L lewelyn's questioning of the various chimney sweeps rumored to buy children to use as climbing boys had taken more than a week.
Fam alternated between not only being glad, but also being frustrated at the time the search was taking.
He still hadn't told Ethan about the visit Elbridge had paid him. He finally had to face the truth.
Where Ethan was concerned, he was weak. He'd spent too much time in the man's company--talking, eating, discussing the missing and dead boys, lying in bed together, fucking.
Fam dared to think once or twice that he was actually happy.
A mistake, he told himself, but he was incapable of keeping the idea from creeping into his thoughts from time to time.
Now, here he sat at a corner table at the back of The Angel waiting for the man Llewelyn had identified as the sweep who had discarded the boy in front of the Brick Lane building, was it only a few weeks ago? Mary Church approached his table with a fresh tankard of ale and a smile.
"Why, Fam Dyer, haven't see you here in an age," she said as she placed the ale in front of him. "What's kept you away?"
"Business, Mary. My business waits for no man, you know that."
"That I do. Horseman business never sleeps. You've been well? Your brothers are all well?"
"We are. I'll give the others your best, shall I?"
"Do that, and tell them to stop by. I never tire of seeing your handsome faces." She gave him a wink and sauntered back to the bar. Llewelyn slipped into the chair next to Fam's.
"That's him." He nodded toward a tall, wiry man sporting a top hat and the dark jacket of a master sweep. His cart is in the lane behind the alley. I recognize the carthorse."
"Right." Fam half drained the tankard Mary had brought him. "Bring him out to the alley. I don't want to cause Mary any trouble." Llewelyn grinned and adjusted the long dagger at his side.
"Aye, guv', we'll be along in a thrice." Llewelyn left his seat at the same time as Fam.
Save Llewelyn went toward the bar, and Fam drifted to the back of the tavern and slipped out a door to the side of the kitchen.
With buildings all around the tavern the wind did not cut through the alley the way it did in the street out front.
His greatcoat was heavy and warm. He reached into the pocket to feel the butt of the Manton he'd placed there before he'd left the house.
His dagger was not at his waist but in his boot.
Sullivan and Pigeon stepped out of the shadows to join him about the time the chimney sweep came stumbling into the alley, pushed every other step by Llewelyn.
"'Ere now...you've no cause to roust a man from his ale after a hard day's work. 'Ho the devil d'ye think ye are?" The words had no sooner left the man's mouth when Fam stepped into the moonlight.
"Do you know who I am?" he asked in quiet, even tones.
The man went white as a sheet. "You dumped a dying lad on my doorstep a few weeks ago.
I know you'll be happy to hear he survived.
" Fam nodded and Pigeon and Sullivan each clasped one of the man's arms to keep him from going down on his now shaky legs.
"I just did as I was told, Mister Dyer. God's truth, a man brought the lad to me like that and paid me to leave him there. I didn't have nothing to do with what was done to the boy."
"Who brought the boy to you? What is his name?"
"Didn't give one. Paid me and told me where to leave the lad."
"What did he look like?"
"Short, but broad. Had naught but a bit of neck and a square block of a head. His eyes was blue, but eerie like, pale blue, and he had a wide flat nose like a bulldog."
Something about the description struck Fam. He turned the words over in his mind to the point Sullivan cleared his throat. He considered letting the man go.
"Guv'!" Llewelyn shouted from the lane behind the alley.
"There's a boy here." He strode into the alley with a small child in his arms. The child lay limp, unmoving.
Something slipped from his little pocket, a pocket in what had been decent wool trousers, too decent for a child of the Dials.
Fam bent and retrieved what had fallen into a puddle of water in the alley.
"Bollocks," he shouted. "This is the Kaufman boy." He turned and strode to where Pigeon and Sullivan still held the sweep upright. "You bastard." He punched the man in the mouth.
"Take this lying shite to Brick Lane and put him in a cell. Llewelyn, put the boy in my carriage. We're for Rose Street. Carrington-Bowles stays late on Thursdays."
Ethan closed his book and glanced at the black and gold French ormolu clock on the mantel.
Two in the morning and Fam still had not returned.
There had been a commotion downstairs around midnight.
Sullivan had stuck his head in the door, likely to make certain Ethan had not tried to go out the windows.
Caught off guard, Ethan had stepped halfway across the room before he realized Fam had not come with him.
Sullivan, damn him, saw his eagerness for what it was.
"He'll be along in a while. We found the Kaufman boy. Mister Dyer and Llewelyn took him to Rose Street."
"Rose Street?"
"Carrington-Bowles, rich cove from St. James Square, has a dispensary there."
"Lionel Carrington-Bowles. I know him. I didn't know he was a physician."
"He's physician enough for the Dials," Sullivan snapped. Whatever this night's events had been, they'd set the normally amiable thug on edge. He shook his head. 'He does well enough by us. I pray Mother Mary he saves the Kaufman boy."
"How bad is he?"
"Bad." Sullivan said no more. He didn't have to as his face spoke all the truth Ethan needed.
Two hours later and Ethan still sat alone in the bedchamber they'd shared for nearly two weeks.
In all that time he'd heard story after story of the things Fam had done.
Just a few days ago, one of the maids had spoken of an earl's son who'd been bundled onto a ship to Australia missing two fingers and warned never to return to England or next time he'd lose something more than fingers.
The maid had seemed almost proud when relating the tale.
Criminal or not Fam had surrounded himself with loyal people, people who knew what he did and didn't give a damn.
He wondered if any of them ever wondered or feared the day Fam Dyer might not come home.
Until this moment Ethan certainly had not considered that possibility.
He'd bought into the idea of the gang leader as some sort of invincible creature, incapable of most human sentiments and certainly impervious to injury or death by the hands of anyone save perhaps the Devil himself.
Fam.
Ethan had not once called him by his name, not even in the throes of passion.
They'd never discussed the subject. Why would they?
They were not two men being introduced in polite society.
They were a murdering crime lord and a marquess's son who suffered an attraction others considered unnatural, an attraction that grew stronger every day.
Ethan knew him intimately, every scar on his body, that he had to have food nearby at all times, that he demanded the curtains be kept open in his chamber day and night, that he bathed every day sometimes twice a day.
He read myths and legends about heroic deeds and gothic novels about reclusive men with blood on their hands.
He wore a Jewish talisman, though he was not Jewish.
And he kept an ancient cat in the sort of luxury a duchess would consider her due.
Enough!
He jumped from his chair and dropped the book onto the seat.
He'd ordered a bath drawn half an hour ago.
The water was still quite warm to the touch.
The kitchen maid, Dora, had been all too happy to take a bribe of some of the coins he'd won at cards with the men to make the trip to a certain shop for exotic oils.
She'd asked no questions, for which he was grateful.
The sound of a key in the lock shot across the room like the firing of a gun. Ethan sat in the chair next to the commodious copper tub facing the door. Dyer walked into the room, his face grim. His coat and jacket were gone.
"Want a bath?" Ethan asked as he rose slowly and adopted as nonchalant demeanor as he could manage. "Water's still warm."
"Yes. Though I may fall asleep." He tried to tug his shirt from his breeches.
"I'll drag you out before you do." Ethan went to him and pushed his hands out of the way. He pulled the shirt over his head and set to work on the buttons of his falls. In moments he had Dyer stripped and allowed him to brace a hand on his shoulder as he stepped into the tub.
"You just wanted to get me out of my clothes, you rakehell," Dyer murmured as he subsided into the bath with a sigh.
"Didn't take much, lightskirt. Are you hungry?" He made to step to the bell pull by the mantel. Dyer caught his hand.
"No. Simply tired and cold. Stay." He closed his eyes and leaned his head back against the tub.
Ethan let go of his hand and picked up the flannel and soap from the stool next to the tub.
He settled onto the stool and began to wash Dyer's arms and then his chest. For a moment Dyer opened his eyes and frowned.
Ethan ignored him and moved on to wash his shoulders.
He pushed him forward to reach his back.
The more he washed, the more Dyer relaxed into his hands.
Finally, the water began to cool and Ethan put the flannel and soap aside.
"Get out before you fall asleep," he said softly.
To his surprise Dyer stood obediently and stepped out of the tub.
Ethan retrieved a thick bath sheet from the spot where he'd draped it over the fire screen to warm.
Dyer stood, eyes closed once more, and allowed Ethan to dry him off then wrap him in the bath sheet and steer him to the bed.
Ethan shed his clothes, retrieved a bottle of oil from the bedside table and knelt between Dyer's legs.
The crime lord opened his eyes at once and gazed into Ethan's face, his expression one of shock and burgeoning desire.
"What are you doing?" he asked in a hoarse whisper as Ethan began to caress his cock with the oil.
"What do you think?" Ethan replied. He continued to cover Dyer's thick cock with oil from root to tip with long, gentle strokes. Dyer's eyes widened.
"You want me to..." He blinked a few times, as if confused.
"Fuck me? Yes, very much. And if you ask why, I'll draw your cork, drag you back to that tub, and drown you.
" He placed the bottle of oil back on the bedside table and got to his feet.
His hands still oily and smelling of exotic flowers, he cupped Dyer's face and bent down to kiss him, softly at first. Then he plunged his tongue into his lover's mouth and groaned as Dyer seized him and dragged him onto the bed.
Dyer rolled Ethan beneath him and drew Ethan's legs over his shoulders. "Are you certain?" he asked, his voice strained. "I haven't done...this...in a very long time."
"Do you remember how?" Ethan asked as he took his own cock into his hand and stroked a few times.
Dyer laughed darkly. "We'll find out." He nudged at Ethan's entrance gently and gradually worked his cock inside.
Ethan arched his back with a guttural cry.
It had been a long time for him as well, but he wanted this with Dyer with an almost craven desire--this connection, this joining, as close as he might ever be to Fam Dyer.
"Good?" Dyer groaned as he threw back his head and began to slowly pump in and out of Ethan's body.
"Yes," Ethan hissed. "Don't stop." In a few strokes, he was mindless with pleasure.
Never had these sensations been so powerful, so visceral and so swift to take him beyond the point of his control.
The scents of sweat and oil and soap mingled with the sound of Dyer's powerful thighs slapping against his own.
The sense of fullness and pain was exquisite and rode a knife's edge between agony and ecstasy.
"More," Ethan cried. "Faster." Dyer took him at his word and leaned closer, his taut belly brushing Ethan's cock, his powerful hands pinning Ethan's own to the bed.
They clasped hands and rode the rhythm Dyer set to a blinding end punctuated by groans that echoed in the room as the warm wet heat of the completion spilled over the spot where they were joined.
Dyer lowered himself to cover Ethan's already cooling body.
He kissed him over and over again--his chin, his jaw, his lips, his nose, and eyes.
Dyer rested his face in the crook of Ethan's neck. Ethan started to wrap his arms around him, but stopped when he remembered Dyer's aversion to being held.
"No," Dyer rasped. "Tonight, I need...just for tonight." He sighed against Dyer's shoulder and in moments he dozed.
Ethan held him all night. He didn't sleep. He was too occupied forcing himself not to weep. Fam Dyer might allow him to hold him for a few hours. But the hard-hearted villain would likely find tears annoying. For that matter, so did Ethan. Apparently, they both had something to prove.