter, to have a
wife who is not only a suitable hostess, but a woman of courage and
kindness who will understand and uphold her husband’s aspirations
and dreams.”

“Here, here,” Jack said enthusiastically from his
place beside Guinevere.

“Like your mother,” Andrew added, raising his glass
toward Mother.

When dinner was ended, and the men joined us in the
drawing room, Mr. Monroe drew me a little apart from the rest as
General Harvey regaled everyone with his war stories.

Mr. Monroe’s voice lowered so that only I could hear
him. “I understand that George has gone to visit his nephew.”

“So I have been lead to believe, sir.”

He smiled as if I said something witty. “Do you know
when he means to return?”

“Any day now, I am sure.” Mr. Monroe smiled again
and patted my hand. It was what he wanted to hear. Even though I
knew he meant the questions that he had asked, I also knew what he
had not asked. He knew George was missing, and he knew that I and
my team were searching for him. I considered telling him about my
suspicions that the black carriage had been after him, but I held
them in. Mr. Monroe had enough to consider without adding my own
misgivings. I and my team would see to it that he was not disturbed
again in such a way.

When my father formed the Phantoms, he had met with
three men, an attorney, a soldier, and a politician. The politician
was James Monroe. He knew about us and kept our secret without
becoming involved, since our spy ring was not sanctioned by the
government.

When we rejoined the others, Jack and Guinevere were
sitting together, speaking in low voices to each other, Edith was
speaking with my mother, so I had Andrew to myself.

“Might I ask you something, Mr. Madison?”

“Anything you please.”

“Would you tell me about your family? To come from a
large family must be exciting.”

Andrew launched into his family history. He was the
second of six children, and he was twenty-four, and as much as he
adored his family home, he believed that his future was in
politics.

Any question that I asked he answered, looking upon
me with appreciation and approval. He watched me so intently that I
knew he was committing everything I said to memory. In turn, I
studied his every look; I listened for the sincerity of his words,
and I watched where his eyes focused when he spoke. Everything had
its own meaning to me. My work as a Phantom had taught me how to
tell between lies and sincerity merely by the tone of the voice and
the focus of the eyes.

He spoke of many different people
and was pleased when I said I knew them. It occurred to me that
there was a connection between the people. They were all
politicians. Andrew Madison was looking for a wife and having the
right connections was a necessity. He was good; I would grant him
that. If I had been any other female of my social set, I would
never have caught on to his way of questioning. Then realization
dawned. My heart stuttered. I sucked in a short breath, and I
stared. Andrew Madison, the nephew of the President, was looking
to
me
as a
possible candidate for his future wife. I do not know if I made
another coherent reply for the remainder of our visit.

When he rose to take his leave with Mr. Monroe, he
asked me if I would grant him the first two dances at a party
Richard was to hold for Guinevere. I agreed, and the smile he
flashed made my insides tumble. He had a pair of dimples that
surely came from the angels.

What would it be like to spend a lifetime being the
recipient of that smile?

I was fairly certain it would be heavenly as the
Lord intended when he made Andrew Madison.

After all our guests had departed, my mother came
over to me and laid a hand on my forehead.

“Are you coming down with something, my dear?”

“Of course not. You know that I cannot abide being
ill,” I said as I pushed her hand away.

“I believe that my sister has a touch of love at
first sight.”

Mama smiled. “Of course. He is charming and so
handsome.”

“He is more than that,” Jack said, holding up a
letter.

Excitement and interest sparked together. “Are those
his credentials? Do, pray, let me see them.”

My mother shook her head, her face scrunching in
disapproval. “My dears, one does not fall in love with credentials.
It is the heart that one falls in love with.”

Jack’s resources knew no bounds. The paper was full
of everything from a list of Andrew’s parents and siblings to
Andrew’s years at school and his grades. Even his monetary value
was there. I continued reading, about what Andrew had done after
leaving college, a description of the house he was having built,
and the size of his property; then spoke without looking up.

“Now that I have read this, I do declare that I am
in love. His heart is pure gold.”

“Remember, my dears, credentials are not enough to
build a lasting relationship upon,” Mama said before sweeping from
the room.

I handed the letter to Jack, leaned
back and sighed. I may have only just met Andrew Madison, but what
I knew of him made me want to know more—everything—his likes and
dislikes, his aspirations and dreams. To discover if he was someone
I could trust with my heart, and more importantly, my
secret.

Bess

10 June 1816

W
ith
Andrew Madison showing interest in me, enough that he had called on
me every day for the past six days, I began considering what I
wanted for my life. There were times I wondered if I was broken—if
my father did some psychological damage to my brain when I was a
child.

My father began our training when I was seven, and
we still lived in England; I just did not know what he was training
us for. I was being trained to fight with a sword, to shoot a
pistol, to hit with my fists. As I grew older and learned that only
men participated in such sports, I thought my father the greatest
man ever to live, that he would want his daughter to be the equal
of men. After we moved to America and he assembled his team of
children, Jack and I helped him to train them in the same arts.
Then the real lessons began.

While most young ladies of means
were learning how to stitch samplers, speak French, play upon the
pianoforte or sing, I was learning how to manipulate grown men with
my words, how to know when someone was lying by the look in their
eyes, how to pick pockets without being detected, and even
how to hold my liquor without getting sick. That
one was not a memory I relished.

Never in my life was I so
frightened as when my father took me out for my first mission. It
was the night of my thirteenth birthday. We had been training to be
spies for nigh on a year, and I thought my father was taking me out
for a reprieve—a celebration. When he pulled up our wagon in the
nearby town and pointed at the tavern telling me what I was to do,
my trust in my father faltered. He left me at the door to the
tavern, saying he would return in two hours and expected me to have
accomplished my task. Then he drove away without looking
back.

Being that I was a headstrong child, I was
determined to do my task and get away from the tavern long before
the two hours were over. I went to the back of the building and
entered through the kitchen. No one cared that an unknown girl was
walking through the kitchen. I found my target, a smuggler captain,
who was across the smoke filled taproom. I stayed out of sight for
the men in the room were a disreputable lot. When the smuggler
captain rose from his table and stumbled toward the staircase, I
saw my chance and followed him up. I went to the door of the room
he had gone into, and when I opened the door, he was lying on a
small bed. The stench of unwashed bodies and something much worse
was rife. I was trembling from head to foot, but forced my feet to
take me into the room in silent movements. His eyes were closed,
the even rise and fall of his chest soon told that he was asleep. I
reached my hand toward his coat, my fingers shaking, my heart
beating painfully fast, biting so hard on my lip that I tasted
blood. My fingers touched the envelope that was sticking out of his
inside pocket and started to pull it toward me.

His hand wrapped around my wrist as his eyes popped
fully open. I was startled into immobility as my back hit the bed,
and he landed on top of me. It happened within one blink of my eyes
and the next. The only part of me that felt like it worked were my
eyes that would blink, but not close. They burned as hot tears
slowly fell down the sides of my face. I did not know what was
about to happen, but I knew it would forever change me.

As soon as his rough hands started trying to rip my
dress, I turned frantic. He was not holding my hands down, so I
raked my nails down his face, jerking from side to side to find a
way to get him off of me. He was saying things that I could not
hear, for the blood pumping in my ears. He was momentarily diverted
by the blood coming from the scratches on his face, so I used those
seconds to focus my mind. I was my father’s daughter; I could find
a way out. My mother’s trembling hands when she dressed my hair
suddenly made sense, but also what she placed in my hair.

He was trying to rip my bodice again, so I reached
up and grabbed the ruby encrusted silver hair dagger. He was
leaning on his knees, reaching his hand down to his trousers and
not looking at me when I stabbed him between his shoulders. I do
not clearly remember what happened after that, only fragments of
his screams, my bloodstained hands, the bloody envelope, and a girl
my own age hiding me in her room and helping me out the window. I
ran the two miles to our house in the woods.

When I walked in with my ripped
bodice and my hands stained with blood, my father was seated in his
favorite chair—his fingertips together and a pleased smile on his
face. I remember my mother’s cries from the corner of the room, but
I ignored her. I held the letter out to my father. He took it,
looking like I was handing him a sack of gold. I curtseyed then
climbed into the loft that was mine and Jack’s bedchamber. I did
not wash my hands or change my gown. I lay upon my cot as the
events came rushing upon me. Staring at a notch in the ceiling, I
realized what I had done. I had survived.

I never told anyone what happened. None of the
others would have believed me if I had. The other children
worshiped my father. To them, he was a savior who had rescued them
and provided them with a place to live, food, clothing, a name. I
decided that night while I lay on my small cot that never again
would I feel helpless.

After that night, I threw myself into training. I
was determined to become the master of any situation that I
entered. My father would be my leader, but never again would he be
my papa.

The other children never spoke of their first
missions either, but they were each successful.

Leo was the only one not trained by my father. When
he joined our team, the Phantoms had been working for three years,
and he came in knowing everything we did. He rarely spoke of his
life before the Phantoms.

When I excelled in everything that my father threw
at me, he announced that I would one day take his place. The other
deputies were all masters of something, but I was the one most
determined to thrive in everything. I never told them that it was
not a matter of thriving, but surviving. I did not want to be the
leader, but I accepted without comment because I knew that one day
I could get out. I could escape the life forced upon me. With my
plans in place, all I had to do was wait.

I was fourteen when my father announced that I would
marry Ben. I was furious, but Ben was thrilled. Ben and his older
brother had been with us since the beginning.

Ben and I spent time alone, and I learned that the
marriage had been his idea. He promised my father grandchildren,
the future generation of spies in exchange for my freedom. I would
be out, and my children would take my place. When I told Ben that
nothing would induce me to allow my children to become spies, he
smiled at me and told me his plan. As soon as we were married, we
were going to run away, to a place that my father would never
find.

I loved Ben, but I was not
in
love with him. What we
had was more than flowery words and fluttery feelings. We had a
bond of trust; roots entwined that ran deeper than any sentimental
feelings. For the first time, I could place my faith in someone
else and know that he was going to protect me.

When the war broke out, we were sent to different
places, he to Washington and me to Baltimore. Our wedding was put
on hold. Jack left the Phantoms to fight in the army, and I was
spying against the British. My father had stayed in Philadelphia,
training a new group of children who would one day join the
Phantoms.

The day of my sixteenth birthday, my father and Ben
arrived at the house that Mariah and I lived in with Freddy and his
team. My father announced that Ben and I were to be married in one
week, and I had never been more relieved. Later that night, Freddy
was attacked while on a routine patrol, and we went after the men
who attacked him. My father ordered us to split up and search the
streets. Ben went one direction and Jack, and I went another.
Something inside me screamed to go after Ben when we were a block
away.

Without a word to Jack, I turned back. When I found
Ben, he was being beaten by a group of what I thought were
ruffians. It was the ring they all wore on their right hands that
told me who they were. Before I could reach him and rescue him,
they shot him. When they heard Jack running toward them, they
scattered, but I did not care. Ben died a few minutes later in my
arms.