Chapter 12
Horsemen Safe House
Leicester Square, London
Warrick took in the scene before him. Beatrice's honey gold hair hung nearly to the floor whilst she lowered her head near the fireplace in his room and pulled a brush through the masses of curls for at least the hundredth time.
Recalling her penchant for flammable mayhem, he'd vowed to stay with her whilst she brushed her hair before the fire.
She wore a warm, blue velvet robe which nearly matched the blue depths of her eyes, the collar buttoned high on her neck, and a woolen shawl wrapped firmly and tied over her shoulders.
He watched, mesmerized, and thanked the gods, not to mention Sally Big'uns, for having allotted him the servant's chamber with the largest fireplace.
She'd been quietly tending to her hair for sometime when she suddenly broke the silence. "Why does Sally have such an odd last name?"
Although the room was warm from the fire he'd built, the heat rising to his cheeks had nothing to do with the huge pile of wood he'd fed into the grate. After a long moment, he ventured, "Why do you think she has that name?"
"I don't know. That's why I asked you."
"It's a name she's carried for years. I don't know if anyone knows her real surname anymore."
"But why 'Big'uns'?"
His cheeks by now scarlet, he pantomimed with his hands large protuberances in front of his own chest.
"Oh--" she said, as if he'd raised a fist against her. "I'm so sorry..." she trailed off.
"Beatrice, you have to stop apologizing. The fire was not your fault, the burnt bacon and spoiled eggs were not your fault, and Sally's nickname is absolutely not of your doing. I'm the one who should be sorry for tolerating such crude references to the women who work with us."
Her mouth flew open. "I'm the one at fault. Of course, it's understandable the poor woman's anatomy would subject her to cruel jibes amongst the rough river men who haunt the docks. I should have known."
Warrick stood suddenly. "Come here."
"Why?"
"I want more than anything to take you to that bed," he said, pointing to the servant's bed in the corner, "and make love to you until your skin is pink all over from my hands and tongue. Is that something you'd like?"
"Yes, please." And then she laughed. "Maybe not right now, though. I don't want Sally telling me 'I told you so' in the morning."
He clucked his tongue at her eagerness. "Has anyone ever told you you're entirely too biddable for the wrong reasons?"
"For the wrong reasons? How can that be?"
"When we were trying to sneak up on the chimney sweep establishment, I warned you to stay behind me and be safe.
But no, you insisted on sliding on your belly to be next to me.
..and in danger. You refused to listen and stay to the rear.
Now, when I've made nothing more than a casual, wrong-headed suggestion, you're completely ready to follow me anywhere. "
"You should talk to my sister Anneke. She could tell you it's a character flaw of mine."
"And what would that be?"
"I'm attracted to abysmally unsuitable men."
Warrick was not at all prepared for the strange secrets that Beatrice seemed ready to share.
What he desperately wanted her to share was what lay beneath the thick layers of soft blue fabric with which she'd chastely covered herself.
What his greedy hands itched to see released were her perfectly formed breasts.
They always came to attention under his perusal, begging to be suckled.
When she climbed into his arms in the chair where he sat, as they'd done many times in her office, he contented himself with simply holding her close and rubbing gentle circles on her back with his hands.
He didn't care if it killed him, and he feared it just might, if she never joined her body with his. He would wait forever if necessary.
"All right," she finally said. "You go first."
"Where am I going?"
"You're going to have to tell me about your childhood first, if you expect me to share the boring details of my privileged life.
He froze, the palms of his hands sweating and alternately hot and cold. He couldn't tell her about his life. He didn't know where to start, but he had to let the horrors out before he lost his nerve. And so he started at the beginning.
"My brothers and our sister...we were the strongest and healthiest children at Ma Dyer's baby farm, but of course that wasn't saying much, because she fed us just enough to keep us alive...and barely strong enough to do her dirty work.
"Lots of desperate mothers brought their unwanted babies to Ma and arranged to send her money every month to keep their children alive.
The truth was, though, she took the little babies and strangled them with a red ribbon she kept for her dark work as soon as the mother left.
Once the poor little things stopped breathing, she made us take their bodies to the river.
Sometimes Ban would say a prayer he learned over them.
"And then she hit on an idea of how to make some money on the side by pitting children against children fighting in pits, like dogs, or fighting cocks. People from the rookeries would come and watch and place bets.
"She used Fam the most, because he was the best fighter...and then one day he refused to fight anymore."
"What did she do then?"
"She locked Fam in a room with no food or water for days on end, until he agreed to go back into the ring."
"How old was he?" Beatrice's voice trembled.
"He was about six then, I think."
"How on earth did he survive?"
"He was stubborn, and about a week into being locked away, she threw a kitten in with him. She wanted him to turn into an animal himself and eat the cat."
"How did you and your brothers save him?"
"Old Mister Kamish had a rag cart, and he figured out a way to sneak some food to Fam through a hole in a wall to the outside that Fam dug. He helped smuggle the kitten out as well to make Ma think Fam had eaten him."
He finally stopped, unable to go on and tell her the rest.
Beatrice was silent for a long time before finally beginning her story.
"I grew up on a small farm outside Amsterdam.
My father was the captain of his own merchant ship and sometimes carried cargo for Rowe Shipping, which was how I met Wilfred when I was sixteen.
He was a very handsome young man before drink destroyed his looks.
When I first met him, he treated me like the world revolved around me and me alone.
I was proud, vain, and too easily led astray by blandishment.
Anneke saw through his charming manners and warned me.
But of course, I didn't listen and married him. "
"Was he always a wastrel?"
"Probably. He managed to keep his dark side from me until we came back from our wedding trip through France and Italy.
By then, I was expecting my son, and I had to make the best of a bad situation.
The first thing I discovered after we returned to London was that he'd been gambling away most of Rowe Shipping's profits, and he was a very poor manager of what little was left. "
"What did you do then?"
"I grew up in a seafaring family. I knew what a shipping business entailed. All I had to do was dig into the financial ledgers and figure out what needed to be shored up first. I fired most of the employees because they were covering up their own thefts of huge amounts."
"How did you replace them?"
"I got to know the people who worked in our warehouses, the captains who sailed our ships, and the lightermen who off-load cargo. I spent months earning their trust and rewarded them when we finally turned the corner to profitability."
"Did you still love your husband after that?"
"He never came to my bed once we returned from our wedding trip. From that time on, he stayed with one mistress or another. Now it's your turn again."
"My turn again? You didn't tell me the rules of this interrogation when we started. And besides, there's not much more to tell."
"There certainly is, Warrick Dyer. You didn't tell me anything about how you came to be a Royal Navy lieutenant, or how you came to be one of the Four Horsemen of the rookeries."
"I was sold to a press gang after Con killed the old gang leader who bought us from Ma Dyer. His surviving gang members took me to spite my brothers for taking over old Bill Green's criminal operations."
"How did you make it through those war years in the Navy?"
"That's easy, I knew how to fight, but better than that I knew how to win. My captain said I could board enemy ships better than any other swab who'd served under him."
"Which is why you never go anywhere without your precious boarding axe?"
"She hasn't let me down yet."
The infernal woman took him by surprise by wrapping her arms around him and claiming his mouth with hers as if they had all the time in the world and all she wanted was to climb inside his skin.
Once she reluctantly released his lips, he couldn't help asking, "What about that mountain of a captain, Jarlsson? Have the two of you shared more than an interest in Rowe Shipping?
"That's an interesting question, Mister Dyer. Why do you ask?"
Beatrice trailed her finger over the hair on Warrick's chest beneath his banyan and stared directly into his eyes. "I'm still waiting for an answer."
"Because I want to know how deep a bond exists between the two of you. He acts as if his feelings are fairly strong."
"I'm not responsible for other people's feelings, as you well know. I am my own person. No man has a claim on me now."
"Is that because that's the way you want to live your life, or is it because you've never met the man worthy of you gifting him your love?"
"I don't know, Mister Dyer. What do you think?"
He growled, stood up with her still clinging to his neck, and carried her over to the bed.
Warrick relieved himself of his banyan and slippers whilst working at Beatrice's shawl and all of the tiny buttons encasing the maddening woman in her blue robe.
Thank the gods she began helping him divest her of all the layers in which she was encased, until she lay before him, covered in nothing but the light of one small candle on the bedside table.
He memorized each curve and indenture from her perfect breasts all the way down to her delicate ankles and toes.
He didn't want to miss any stops along the way to possessing her the way she deserved to be taken.
He crawled onto the sheet beside her, afraid to breathe and break the spell.
She turned and smiled at him before edging so close, he could feel the steady thump of her heart against his chest. She squirmed and maneuvered her legs around his hips so that her cunny rubbed against the tip of his cock until he was afraid he'd die of pleasure.
His cock bobbed frantically at her entrance, but at the last minute, she curved down, slick as a mermaid and planted a butterfly soft kiss on the pearl of moisture pooled on the head of his cock.
When he pulled her back for a long kiss, she rolled atop him and reached down to seat his penis just inside her entrance.
When she sank down, taking him all the way inside, Warrick groaned like a man who knows he's lost. She brought her knees up and slowly rode him, sliding up and down until they both quickened their movements.
The sound of her skin slapping against his was the final flash of pleasure that sent him over the edge.
When he came, there was no time to withdraw, and she continued to ride him until he could move no more.
When she finally lifted away from him with a sigh, they both lay facing each other for a long time.
Warrick could not for the life of him summon the words to describe what he felt, but he knew for certain that no matter what happened between them, she was his from that night forward to protect with his very life. She was part of him now.
When Warrick made the rounds of all of the doors and windows in the house to ensure each one was locked, he encountered one of the footman guards.
"That little spy Dickie Jones is here with some tall stranger and a cart full of baskets of food. Should I let them in?"
"Praise St. Nicholas--a cook and some decent food. Lead me to them, and go wake up young Lucy so she can help him stow away food in the kitchen."
Dickie popped up behind the guard, his arms piled high with what looked like a selection from a rag man's stall. "Disguises from Marianne. She figured you might be able to make good use of them."
"Wicked smart idea. Just throw them over on the settee till Beatrice has a chance to sort through the lot in the morning."
"Where is Missus Rowe?" Suspicion sparked from the young spy's eyes.
"Sleeping, and I'll thank you to leave her be."
"Oy--. Really tired, is she?"
"Stop right there, young man. No more speculation. She's merely had a hard day." He turned toward the gentleman standing behind Dickie and extended a hand in welcome. "I'm Warrick Dyer, and you're the most welcome sight I've seen in a while. We're sorely in need of someone who knows how to cook."
The young man smiled. "Josef Himmel at your service. Mr. Charpentier said I'm to take over your kitchen for a few weeks."
"Yes, and gods above bless both you and Mr. Charpentier. We've had a rather hard day in the kitchen. Don't pay any attention to the smoky smell and burn marks. Everything's under control now."
Josef nodded. "I'm to stay until you're ready to leave. A little smoke never hurt anything."
"And you, Dickie...did Con send for you?"
"No...Ban this time. He figured you two would need all the help you could get, and from the looks of the kitchen, I got here not a moment too soon.
Also, by the way, Con doesn't know I borrowed these disguises from Marianne, so I'd appreciate if you'd keep it just between you and me.
" He turned to leave and then snapped his fingers and turned back.
"I nearly forgot something. She sent you a message.
" He handed an elegant, folded piece of fine paper to Warrick and then slipped out the front door like a wraith who'd never been there at all.
When Warrick tore the seal off the card, there were only three words inside: You owe me...
He shook his head hard. Marianne Dyer was the last woman on earth to whom he wanted to owe a debt.
There could be only one reason she was being so secretive.
She wanted him to do something for her that she didn't want her husband to know about, which could mean only one thing.
She must have a new lead on that damned malachite box she couldn't stop obsessing about.