Chapter 8
Ban had a number of self-confessed fatal flaws.
One of the worst was leaping into dangerous situations with no thought as to the consequences.
Taking Isadore Fitz-Wilton into his arms and kissing her witless fell into that category with the weight of an entire battery of cannons going over the side of his brother Warrick's frigate.
He didn't give a feathering damn. She was warm and soft and hungry.
No more enticing combination existed to his mind.
Her hands sank into his hair and held him to her as if she never wanted to let go.
She returned his kiss with a blazing fire and the soft sighs of a woman long in need of a good kiss or ten.
He, scoundrel that he was, licked and nipped at her lips until she opened to him and then invaded her hot mouth with his teasing tongue with but one aim in mind. To drive her mad, mad enough to...
An aching moan crawled up his chest and shook him nearly to his knees.
He took advantage of her seeking tongue wrapping around his.
His hands mapped every enthralling curve and dip of her body.
Another fatal mistake was what he felt under his seeking palms was every fantasy he'd ever held of the perfect woman in his bed.
The moment his fingers brushed across her breasts she shuddered, but then slowly pulled away.
Her breath came in short gasps. Her eyes were wide and glassy.
She licked her lips as if trying to capture the last taste of him.
"I should probably slap your face," she whispered hoarsely.
"Go ahead. I don't think my cock can get much harder, but that might do it." His heart banged against his ribcage. His whole body burned and struggled to break the hold he had on the parts that wanted to be pressed against her like a laundress's iron.
"You're awful."
"Never claimed to be otherwise."
They were locked in a war to see who would look away first, who would step back so that her hands would fall free of his hair or so that his hands were not locked around her body so his fingers rested just below her breasts.
In all of his twenty-eight years he'd never held anything he could not let go of easily. Simply wasn't in his nature. Until now.
"Why did you do that?" She finally drew one hand loose and touched her fingers to her lips.
"Because I wanted to," he replied, with a deliberate effort to sound unmoved.
"We should go. Your servants will be wondering where you are.
" He took two steps back and turned to retrieve his jacket and greatcoat from his chair.
He left the ruined shirt where it lay and shoved himself into his outer garments, taking no care to spare his wounded shoulder.
When he turned back around, she was still frozen in place, staring at him.
"Isadore?"
She blinked a few times and looked about the room. After drawing in a deep breath, she straightened and smoothed down her skirts. "You sent Benny away. How will you convey me home?"
"He is back by now. I told him to return once my brother, Fam, sent someone over to clean up the mess on King Street.
I assumed you would not want Fitz-Wilton to know we were there.
" He swept an arm toward the front room of the dispensary.
She marched purposefully toward the front door, and he followed her.
"By mess you mean the two dead bodies," she replied. Her tone indicated the prim widow was back. Ban shook his head at the foreign twinge of regret that struck him as the memory of the passionate wench in his arms flitted through his mind.
Benny had switched the old hackney for the more comfortable landau that awaited them outside Carrington-Bowles's dispensary.
"And the blood, bone, and any other damage that was done.
Fam has people, men and women, who are experts at cleaning up after trouble.
" Ban offered his hand to help her into the waiting carriage.
Isadore ignored his offer of assistance and scrambled inside to take the forward-facing seat.
"Grosvenor Street, Benny." Ban decided against sitting next to Isadore as she seemed in the proper mood to deliver that slap she'd threatened earlier.
"There are women who are willing to clean up after...murder?"
"Not every woman has the choice of a marriage of convenience even if it is to a blackguard.
..or owns two bloody banks, Isadore. Given the choice between fucking every man who has a few coins and living on the streets or cleaning up after the worst the rookeries has to offer in exchange for a safe clean room, food, and a decent wage, what would you choose, madam? "
"I wouldn't know, Mister Dyer. I haven't had many choices about my life since I was sixteen and my father sold me in marriage to a man twice my age, remember?"
For the rest of the journey to the mews behind her home neither of them said a word.
She'd turned her head and stared out the carriage window at the dark, damp London night.
All the while Ban wrestled with himself, angrier than he'd ever been because he desperately wanted to know what she was thinking.
Which should not matter to him at all, and that was what made him want to punch a hole through the side of the carriage.
The landau rocked quietly to a halt. Benny clambered down and opened the door. Ban didn't move at all. Isadore stood and allowed Benny to hand her down.
"Isadore," Ban uttered softly. "I meant what I said.
You must decide if you want my help and if you are willing to be completely honest with me about the fight between you and your brother-in-law.
Send word to me at The Angel tavern by someone you trust by tomorrow evening.
If I don't hear from you, I'll understand, and I'll expect you to forget you ever entered the Devil's Den. Agreed?"
"And if I decide to ask for your help?" She neither turned around nor looked at him.
"Then I will find your son and stop anyone who gets in my way.
" Ban meant every word which startled and confused him, though he'd be damned if he let her know.
She stood there for a moment, studying the windows at the back of her townhouse as if the answer to some great mystery could be found there.
"I will send word by my coachman, Whip Anders. He is the only servant in my household who is loyal to me. Good night, Mister Dyer."
He followed her with his eyes until she disappeared into the back of the elegant townhouse. Two taps on the roof of the landau and Benny turned the conveyance toward Saffron Hill. Ban credited his imagination with the scent of lilacs that clung to him all the way home.
Ban should have turned around and left Fam's Brick Lane headquarters the moment he walked into his brother's study.
Anytime he entered a room and all three of his brothers stopped speaking at once, there was no doubt who the topic of conversation had been.
Add Fam's lover and life's companion, Lord Ethan Hawksworth Polston, to the mix, even if he was sitting quietly in a corner, pretending to read, and the meeting had the feeling of an inquisition from the start.
With Fam seated behind his desk and Con and Warrick settled in the high-backed leather chairs on either side of the fireplace, Ban's choice of seat was made for him.
He subsided into the chair arranged strategically in the middle of the room turned so all three of his brothers had a full view of his face.
Lord Ethan only got a profile, but that was all the clever rogue needed.
He had an uncanny ability to read people, save those who were related to him by blood.
That failing had nearly cost him his life if it had not been for Fam's interference.
"How's the shoulder?" Con asked. Ah! His eldest brother did like an opening salvo designed to put a man off his stride. Ban glared at Fam who raised his hands in surrender.
"I didn't say a bloody word," he vowed.
"Yes, and we'll get to that later," Con shot back. "Would you like to explain how you were ambushed breaking into an empty house? "
"I'm more interested in why he was breaking into an empty house," Warrick added with a grin.
"Bugger both of you." Ban set his mind to figuring out who had informed on him and how he was going to leave his association with Isadore out of it.
"I thought we were here to discuss the two boys dumped nearly dead behind The Ten Bells.
Almost a dozen children abandoned on our doorsteps, several of them dead, and fingers pointed at us is far more important than a couple of Limehouse dock hands getting the drop on me. "
"Nobody gets the drop on you, little brother," Fam said as he tapped a silver letter opener on his desk. "Carrington-Bowles sent word by Dickie Jones this morning that the boys left at The Ten Bells are doing much better and talking to Sally Big'uns about where they were kept."
Dickie Jones
That answered one question. Carrington-Bowles's guttersnipe ward would sell his own mother if the price was right. Providing he knew who the lady was. Ban studied Con's face. The game now would be to discover how much information young Dickie had divulged.
"What were you doing in an empty house on King Street?" Con pressed. "You never check out potential jobs yourself."
"He doesn't end up on the wrong end of some Bethnal Green thug's pistol either," Warrick observed. "He must have been distracted by something. Or someone?" All three of the brothers exchanged suggestive grins. Ban turned to look at Ethan. Even he was smiling slightly.
"Don't you have a shipping owner's skirts to crawl under, War?"
Warrick growled and pushed out of his seat. Con shoved him back down with a fist to the chest. "Enough!" their older brother shouted. "Both of you!"