Chapter 17
Isadore stared at the open chinoiserie cabinet.
She looked back at Jeremy standing in the bedroom door, his father's will clutched in his hand.
George had loved their son in the end, but that had not saved him.
Her son had suffered a year of scant food, cold rooms, and never knowing what his fate was to be.
If not for Ban Dyer, he would be on his way to the home of a man who could have destroyed him.
She tried the study doors only to find them truly locked.
She closed and locked the doors onto the balcony.
"Get into the bedchamber, Jeremy." She returned to the cabinet, grabbed a double-barreled Manton, and checked to make certain Ban had loaded it.
She crossed the study and pushed her son inside the bedchamber just as Benny came through the door to the staircase, a large axe in his hand.
Without saying a word, he moved the monstrous mahogany highboy in front of the door behind him.
Isadore locked the door into the study and strode to the doors that led into the corridor. Benny grabbed her arm and shook his head.
"I must go to him, Benny," she said. "Please."
He released her and glanced back at Jeremy.
"I'll be fine. Keep my boy safe. If anything happens, take him to Mister Con, yes?"
Benny nodded solemnly.
"Mama, what are you doing?" Jeremy cried.
"I'll be right back," she assured him. She hugged him hard and kissed his cheek. "Stay with, Benny." She ran out into the corridor and heard the click as Benny locked the doors. There was scraping as he moved furniture against the doors.
"I'll help," she heard Jeremy say. She heard the fear and the first tremor of tears in his voice.
Gunshots sounded from the middle of the house.
She closed her eyes and brought the map she'd made that first night to mind.
She crossed the floating bridge and threaded her way across a series of planks over holes in the floor so wide and deep, all she could see below her feet was darkness.
Gunshots and flashes of light appeared from time to time.
She followed the noise of gunfire, running feet, and shouted orders.
In moments, however, there was another clue for her to follow.
The screams of those intruders who encountered the house's many methods of ending one's intrusion permanently.
She turned a corner and came face to face with a man she did not recognize.
"I've got her!" he called out as he stepped toward her.
She opened her mouth, but her warning came to late.
A heavy blade came down from the ceiling and took the man's head.
Isadore ducked as the weapon swept back up and disappeared, armed to take the next man who didn't see the wire stretched across the corridor at ankle level.
Then she heard the voice that still had the power to make her stomach churn.
George Fitz-Wilton was screaming at someone.
He demanded they return. Called them cowards.
She climbed a set of wooden steps tucked into an alcove, steps that appeared to go nowhere.
She tucked her pistol into the wide sash at her waist and pushed open the trap door at the top of the steps.
She grasped the length of rope she found and pulled herself up onto a walkway that overlooked the pit that ran down the middle of the house.
From there she looked down to where George stood on a landing that ended at the edge of the pit.
Several rough looking men stood with him.
Several others were backing away. They dropped their weapons and ran back the way they'd come.
Several sharp cries announced they'd not paid attention on the way into the Devil's Den.
A series of planks had been nailed into place at random intervals jutting out over the endless darkness at the heart of the house.
Ban stood at the end of one of them, a smoking pistol in one hand and an unfired one in the other. "Now's your chance, Fitz-Wilton. Take your men and leave or I will see you dead."
"Not without Isadore and Jeremy. I'll have Bow Street in here and see you hanging at Newgate, you son of a whore."
Isadore held her breath and didn't take another step. She stood frozen save for the arm she raised to aim her pistol at George.
"My mother likely was a whore," Ban said with that cold smile she despised.
Here was not the man who held her in his arms and treated Jeremy so kindly.
Here was the murderer, the man who feared nothing and no one.
Here was the man on whom Fate had smiled over and over again.
No one knew better than Isadore that sometimes Fate blinked.
The men behind George eyed Ban and then George. When their gazes went back to Ban, she knew they saw what she did. They began to back away, muttering under their breaths. George turned on them, his face a mask of the evil, arrogant thing he'd always been.
"You run now and I'll shoot you down like the dogs you are.
" He pulled a pistol from the waist of his breeches.
He shot one man immediately. The others caught their comrade and began to drag him away.
One fell into a door which opened under his weight.
He screamed all the way down the stairs as he toppled out of sight.
"This is between me and you, Fitz-Wilton," Ban leapt from one jutting blank across the void to one on the other side.
George fired at him. The shot went wild.
More gunfire erupted somewhere else in the house.
She heard Billings calling out orders. Oxford called out Ban's name.
Ban ignored him. His entire being appeared intent on George, and George alone.
He jumped back across the pit onto another bouncing plank.
With each jump he came closer to George who fired at him again. And missed again.
"Frightened yet, George?" Ban taunted. "You should be." He stepped onto the very edge of the plank on which he stood. The wood bowed under his weight. The only place for him to go was the plank sticking out in front of George, which would give her brother-in-law a clear shot.
He can't. He won't. Her heart raced to the point it must surely stop at any moment. George's face lit with an unholy light when he realized the same thing that struck Isadore.
Ban's expression turned to stone. He tossed his pistols onto the walkway behind him.
Isadore screamed as he launched himself across the pit at George.
He plummeted down and caught the plank in front of her brother-in-law with his fingertips.
He gripped the plank and began to pull himself up with his hands.
George edged out onto the plank and aimed his pistol at Ban's head.
"No!" Isadore cried. She aimed her pistol and fired. The gun flew from George's hand and he dropped to one knee on the plank. He grappled with Ban's hands, trying to pry him lose. Isadore took aim again, this time at George's head. Ban wrapped one hand around George's wrist and pulled him forward.
"I'll see you in hell, you sack of pig-shit.
Tell my mother I said hello." He jerked George forward and let him fall.
His blood-curdling screams echoed and then went silent.
Ban wrapped his legs around the plank and swung up into a seated position.
He scooted back to the walkway and got to his feet.
"Damned fine shot, Missus Fitz-Wilton." He gave her a jaunty salute.
Isadore dropped the pistol. She backed off the walkway until she crawled back through the trapdoor and reached the top of the steps where she fell against the wall and burst into tears. She cried in great gulping sobs, unable to stop. A gentle hand touched her arm. She heard Ban calling her name.
"Missus Fitz-Wilton?" Oxford inquired gently. She looked into the handsome young man's face.
"Take me to my son, Oxford. Please."
"Yes, missus." He took her elbow. "This way."
"She didn't say why?" Ban asked Billings once he finally had the opportunity to sit down at his desk.
The Bethnal Green boys had taken their dead with them.
At least the ones they could find. Isadore had disappeared into the bedchamber with Jeremy.
He'd sent a supper tray in for them whilst he dealt with the aftermath of George Fitz-Wilton's death.
Retrieving the man's body had taken some time and effort.
He'd sent for Fam who had studied the broken remains for a few minutes before barking out orders to Sullivan and a few other select men.
The story would be that the man fell down the stairs in his own house.
Once Sullivan finished explaining whose orders he was following, only the most foolish of servants would tell a different story.
Ban had also arranged for the will Jeremy had kept all this time to be delivered to Stephen Forsythe to use as he saw fit.
Oxford had undertaken the task, but not before giving Ban the oddest look.
"She simply asked me to have Benny bring round the carriage. The boy is down there with him now, loading her bags into the boot."
Ban's heart stuttered. He breathed in through his nose before he looked up at Billings. "I see." He heard the bedchamber door open and close. "Thanks, Billings. Let me know if there is anything else."
"I'll take care of it," the old boxer said with an odd catch in his voice. He stopped long enough to acknowledge Isadore and then left, closing the study doors behind him. Ban remained seated behind his desk, uncertain if his legs might hold him.
"I understand you are leaving," he said, in as even a tone as he could manage.
"I am." She was dressed in black again, her hair done in a severe braided and pinned style. "George is gone. We are safe. I have affairs to see to and a bank to run."
"Two banks," he reminded her.
"Yes," smiled slightly. "Two banks. I want to thank you."
"Don't," he snapped and rubbed his forehead. "There is no need." Silence settled between them like an unwanted guest.
"I cannot live like this, Ban," she whispered. "I cannot raise my son to admire a man who thinks life is a thing to be tossed aside for no reason, with no thought to those left behind to mourn."
"Mourning is a waste of time Isadore. Life is to be lived, not regretted."
She gave a bitter laugh. "And there lies the difference between us. We really have nothing in common, and I have already lived a lifetime with a man with whom I have nothing in common."
"Nothing, Isadore?" He pushed slowly to his feet, walked to her and took her in his arms. He kissed her with every secret thing he'd ever dreamed of her, with that part of his soul that was hers alone.
And she met him in that kiss with an intensity that took his breath away.
Then she pushed against his chest and stepped away.
"And what am I to do when your luck runs out, and I am left to sleep in a cold bed? What then, Ban? What you offer me is wondrous. I crave those things with everything I am, but those gifts are fleeting."
"I love you, Isadore. I have never said those words to anyone before, not even my brothers. I never knew what they meant until you. I love you. Isn't that enough?"
"How can you love me?" she cried, her voice choked with the tears that ran down her cheeks. "You are in love with Death, Ban Dyer. I can never hope to compete with such a mistress. I would not even know where to begin. And...I don't think I wish to." She turned and walked to the bedchamber door.
"Goodbye, Ban. I..." She shook her head. "Goodbye."