A Lily Among Thorns

Chapter 12


Serena headed straight for him, ignoring Decker’s forceful sotto voce representations. “If you might give us a moment,” she said to Sir Nigel in freezing accents, and stared at him until he shrugged, grinned, and wandered off. Turning her gaze on Solomon, she saw him give Sir Nigel a conspiratorial wink. “Solomon, what the devil is going on here?” she asked in a furious undertone.

His brow wrinkled. He was wearing fetchingly disheveled riding gear that Serena had never seen before. “I’m sorry to disappoint such a lovely young man, but my name’s not Solomon.” He gave her a friendly leer. “However, since you’ve driven off my friend, perhaps I might be of service to you instead?” He was affecting a different accent, a little more Shropshire and less Cambridge, but she’d already heard him use it at St. Andrew of the Cross.

“I don’t give a damn how you choose to spend your spare time, but please have the courtesy not to lie to me to my face.” It occurred to her, painfully, that this explained the hundred and twenty-five pounds. Not to mention last night. He’d been so kind, so respectful—because he didn’t want her.

Solomon crossed a boot over his knee and tilted his head in just that way he had. “I’m very sorry, sir, but there’s been a mistake.” His right hand moved to rest lightly on his top-boot, and two things made Serena realize with a jolt that it was really not Solomon. For one thing, he evidently had a knife in his boot. For another, his hands were smooth and unstained. But they were unmistakably Solomon’s hands—

Serena’s eyes narrowed. “Elijah!” she hissed.

His left hand shot out and caught her by the wrist, and Elijah said pleasantly, “I’d be very much obliged to you if you didn’t use my name here.”

Her lips thinned. “Very well,” she said quietly. “I’d be very much obliged to you if you’d come with me. Your brother has spent the past year and however long mourning you, and I don’t plan to allow that to continue one moment longer than necessary. I have some business to conduct with our host, but I shall return shortly. I trust you’ll still be here—but should you choose to go, I can find you.”

His eyes narrowed. “I’m sorry, sir, but you have the advantage of me. Who are you, exactly?”

She laid her palm flat on the table and leaned forward. “I am Lady Serena Ravenshaw.”

His brows rose, his eyes flickering to her bound breasts. “I see. Well, in that case I won’t cross you. The Thorn’s network of spies is legend.” He flashed her an engaging grin eerily like Solomon’s—and yet with rather more dash and conscious charm. She felt inexplicably unsettled.

“Flattery will get you nowhere,” she said sharply, and gave him a last admonitory glare before returning to Decker, who stood watching her resignedly.

“I’m sure you wouldn’t like it if I caused an upheaval at the Arms,” he grumbled.

Serena shrugged. “Don’t tell me your taproom has never seen a jealous lovers’ spat before. That’s all anyone thought it was.”

Decker gave her a sideways grin. “A lovers’ spat, Thorn? Is that the handsome tailor I hear you were kissing in a hallway a few nights ago?”

Serena raised an eyebrow. “Been listening to gossip, Fritz?”

“When do I listen to anything else? Can’t say I wasn’t pleased to hear it. You deserve some fun. I’ve a soft spot for tailors myself. Meticulous, that’s what they are.” He smiled reminiscently and blew his red nose into a cherry-striped handkerchief. “But if he’s having a bit on the side, I say boot him out.”

She was caught between Scylla and Charybdis. God only knew what Elijah was up to, lurking around pretending to be dead and seeming, for a corpse, rather dangerous. She could hardly reveal that he wasn’t Solomon. Nor could she announce that she and Solomon weren’t lovers, since, well, no one would believe it. Which meant Fritz Decker thought she was being cheated on, and there was nothing she could do about it. It was humiliating. “That’s not what we were discussing,” she said icily, and left it at that.

“Well, you always were one for keeping up a brave front,” Decker said cheerily. If only she were a man, no one would say things like that to her.

He let them into a low unpainted room off the house’s yard and latched the door behind them. A table covered in equipment stood in the center of the room. She’d seen it plenty of times before, but now it made her think of Solomon. In the corner was a large safe. As well as running one of London’s less reputable molly houses, Decker was one of London’s more discreet fences. “Now how can I help you?”

“I’m here to get those earrings. These are the same pair you bought off a highwayman last week, are they not?” She drew Solomon’s sketch of the earrings from her pocket and handed it to Decker.

The look he gave her was really troubled. “These were the last things I ever expected you to ask about.”

She frowned. “Why?”

He pursed his lips. “I’ll tell you this much. I did have those earrings. They were here for almost five days. Then someone comes in yesterday morning, asking about them. I’m sorry, Thorn. They’re gone. Were gone hours before I got your note.”

“And who purchased them?”

His round mouth flattened out severely. “You know I won’t tell you. My business relies on discretion.”

“I’m discreet. And I would make it worth your while.”

He looked affronted. “I wasn’t asking for a bribe. I don’t betray my customers. In either of my professions.”

She leaned against the door frame, gave a long-suffering sigh, and fixed him with her blankest, mildest expression. “I need to know where those earrings went, Fritz. I should hate to have to resort to foolish violence.” He quailed. Serena felt a shock of pure malicious satisfaction. That would teach him to tell her she put up a brave front.

“I can’t, and I can’t,” he said pleadingly. “You’ve been accused of black things, Thorn, but violence to an undeserving man for pursuing his profession isn’t one of them.”

She grinned wolfishly. “You clearly haven’t heard my latest orders.”

He had. She saw it in his eyes. He took a hasty step backward. But he stuck obstinately to his guns. “Cutthroat ain’t a profession, and your father deserves what he gets. This is different. But even if it wasn’t, I’m between the devil and the deep sea. My life won’t be worth a copper penny if one of my transactions becomes a source of unpleasantness because of me, and that’s a fact.”

Damn it, he was right. Serena just wanted this over with so she could go back out there and deal with Elijah. It filled her with angry frustration that the information she needed was so damn close and yet she wasn’t going to get it.

On the other hand, she thought, if I can’t get the earrings, Solomon can’t leave yet. No, that was a bad thing. She glared at Decker.

“I owe you a debt, Thorn,” Decker said unexpectedly, stepping forward again. “You didn’t have to warn me about that police raid, and you did. And I like you, for all you could frighten our Lord himself. So let me warn you to be careful. I’m troubled in my mind that you should be asking about those earrings.”

“Oh la,” she drawled. “I’m ever so touched. I can make such practical use of that information. At least tell me one thing: were the earrings whole when you sold them?”

He nodded. His relieved smile that she was relenting just made her angrier. People weren’t supposed to look at her like that. They weren’t supposed to like her. Being liked didn’t keep you safe. You couldn’t predict it or rely on it. It was just something you had to keep earning, over and over.

“Thank you,” she said. “But bear in mind that the next time I come across information that you need, I just may keep it to myself.” But she didn’t find Decker’s hurt expression any more pleasant than his smile. It was an empty threat anyway, and he probably knew it.

Solomon was throwing her off her game, and now that the earrings were missing again, who knew when she could be rid of him?

To her surprise, Elijah was waiting patiently when she returned to the taproom. She motioned him to stay while she had a few words with Ravi Bhattacharya, who was still sitting at the bar with his head high and an empty glass of gin in his hand.

That business concluded, Serena jerked her head toward the door, and Elijah stood and followed her. They were waiting for a hackney on the pavement when Serena asked abruptly, “Is your brother—does he—” She gestured toward the pub behind them, frustrated that she couldn’t seem to just come out and ask. But what would she say? Does your brother like men? Because that would explain why he hasn’t slept with me.

A slow, pleased smile spread across Elijah’s face, and Serena felt her temperature rising. Good God, was she blushing? “No,” he said. “He isn’t, and doesn’t.”

Serena concentrated very hard on watching the road for a hackney. Finally one came, and she hailed it. As Elijah was climbing in ahead of her, he flung back carelessly over his shoulder, “Oh, and Thorn, do me a favor, would you?”

“It depends on the favor.”

He did not meet her eyes. “Don’t tell Solomon where you found me?”

Her heart clenched. “It’s no fun to have your family angry with you for sleeping with the wrong people, is it?”

He laughed. Then his brows drew together. “Surely Solomon isn’t the wrong people.”

“You Hathaways seem to have rather a lot of unjustified family pride,” Serena said in some amusement. “Of course he is. But I’m not sleeping with him.”

Elijah looked disappointed.

“I give you my word Solomon won’t hear about your predilections from me. You should tell him, though. I think he’d take it very well, after the first few days.”

“Maybe. What were you there for, if I may ask?”

“As you would know if you’d been at home, your family earrings have been stolen and Susannah refuses to get married without them. Solomon has engaged me to find them. Decker is a receiver.”

Elijah’s eyes widened. “Susannah is getting married?”

“So I’m told.”

“Who’s the bridegroom?”

She shrugged.

The carriage pulled into the Arms’ courtyard. Serena won the ensuing argument about who would pay the hackney fare. “Come on upstairs. But let me go in first—I’d like to soften the shock a little.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” said Elijah, but he let her.

Solomon heard Elijah’s step on the stair, but he ignored it. Hearing Elijah’s step wasn’t uncommon these days. At the beginning his heart had always jumped and begun to beat faster, but when he looked it was never Elijah. By now he’d got his heart’s reaction down to an almost imperceptible tremor and he never looked—but the step was coming down the hall, and it really seemed to be Elijah’s.

If you open that door, he told himself firmly, you will see some young buck trying to break into Serena’s room, and he will call you the Hatherdasher. Then the connecting door opened and Serena came in.

Solomon was so shocked he forgot all about the step. “Serena, I can’t believe you!” he said, standing. “What are you wearing?”

Serena looked down at her frock coat and Hessians in annoyance. “Solomon, I really don’t have time for this right now—”

“You bought that from Fitzhugh! How could you be such a gull? Just look at that waistcoat. Not only is the color streaky, but if he had cut it differently and added some extra quilting toward the bottom, it would have hid your shape much better. And it’s not as if his prices are cut-rate. Promise me you’ll go to my uncle next time.”

Serena smiled at him. “It was secondhand, but all right, I promise. Listen, I’ve got something to tell you. Maybe you should sit down. I—I met someone while I was out this morning, someone you thought—”

Solomon had already burst out of the room. “Elijah! Where are you? Elijah!”

When Serena followed Solomon into the hall, she had to jump back very nimbly to avoid being bowled over by a careening, shouting tangle of Hathaway limbs. It was several minutes before Solomon finally separated himself from Elijah, laughing and very pale and trying shakily to catch his breath. “I thought you were dead, you bastard! We all did.”

Elijah looked down and scuffed the toe of his boot. “I’m sorry. It couldn’t be helped, but I thought—I suppose I thought you would know I was all right.”

Solomon’s mouth twisted. Serena, remembering Solomon say I didn’t even know when he died, wanted to rip Elijah’s unexpectedly still-beating heart out of his chest.

“I did!” Solomon said. “But I couldn’t let myself believe it. Men who’ve lost an arm can still feel their fingers itch, can’t they? It’s been a year and a half, Elijah! A year and a half of thinking you were gone, do you know what that feels like?” Elijah began to speak, but Solomon interrupted him. “No! No, you don’t, because I never let you think I was dead!”

“I said I was sorry—”

But Solomon was only winding up. “And Mother! She lost a stone and didn’t even alter her clothes! Father couldn’t get into a proper rage for months! It was painful to hear him preach, and Susannah—why didn’t you write to us? And now you’re right here in London looking as debonair as ever, only more so because I would wager a hundred guineas that’s Parisian tailoring, and I only know because Serena saw you in the street?”

“I was on my way here, you nodcock! As if I haven’t been going mad wanting to see you all this time! I’ll tell you all about it later, all right, only not now—”

They were too caught up in their argument to realize how loud they had become. So when the door across the hall opened and a tousled René in an elegant violet dressing gown stuck his head out, they jumped back with identical expressions of guilty chagrin. It was easy to picture them as caught-out little boys. It was adorable.

Then Elijah’s expression changed. So did René’s; he broke into a delighted grin. “Thierry!”

“René,” Elijah acknowledged as he was seized in a warm embrace. René stepped back, beaming. Elijah looked less pleased. He shook René’s hands off his shoulders with a glance at Solomon that said, God spare me from emotional Frenchmen. René did not stop beaming. Serena suddenly got a very unpleasant feeling in the pit of her stomach.

“Thierry! Your idiot of a brother told me you were dead!”

“He thought I was,” Elijah said flatly. “Everyone did.”

“But—but how is this possible?”

“I was in the army. They seconded me to a Spanish unit. We were on a reconnaissance mission behind enemy lines and a bullet killed my horse. I hit my head falling, and when I woke up my unit was gone.” He glanced at Solomon. “I had no hope of getting back to the English army—I didn’t even know where it was—and I spoke French well enough to pass, so I got rid of my uniform and decided to make my way back to England through France. I thought they could ship me out again from here if they wanted. But when Boney was sent to Elba, I decided to stay and see a little of Paris.”

He looked at Solomon again and said, “I sent you a few letters. I suppose the reestablished mail lines weren’t as reliable as they claimed. And then war broke out again and I couldn’t get out. I had to go back to pretending to be French. That’s when I met René.” He looked at René and raised his chin a little.

“He was in a tavern brawl,” René revealed. “He could barely walk. I took him in out of the goodness of my heart.” Elijah glared.

“How lucky that you found such a selfless benefactor as our own marquis,” Serena said when Solomon said nothing in response to this touching narrative.

Elijah smiled incredulously. “Marquis?”

“Yes,” René said quickly. “It appears we were both incognito. I am the marquis du Sacreval. Or I will be, when Louis XVIII restores my titles.”

Elijah started, frowning. “You’re the marquis du Sacreval?”

“Yes.”

“Oh Lord, I haven’t time for this now. I’ve got to speak to my brother.” And grabbing Solomon’s arm, Elijah towed him into his room and slammed the door.

Serena and René were left standing in the hallway. They looked at each other and then at Solomon’s door. “We are not going to listen in,” Serena said. “And to make sure of it, you’re going to come and have breakfast with me in the kitchen.” He gave her a pleading glance, but she swept majestically past him down the corridor to the servants’ stair.

Halfway down, Serena remembered what she was wearing. She could go back up and change, couldn’t she? And if she overheard something, that wasn’t her fault—

She hovered, undecided, and René said mischievously, “So now that you’ve seen Elijah, I imagine you won’t have much use for his brother, hein?”

Let everyone stare. There was no way she was letting René near those boys if she could help it. She took off her hat and handed it to him. “Quite the opposite,” she said coldly as she re-pinned her hair. “Elijah is a dear, but there’s something showy about him, don’t you think?” René laughed softly and Serena felt very irritated indeed.

In the Stuart room, the two brothers faced each other awkwardly. “I’m sorry,” Elijah said again.

Solomon had been surprised to find that life went on without Elijah. Now he was surprised to find out that it went on with him. He wanted time to stop and let him figure out how he felt, accustom himself to this new world. But of course it didn’t. He must carry on as if the dominant emotion of the past year and a half of his life hadn’t been—unnecessary. Irrelevant. He sighed. “What really happened?”

Elijah looked down. “I explained that.”

Solomon crossed his arms. “I know you’ve been gone a long time, Li, but I can still tell when you’re lying.”

Elijah nodded resignedly. “But it sounded plausible?”

Solomon frowned. “Yes, except for the part about your trying to write to us. That was an obvious fabrication.”

“Good. Now loan me a pen and paper. I can’t risk anyone overhearing what I’m about to tell you.” In spite of his shock and anger, Solomon felt a deep thrill of anticipation. Elijah always made things exciting.

Elijah, gesturing to Solomon to stand by him, wrote, I had to pretend to be dead because I’m a spy.

“You, too!” Solomon exclaimed. Elijah glared at him and offered him the pen.

The marquis is a spy, too, Solomon wrote. For the French. I assume you’re a spy for the English?

Elijah rolled his eyes. Naturally. And I already know René is a spy, because. Elijah stopped. He ran his fingers through his hair. Then he wrote, very firmly, I’m in London to bring him and his informants to justice as soon as I can find concrete evidence.

Solomon did not know quite what to write. Elijah looked so grim. He wrote But and paused. Then he continued, you and Sacreval are friends. Aren’t you? Of course, Sacreval and Serena were friends, too.

Elijah glanced at Solomon. We were. But he’s a French spy. The best. He’s passed lakes of information. We can’t afford to have anything leak right now, or it’ll be him hanging me.

You didn’t know it was him when you took the assignment, did you?

Elijah’s shoulders sagged. He shook his head.

You can’t though, yet. The marquis—

Elijah ripped the pen out of Solomon’s hand and started writing very quickly. He’s no more a marquis than I am, damn it. He’s got two little brothers and a sister and a mother, and they all live in a cramped apartment in the quartier Saint-Germain and keep a very small bakery that belonged to his father. He stopped writing.

Solomon took the pen from his brother’s unresisting hand. I’m sorry, but you can’t hang him just at the moment. He forged marriage lines to get the Arms from Serena, and if he’s hanged, the inn will be forfeit to the Crown.

And what am I going to tell the Foreign Office then? ‘I’m sorry, but my brother says we can’t hang an enemy—the nib caught and ink spattered across the paper. Solomon took the pen again.

Can you tell the others you’re back?

Elijah nodded. I have to. I’m supposed to stay here quite openly. That’s why they were willing to sacrifice my connections in Paris, because they knew you were staying here and if I came suddenly back from the dead, I’d end up here too.

If his connection to Serena hadn’t suddenly proved useful to the Foreign Office, how long would he have had to wait to get his brother back? But there was no point asking that. They’ll pay your shot, won’t they?

Elijah laughed. “So, you and Lady Serena—”

“What about us?” Solomon asked.

“Sol.”

“We’re friends.”

“You might as well tell me, because if you don’t, I’ll find out anyway.”

“I forgot what a bully you are.”

The two brothers looked at each other. Suddenly Solomon was smiling tremulously and Elijah’s lashes were wet. They each looked firmly back at the paper, embarrassed. Then Elijah took the pen and wrote, What the devil does he want with the inn anyway?

I don’t know, Solomon admitted, but I’d swear he set a fire in my room two nights ago while we were out. Someone did, anyway. Tried to make it look like I left a candle burning on the mantel and it fell off. He pointed at the damaged mantelpiece.

Elijah’s eyes narrowed. Destroy this paper, he wrote. As Solomon reached for his tinderbox, Elijah went to the hearth. Getting on his knees, he examined the charred bottom of the carving. Solomon burned the paper in the bottom of a glass bowl and looked at his brother, who was really back.

“What’s on the other side of the wall?” Elijah asked.

“Serena’s room.” Solomon flushed at his brother’s raised brows. “She keeps the door locked.”

Elijah glanced at the melted keyhole.

“Well, she did, before I dissolved the lock.” Solomon flushed deeper. “She was having a nightmare.”

Elijah, miraculously, decided to save the teasing for later. “Is it easier to break into this room than that one?”

“I’m not sure—oh. Yes, it is. Serena has a bar on her door. And I’m sure he wanted it to look to Serena as if I had done it.”

“Can I take a look on the other side?”

Solomon hesitated. Serena would take a dim view of such proceedings, but maybe that was a good reason to get it over with while she wasn’t around. Elijah didn’t wait for his permission anyway. He just turned the doorknob and went in.

Solomon followed, trying not to get distracted by Serena’s shift lying on the bed, or the three hairpins and a brush on her dressing table, or any of the countless other intimate things that said Serena lives here. “He’s more likely to have been trying for my room anyway. It used to be his and he was very irritated that I’d got it.”

Elijah rapped on the wall and listened carefully to the sound. “Maybe he was just annoyed at having to cross the hall to reach the Siren’s bed,” he suggested morosely.

This lowering thought had occurred to Solomon, too. “Don’t call her that.”

Elijah examined the floor near the wall. “I may have to take this flooring up. The fire makes me wonder if there’s something important hidden in the Ravenshaw Arms. You’re right, it’s more likely to be on your side.”

“Shall we search for it now?”

Elijah hesitated, then shook his head. “Later. Right now I want to know all about Susannah’s engagement.”

Serena expected Elijah to join her and Solomon for dinner that evening, naturally. And she was definitely unsurprised when Elijah and Solomon talked feverishly, their conversation heavily punctuated with ancient private jokes and obscure allusions, while she toyed with her food. After the first couple of courses she got up and left altogether. She wasn’t sure Solomon noticed.

But that night she was awakened by knocking on the connecting door. “Come,” she called.

Solomon opened the door. She couldn’t quite see his face in the moonlight. “I’m sorry to bother you.”

Serena sat up on her elbows. “What is it?”

“It’s just—he’s really back, isn’t he? I didn’t dream it?”

She shook her head. “No. You didn’t dream it.”

The tension eased out of his shoulders. “Thanks. And thank you for finding him.”

She was angry with Elijah all over again, for tangling Solomon in whatever game he was playing. “Well,” she said softly, “you did engage me to find things you lost, didn’t you?”

The moon silvered his mouth as it curved, just a little. But she thought he was still staring at the floor.

“You must simply try to be a little less careless in future.” When his chin jerked up, as she’d known it would, she pulled up the corner of the quilt and patted the sheets next to her.

The hopeful lifting of his brows made her bite her tongue to keep from showing—she wasn’t sure what, but whatever it was she was feeling. He came to the side of the bed and stood there, looking down at her as if she were a puzzle he couldn’t figure out. Her skin began to tingle pleasantly. After a few improbably long moments, he climbed into bed, the mattress shifting under his weight. Serena settled comfortably down with her nose pushed into his side.

“But don’t think this is a permanent arrangement,” she told him in a muffled voice.

“I know,” he said. Then, “I was grieving for so long. I don’t know how to make sense of myself anymore. I don’t know how to feel.”

“We’ll just have to wait and see then, won’t we?”

His hand settled, warm and heavy, on the back of her head. She could hear his smile in his voice. “I suppose we will.”

Elijah had removed his coat and pried his boots off before he realized his cravat pin was missing. He didn’t see it anywhere on the floor, so he went out into the hall with his candle to look. He was prowling past René’s door when it swung open. Damn. This ought to be awkward.

“Thierry. You have lost something?”

Elijah was silent a moment, looking at René with his fashionably tousled hair and his brocade dressing gown. Marquis du Sacreval. Christ. “Yes, I rather think I have.”

René opened the door a little further, and Elijah went in and put down his candle.

He tried to cast a professional eye over the room, looking for anything incriminating. But all he saw was René’s burgundy coat hanging over a chair before René seized him by the shoulders and slammed him up against the wall. The door swung shut with a heavy clunk.

“Thierry—you—you—” René kissed him, hard.