Chapter 16
Isadore had been staring at the sleeping figure in Ban Dyer's grand four-poster bed for what seemed like hours.
Dressed in a warm night shirt provided by the man they called Oxford, Jeremy had finally fallen into an exhausted sleep.
She had managed only a quick, one-armed hug of her son before they'd ridden away from George's carriage, galloping in the rain all the way back to the Devil's Den.
From the time her son had slid from the back of Ban's horse into her arms, she'd not let go of him until he'd finally conceded to go to bed.
Whilst he'd gulped down the stew and bread and tea Daisy had brought up to Ban's study, he'd asked a thousand questions about his Uncle George, about who Ban and his men were, and about what they would do now.
As any boy of fourteen would be, he was immediately fascinated by Ban and his men.
His rescue seemed like a great adventure to him.
He'd not watched from the back of a horse as pistol balls flew all around Ban as he'd flung himself onto a moving coach and fought with several men to bring the coach to a halt.
The man she'd blackmailed into rescuing her son was the perfect man for the task.
He'd proven that over and over again before the deed was done.
But his perfection came at a terrible cost. The man had no fear of death.
None. Jeremy might be thrilled and impressed by such a man. Isadore was terrified.
When Jeremy finally ran out of questions and nearly nodded off in his chair, Ban suggested he go to bed.
He offered his bedchamber and explained he'd sleep in his study, a lie but only a slight one.
She'd waited until she and her son were alone in the luxurious bedchamber before she drew the worn, stuffed horse out of her reticule.
Jeremy had thanked her solemnly and placed the toy on the bedside table like any boy who was far too grown to fuss over an old favorite.
However, once she'd checked the door to the staircase that led to the back entrance of the Devil's Den, and the main doors into the bedchamber, she'd returned to find him fast asleep, tucked up in bed with the toy horse clutched in his hand.
Only then had she started to weep at what she'd almost lost. She sat next to the bed in her night rail and robe until her tears subsided.
He was safe, she reminded herself. At each of the doors she'd checked, she'd been greeted by one of Ban's men set to watch to make certain Jeremy did not leave the room, and no one would enter.
Benny was stationed in a chair at the top of the stairs to the back entrance.
Mad Dog was seated in a weather-beaten, brocade chair at the other set of doors, a blunderbuss across his lap.
Jeremy was alive, and safe, and out of George's reach.
And she suddenly realized she had to decide what to do next to keep him that way.
She rose from her chair, turned the lamp on the bedside table down low and made her way to Ban's study.
The balcony doors were open and the patter of the rain on the glass roof began to soothe her rattled nerves.
She stood in the doorway and watched Ban as he stood at the balcony balustrade and turned his face up into the rain.
He wore a red silk banyan. His black hair lay slicked to his head.
Thunder rumbled in the distance and the normally heavy London air smelled clean with only the faint hint of coal and smoke.
"I should beat you senseless," she said as she sat on the foot of the bed, kept dry by the glass roof.
"Promise?" He stepped out of the rain and into the light of the lamps that sat on heavy carved mahogany stands at the four corners of the bed.
"Don't try to turn me up sweet, Ban Dyer. I have not forgiven you for ordering Benny to hold me back whilst you charged into battle as if you have not a wit in your head."
He laughed in that dark, rusty rumble of his. "I suspect Benny heard words he's never heard before in his life, and he grew up in St. Giles. You have a filthy mouth on you, Missus Fitz-Wilton, when provoked." He came to stand in front of her at the foot of the bed.
She wanted to scream at him, to beg him to have a care for his life.
How could she when she did not have the right?
When he stood before her, his scarred chest bared by the vee of his banyan, and that place between her thighs already wet and aching for him.
Suddenly having him, having him inside her was what mattered most. Tomorrow she would have to plan her life with Jeremy.
Tonight? Tonight, she wanted to live her life with Ban Dyer and damn the consequences.
"Really, Mister Dyer? You're talking to me about a filthy mouth?" She untied his banyan to reveal his thick hard cock. She ran her hands up his thighs and around to squeeze his muscled arse. "I think you need a reminder as to just how filthy my mouth can be."
"Jesus," he hissed as she took his cock into her mouth and sucked hard.
She gazed up to find his head thrown back and his eyes closed.
He rested his hand lightly on her hair and groaned as she drew her teeth down his length, licked the tip thoroughly, and sucked him back into her mouth again.
She teased and coaxed him until he was pumping his cock between her lips and gasping into the quiet night.
"Isadore," he growled. "I'm going to--"
She released his cock with a wet pop and pulled him down on top of her.
"Oh no, you're not," she whispered harshly.
"Not until you're buried deep inside me and cannot move another inch.
Understand?" She peeled his banyan off his arms. He fumbled with her robe and night rail.
Th robe he managed to remove completely.
The night rail he shoved up to her waist and then licked his way down to her cunny which he feasted on ravenously to the point she nearly bit blood from her hand trying to muffle her cries.
He crawled back up her body and drew her legs over his shoulders.
He was deep inside her in a single stroke and began to thrust faster and faster whilst she dug her nails into his biceps.
She matched the rhythm he set. They were frantic as they worked to join their bodies faster and closer.
Some unseen force drove them. Her cunny pulsed around him, and she was at the edge before she could catch even a hint of a breath.
Ban bent down and took one muslin covered nipple between his teeth.
She covered her scream as he bit down, and bursts of light spun behind her closed eyes.
Her body burned. She wrapped her arms around him to hold him in place as he pumped into her harder and faster until he finally dropped his forehead between her breasts and groaned.
"Dear God, woman," he rasped. "What the devil have you done to me?'
Suddenly she wanted to weep. She cradled him with her legs and arms as he settled over her like the warmest of counterpanes. She had gained her son, but now she felt as if something almost as important were slipping away. She managed a watery laugh.
"I don't know, but you'd best have a rest. I intend to do it to you again before the night is done."
George Fitz-Wilton turned up his nose and lifted his scented handkerchief to cover his mouth as he made his way into the St. Giles High Street tavern.
He'd spent the entire day railing at the two Bethnal Green thugs and the two servants who'd come back from Hampstead Heath without his nephew and with a mad tale about highwaymen stealing the boy away.
Highwaymen seldom kidnapped people anymore.
No one knew who traveled in the unmarked coach.
His fucking sister-in-law was behind this.
Which was the only reason he'd ventured into The Angel in a part of town he'd never be caught dead in otherwise.
The two remaining Bethnal Green hires stood on either side of him as he sat at the table in the far corner of the tavern.
He'd received a message a few hours earlier that someone would meet him in this stinking, musty establishment and tell him where Isadore had been hiding all this time.
A tall, heavy, neatly dressed woman of some forty or so years came from behind the bar and walked slowly to his table.
The loud, squabbling men that packed the tavern parted the way for her with the sort of deference born not of respect but of fear.
Without saying a word, she pulled out a chair across from him and sat down.
"I understand you are looking for a certain lady bank owner," she stated without preamble.
"I am." He studied the woman's face and immediately recognized a kindred spirit. He'd lived his life for the accumulation of wealth and power. Here was a woman who no doubt existed for those same goals.
"Did you bring the blunt?" She pinned him with a gaze so hard and feral he actually slipped his hand into the pocket of his greatcoat to wrap around the pistol there.
"I did." He looked at one of his hired thugs and nodded.
The man drew a heavy leather pouch from his coat pocket and dropped it into the middle of the scarred oak table.
When she reached for the bag George covered the purse with his own hand.
"Where is she?" For a moment they stared at each other. Then she smiled.
"Saffron Hill," she replied. She rattled off a street address.
"You'll find her and the boy there. Best hurry.
Word has it she's planning to run off to the Continent.
" Once he removed his hand, she picked up the purse, hefted it once, and tucked it into her bodice.
She turned and went back to the bar without saying another word.
George stood and pushed his way through the crowd of sweat-soaked, ale-addled men and women. The two thugs followed close behind him. A heavy-set, bull-necked man sat in a rickety chair next to the door, likely in charge of maintaining such order as existed in a place like The Angel.
"Who is that woman?" George asked just before he stepped out into the street.
"Maggie Church," the bull-necked man replied. "She owns The Angel, now doesn't she?"
Over the last few days Ban had discovered two things about Isadore.
Her greatest joy was her son, Jeremy, which was a completely foreign idea to Ban.
He was torn between a curious admiration for the love between the two and an icy hard envy of the strength of their connection.
Isadore would never hand a child over to someone like Ma Dyer. She would die for her son.
The second thing Ban slowly came to realize was that she was preparing herself to leave him.
He'd always known her plans once she got her son back.
They'd spoken of those plans often. She'd even discussed them with Con and Ethan.
The difference now was that other than a few unbridled kisses and fondles when Jeremy was occupied with Oxford or Benny, she'd grown colder and more distant.
He, of course, had refused to react when she glanced at him in that way that said she wanted him badly, wanted to talk to him, wanted him to say something.
He couldn't He wouldn't. He'd let her go because that was the only choice left to him. All that was left was the when. At night when he lay in his balcony bed, alone, he allowed himself to think of his life without her.
"What are you saying, Jeremy?"
Ban looked up from his chair by the fire. They'd just finished supper, and Daisy had cleared away the table a few moments ago.
"What is it?" Ban asked, when he took in Isadore's stunned expression.
"I'll fetch it," Jeremy said, and trotted off into the bedroom.
"What is he fetching?" Ban asked, when Isadore came and dropped into the chair across from him.
"George's will, his original will."
"His what?" Ban couldn't believe his ears.
"His will. He asked to see Jeremy the night he died." She shrugged. "Frankly, I'm shocked. He'd never shown much interest in Jeremy, not even when he was an infant. Apparently, he gave Jeremy his will and told him to keep it safe from George until it was needed."
"Guess he wasn't such a bad father after all. You had no idea?"
"None at all." She glanced over her shoulder to the closed bedchamber door. "He's very fond of you, you know. Quite admires you, in fact." Her smile was so sad, he had to remind himself to breathe.
"Doesn't everyone?" he said, with a half-hearted laugh. "Or at least parts of me, at least."
She shook her head. "Wicked, wicked man," she said softly.
"Here it is," Jeremy announced, as he dragged the old coat he'd rescued from the coach into the room. He draped the coat across his mother's lap and ripped a hole in the lining. He handed the bundle of ribbon wrapped papers he extracted to Ban.
"So this is why you went back to retrieve the bloody coat with bullets flying all around us," Ban said, as he and the boy exchanged a grin.
"I believe you called it a fucking coat, Mister Dyer,' Jeremy said. "And you said you'd buy me a new one."
"Jeremy George Fitz-Wilton!" Isadore shouted as she took the will from Ban. "Your language, young man." She began to study the papers, one by one.
"I did indeed, Mister Fitz-Wilton. We'll make a trip to Weston's at your earliest convenience."
"We're taking this to Mister Forsythe first," she mused, her face alight with hope and when she gazed at Ban, something more. Something warmer and infinitely more powerful than hope. Which only made the moment all the more painful.
"We'll send it by Oxford. Safer that way."
The pounding at the study doors stunned all three of them.
"Into the bedroom," Ban ordered as he shoved Jeremy into Isadore's arms. "Go, and lock the door behind you. Go. now!" Isadore clutched the will in one hand and dragged Jeremy into the bedroom. She handed the boy the papers.
Oxford stumbled into the room, a pistol in his hand. "Billings sent me. We've got an intruder. He says its Fitz-Wilton and a crew from Bethnal Green. They've come for her and the boy."
Ban went to his weapons cabinet and grabbed a knife and two pistols. "Isadore get into the damned bedroom and lock the door," he shouted as he armed himself. He crossed the study, kissed her hard on the mouth, and left the study, locking the door behind him.
"We need to send up some men to guard them," he told Oxford as he jogged down the corridor toward the inside of the house of traps and tricks.
"Already done," Oxford replied. "How the hell did Fitz-Wilton find out she was here?"
"I don't know," Ban replied as they paused at the walkway of floating boards and steps. "I'll ask him right before I kill him."