A Lily Among Thorns

Chapter 23


But the matter of the earrings had to be put on hold until Jenny Pursleigh was captured. Serena and Solomon caught a hackney and bribed him to drive far too fast to Rothschild’s bank. Awkward silence reigned in the carriage until Serena, frustrated, could not restrain herself. “Solomon, can’t we—can’t we just forget this love business and go on as we were?”

Solomon looked at her. Just that, just his eyes on her face, sent Serena’s heart skittering madly in her chest. “So you’ll sleep with me so long as I don’t ask for anything else? I want more than that. I want you. I told you that ages ago.”

And she wanted him. Oh, how she wanted him. But with the ache, last night’s terror welled up again. The terror of what she felt, the terror of what she would give up for him if he asked her to, the terror that, give up what she would, it could never make her what he wanted, what he needed. “You don’t want me,” she told him, her voice strange in her own ears. “I can’t be what you want.” He deserved someone open and sweet, someone for whom love was easy, someone who would never bring that hurt, strained look to his face.

“Don’t patronize me. I know what I want.”

The hackney jolted to a stop in St. Swithin’s Lane. Serena glanced out the window. Directly in front of the bank, another hackney waited. Could it be waiting for Jenny? If René didn’t escape, keeping the Arms from being forfeit to the Crown might yet depend on getting in the regent’s good graces, and that depended on catching Jenny. Yet Serena was tempted to waste precious time asking Solomon what, precisely, he wanted. “Pay the driver,” she said. “I’m going to talk to the driver of that hackney across the street.”

He nodded. She trusted him to follow her, to protect her and listen to her instructions in a crisis. Why couldn’t she trust him to love her? She hurried across the street. “Driver!”

He was a young black man—fresh-faced enough, but when he grinned down at her, half his teeth were rotted away. “Sorry, miss, I’ve been told to wait.”

Miss. Hmmph. Serena tapped the birthmark above her eye. “Do you know who I am?”

The jarvey sat up straighter on his perch, and looked a little overawed. “Thorn, miss—m’lady—”

Oh, for Christ’s sake. “Thorn will do nicely.” She smiled reassuringly before she could catch herself. A few weeks ago—oh, she might as well face it, before she met Solomon—she would never have done that. And yet it seemed to be all right. He didn’t look as if he were going to say, Wait a minute, you’re just a girl, why does everyone listen to you? He simply looked a little less likely to freeze up in panic. Perhaps her position—if she could keep it past this week—wasn’t entirely sleight of hand anymore. Perhaps she’d gained enough real clout that she could relax a little. “And your name is—”

“Tom,” he said, ducking his head respectfully. “Tom Eaton.”

“Tom, I need your help.”

He frowned. “I’ve been asked to wait.”

Jenny could walk out of that bank at any moment. But Solomon appeared at her elbow. It calmed her nerves and helped her keep frustration out of her voice. “Is your customer a pretty gentlewoman, blonde, about so tall?” She gestured.

He nodded, startled.

“Then I wish you to wait, just as you’ve been. I wish you only to allow my friend and myself inside your vehicle to wait for your customer as well. Of course I will pay you for this service—five guineas or I’ll stand in your debt, as you choose.”

He looked wary now. “To be sure, having the Black Thorn in his debt is what anybody couldn’t help but like, but I’m an honest man, and—”

“Then you are just what I need.” She paused, and then, mentally gagging, added, “Just what England needs. That young woman is a spy for Bonaparte.”

He stared at her. “That tiny little gentry mort? You must be joking me!”

Serena gritted her teeth. Jenny was small and blonde, and that trumped everything else. The power of what men let themselves believe was staggering. But then, she herself hadn’t really believed that Jenny could be guilty. She’d seen Jenny wrap the teachers around her little finger at school, seen her lie and manipulate and always come out smelling like roses. And yet she’d thought it was only feminine cunning, nothing dangerous or real. Jenny had always relied on people thinking that. Serena, of all people, should have known better. “I assure you, I am very serious. When she gets in, you may convey us to Newgate.”

“Will I regret this?” Tom asked.

Serena met his eyes firmly. “Not if I can help it.”

Tom nodded. “Well, get on in, then.”

Serena glanced at Solomon, then abruptly climbed in without waiting for his arm. He climbed in after her and sat in the opposite seat. She sat very still, back against the squabs where she couldn’t be seen from the street, and tried not to let any portion of herself touch any portion of Solomon. She didn’t look at him.

After what seemed like hours, Jenny’s voice rang out gaily, “Thank you, sir! Now if you could take me to where I may catch the stage to Dover, I would be ever so grateful.”

“Yes, madam.”

The door opened and Jenny got in. She straightened, letting go of her skirts—and Serena trained her pistol on her. Solomon reached past her and shut the door with a snap. “Sit down,” Serena said.

Jenny’s face was hidden by a heavy veil, so it was impossible to guess her expression. “S—Serena?” she said incredulously. “What on earth? If Pursleigh forgot to pay you for the catering, I’m sure we can find a better way to—”

Serena sighed. “There’s no point to this, Jenny. We have evidence of your guilt. We’ll probably find more when we search your house, although if you’ve been careful, perhaps not. And if you don’t make an ill-judged escape attempt, you’ll live to see if your blue eyes have more success with a jury of the House of Lords.”

She gestured to Solomon to come sit beside her, which he did. “Solomon, I’m going to hand you the gun. I need you to keep it trained on Lady Pursleigh while I see if she’s hiding any weapons.” She had doubts about the wisdom of this plan, but since she had already considered and rejected the plan in which Solomon ran his hands all over Jenny, she had no choice.

When Solomon had the gun, Serena moved to the opposite seat and began systematically searching Jenny. This exposed far more of that lady to Solomon’s view than she would have liked, but she did her best to move quickly and keep her eye on her job, even when Jenny squirmed under her hands and made little squeals of protest. Only once, as her hands ran up Jenny’s legs to see if she had a knife in her garter, did she glance at Solomon. His eyes were glazed and his lips parted, but his hand seemed steady. Serena glanced away, feeling her temperature rising.

“Make her stop!” Jenny begged Solomon indignantly. “How can you just sit there? You wouldn’t really shoot me, would you?”

Serena paused. She didn’t look, but she could feel Solomon’s eyes sharpen on her face for a moment.

“Care to wager?” he asked mildly.

Finally, she took off Jenny’s bonnet and heavy veil and confiscated her hatpins. Serena had found those to be useful weapons more than once herself.

Exposed to view, Jenny’s cornflower blue eyes were wide. “What—what am I accused of?” she asked with a sort of plaintive dignity, trying modestly to put her clothing back to rights.

Serena glanced at Solomon and saw the pity in his eyes. Men.

She would have liked to take the gun back, but Jenny’s best chance to escape was while they were switching. “Espionage and high treason.”

Jenny laughed shakily. “But that—that’s impossible!”

Serena didn’t like Jenny; she never had. But she wanted this to be over. She wanted it desperately. “You’re good,” she said. “Maybe even good enough to get off. But I doubt it. Not after you attempted to flee the country with every penny you had the day Sacreval realized you were all compromised—as myself, Mr. Hathaway, and the hackney driver can all testify. Not after Mr. Rothschild gives the Crown your bank records, and they show that your deposits were made under an assumed name, stopped abruptly last April at the beginning of the Peace, and corresponded precisely with the schedule of payments from Sacreval to his informants.”

Jenny, thinking this over, bit the inside of her lower lip in a way that made her mouth look full and pouty. “How much would I have to pay you to let me go?”

“There is no question of letting you go.”

“I’ll give you half of what I have here.” She shifted in her seat, spreading her legs a little. “I’ll give you anything you want.” She looked between Serena and Solomon, searching for signs of softening.

Serena couldn’t help but feel a twisted kinship with her. Enough to tell her the truth. “Sacreval has forged documents proving we are married. If he is condemned for treason, he’ll certainly try to ensure that the Arms are forfeit to the Crown. I need the Crown in my debt just now. I can’t let you go.”

“Then you should understand why I did it,” Jenny said fiercely. “I needed the money. I could save the pittance he gives me for pin money for a hundred years and not have enough to get away from Pursleigh.”

Serena wanted very much to look away, but she kept her eyes firmly on Jenny’s face, watching for sudden movements. “I do understand. But then you should understand why I won’t help you.” I sold myself for money, she wanted to say. You sold other people. But there was no point—Jenny was already beaten, and winning the argument too wouldn’t make Serena feel any happier about it.

“We used to be friends,” Jenny said—her last, pathetic weapon. They both knew they had never been friends.

“I’m sorry,” Serena said, and wished Solomon weren’t holding the gun so that she could lean on him.

After that they rode in silence. Jenny stared at the streets as they flashed by and picked absentmindedly at the unraveling edge of her veil.

As they were turning up onto the road to Newgate, she turned to Serena and said, with a tiny quaver in her voice, “Does it hurt very much to be beheaded?”

Serena swallowed. René had told her stories from the Terror of severed heads looking at their bodies, blinking, even trying to speak.

“No one knows for sure,” Solomon said gently. “But my anatomy lecturer at Cambridge believed that a beheaded person loses consciousness after only a few seconds. Those tales about guillotined heads winking at the mob are probably tripe. And even in the worst of the stories, none of them looked to be in pain.”

Jenny looked as abjectly grateful as Serena felt.

They pulled up in front of the prison. Jenny sat perfectly still, a greenish tinge to her cheeks. Serena wished she could think of something to say.

Solomon leaned forward a little, though he did not lower the pistol. “You look dreadful,” he said gently. “Do you want them all to see you shamed and frightened?”

Their eyes met, and suddenly Jenny smiled. “Will you wait just a moment while I put on some rouge?”

Solomon nodded. “Serena will get it out of your reticule and hand it to you—and if you try to escape or injure her in any way, I’ll shoot you.”

Serena searched through the bag, retrieved a little pot of rouge, and handed it to Jenny.

She rubbed some color into each cheek and took a deep breath. “Shall we go, then?”

They gave her over into custody of the warden of the prison. Two hulking turnkeys appeared to escort her to her cell. Just before they rounded the corner, she blew Solomon and Serena a kiss, calling gaily, “Vive l’empereur!”

Only René was left now.

Solomon watched Serena, who was staring out the window of their hackney. It had been hard for her to turn over Lady Pursleigh; he could see that. And he thought he saw why.

He would have said that no two women could be more different, and yet—both women, forced to fend for themselves in a man’s world, had been obliged to choose masks. Jenny Pursleigh, faced with men’s expectations of what a pretty girl should be, fulfilled them all. Serena rejected them, every single one. Lady Pursleigh pretended to feelings she didn’t in the least have. Serena pretended to feel absolutely nothing.

He’d resented that, all this time. But he was beginning to understand, finally, that the stubbornly blank lines of her face weren’t a rejection. Not of him, anyway. They were an open challenge, a refusal to perform for the crowd.

I can’t be what you want, she had said. What, exactly, did she think he wanted? He remembered Miss Jeeves, the happy, girlish role she’d played at St. Andrew of the Cross, and how angry she’d been when he enjoyed it. Did she think he wanted what Lord Pursleigh wanted? And how, living in the world they lived in, could he expect her to think anything else?

The afternoon stretched. Sacreval did not return. He must have really gone for good. There was nothing left to do. Serena retreated to her office, and Elijah was holed up in his own room with a couple of other agents. Solomon wondered what would happen between him and Serena now. They had found the earrings. She no longer needed his help against Sacreval. He was on the very last wallpaper sample for the Arms. Once he had matched it, he and Serena would have no external reason for further contact. He didn’t know how matters stood between him and Elijah either, or how they would stand.

He tried to work on Serena’s last dye, but his heart wasn’t in it. In fact, his heart was dead set against it. Instead, he tried to read a poor translation of one of Chevreul’s papers on indigo, ate an early supper alone in his room, and went to bed.

He dreamed he was thrashing Elijah. He was smashing Elijah’s face with his fist and kicking him in the chest, and he could feel each blow in his own body, each sudden bright blossoming of pain. He could feel it when Elijah’s ribs cracked.

He woke up. It was dark. Serena stood over him, having evidently shaken him awake. She looked so worried about him: her jaw tight and her hand firm on his shoulder, her perfect brows drawn together stubbornly as if she were doing a painful duty but would be damned before she’d let anyone, including Solomon, stop her. He wanted to bury his face in her shoulder and cry, and he thought she might let him. Instead he pulled her down on top of him and kissed her, smelling sweat and almonds.

Reluctantly, he pulled away.

“I’m sorry,” he said hoarsely, passing the back of his hand across his eyes. “I shouldn’t have done that.”

“Why not?”

He sat up, giving her a rueful smile. “Because it was stupid.” She glared at him, not bothering to set her clothes to rights. He had to get out of this room.

“I’m going to get my earrings.” Having a goal cleared his mind, a little. By dint of not looking at her, he managed to get out of bed and pull on his breeches—carefully—before changing his nightshirt for a shirt. “Can I have your key?”

She rolled her eyes, tugged her clothes into place, and went into her room to get it. She came back holding the key, but instead of giving it to him she went past him and out into the hall without a word. He followed her.

The earrings were not where Elijah had seen them. Serena watched him search tensely for a minute or two before suggesting, “Try the ledge inside the chimney. I sometimes hide things there in my room.” He got soot all over his hands, but she was right.

Back in the Stuart room, he set the earrings on his worktable and went to wash his hands in the basin. When he turned around, Serena was turning the box from side to side, trying to see the earrings in the moonlight.

She saw him watching her. “We should examine them for damage,” she said hastily.

He sighed and lit the lamp. Light glinted off the Hathaway rubies lying in her palm. What would they look like in her ears? He glanced at her face. She was gazing at the earrings with a kind of fascinated horror.

Then someone put a key into the lock and turned it, and before Serena could do more than take a step toward the fireplace poker, Sacreval was in the room with a gun pointed straight at them.

Neither of them moved as he shut and locked the door from the inside with his free hand. “Back away from that table, sirène,” he said calmly.

“You couldn’t shoot me,” Serena said with confidence.

He smiled a little sadly. “That is why I am not pointing the gun at you.” And it was true, Solomon realized. The pistol was aimed straight and true for his own heart.