T o Ethan's amazement, Fam slept through the night.
He'd slept so soundly, and remained so still, Ethan awoke several times to make certain he still breathed.
He hadn't even stirred when Ethan and Smudge had crawled into bed with him.
Which was why he was shocked to awaken in the bed alone.
The day was overcast, but the amount of light coming through the windows indicated late morning, perhaps even noon.
He'd picked over the food left in covered dishes on the table, finished his ablutions, and dressed when Bull knocked and stepped into the room. "He wants to see you," the thick-necked man said rather seriously. "In his study."
And odd sensation prickled at the back of his neck as Ethan followed Bull down the stairs and into the first-floor study.
The man closed the door quietly behind himself.
Dyer sat at his desk, very changed from yesterday.
He appeared his old self, as if nothing untoward had happened.
Smudged meowed at Ethan from his throne by the fire.
Ethan stopped to pet him and then dropped into a chair before the desk.
"You wanted to see me, guv'?" He said with a grin. He propped one booted foot on his knee. The minute Dyer finally looked at him, Ethan's stomach clenched and his breath stuttered.
"Your father paid the ransom," Dyer said, his voice devoid of inflection. "I'm letting you go." Ethan frowned. He waited for him to say something else.
"You're what?"
Dyer placed a thick packet tied with string on the desk and pushed it in front of Ethan.
"That's ￡8,000 in ￡100 notes. Take it and go.
" He took a shaky breath, the first sign he struggled with what he was saying.
"Your father and brother...they tried this once.
They may try it again or worse. Take the money and visit the Continent.
You could afford a grand lifestyle on the Continent with this amount of money. " He pushed the packet closer.
Ethan had the sensation of the floor opening up and swallowing him, of falling with no end in sight. "I don't know what to say."
"There's nothing to say. My carriage is ready to take you wherever you wish to go.
I wouldn't suggest you go home. I don't think your father paid the ransom out of the goodness of his paternal heart.
" Something in his voice and his eyes made Ethan suspicious.
Something wasn't right with this, but he didn't want to think on it now. Now, he wanted an explanation.
"You're sending me away."
"I'm setting you free, Ethan. You had to know this..." He waved a hand helplessly. "Would come to an end. We don't belong together. You don't belong in this world."
"What world is that?" Ethan abandoned hurt for anger, perfectly justified anger.
"My world, damn you." He leapt to his feet and began to pace. "My life is dangerous, Ethan, and disgusting, and nothing you should have to witness."
"And if I choose to, to witness that world?"
"Then you're a bloody fool."
"This is about what happened yesterday, about what I saw.
" Ethan watched Dyer's expression and saw the moment the man realized he'd been caught.
"Jesus, Dyer, you're just like my father and brother.
You see me as some weak little molly boy, too soft and one step away from being a woman. What a hypocrite you are."
Fam turned and came to clasp the arms of Ethan's chair so that they were nose to nose.
"That is the last thing I think of you, damn you.
Sullivan and Warrick told me what you did yesterday.
How you took control of the situation as if you'd done it all your life.
You're the farthest thing from a molly boy there is.
You're too much like me, and it scares the hell out of me.
" He was shouting now, shaking with some powerful emotion Ethan wasn't certain he could name.
"How is that a reason to chase me away?"
"Because I don't want that for you, damn you. Just once I want something clean and decent and right in my life, even if only for a few weeks. I've learned to live on the few good memories I have, Ethan. I don't want you touched by the sewer that is my life."
Ethan considered his words for a moment. Sounded perfectly reasonable and even gallant in a way, and perfectly wrong. "That's very noble of you, Dyer, but it's shite, and you know it."
Dyer straightened and stepped back. Now he was the one whose face clouded with rage.
"You're letting me go because you are afraid you might actually love me, and that scares you more than any murderer or cutthroat in all of Seven Dials. Either you don't want to care, or you don't know how. Which is it?"
"I--"
"Don't bother." Ethan shoved the money back across the desk.
"I have my own money. Always have. I stayed because my father and brother are all the family I have, but I suspect even that isn't true anymore.
Hold tight to your brothers, Mister Dyer.
Found family is better than no family at all, even if they are a bunch of thieves and murderers. "
"I'm sorry," Dyer said. "This wasn't supposed to happen."
"I see that now, but you're not sorry at all. That's the worst of it. You act as if you've had no choice in all of this."
"You've always had a choice, my lord ." Fam's voice dripped with venom. "You've had the luxury of choice all your life. I've only had one, to survive or not to survive. If that has made me a monster, so be it. I'm a fucking, alive monster, not a dead one."
"A dead one," Ethan replied. The conversation had gone beyond his control, burning with no sign of water in sight. "Like the viscount. You killed the viscount because whatever made him the way he was, he still chose to be a monster and for that he deserved to die."
"Yes, dammit. No matter what life made him, it was his choice.
" Fam stopped speaking, stopped breathing.
He'd heard his mistake. The truth of it was all over his face.
He'd never admit such in a thousand years.
Ethan's heart began to crumble into pieces he had no hope of ever putting together again.
"I see you, Fam Dyer." Ethan's throat threatened to close around his words.
"Your childhood made you a monster. But you are no longer a child.
I see who you were before life ruined you, who you still are deep in your soul.
And you are choosing to be a monster, just as the viscount did, because it is far easier to be who you are now than it is to be who you were always meant to be.
I should know. And now you do too, even if no one else dares tell you, now you know, and you've made your choice.
And I will exercise my luxury of choice and make mine.
Tell your men to bring the carriage around.
I'm ready to go." He gave himself the time for a deep breath and stood up slowly.
"Don't you want to pack?"
"There's nothing here I want." He stuck out his hand. "Goodbye, Mister Dyer. Thank you for your hospitality." The man took his hand and clasped it tightly in his own.
"Fam. My name is Fam. I want to hear you say it before you leave."
Ethan pulled his hand free. "I'll wager you do." Ah, now that drew a wince. Dyer wasn't the only one who knew how to land a precise punch. Ethan turned to go.
"Wait, Ethan."
He turned to see Fam pull the pendant over his head. He offered it to Ethan. "If ever you have need of me..."
Ethan stared at the silver star and feared his heart might stop beating.
"I won't. The one thing I need from you is the one thing you no longer have to give.
They've all taken it away from you, one piece at a time, and you let them.
" The room began to close in on him. He hurried into the corridor and headed for the stairs.
"Sullivan!" Fam bellowed, from the landing as he came out to watch Ethan reach the entrance hall.
The Irishman stood on the landing next to Fam.
They exchanged a few words, and Sullivan went down to unlock the door.
A surprisingly elegant carriage stood at the front of the plain brick building.
Sullivan bumped against him as they both tried to get into the carriage.
Ethan gazed out the window one last time to see Fam standing in the doorway, his face unreadable, as the carriage pulled away and headed toward the West End of London.
"It's for the best, lad," Sullivan offered as they rattled over the cobblestones.
"Whose best?" Ethan asked, as he swallowed the burning lump in his throat.
"Aye, now that's always the question now, isn't it lad?"
Sullivan stood and observed Ethan's confident stride toward the portico to his family's Mayfair townhouse.
He imagined a slight hitch in his forward momentum just moments before a footman formally swung open the front door.
Fam's right-hand man knocked on the roof to signal the coachman to drive the team up the street, out of view of the occupants of the townhouse.
No sooner had the carriage pulled onto a hidden side street than Sullivan had slithered out the carriage door before the driver had even stopped.
For a man of such bulk, the huge Irishmen made liquid stealth look easy and found a back way along the line of the mews of the wealthy of Upper Grosvenor Street toward the common servants' entrance at the rear of the home of the Marquess of Stroud.
Finding a footman or downstairs maid willing to eavesdrop at keyholes for a few quid was one of the easier ways of getting inside information on the private lives of the wealthiest of the ton . Ill-paid, and treated, servants were the gems plied by the crime minions of the rookeries.
Within an hour, Sullivan was seated at a rear corner table at The Angel, nursing a tankard of ale whilst keeping an eye out for the footman who had taken his coin as smoothly as a grass snake slipping into the Thames.
Mary Church swayed toward his table, a tray of drinks balanced neatly on one arm.
"Thought you could use another." She placed a second tankard on the table and refused payment with a slight shake of her head and a saucy smile.
"This one's on the house. You're here later than usual.
What brings you out on a cold night like this? "
Sullivan gazed up and saw something he hadn't noticed before in Mary's usually sparkling eyes.
Could it be speculation? A moment of doubt flickered through his mind and he decided to deflect her curiosity.
"Maybe I'm just here to see you." He cushioned his denial of information with a smile he hoped was convincing.
He slipped a pound note into the alluring crease above her bosom just to let her know there were no hard feelings and to urge her back to her station behind the bar.
She'd no more than disappeared into the crowd when he gave out a sigh of relief at the sight of the marquess's footman swinging through the front door of The Angel.