A Lily Among Thorns

Chapter 13


Elijah kissed him back, too numb to put up any resistance, or even to put his arms around René’s neck. He leaned against the wall as René’s hands roughly untied his cravat. René’s hands—

Tears stung his eyes. He closed them. Despair and heat pooled in his chest, a surprisingly intoxicating mixture. Surely it wouldn’t be wrong to allow himself this, one last time. One last time before—he failed to finish the thought as René began on his buttons.

Suddenly, from any number of long Palm Sunday services he’d daydreamed through in his father’s church, a verse came back to him. Now he that betrayed him gave them a sign, saying, Whomsoever I shall kiss, that same is he: hold him fast.

Elijah opened his eyes and took René’s familiar hands—which were on their last waistcoat button—in his. They were large and brown, with firm wrists and strong fingers. A baker’s hands. “I never thought I’d see you again.” If only he hadn’t.

“C’est la faute de qui, ça?” René asked shakily.

Elijah raised his eyes to René’s face. “It was my fault. But what would you have had me do? Leave you my address? Stay with you? The week before I left, Napoleon came back from exile, or don’t you remember that? Every hour I spent with you was an hour I risked discovery—an hour I risked arrest. If any of you had noticed anything amiss with my accent—”

Of course, he’d already been living in Paris as a Frenchman for over a year then, as an under-clerk at the Ministry of Police. But with Napoleon back and seeing spies and assassins in every shadow, and the British Foreign Office desperate for anything he could give them, he hadn’t been able to risk anyone getting to know him too closely. He hadn’t been able to risk anyone asking what was in that locked trunk at the foot of his bed, or wanting to meet the fictitious sister he visited so often in Le Havre. But the lies flowed so naturally, so smoothly, that Elijah was almost surprised when a little bit of truth slipped in. “I only stayed so long because I couldn’t—after I left, it was weeks before I learned how to fall asleep without you again.”

“Me, I still have not learned,” René said raggedly and dove in for another kiss. “What is this I taste? Salt? Ah, Thierry—”

René’s mouth traced the tear tracks down his cheek. Elijah bit his tongue, hard, to keep from saying something else foolish. Soon René’s hands began, more gently this time, to tug Elijah’s shirt out of his breeches. “But now things will be as they were,” he murmured.

Elijah pushed him away, at the same time propelling himself off of the wall. “René, they can’t ever. We can’t ever.”

René stood still, breathing hard. “But why not?” He seemed almost menacing, standing so close in the darkness with an angry note in his voice. It sent shivers down Elijah’s spine. The good sort.

Elijah struggled to think over the deafening pounding of his heart. “I—you can’t possibly understand—”

René sighed and took a step back. “But I do understand. I know perfectly why you do not want us to be as we were.”

Elijah stared. René knew he was a spy? He wished that he had his knife, but it was still in his boots down the hall. “You do?” he asked stupidly.

René’s eyes gleamed. “Of course I do. Do you think that I am an idiot?”

Elijah thought of all the times he had seen candlelight reflected in René’s eyes, and how different those times had been. Even the inn’s fine beeswax gave a clearer, crueler light than the cheap tallow they’d used in Paris. He wished he could crawl back into that earlier, welcoming darkness and pull it over him. “No, I never thought that.”

“It is because of your brother, evidemment. It is clear that he knows nothing.”

Oh. Elijah hid his relief. “René, it would kill me if he found out. If any of them found out. It would kill my father. He’s a clergyman.” He took a deep breath to still the tremor in his voice. “I wish—I want—it’s over. It has to be over.” Saying no to René was harder than he had anticipated. Elijah reminded himself that this man worked for Bonaparte. That every day, Englishmen died because of him. “I’m sorry.”

Unexpectedly, René nodded. He didn’t even point out that in Paris, they had made love on the other side of a paper-thin wall from René’s mother and sister—because after all there had been nowhere else—trying so hard not to make a sound and trying even harder not to laugh at their own efforts. Elijah wondered for the thousandth time if they had heard, if they had known. If they had cared. “Very well,” René said. “But if you change your mind . . .”

Elijah tried to smile. Traitor, he thought viciously, and didn’t know if he meant René or himself. “I know where to find you.”

René didn’t smile back. “I think that you should leave now.” Elijah nodded, ducked his head, and put his hand on the doorknob.

René did smile then. “You cannot go like this.”

“What?”

René nodded his head in the general direction of Elijah’s—oh. In the general direction of Elijah’s open waistcoat and rumpled shirt. Elijah tucked in his shirt. He tried to fasten his first button and fumbled, twice. He swore under his breath.

“Let me.” Gently, as one would for a child, René buttoned Elijah’s waistcoat. “Now raise your chin.” Elijah did, and René retied his cravat. He gave him a light push. “Now go.”

Elijah went. He found his cravat pin under his bed the next morning.

Solomon was awakened by someone pounding on a door. He opened his eyes and blinked, startled to discover his bed curtains had changed color overnight. Then he remembered that he was in Serena’s bed. Alone, it would appear. The pounding was coming from his own door in the other room.

“All right, I’m coming, possess thy soul in patience.” Since they certainly couldn’t hear his mutter, and he lacked the energy to yell, the pounding didn’t stop. He got up and tiptoed back into his room, shutting the connecting door as softly as he could so the person knocking wouldn’t realize he’d been anywhere but his own bed. Then he threw on his dressing gown and opened the door.

Elijah was in the hall, fully dressed. His presence didn’t feel like any less of a miracle than it had yesterday.

“‘He that blesseth his friend with a loud voice, rising early in the morning, it shall be counted a curse to him,’” Solomon said groggily.

Elijah ignored this. He pulled a note from his pocket, holding it in front of Solomon’s as yet unfocused eyes.

I’ve considered, and I’ll advise against arresting Re Sacreval just yet if Lady S. can provide useful help in bringing down his network. We should discuss this in an open space.

“A picnic?” Solomon said unenthusiastically. “What a lovely idea. I’m sure Serena would love to.”

Elijah smiled, but he didn’t look as if he’d slept well.

Serena really ought to be home supervising breakfast, not in the Green Park with Solomon and his brother. Especially with Ravi as their newest waiter. He might need her if any of his old customers showed up.

She had supervised breakfast every day for the past five years, and now she had failed to do so for three days running. Sophy was perfectly capable of dealing with most things, but if someone started trouble . . .

It was still early enough to be rather chilly, and they were almost the only people in the park. Serena wished she had brought gloves. Still, cold tongue, warm bread, and hard-boiled eggs made a satisfying meal, and none of them seemed to want to get round to business. If Serena was right about the nature of René and Elijah’s relationship, no doubt Elijah was about as eager to see René hang as she was. But by the time she pulled Ying’s strawberry tarts from the bottom of the basket, she was cold and guilty enough to want to get back to the Arms as soon as possible. “Well then,” she said. “Solomon said you wanted to speak to me.”

“Yes,” Elijah said. “Sol tells me it would not be in your best interests right now to have Re—Sacreval arrested.”

“Since he legally—well, illegally, really—owns the Arms, no. It would not be.”

“So here’s my bargain. You tell me what resources you and the Arms can offer me to bring in his people, and maybe I’ll tell the Foreign Office it’s best if Sacreval’s not arrested just yet.”

“Do you know who his people are?”

Elijah looked away in annoyance. “Actually, we only know Sir Nigel Anchridge. And Elbourn.”

Serena gave him a superior smile. “Well, you’ve missed Lady Brendan and Lord Pursleigh. And a couple of clerks at the War Office and so on. Remind me to give you their names later. They aren’t rich, so you won’t need much proof to arrest them.”

Elijah looked enlightened. “Of course! Brendan’s in the War Office and Lady Brendan is French, isn’t she? And Pursleigh is on the committee in charge of supplies for the army.”

“Indeed,” Serena said smugly.

“Well, if you’re so clever, do you know how he gets the messages to France?”

“No, do you?”

Elijah shook his head. “We know his messengers sail from somewhere in Cornwall, but—”

“Cornwall’s a big place,” Serena commiserated. “And then, watching the entire coast would be such a threat to the lords’ brandy, wouldn’t it?”

Elijah sighed. “Just tell me how he contacts his informants.”

Serena nodded. “Except for Sir Nigel, whom I expect he meets secretly some other way”—she shot Elijah a significant glance, and he nodded uncomfortably—“I think he ran it through the Arms’ catering. Sacreval was always in charge of catering because I—well, I can’t go to people’s homes. The Elbourns, the Brendans, and the Pursleighs were always some of our best catering customers, but when Sacreval left, they stopped coming. And they used to spend the longest time closeted with him in his office, supposedly going over the menus. And—well, a host of reasons, really.”

Elijah nodded. “But Sacreval isn’t in charge of catering anymore, is he?”

“Of course not.”

“All right, so we’ll have to wait and see what they do.”

“Mr. Elbourn,” Solomon said. “Isn’t he giving a ball for his wife’s birthday on Friday? Uncle Dewington was trying to convince me to go last time I saw him.”

Serena met Elijah’s eyes. They both turned to look at Solomon, whose face fell comically. “I really don’t want to go,” he said. “Can’t you just go and pretend to be me?”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Elijah said.

“Don’t be an arse,” Serena snapped at him.

“Look, all he has to do is snoop around Elbourn’s study, maybe pick a couple of locks—”

“I can’t pick a lock,” Solomon pointed out.

Elijah waved his hand. “I’ll show you, it’s not hard.”

Serena didn’t like the way he acted as if he had the whip-hand of Solomon. She didn’t like how he took Solomon for granted. She didn’t like a lot of things about him. “It took me months to learn,” she said evenly. One of the other girls had taught her at Mme Deveraux’s. Serena had spent hours at it until she could do it with her eyes closed. It was almost as good as embroidery for not thinking of anything else.

“Then you go.”

She spread her hands in exasperation. “I was a whore! Don’t you understand that? They don’t want me there! Do it yourself.”

“They don’t want me either,” Elijah said. “I didn’t go to Cambridge.”

“You didn’t—you didn’t go to Cambridge?” Serena sputtered, thinking of all the times her old acquaintances had cut her dead in the street, of the boys who had once merely ignored her at parties and now thought they could say anything they liked to her. “You can take your Foreign Office and shove them—”

“They aren’t going to be happy I’ve taken you into my confidence anyway,” Elijah said, looking almost glad to have picked a fight. “They don’t trust you. This is your chance to prove you’re on our side and that you can be useful. Besides, Sol and I will hardly be able to slip away without anyone noticing. If you and he wander off, no one will think twice.”

Solomon, who had opened his mouth to speak, blushed bright, bright red. But he cleared his throat and said, “Don’t talk to her that way. This isn’t her job. She’s doing you a favor.”

“She isn’t doing me a favor,” Elijah said tightly. “She needs our help to break free of Sacreval as badly as we need hers to catch him.”

Solomon cuffed his brother lightly on the back of the head. “Shut up. You aren’t the only one this is hard for. He’s her friend, too.”

Serena felt suddenly much better. She tried to remember, before Solomon, the last time someone had stood up for her. The last time she had allowed someone to.

“Sorry,” Elijah grumbled, ducking his head with the same abashed motion as Solomon.

“I know it’s not pleasant for either of us,” Serena said with an effort. It was worth it when she won a smile from Solomon. “All right. We’ll go to the party. And tell the Foreign Office I can get the whole network within the week.”

Elijah’s brows rose. “A week? Are you sure?”

“It doesn’t matter. A week from tomorrow, René will take the marriage lines to court.” She tried not to think about her words. Court. She would find no sympathy in any court. And how was she to pay for lawyers? She had saved so little. She had put everything into the Arms. Why had she been so stupid?

“But I’ll do my best,” she finished. If she could get René’s turncoats before then, surely he would leave. The Arms would be of no use to him then.

Elijah nodded. “I have one more condition. I need to search your room and Solomon’s for whatever Sacreval has hidden there.”

She frowned. “What makes you think he’s hidden anything?”

“Solomon tells me he was awfully upset about Solomon getting his room. And that he set a fire there three days ago.”

Serena swallowed. “Oh. Of course. How unforgivable of me not to have thought of it.”

Elijah looked at her sharply. “Unless you can think of another motive for Sacreval to be furious at being denied his former room? Its peculiar placement, perhaps?”

Serena looked at him in puzzlement. Then she laughed. “Me and René? Never.”

Solomon and Elijah, glancing away in opposite directions, both relaxed. Serena frowned. This was going to get complicated. And she’d better put a watch on Solomon’s room. René wasn’t going to cause a shilling’s worth more of damage to the Arms.

Solomon had thought Serena’s offer to bring in the entire network in a week was hopelessly grandiose, but when they returned to the Arms, Sophy told them that Lord Pursleigh had already stopped by to place a catering order for his wife’s masquerade Sunday night. She also told them that the marquis had gone out for the afternoon. So Solomon and Elijah searched on both sides of the wall between Serena’s bedchamber and the Stuart Room.

There weren’t any suspiciously hollow panels or any knots that opened a secret passageway when pressed. There were no loose stones in the hearth, and no safe hidden behind the portrait of Charles I. They carefully pried up a couple of floorboards, but there were only old mice droppings and dust underneath. There were no loose bricks in the chimney.

While Solomon was taking a bath after confirming that, Elijah discovered that Diana’s hand did twist halfway round in an odd fashion, but it didn’t appear to do anything and they were forced to conclude that the hand had simply had to be replaced at some time since its creation. Serena was bringing someone in next week to do the same for the scorched foot.

Elijah ran his hand over the carving. “It’s awfully Baroque. I wonder they don’t just take it out and put in something modern and nonflammable.”

“Charles the First’s own clockmaker made it. This is the Stuart Room. Have some respect.”

Elijah laughed. “You mean whoever pried these out was just a patriotic Roundhead, and not an enterprising chambermaid?” He ran his thumb over the holes where rubies had gone missing.

“Well, I wouldn’t go that far,” Solomon said.

Elijah slumped against the wall. “There’s got to be something here! But where the devil is it?”

“Don’t worry, Li. There’ll be plenty of time to find it later.”

“We don’t know that,” Elijah said grimly. “Things in Belgium are moving quickly. What if there’s evidence in here that one of Bonaparte’s generals is ripe for treason? We need to know now.”

“Any information hidden here is a year old at least.”

“I suppose you’re right.” Elijah sighed. “If I’m their best hope, then things don’t look good for British intelligence. I just haven’t been thinking clearly.”

She came down the stairs, and even though Solomon had designed the dress himself, seeing her in it took his breath away. Its midnight blue folds took on a silver sheen when they caught the light (he’d worked through the night on that dye), and a wave of silver spangles rose from the hemline and crested halfway up her calves. More spangles edged a modest, square neckline and short unpuffed sleeves.

Serena had taken her hair out of its severe bun and made a complex coil at the crown of her head. She’d allowed a few tresses to escape—she’d even curled them, and scattered spangles and tiny blue silk flowers here and there in the blackness. She held long white kid gloves in one hand. Solomon felt suddenly unsure of himself.

“Well?” she said. “Behold your handiwork. Are you satisfied?”

He smiled ruefully. “You look like someone who wouldn’t associate with me. I feel as if I ought to kiss your hand.”

“Well, if you feel you must, don’t let me stop you.” She held out her hand.

He couldn’t tell if she was joking or not. Slowly, he reached out his own gloved hand to grasp her bare one. She didn’t pull away. His eyes closed involuntarily as his lips brushed her naked skin. The insides of his eyelids were awash with visions of kissing her arm, her shoulder, her breasts—

He dropped her hand abruptly and stepped back. “Sorry, I’ve never been good at doing the pretty.”

“I thought you did that rather well.”

The little sentence hung in the air between them, and then Solomon, already nervous at the prospect of an evening of hobnobbing with the Upper Ten Thousand—spying, he thought, I’m nervous about spying—said, “Those little flowers in your hair match splendidly. Where did you find them?”

He cursed inwardly. Of all the things he might have said, why did he pick that one? It was like at school, when he hadn’t been able to talk about cards or racing or hounds or boxing, hadn’t known a thing about any of the usual pursuits of the wealthy, so he’d tried to talk about clothes. It was an acceptable topic of conversation for gentlemen, but when he did it, it was because he was the Hatherdasher.

Serena grinned at him, though. “I got a patch of material from my dressmaker and sent one of the maids out shopping.”

“You’re going to make Uncle Hathaway rich,” he said with awed sincerity. It was the nearest he could safely come to You’re beautiful. He thought it would make her uncomfortable if he said that.

She raised her eyebrows. “I didn’t do it for your uncle,” she said, pulling on her gloves. “This is a mission.” But there was a warm undercurrent in her voice that said she meant exactly the opposite. That she’d done it for him.

“I—I got you something to go with it.” Not looking at her, he lifted a thin, wrapped parcel from the inlaid table next to them. “I know you never wear jewelry, but—”

Her face went cold, suddenly. “Jewelry is a bad investment. You can never sell it for what it cost.”

He swallowed. This had seemed like such a good idea when he saw it in the window of the pawnshop. Of course jewelry was something men gave their mistresses, but they were going to a ball and she didn’t have any. And it had cost only four shillings and he’d thought it would be all right. “I didn’t mean—it wasn’t very expensive. And if you hate it, I can probably take it back, so don’t feel you have to, I just thought you might like it—” He tried to cut the string around the package, missed, and almost sliced his thumb open.

“Let me,” she said, and he handed her the knife. She sliced the wrapping open and unrolled it with movements so precise they seemed angry. Then she tipped the bracelet into her palm and stared at it. It was made of gray-and-white cameos, ringed with glittering chips of faceted steel and linked together by tiny wrought-iron loops. On each cameo was a woman’s face, contorted and howling with fury. Some had coiling snakes instead of hair.

“I’m a siren, not a gorgon, you know.” But the warmth was back in her voice. She liked it.

Solomon let out the breath he’d been holding and grinned at her. “You’d like to turn people to stone with a look, though, wouldn’t you? Hold out your wrist.”