" D on't look at me like that." Fam flexed his shoulder to rid himself of the irritating itch Ethan's regard gave him.
"The situation with these missing boys is drawing too much attention onto my brothers and me.
Attention, especially from magistrates and Bow Street is bad for our business concerns.
" He added a few notes to the papers on his desk.
Anything to avoid the way Ethan studied his face.
The contrary creature sauntered over and stood next to Fam's chair, close enough for him to smell the soap they'd bathed each other with last night. Damn . Being around him was beginning to become impossible, like a drunkard trying his best to avoid the drink.
"What are you doing with a picture of this?" Ethan dragged Marianne's drawing of the malachite box from beneath a stack of papers.
"My brother Con's wife drew it. Why?"
"I've seen this box. It was stolen a while back. From the bloody Duke of Wrexham." He stared at the drawing as if he couldn't believe what he was seeing.
"I know," Fam replied. "My sister-in-law stole it. Should have known she'd steal from a fucking duke."
Ethan began to laugh. He dropped the drawing onto the desk and braced his hands on top of it as he continued to roar with laughter. His merriment didn't stop until he was fairly gasping.
"What the hell is so damned funny?"
"Why am I not surprised your brother married a thief and a damned good one at that. The duke's house was chosen because it was supposed to be impregnable. And it was breeched by a mere woman." Ethan held his belly and laughed some more.
"There is nothing mere about Marianne Dyer, trust me. Actually, she made the drawing because she's looking for the box. Her uncle stole it from her." This set Ethan off again into hoots of laughter.
"He didn't just marry a thief. The criminal lord of Seven Dials married into a family of thieves. That bloody Russian prince is never going to see his prize again." Ethan staggered around the desk and collapsed into one of the chairs.
"Russian prince? What the hell is in that box?" All they needed was for some Russian prince's hired assassins to show up in the Dials in search of Con's wife on top of everything else.
"I have no idea. Wrexham was supposed to be keeping the damned thing for the prince, and when the theft was discoverec, there was the devil to pay. I never heard anymore about it, because some ruffians kidnapped me and presented me to another crime lord like a prize pig."
"Your trials, though terrible, have been necessary to my business," Fam said with a slight smile. "I apologize for any inconvenience, my lord."
"Don't apologize." Ethan leaned back and put his feet up on the desk next to Fam's. "The situation has had its...compensations."
"Yes," Fam said softly. "It has."
"Mister Dyer?" a slightly accented voice called through the closed door.
"Come in, Helga." The tall, round fortress of a woman waddled in with a plate loaded with sandwiches in one hand and a pitcher in the other.
"Something to keep you until luncheon, ja?" She pushed some papers aside and put the plate and pitcher onto the desk.
"You're a paragon, Helga."
"Ja, ja, mein herr. You still won't be getting under these skirts. Eat."
Ethan grinned.
"Helga, meet Lord Ethan Hawkworth Polston. He has threatened to whisk you away from me." Ethan stood, took possession of the startled cook's hand, and kissed her thick calloused knuckles.
"Miss Helga, there are few cooks in all the West End of London with your talent in the kitchen," he said with an exaggerated bow. Helga glanced at Fam.
"Him, I might let under my skirts." She turned and left the room like a queen.
"Where did you find her?" Ethan asked as he grabbed a sandwich.
"Her husband brought her over from Germany after the wars.
He pimped her out to his friends instead of finding steady employment.
" Fam bit into a sandwich, chewed slowly and then swallowed.
"When he decided to offer their twelve-year-old daughter to his friends, she hired me to kill him.
She's been living here with her daughter and working as my cook ever since. "
"Jesus," Ethan muttered.
"Jesus doesn't show up too often in Seven Dials, Ethan. People tend to solve their problems themselves."
"Or they make you do it for them."
Fam stopped before he took his next bite. "Make me?"
Ethan shrugged and picked up the pitcher. "Glasses?"
Fam opened a desk drawer and pulled out two glasses. Ethan poured each of them a glass of ale. "To Helga in the kitchen," he offered with a raise of his glass. Fam raised his glass in agreement.
"Who would want to make certain you and your brothers are blamed for these dead boys?" Ethan asked, once he'd taken a long draught of the cold ale.
"What do you mean?" Apparently, Ethan had looked at more than the drawing of the malachite box.
"Someone is going to a great deal of trouble to point the finger at you and your brothers.
Have you considered these boys are being taken and killed for no other reason than to undermine the authority of the Four Horsemen and to bring the four of you down, possibly to dance a Tyburn jig? Who would want to do that to you?"
"What do you know about the Four Horsemen?" Fam narrowed his eyes, but Ethan seemed not in the least intimidated.
"Your men talk whilst they play cards. Makes it easier to fleece them. I thought I recognized your name the first night I met you. You're not unknown in the ton ."
Fam was only half listening. What Ethan said just moments ago began to settle into his thinking. He gathered all of the pieces of parchment into a single pile and put aside Marianne's drawing. "Tell me why you think these murders are deliberate."
Pigeon had escorted Ethan, along with the books he'd chosen and all of their notes about the dead boys, back to Fam's chamber a few hours ago.
The study had grown a bit chilly as Fam had neglected the fire in favor of mulling over all of the things he and Ethan had discussed.
For a lord raised in the hallowed halls of the ton, he possessed a criminal bent of mind that surprised Fam.
He didn't know why, but he was afraid his aristocratic lover was right.
Someone was doing all they could, including murdering helpless children, to bring about the end of Fam and his brothers.
The question now was who and how to stop them.
After a single knock, Bull stepped into the room. "Sorry, guv'. That bloody earl is downstairs demanding to see you."
"What bloody earl?" Fam sighed and massaged the bridge of his nose.
"Selridge." Bull nodded upward. "Our Captain Sharpe's brother."
"I see." Fam leaned back in his chair. "Bring him up. And, Bull?"
"Yes, guv'?"
"How much did Captain Sharpe take you for?"
"Five damned quid," he said with a scowl, as he left to do as Fam asked.
"What can Lord Selridge want, Smudge?" The cat blinked from his chair and yawned.
The earl hurried into the room casting furtive looks over his shoulder at Bull who'd chosen to escort him up at gunpoint. He didn't tuck his pistol into his belt until the earl was seated before Fam's desk.
"Need me, Mister Dyer?" Bull asked.
"Not at all, Bull. Thank you. I'm certain his lordship and I are going to have a perfectly amiable conversation. Right, Lord Selridge?"
The man looked at Fam as if shocked he'd spoken at all. "What? Of course. Certainly."
Bull grunted and closed the door behind him. He likely still lingered in the corridor as he had a healthy distrust of anyone not born in the rookeries.
"What can I do for you, Lord Selridge? Have you brought my money?"
"Not exactly." The earl fiddled with the buttons of his waistcoat. He was sweating profusely. Something was definitely amiss in his lordship's life, and that did not bode well for Fam.
"Two words I do not like to hear when it comes to money, my lord. If you do not have the ransom, why are you here?"
"Things have changed. My father will pay, but...he wants a more...permanent solution to our problem."
"Your problem?" The hair on the back of Fam's neck stood up.
"My brother. He's been a problem in our family since he was sixteen, and my father wishes an end to it, er him."
"What sort of problem has he been to cause his own father to want to...end him?"
The red-faced earl leaned across the desk and glanced from side to side.
"My brother is a sodomite. Has been for years.
His liaisons have become known, and if the lady I am courting should be tainted by his deviant behavior, I might never win her hand.
" He flopped back into his chair. "He's never going to change. "
"How terrible for you and your father." Fam bared his teeth in what he hoped was a smile. "What exactly is your proposal, my lord? Your brother has been an expensive prisoner to keep. Getting rid of him will cost even more."
"The whole ransom, my father will pay it all to you if you can kill my brother and make it look like an accident.
" He spoke the words so calmly, as if bargaining for a horse or a new suit of clothes.
Fam forced his body to go cold even as he contemplated the earl's death over and over in his mind.
He stared at the earl who squirmed in his chair like a fish on a hook.
"Have the money delivered here. As soon as I have the money in hand, your brother will cease to be a problem to you and your poor father." The earl blinked at him, frowned, and then smiled broadly in delight.
"Thank you, sir." He leapt to his feet and extended his hand, which Fam ignored. "You'll have the money within the week. I promise."
Fam nodded wordlessly and Ethan's brother scurried to the door like a Covent Garden rat.
"Lord Selridge," he called as he stood in the open door. As predicted Bull stood just outside waiting for him.
"Yes, Mister Dyer?"
"Do you have a preference as to how your brother should meet his Maker?"
The man grinned like the ghoul Fam had always suspected him to be. "Painfully. He deserves it for all the trouble he's caused with his disgusting ways." Bull gave Fam a questioning glance. Fam waved him on, and the loyal soldier followed the earl down to the entrance of the Brick Lane building.
The icy sting of the room wrapped around him like winter's rain.
Fam could not remember ever being this cold.
He picked up Smudge and headed up the stairs to his chamber.
There was someone waiting for him there who had made him feel more warm and alive than he ever had in his life.
Someone whose own family wanted him dead.