I t was long past midnight when Fam finally forced himself to leave his study and climb the stairs to his bedchamber. Smudge trotted into the room ahead of him and wandered about as if in search of something, or someone.
"He's gone, you old grouch. Nice of you to remind me.
" He stood in the middle of the room and allowed his gaze to wander.
Ethan had left the books he was reading on the table beside his chair.
The soap he'd demanded sat on the shaving stand next to the screen in the corner.
Someone had gone to the trouble of folding his clothes and placing them on the blanket chest. The bottle of oils sat on the bedside table.
Fam sat on the chest next to the stack of clothes and toed off his boots.
He took his time undressing and climbed naked into bed.
The sheets had not been changed. The scent of Ethan lingered on the pillows, on the sheets, all around him.
He'd almost convinced himself their time together was nothing but a dalliance, a bit of fun to interrupt the tedium of his life.
How anyone in his profession could find life tedious was a bit amusing.
The only interruptions to his life to this point had been loss.
Their sister, Nell, had moved on to a better life.
Mister Kamish was gone. His mother and father had never been a part of his life.
Even Smudge would be taken from him one day.
As if summoned by the thought, the old cat came to his bedside and meowed to be taken up.
The times Fam had to lift him onto the bed had become more frequent this past year.
A reminder that no one lived forever. Sometimes it just seemed that way.
Fam and his brothers had been cheated. That was what Ethan didn't understand.
Con, Ban, and Warrick loved him, Fam knew that.
It was perhaps the only thing he'd ever known for sure.
Until Ethan came along. Perhaps they'd allowed him to become their monster, but he'd done so willingly because he had nothing else to offer them for the love and support they'd given him.
Ethan with his quick wit, his mother who loved him, and even the certainty of a home with food, clothes, and safety, had so many gifts to offer.
Gifts he'd offered to Fam in their brief time together.
He would never understand someone who had only one thing to give--his ability to rid the world of bad people without conscience.
Fam should have told Ethan the truth about his father and brother, that they ordered his death without a single regret.
What purpose would it have served? They were too cowardly to actually do anything to him themselves.
Ethan had this odd attachment to them as his family.
Fam could not bear to take that away from him.
He hoped that wasn't a mistake. Because now, in the bed they'd shared, with Ethan safely away from the ugliness that was Fam's life, he could admit, if only to himself, that he loved Ethan Hawkworth Polston and probably always would.
He hugged his lover's pillow to him and tried to sleep.
He needed to rest if he was to get on with the rest of his life without Ethan in it.
Fam had no more than slipped into bed and closed his eyes when wild pounding and Sullivan's shouting broke out at his door.
"Someone better be out there offering a thousand pounds to kill some bastard, or there'll be the devil to pay.
" He threw on a dressing gown and stomped toward his chamber door.
Sullivan didn't mince words. "I paid a footman to eavesdrop on the old marquess and his son after I dropped off Mister Polston."
A lesser man than Sullivan would have stopped right then at the murderous look in his guv's eyes.
"Mister Polston made it perfectly clear he had no need of my help.
He wanted to face his family alone, on his own terms. The marquess and his son.
..between the two of them, there's not enough bollocks to kill Ethan themselves. "
"No, but they had enough bollocks to order a gang of footmen to throw him into the family carriage and take him to Bedlam to have him committed."
Fam felt the blood leave his face and hands, leaving only cold nothingness where once skin and bone, blood and muscle had glowed warm in the presence of the man he'd come to love.
He moved methodically to pull on the clothing he'd just abandoned before turning back to his right hand man. "Take me to him."
"To Bedlam?"
"Yes, if that's where he is. I'd make you drive me to the gates of hell if that's where they decided to dump their own flesh and blood."
In the midst of their headlong rush to the carriage, Fam gave Sullivan a look and stopped on the first landing down the long staircase toward the front entrance of Fam's lair. It seemed they'd both realized the same thing at the same time.
"I'll send men to call on your brothers to meet us at Bedlam. We may need backup."
A part-evil, part-aha smile lit up Fam's face. "And send for Dickie Jones. It wouldn't hurt to have him bring along both Carrington-Bowles and the Duke of Chelmsford."
"But is Carrington-Bowles a true physician?" Sullivan threw him a doubting look.
"He is if Chelmsford says he is." Fam patted a fat purse he'd tucked into his belt. "Chelmsford's word, plus this much blunt should do the trick on whatever mindless prate is serving as turnkey at Bedlam at this ungodly hour."
"If that turnkey sees all of The Four Horsemen show up to demand he give up an inmate, you may not even need the duke and a physician."
Three-quarters of an hour later, Fam had ridden with Sullivan and Llewellyn to the crossroads of Long Acre and St. Martin's Lane where they joined Con, Warrick, and Ban with their respective troops and continued on riding hard for the horse ferry to Southwark.
The only sounds on the long ride were the pounding hooves of the horses.
The few pedestrians or other riders they encountered in the wee morning hours knew better than to stare at The Horsemen.
They didn't want to know where they were going or why.
The less one knew about the movements of The Horsemen, the better it was for one's health and mortal soul.
They drew up finally in front of the hulking, deteriorating edifice referred to simply as Bedlam by Londoners. All manner of genuinely disturbed patients, as well as a number of inconvenient souls locked up by their families inhabited the crumbling structure.
Con quietly cantered Bucephelus up close to Fam and his mount. "How do you want this to play out, Brother?"
Fam leaned across the pommel of his saddle and gave Con a long look. "I want to walk in there and retrieve Ethan with as little force and fanfare as possible. The quieter, the better."
"And how do you plan to pull that off? What if the turnkey can't be bought?"
Fam said nothing, but looked around at his chosen family, favoring them all with a slow smile.
In the silence that followed, the roll of heavy carriage wheels echoed in the distance.
Coming through the morning mists of the courtyard fronting the asylum was a huge hulk of a carriage.
..with the arms of the Duke of Chelmsford.
When the duke's coachman pulled down the steps and opened the door, both Chelmsford and Carrington-Bowles emerged, dressed as if attending a meeting at Westminster and looking as if they were quite accustomed to dawn raids on insane asylums.
All Four Horseman moved to the entrance way in a solid line, followed closely by the duke and C-B. At Con's sharp rap, an attendant opened the door and began to complain, but silenced himself quickly when he realized to whom he was complaining.
He turned quickly and raced away to pull the turnkey from his bed to greet these august visitors.
Later, Ethan and Fam would recall the rest of that morning as a blur of emotions. When Fam and his brothers, backed up by Chelmsford and C-B, had demanded the turnkey take them immediately to the patient, there was no delay. Especially after Fam pressed the fat purse into the turnkey's hand.
Fam's first sight of Ethan was heartbreaking.
They'd taken away his clothes and put him into a rough sheet-like affair held together only by an single tie at the back of his neck, which had a hinged metal collar attached with a lock.
A chain held his arms to his sides, and he sat on a hard metal chair bolted to the floor.
His face was flushed and his hair wild. Fam heard his screams before the heavy door to his cell was even opened.
Rage filled every fiber of Fam's being, and he blessed the presence of C-B who released Ethan and gently helped him find his clothing before taking him to the safety of the duke's carriage.
Fam rode inside the carriage with Ethan, C-B, and Chelmsford whilst his brothers served as outriders for the trip back to town.
Once back in his chamber, Fam had a bath drawn and personally cleaned every bruise and cut his beloved had suffered during the outrage of his short but horrific admittance to Bedlam.
C-B assisted to make sure no serious damage had been done and then left them alone with a promise he'd return in the morning to check on his patient again.
Smudge awaited both of them, purring atop the counterpane and warming the side of the bed where Ethan normally slept.
Fam crawled into bed with all his clothes on and gathered Ethan's shivering body into his arms. Ethan looked up and whispered, "You may be a bloody monster but you're my monster. And if you ever send me away again, I won't be paying someone else to murder you. I'll do the job myself."
"And I'll always let you do whatever you want to me, so long as you never let me send you away again."
Ethan snorted. "Of course, this was all my fault."
"Of course. Every good thing in my life is your fault."
Smudge planted himself on the pillows between their heads and gave an indignant yowl, signaling it was time for all of them to finally get some rest.
- THE END -
If you enjoyed the story of Fam and Ethan, don't miss our next installment of the Bow Street's Most Wanted Series - The Four Horsemen.
Warrick Dyer is a man haunted by his many years before the mast with the Royal Navy.
Sold to a press gang at the age of nine, he spent his early years as a powder monkey, lighting cannon fuses aboard the HMS Pelorus .
An intense ringing in his ears is the main "prize" he took away from the King's employ.
He makes do with a handful of hours of sleep each night, and the scowl on his face seems a permanent fixture.
He rose through the naval ranks through grit and fierce fighting skills. His captain claimed no one could board an enemy ship as fearlessly and ruthlessly as Warrick Dyer.
His dreams of earning his own ship's command died around the time he became a first lieutenant. The war was over, no titled or wealthy patrons would plead his cause, and the Admiralty had no use for him.
When his ship was paid off, he slipped away to the rookeries of Seven Dials to join his brothers in the enterprise that would become known as the province of The Four Horsemen.
There's no love lost between Mrs. Beatrice Rowe and the Four Horsemen's gang leader ruling the London docks.
Widow of the late James Rowe and current owner of Rowe shipping, Beatrice has no illusions about who is behind the skimming of goods, by way of lightermen, off her merchant ships.
But lately, her ledger books are showing alarming discrepancies which she attributes to the insatiable greed of Warrick Dyer.
She threatens to expose him to the magistrate, but for once, he's innocent.
Someone else is trying to ruin her, and Warrick must race against time to reveal the true culprit.
Her brother-in-law threatens to enact a clause from her late husband's will and take away her leadership of the company because of incompetence.
He wants to seize the shipping empire and disinherit her son.
Can Warrick afford to risk not only his business, but that of his brothers for the love of a woman? Can Beatrice risk her son's future, and her heart, to take a chance on the word of a crime lord?