" I see." Fam paused in his washing of the boy whilst Charpentier continued and deliberately kept his head down and out of the conversation. "That's why your Bow Street friend is involved."
"He's involved because I asked him to be," Carrington-Bowles replied.
"Children are going missing in the Dials.
Col and I want to know why, and we want it to stop.
" He fairly threw the tube back into his satchel, braced his hands on the table, and took a deep breath.
"Pneumonia. Bloody hell. And too damned weak to fight it. "
Fam and Charpentier exchanged a glance even as they continued to clean the boy's body.
The pile of grimy, stinking flannels grew.
Carrington-Bowles rambled on under his breath as he opened various jars from his bag.
The chef picked the child up and turned him over so they could clean his back.
Tears sprang to his eyes as he caught sight of the scars and fresh whip marks visible through the coal dust and dirt.
Fam had no tears, only a simmering heat running through his veins.
At the clatter of footsteps from behind the baize door, Fam turned, his hand halfway to his boot once more.
"Dickie," Carrington-Bowles said. He gave Fam a censorious look and began to rub a salve onto the climbing boy's now clean back.
The door burst open, and Dickie Jones in a thick wool robe burst into the room.
He was taller than Fam remembered or perhaps the clothes and the weight he'd put on, the healthy color in his face simply made him appear so much more than the wiry waif he'd always been.
"Dyer." He acknowledged Fam with a nod. "Hear you found this one dumped on your doorstep." He handed Charpentier a heavy, cambric nightshirt. "One of Georgie's. Likely too big, but it'll do in a pinch."
"Georgie's not awake, is he?" the chef asked. "He doesn't need to see this."
"Dead to the world, that one. Aunt Camilla's up. She and that maid, Esme, are seeing to the room next to yours being made up for the boy." He met Carrington-Bowles' steady gaze. "Said you'd want him close to look after him."
"She should be in bed. She's too frail for this business."
Dickie snorted. " You tell her that, but warn me before you do."
"Warn all of us," Fam said as he helped the physician to turn the still insensible boy over onto his back.
"I thought the Dyer brothers weren't afraid of Old Scratch himself, being a close relative and all," Dickie said with his customary upstart grin.
"Old Scratch? No. Lady Camilla? Only a fool wouldn't be afraid of her," Fam declared.
"Amen," Charpentier avowed.
"Rogues and ruffians," the lady in question said as she came down the stairs in the corner of the kitchen.
"The four of you. Oh, dear Lord." She touched her hand to her mouth as she came to the table where the climbing boy lay.
She picked up a flannel from the bowl and began to wash the child's hair. "How bad is he, Lionel?"
"Bad enough," Carrington-Bowles replied. "You should be in bed."
"So should we all, but here we are. Thank God you were there, Dyer. The child could have died in the gutter on Brick Lane had you not found him."
"My lady." Fam inclined his head. There were not many aristocrats he saw as worth a bucket of warm piss, let alone a gesture of respect. Lady Camilla was one of the few. Something suddenly occurred to him. "How did you and this guttersnipe know I found the lad on Brick Lane?"
"Oy," Dickie said, and thrust out his chest. "Who you calling guttersnipe, bloody cutthroat?"
"Language, gentlemen." One sharp word from Lady Camilla and they all hung their heads and mumbled apologies.
"Your lummox of an Irish guard dog has been trampling my shrubbery pacing back and forth behind the house," the lady continued. "I warned him off my abelias from the first-floor window, and he told me the particulars."
"I can just imagine that conversation," Fam muttered.
Lionel snorted. For a while they all worked in silence bathing the patient, applying salves and unguents, drying him off, and finally, dressing him in the nightshirt Dickie had fetched.
Lady Camilla set about mixing a stout beef broth and a pot of tea.
She set a bowl of the broth and an earthenware mug of the tea onto a tray.
"Take that up, Dickie dear, will you?" she asked, as she wiped her hands on a cloth draped over the sink.
"Yes, milady. Night, Dyer." He lifted the tray and started up the stairs down which the lady had come.
"You'll bring word of how the lad fares, Dickie," Fam replied.
"Not for nothing I won't, Fam Dyer, and well you know it," the former pickpocket called back down the stairs. Fam, the chef, and the physician laughed as Lady Camilla gave an exasperated sigh.
"Come, Nathaniel," she said as she wrapped the sheet around the still slumbering boy.
"Take this little one up, and we'll settle him in bed.
I foresee a very long night." Charpentier obediently lifted the child tenderly in his arms. He bent down to whisper something to Carrington-Bowles, gave Fam a nod, and climbed silently up the servants' staircase.
"Lionel was called to Mister Kamish this morning," Lady Camilla said, as she moved about the kitchen setting things to rights.
She and her nephew exchanged a glance. Fam's heart slowed.
He shrugged against the sudden blanket of dread that washed over him.
Kamish had been ill for several weeks now, bedridden with what Fam suspected was consumption.
"How bad is it?" Fam's jaw tightened.
"When Judah sends for you," Carrington-Bowles said, as he sat at the table across from Fam. "Go." Lady Camilla placed a cup of tea in front of Fam and then her nephew.
"Hiram Kamish is a good man," she said softly. "He is very fond of you. I am truly sorry." She patted Fam's shoulder and went to the stairs. "God keep you, Fam Dyer."
"If he'll do so for anyone, milady, he'll do so for you."
"Rogue and ruffian," she said with a tsk. "Rogue and ruffian to the soles of your boots." She closed the door behind her as she headed up the stairs.
"I heard Viscount de Winter had an accident cleaning his pistol a few nights ago."
"Unfortunate." Fam took a sip of his tea. "That will happen from time to time."
"Indeed." Lionel sipped his tea and met Fam's gaze with a steady regard of his own.
"How many of his victims did you treat?" Fam asked.
"Three that I know of now. Maisie Stubbs, Sally Big'uns' niece, recognized them."
"Murdering shite," Fam fairly growled, and closed his eyes lest the physician see how close he was to coming apart.
"I told the abbess they died," Carrington-Bowles said softly. "I lied. The first two lived."
Fam snapped his eyes open. His heart raced as he saw the truth in the man's expression. "Where are they?"
"One, a boy, works in Nathaniel's kitchens at Club Ambrosio.
Nathaniel says he has talent for cooking.
The other, a girl, is a maid in Captain Atherton's household.
His wife is teaching her to read. Ath says the poor child still has nightmares.
" Fam knew the curse of the nightmares that never seemed to end.
He hoped the little girl forgot in time, a futile hope at best.
"I assume the girl who died," Fam said. "The last one, is buried at St. Giles?
If not, I want to make arrangements for her to be buried properly with a marker.
Somewhere in the country." He dared not express such sentiments in front of his men or even his brothers.
Carrington-Bowles, however, had seen too much of Fam's handiwork to ever think there was an ounce of mercy or softness in him.
"Actually, no. The new Viscountess de Winter sent her man of business around to arrange for the girl to be buried in the churchyard at their country estate. And she's taken the babe to raise as her own. According to her man, Maisie Stubbs has a position with them for life."
Fam stared at him in disbelief. "The new viscount does not object?"
"Tell me something, Dyer," the physician said, once he'd finished off his tea. "I assume the lady is the one who sent Maisie to request your services?"
"What services?" Fam drank the last of his tea and gave Carrington-Bowles his most blank expression. To which the aristocratic physician rolled his eyes.
"She did," Fam finally owned. "And paid me from her own purse whilst her husband wept like some milksop mushroom who'd lost his last sovereign at Crockford's."
"There you have it. I daresay a wise husband would not naysay a woman like that a fucking thing."
Fam laughed long and hard whilst the physician grinned.
"Tell your Bow Street friend to visit me should he learn anything from the boy or his clothes." Fam rose and dragged his greatcoat off the table.
"Oh, I suspect he'll be coming to visit you regardless."
Fam studied the physician. He saw neither judgment nor censure.
Then again, this man had been ministering to the sick and dying in Seven Dials for long enough to have learned to keep his true thoughts to himself.
Archer Colwyn, the Bow Street man, had been watching the Dyer brothers for years.
He'd not come after them without evidence.
He'd not stop coming after them once he had that evidence.
"The other two children were discovered on properties owned by you or your brothers. Col will want to know why." Carrington-Bowles shrugged. He picked up a bakery box tied with string from the work table next to the sink.
"Send Bow Street along. I'd like to know too." Fam donned his coat.
"Crab cakes from tonight's fare at Club Ambrosio. Nathaniel knows your fondness for them."
"Give him my thanks. And send Dickie around with news of the boy tomorrow."
"I will." Carrington-Bowles opened the door to reveal Sullivan standing in wait. "Take care, Dyer. You walk a thin line with the life you lead."
"Not to worry," Fam said as he batted Sullivan's hand away from the bakery box. "I've worked too hard to keep this life to let just anyone take it."
"It's not your life I'm worried about," Carrington-Bowles replied.