Chapter 15
Ban glanced up from his desk to make yet another surreptitious study of Isadore, seated before the fire, pretending to work on embroidery of all things.
Frankly, as he watched her stab the piece stretched across the frame set in her embroidery stand, he had to work to suppress a flinch or two.
He'd never seen much needlework being done, but he'd never thought it was supposed to be so violent.
Each stitch might have been going through George Fitz-Wilton's cods for all the force Isadore devoted to her needle.
He decided to be grateful she wasn't stabbing him.
More than a week had passed since their meeting with Archer Colwyn at The Ten Bells.
She'd torn a strip or two off him about Fitz-Wilton and Sutton's beatings.
The fact he'd never touched George meant little to her.
Ban had been half grateful for the news that came to him at The Ten Bells.
The news provided a distraction that drew Isadore's attention away from Ban punishing George for touching her.
He'd still had to endure two nights without her visiting his bed. The worst part was he'd missed her, dammit. For reasons that had nothing to do with her hunger for his cock.
Gordon, The Ten Bells owner, had received word that George Fitz-Wilton had brought in more of the Bethnal Green boys to spread the news throughout London's underworld that a hefty reward would be given to the man who informed Fitz-Wilton where his dear sister-in-law was truly residing.
Dickie Jones had discovered that a maid in the Duke of Devonworth's household had been bribed to reveal that Isadore had never been visiting her friend Lady Drusilla at all.
"How much longer are we going to sit here doing nothing?
" Isadore asked, once she noticed Ban staring at her.
She plunged her needle into the fabric and pushed the frame aside.
"We should be out looking for Jeremy. Not hiding away like this.
" She marched to the Chinese commode where an array of liquor bottles sat atop a silver tray.
After pouring a generous portion of brandy into a glass, she gulped the amber liquid down in short order.
"I'm definitely not taking you anywhere half-seas over, Missus Fitz-Wilton," he replied. He put down the latest note from Con about Archer Colwyn's search for John Dyer and turned his chair toward the fireplace where she stood gripping the heavy wood mantel.
"I should never have agreed to this," she railed. "I should be the one searching George's houses for Jeremy, for the will. I know more about--"
"Isadore, stop!" Ban saw the signs. She was about to work herself into a frenzy that would end in screaming or tears. Neither of which Ban could bear. Tears had never moved him before Isadore. Now they burned into his very soul every time she gave in to her worry and heartbreak.
"My men have been searching for and finding the things people like you don't want found since they were children. There is not a trick or a safe or a secret room or drawer they have not discovered. If there is something to find, they'll find it."
"But I...I feel so helpless." She dropped into one of the chairs and gazed at her hands folded in her lap. "I must do something, Ban. I'm his mother."
"You're a target, Isadore." Against his every instinct, Ban stood and came to kneel at her feet. He covered her hands with his own. "Fitz-Wilton has every cutthroat, murderer, villain, and gutter rat in London looking for you. We cannot risk even a chance of you being seen."
"I should not have left Grosvenor Street.
At least when I was there, I had some idea of what George was up to.
" She began to rock back and forth in the chair.
She refused to look at him. The fact she regretted moving into the Devil's Den settled into the back of Ban's mind.
The idea fucking hurt worse than being shot. He gave those thoughts a violent shove.
"I have a man in your Grosvenor Street house. Trust me, Young Rutherford, has a way with women and can nearly rival Dickie Jones when it comes to picking up information no one intends to be known."
She did look at him then. "When did you--"
"Over a week ago. I didn't want to get your hopes up.
" He rubbed her hands one at the time between his.
Her skin always grew cold when she fretted over her son.
Ban marveled at what it must have been like for Jeremy Fitz-Wilton to grow up with such a mother.
"Rutherford's already bedding that French maid of yours. " He waggled his eyebrows suggestively.
Isadore gave him a little smile. "George will be furious. She's been warming his bed for months. This Young Rutherford best take care."
"George best take care. Rutherford's father has worked for Con for years, and the lad has four or five brothers bred and raised in Seven Dials." Ban reached up to caress her face. "We'll find him, Isadore. I made you a promise."
She cupped his face in her hands and bent down to press her lips to his. "Thank you," she breathed. Her kiss was a prayer. The weight of answering that prayer draped over Ban very like the shroud he'd been wrapped in all those years ago.
A commotion in the corridor outside his study doors startled both of them to their feet. The doors burst open, and Ban took a step back from Isadore. Billings and Mad Dog fell into the room, followed close behind by Oxford and several of the other men Ban had set to searching the houses.
"We found something," Billings announced. Isadore gasped and covered her mouth with her hands. Mad Dog slowly approached her, his hands outstretched and clutching a blue jacket and a weather-beaten book.
"Does this belong to your boy, missus?" Mad Dog asked almost reverently.
Isadore took the items. Her hands shook. She pressed the jacket to her nose. Tears immediately appeared in her eyes. Ban ached and burned at her reaction to two simple items, pieces of no significance in the scheme of things, save to a mother who had not seen her child in a year.
"Where?" she managed to ask.
"The house on Berkely Square," Mad Dog replied. "I'm sorry, missus. That's all we found, but the pot boy next door said he saw people coming in and out of the house three days ago." He doffed his cap and twisted it in his hands.
"Thank you." Isadore embraced the big, hulking man and kissed his cheek.
"Thank you, Mad Dog." She gazed at each of the others in turn.
"Thank you all so much." The men filed out, murmuring "Yes, missus.
" and other responses even as they looked adoringly over their shoulders at her.
Isadore had captured the hearts of all of his men in her time in the Devil's Den.
Ban rubbed his chest. Billings caught his eye and stepped over to Ban's desk.
"Rutherford sent a note." Billings handed him a ragged, folded piece of parchment. Ban read the words quickly and wadded the note up in his hand.
"Set men to watching the Grosvenor Street house day and night. Get word to Rutherford I want to know when and by what road."
Billings nodded, gave Isadore one last tap of his cap, and left the way he'd come into the room.
"What is it?" Isadore asked, clutching the jacket and book to her chest. "What has happened?"
"They're going to move Jeremy, the French whore, and that butler, Cribbs, to Sutton's estate this week."
"What?" she cried. He went to her and put his arms around her.
"We're going to intercept them on the road and take your boy back.
They've been moving him from house to house all this time.
We don't know where he is now, but according to Rutherford, he'll be loaded into a carriage with this Giselle and Cribbs and driven north.
He'll be out in the open, and that is their mistake. "
Her eyes lit with hope. Some color came back to her cheeks. He'd watched her mourn this last week, and it had nearly broken him. He'd do anything, any damned thing now to put her son back into her arms.
"But how, Ban? How will we intercept them?"
He sighed and pressed his forehead to hers. "Can I assume you will insist on going with us?"
"Of course. Jeremy will be frightened. I will need to be there. And I am perfectly capable of--" Ban stopped her adamant diatribe with a kiss.
"Can you ride, Missus Fitz-Wilton?" He gave her a sly smile. "Horses, I mean."
"Of course I can." She rolled her eyes. "You really are a wicked man. Why do you ask?"
"I'm going to have to give you some quick lessons in the fine art of the highwayman," he replied. "George Fitz-Wilton's carriage is about to meet the gentlemen of the road in the worst possible way."
In spite of the long hours he'd spent instructing Isadore in the ways of the highwayman and going over his plan these last three days, Ban despised that he now sat atop his horse behind a cluster of sparse yew trees on the road through Hampstead Heath with her dressed in black seated on the horse next to him.
He'd tried every trick he knew to dissuade her from joining him and his men as they awaited the arrival of the coach that should be carrying Jeremy Fitz-Wilton to Horace Sutton's Norfolk estate.
The night was cold, and a freezing, blustery rain pelted them as they sat in the dark waiting for any sign of a private coach and four.
Rutherford had sent word by Dickie Jones that that was the night, and that the carriage would stop at Spaniard's Head to change horses before heading north.
Fitz-Wilton had obviously become suspicious since his beating.
He'd refused to allow Whip Anders to drive the coach.
"Word has it," Dickie had warned. "Fitz-Wilton has hired more Bethnal Green scum as outriders and one of their coachmen.
Best watch yourself." Ban had tried to pry some information about Archer Colwyn's search for John Dyer and his sister, but Con, damn him, had paid the young mercenary to keep his mouth shut.