A Lily Among Thorns

Chapter 15


It felt as good as Serena had known it would. It felt better. It was wonderful, and Solomon was kissing her back, and she wanted it to be just like this forever. She wanted it so badly. She should pull back now. She should look at Mr. Elbourn. Solomon’s hand was warm and heavy on her thigh, and his other hand was tangled in her hair. His chest was rising and falling in great heaves under her palm; she could feel his breath on her skin in the tiny intervals between kisses.

Deep down she’d hoped all along she’d have to do this. It had been at the back of her mind all evening. She’d felt him watching her pick the lock, and she’d wanted his touch on the back of her neck the way a man wanted air when he was being smothered.

She wasn’t going to stop until she had to.

She heard Mr. Elbourn’s voice from the doorway. “I’ll show you my First Folio another time, MacOwen.” Footsteps retreated, and as the door closed behind them an undertone was carried back to them—“Get hold of yourself, man! It’s nothing we haven’t all seen before.”

Serena surfaced with a gasp. Solomon’s eyes were still closed, his chest still heaving under his purple silk waistcoat. She didn’t know if he’d even heard.

It’s nothing we haven’t all seen before. But it was. True, they’d all seen her legs. They’d seen her naked body, but Solomon saw her. And she let him. None of them—not even Harry, her first, whom she’d thought she loved—had ever had the power over her that Solomon did after three kisses.

She climbed off him slowly, not meeting his eyes. Straightening her skirts, she leaned back against the desk, supporting herself with the heels of her hands on the rosewood. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have done that.” Her voice sounded exposed, too, raw and thready.

He blinked, stung. “Why not?”

With a swirl of skirts she knelt on the floor, yanking the drawer out onto the floor with a clatter. “Because it was stupid,” she said savagely. She was so weak. Smollett and Elbourn and Braithwaite and all those men out there made her feel so awful and ashamed and angry with just their leers and their jibes, and she’d never given a damn about any of them. How would she feel when Solomon didn’t think her worth a second glance anymore? Just the tiny frown now settling between his brows made the whole world seem wrong.

“Why was it stupid?” he demanded. “Dash it, Serena, are we going to have to do this every time we—?”

Every time: he was so sure of her already. Her mouth twisted. “We have work to do.” She lifted out stacks of paper. Nothing interesting there that she could see, but the drawer looked shallower than it should. She felt around the edges of the bottom. Out of the corner of her eye she could see Solomon rolling up her lock-picking tools in their strip of black velvet and setting them next to her reticule. Then he waited.

With every movement she made, the gown he’d designed for her caught the light. The silk shifted against her legs. He’d had his hand on her thigh.

She could feel his presence even though she wasn’t looking at him. She could feel his frown. She wanted to kiss him again. She wanted to apologize. She wanted to kiss him, then apologize, then kiss him again until he forgave her. She wanted to make him smile.

But she couldn’t. She was a coward and she couldn’t do anything but slide her fingers around the edges of Elbourn’s desk drawer, pressing, pressing—

The bottom popped out of the drawer. “Aha!” She felt ridiculous the next moment. Aha? But it was instantly clear that here were the incriminating documents they were looking for—the top one was in French, and under it was a map showing what looked to be troop movements.

It was working! It would work. She had bought herself and René a few more days. She selected a few sheets from the stack, replaced everything else in the drawer, and relocked it.

She turned her back to put the lock picks and the carefully folded documents into the bodice of her dress. “Solomon—” She paused for a long moment, drawing on her gloves.

He didn’t wait for her to figure out what to say. “I’ll go first. That way it will look like we’re trying to hide our rendezvous. Meet me in the ballroom in ten minutes.” And he left her there.

She had only managed to wait seven and a half minutes. She scanned the ballroom carefully. She couldn’t see Solomon anywhere. He must be behind one of the great pillars or potted orange trees. She shifted to the right, by the buffet table.

Something caught her eye, peeking from under the tablecloth. The edge of a pair of gloves: Solomon’s gloves. She bent down and picked them up. They were kid, butter-soft and expertly made with small mother-of-pearl buttons. They still retained, slightly, the shape of Solomon’s hands. He’d taken them off, and his hand had been bare against her thigh. Hurriedly, she stuffed the gloves into her reticule.

Scanning the room again, she spotted him—he was indeed behind one of the pillars. She’d recognize that edge of shoulder anywhere.

As she got closer, she saw that he was in close conversation with Jack Ashton. She’d never much liked Ashton—he was always late paying his tab at the Arms and he’d had a reputation for doing the same at Mme Deveraux’s. However, she supposed it stood to reason that Solomon would be happy to converse with a less taxing companion than herself. Succumbing to a base impulse, she kept the pillar between them and listened when she got close.

“Braithwaite’s turned into a real ass since university, hasn’t he?” said Ashton.

“He was always an ass,” Solomon said.

Ashton made a noncommittal noise. “I still can’t believe you managed to bag the Siren.”

Serena couldn’t hear Solomon’s wince, but she could imagine it. “I wouldn’t call it ‘bagging,’” he said.

“So how many birthmarks have you seen?”

Had he seen the third in the library? Or had his eyes been closed by the time her skirts were pushed up high enough to reveal it?

There was a pause. Then Solomon asked, with an edge in his voice, “There’s more than one?”

“Oho, a setdown! I daresay I deserved that. Naturally you’ve seen all three. But listen, Hathaway, be careful, will you?”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“She isn’t called the Siren for nothing.”

Suddenly Serena couldn’t quite catch her breath.

“Well, no, I assumed it was for her startling beauty and considerable personal charm,” Solomon said bitterly.

“You’ve got it bad.” Ashton sounded concerned.

Serena bit the inside of her cheek.

“That’s not why,” Ashton said. “Well, it is, but it’s also because she lures men to their doom.”

“She lures men to their doom? Ash—” Solomon sounded so intensely, incredulously exasperated that Serena’s heart clenched with helpless affection. Oh God. She didn’t want him to hear this story. It was private.

It was ridiculous to want something to be private when the whole ton knew about it—it was ridiculous to want anything to be private when she’d lived the life she had. But Solomon didn’t know. Not yet. And she didn’t want him to. She didn’t want to be the Siren to him.

“There was this fellow,” Ashton said. “Daubenay. Madly in love with her. He bought her so many extravagant presents he went under the hatches, but she tried to squeeze him for more, so he headed for the gaming dens. And when he had nothing left to give her, she gave him the cold shoulder and found a new protector. He blew his brains out. Left a note. In verse or some such rot. He made the pun on her name and it stuck.”

I’m gone where Youth will cease to wither—

Oh, Love is a bloody tyrant;

“Serena,” you who sent me thither

Were better named a “Siren.”

Serena thought that she was probably the only person in London who still remembered that. Except, perhaps, for Daubenay’s mother, who had made a scene in Serena’s parlor. Serena could still picture the note, written in Daubenay’s careless scrawl. The last thing those aristocratic hands would ever write. She had liked Daubenay, at first.

Solomon laughed. It was so incongruous with her own feelings that it shocked her. “I remember Alex Daubenay. My uncle cut his credit a few days before he died. I gave him the news myself and threatened to send for the constable when he made an unpleasant scene. Am I responsible for his death, too?”

“Of course not.” Ashton sounded impatient. “But he loved her. He gave up everything for her and she turned him away.”

“Ash, he was keeping her! It’s a business relationship. I just hope she didn’t allow him to buy on tick. My uncle was out two hundred pounds on his account, and we couldn’t get a penny from the estate.”

Serena was bitterly ashamed. She had dragged Solomon to this awful ball where he did not want to go, subjected him to the contempt of these people whom she hated, and been pointlessly nasty merely because she had enjoyed their kiss. Now she was even eavesdropping on him, and still he defended her. Serena had had enough. She rounded the potted plant.

“Mr. Hathaway,” she said abruptly.

Solomon eyed her warily. “Lady Serena?”

“I’d like to go home. If—that is, if you—”

His eyebrows flew up, but he gave her his arm.

“Good night, Ash.”

“Good night, Hathaway.” Ashton shifted uncertainly. “You’ve been a stranger since we left school. Call on me, won’t you? We’ll dine together.”

Solomon looked surprised. “I—of course,” he said.

Serena didn’t bother nodding to any of the people who stared at them on their way out.

She waited impatiently in the hall for Solomon and the footman to return with their things. She couldn’t wait to be gone. At the sound of footsteps she started. It was Lord Braithwaite. Serena cursed inwardly and looked the other way.

“Lovely gown, Serena,” he said with a familiarity that made her skin crawl.

“Thank you, my lord.”

He smiled suggestively. “Call me Freddy. You used to when we were children.”

“I don’t work for you anymore,” she said coldly. “I’m not obliged to do as you say.”

“No, you’re working for Hathaway now, aren’t you? You used to aim higher, but then, you’re not as young as you were.”

“No.” She looked him up and down. “I used to aim a lot lower. That coat his uncle made is the handsomest thing about you.”

He shook his head. “You really like him, don’t you?”

“Bugger your eyes,” she said. It was probably foolish, but then, she’d found that backing down could be as unsafe as defiance in a situation like this. And defiance felt so much better.

Braithwaite’s face went a shade of puce that clashed with his coat. He took an angry step toward her. Serena didn’t give ground. He wouldn’t hurt her in the Elbourns’ front hall, and by now men of the ton generally knew that it was dangerous to push her too far. But inwardly she felt a small spark of fear, a kind that had once been all too familiar.

She’d almost forgotten what it was like. She’d felt safe at her inn these last few years. René is never getting the Arms, she resolved anew, feeling for the knife in her reticule.

He took another step forward and spat out, “If you were a gentleman, I’d call you out for that, you little wh—”

He never finished the word, because Solomon, who had returned without her noticing, stepped between them and landed a heavy blow solidly on Lord Braithwaite’s chin. “Being a gentleman is looking less appealing all the time.” Solomon’s husky voice had gone deep and heavy with menace. “Never refer to the lady in such terms again, Braithwaite. In fact, don’t come anywhere near her. Understand me?”

Lord Braithwaite glowered above the hand covering his rapidly bruising jaw. “Devil take it, Hathaway, you’re overreacting,” he said somewhat indistinctly, then hissed with pain and rubbed at his jaw. “She’s not worth—”

“Don’t make me hit you again.”

Braithwaite’s brows drew together. “That tears it!” He drew his other hand back and started forward.

Solomon pulled off his coat with an avid, angry gesture and dropped it on the floor. Serena couldn’t see his face. What the hell was going on? Solomon didn’t punch people. He didn’t shrug out of his jacket at the least provocation and show off his broad shoulders, the muscles clearly outlined by the linen of his shirt. The linen back of his waistcoat stretched tight as he lifted his arms. Heat flared low in her belly at the knowledge that he was going to hit Braithwaite again.

Fortunately—since Serena seemed incapable of the most basic common sense this evening—the Elbourns’ footman intervened. “I’m dreadfully sorry, Lord Braithwaite. I shall eject these people immediately and have someone bring ice for your jaw.” Then he picked up Solomon’s coat and their other things from where Solomon had dropped them, took them by the arm, and marched them smartly to the door. Serena threw him a grateful glance, and he winked at her. She wished she had time to tip him. She would have to send someone over tomorrow.

Solomon put on his jacket and overcoat and gave her an uncertain look. “It’s rather late. Shall I hail us a hackney?”

“Let’s walk. I’d like some air.”

“So would I.”

They walked in silence. The weather had been warm for early June in London, but even so the night air was chilly. Solomon walked with his hands deep in the pockets of his fashionable carrick, not looking at her.

“You didn’t have to do that,” she said finally, unable to bear the silence. She had liked silence, once. “I know he’s a customer.”

He let out an impatient breath. “I was tired of the whole damned evening. It seemed the quickest way to shut his foul mouth.”

Her stomach curled guiltily. “You have a punishing right.”

Solomon glared at her. “Don’t act so surprised. You can’t get picked on as much as I did in school and not learn something about fighting.”

“Did you hurt your hand?”

He pulled his hand out of his pocket to look. “Damn.”

“What?”

“I forgot my gloves. They were worth two quid, and I just left them on the floor. I’m an idiot.”

“Nothing wrong with a melodramatic gesture now and again.” She pulled the gloves out of her reticule.

He stared at them for a moment, and then he beamed at her, his frustration of a moment ago forgotten. She’d made him smile after all, without meaning to or trying, and her heart turned over. “Thank you,” he said. “I—thank you.”

His eyes sparkled at her; his coat was askew and it made her want to shove him up against the lamppost and kiss him again. When he reached for the gloves, she found herself turning over his hand and looking at his bloodied knuckles. He ducked his head.

She traced the bruises with a finger. “You engaged me to find things you lost, didn’t you?”

“So I did,” he said, watching her finger. “I’d better leave the gloves off. I don’t want to get blood on them.”

She could lean in, now, and kiss him. But she wasn’t sure she’d deal with it any better this time, and Solomon deserved better. She let go of his hand and turned back toward the Arms. “I didn’t know you were friends with Jack Ashton.”

“I was friends with Braithwaite, too. I wanted to draw Braithwaite’s cork half the time even then, but I never had the guts.” Solomon shrugged. “We haven’t seen each other much since Cambridge. I think we were friends more because I was lonely and Ash was softhearted than for any other reason. In the end, he was probably a better friend to me than I was to him. I liked him, but—he never paid his tradesmen’s bills. There were always at least three duns hanging around his rooms. I hated it. And Lord, did he set my teeth on edge tonight.”

She wanted to thank him for defending her to Ashton, but that would mean admitting she’d listened in. “Braithwaite was right,” she said instead. It was hard to get the words out, but she knew they were true. “I’m not worth it.”

He glanced at her, chewing his lip—apparently thinking about what to say. He was thinking about what she’d said, trying to understand her. Trying to find the right words. The way he listened was as dangerous and tempting as the way he looked at her. “Is that why it’s stupid to kiss me?”

Damn him. She drew her cloak tighter around her and didn’t answer.

He tried to wait her out, but she was better at silence than he was. After a few streets, he smiled and shrugged—not his annoyed shrug, just the shrug that meant he thought she was enacting a Cheltenham tragedy and he didn’t intend to indulge her. It wasn’t good, that she was starting to differentiate his shrugs. “I’m afraid our opinions are destined to differ on this point, as on so many others,” he said. “I wish I’d thrashed him to a pulp.”

She swallowed. I wish you had, too seemed like the wrong thing to say. “It would have been hell on your hands.”

He laughed. “It was Ash and Braithwaite who brought me to Mme Deveraux’s. We should thank them for that, at least.”

Her throat felt tight, and she couldn’t quite smile back. He could talk about Mme Deveraux’s so easily. He was thankful to have met her. He thought she was worth it. She ducked her head and bumped her shoulder against his, and he shoved her back and laughed. London was beautiful at night.

As they came up to the front doors of the Arms, some tipsy young men spilled out into the street stumbling and laughing, and warmth and light spilled out with them. Even at that hour the taproom was bright and noisy and full. Charlotte bustled here and there, two tankards of ale held expertly in each hand. Only a week ago she’d been clumsy and scared to look customers in the eye. Now she belonged here. Serena had created a place where she could be safe, and happy. She felt such a rush of emotion, suddenly. Such a sense that everything was right, that Solomon was beside her and that she was home. She had to hang on to this—she had to.