A Lily Among Thorns

Chapter 4


“I cannot be doing zis!” said a ringing Cockney voice with a French accent so fake even the Prince Regent could probably have seen through it. “Ze pastry cook’s boys, zey are not being here! My reputation, it will be in shreds. It is ze end, ze end. I am putting a period to my existence!”

Serena turned around and looked at her head chef, trying not to be annoyed at the interruption. “Please don’t do it in my kitchen.”

Antoine really did look distraught, his chef’s hat askew on his carroty locks and a towel half-falling from his shoulders. “You laugh but it is serious I am. By ze way, you look like a goddess. And if I do not have ze finest dessert to set before ze Prince Regent tonight, I will throw myself off of a bridge! I do not jest. It is a tradition among us chefs. Vatel stabbed himself eight times when ze fish he was to prepare for ze king did not arrive!”

“But the fish came in the end,” Solomon said. “He should have waited. Are you sure the pastry cook’s boys aren’t coming?”

Serena stared at him. “How do you know the fish came?”

“The same way your cook does, I’d imagine. I read the new translation of Mme de Sevigné’s letters that was published last month.”

The cook nodded. “A brilliant woman—so typical of my beloved France!” The closest Antoine had ever come to France was when Serena sent him to the spice market in Horsham, two hours south of London. “But ze boys—zey are not coming. One of zem has ze influenza; we cannot risk spreading the contagion to our beloved future monarch.”

Serena cursed. “Can’t Ying whip up something?”

“It will take her all day to make the bread.”

“Is it too late to send to Gunter’s?”

“Yes, and besides, we will not impress His Royal Highness with the culinary excellence of ze house in zis manner! I am sure he knows every dessert in Gunter’s ménu like the back of his royal hand.”

“How many people do you expect?” Solomon asked.

“Fifty at least!”

He smiled. “Your worries are over. I can make the dessert if I start now.”

Serena’s jaw dropped. Had everyone gone mad? “You? You can make dessert for the Carlton House set?”

“Would you prefer burnt cream or almond-pear tartlets? Those are the most elegant selections in my repertoire.” His smile turned self-deprecating and conspiratorial. “Actually, those are the only selections in my repertoire. But they’re both good.”

“Is there no end to your womanly talents?”

“Baking is just like chemistry!” he protested.

Her lips twitched. “Let’s have the almond-pear tartlets.”

An hour later, Solomon stared in awe at the gigantic kitchen. Spits turned on their own power in the huge fireplace, shining copperware filled the shelves, and bundles of dried herbs hung from the wall. In one corner dangled a great hook whose purpose he could only guess at. The center of the room was occupied by an enormous steam table, on which a number of covered dishes already rested. On a low stove in the corner, Antoine stirred a huge pot of something that smelled delicious.

When he saw his employer, the chef made his way across the room toward them, unslinging a towel from around his neck and wiping the sweat from his face. He had to stop several times along the way to critique the actions of undercooks and kitchen maids, in one case taking a knife away from a boy and showing him the proper way to cut carrots into fine, long strips.

“He’s not French,” Solomon said.

“Of course not,” Serena agreed. “But he thought it was funny to copy René’s accent and pretend he was a snooty French chef. René used to—used to give him pointers on Gallicisms.” She was quiet for a moment. “Antoine was cook in a gin shop before this.”

“And how, precisely, did he learn to cook like a French chef?”

She gave him an amused, sidelong glance. “Don’t be snide. The Blue Ruin was famous for its food.”

Antoine reached them. “Oh, you will make me blush! But it is true. Hélas, it was hard to reconcile myself to working in zat sordid pit of vice after my youth among ze lavender fields of Provence. But a true chef takes his satisfaction in staying faithful to his vocation, even when ze creations of his genius go to feed English criminals wis no appreciation of ze finer zings in life!”

“Now, Antoine, you know your patrons at the Blue Ruin appreciated you enormously. I thought they would riot when I hired you to work here.”

Antoine seized Serena’s hand and kissed it. She only looked mildly discomfited. That surprised Solomon; she’d hated the fitting.

He’d hated the fitting. Or he’d loved it, he wasn’t sure which. It had been a stupid thing to suggest, but her modiste was busy and—he’d wanted to touch her. Then he’d had to try desperately to touch her as little as possible. He’d pretended he was at the shop, told himself that he was a tradesman, that he had no feelings or thoughts, that he was an automaton built only for tailoring and laughing at customers’ jokes. It was no use. If it had gone on one moment longer he would have made a fool of himself, and she would have never spoken to him again. It was lucky that hardly any adjustments had been necessary—Serena’s modiste was talented and knew Serena’s measurements well. They were nice measurements.

“I owe everyzing to you, my beloved mistress,” Antoine said. “Thanks to your farsighted decision to hire me, I have attained ze pinnacle of my art, and even now I prepare a meal for ze regent!”

“It was a sensible business decision, that’s all.” But her smile reminded Solomon of how his mother used to look when he’d singed off Elijah’s hair or scorched sugar onto the bottom of all the pots in the kitchen in one of his childish experiments. There was that same reluctant, affectionate pride in it, trying to hide under sternness.

He realized, as he’d failed to do before, that Serena felt about the inn the way he felt about Hathaway’s Fine Tailoring. And Sacreval wanted to take it away from her. Never, he vowed silently. “Did you buy what I asked for?” he asked Antoine.

“But of course! It is in ze pastry kitchen right now. Do you wish me to show you?”

“The pastry kitchen? How many kitchens do you have?”

“Zere is ze pastry kitchen, ze ice room, ze larder, and ze bakehouse. I have asked and asked for a confectioner’s room, but again and again I am refused.” He said this last with a meaningful glance at Serena.

“We don’t have a confectioner,” Serena pointed out.

“We ought to hire one. Zen we would not be in zis position.”

“Make do.”

Antoine gave a long-suffering sigh. “And zese are ze conditions under which I must create my masterpieces!”

“And yet somehow you always manage,” Serena said. Antoine smiled at her.

Footmen paraded by, carrying crates of fine china with a coat of arms emblazoned in the center: two ravens pecking at the visor of a helmet, on a scarlet shield topped with a marquess’s coronet. Solomon recognized the design from the swinging wooden sign outside the inn.

Two of the footmen were dark-haired boys with a striking resemblance to each other. The elder hunched to one side with his crate to whisper something in the younger’s ear. Solomon felt a familiar rush of gnawing, resentful envy, and then a familiar rush of shame at feeling anything so petty.

Laughing and distracted, the younger boy jostled Serena as he passed. “Have a care with our best china!” she chided the unfortunate young man, who stammered apologetically and hurried to rejoin the train.

“Are they brothers?” Solomon asked, and then wished he hadn’t when Serena gave him a sorry, awkward look.

She nodded. “The young one’s new. Their mother took in laundry, and he used to help her, but she died this spring, so Jem needed new work.”

Solomon felt doubly ashamed of his moment of envy. “And were those really the Ravenshaw arms?” he said to turn the subject.

She smirked. “It wouldn’t be any fun if they weren’t. I only wish I could justify the expense of putting them on all our china.”

“It’s a pretty morbid coat of arms.”

“I always liked it.”

She would. He smiled. “I suppose morbidity can be glamorous, in its way.”

Serena raised an eyebrow. “Never tell me you were one of those young men who lurks about in graveyards, drooping languidly and wearing black.”

Solomon grinned. “No, I wasn’t. But Elijah was for about two months. Being the parson’s sons, we had unlimited access to the churchyard. He even penned a few verses on the brevity of life.” He had been marvelously good at drooping languidly, but his verses, which he had read to Solomon with great enthusiasm, had been uniformly bad.

Serena moved a step closer in silent acknowledgment. He found it unexpectedly comforting. “Did it drive the young ladies wild?” she asked.

“Naturally. Who doesn’t wish to be kissed behind a tombstone?”

“Who indeed?” She sighed. “I’d better go see if the flowers have arrived. Let me know if you need anything.” She disappeared out the door. He watched her go, trying not to remember the way she’d curved under his hands when he’d pinned her dress.

“She takes such a childlike pleasure in spiting her fazzer,” Antoine said. “And never once has he come here to appreciate it, until zis week.”

Solomon stared. “Never?” He had known he was undesirable, but so undesirable that Lord Blackthorne had broken a five-year pattern to get rid of him? His social standing had reached a new low, and Blackthorne was an even viler snob than he’d thought.

“Not once. It is a subject of much conversation among ze staff.” He turned calculating eyes on Solomon. “You were zere. What did he want?”

“Er. I don’t think I ought to tell you.”

“No, you oughtn’t. But Sophy was worried, and she told me to ask. Are you sure you will not reveal your secrets?”

“Yes, I’m sure.”

“All right zen,” Antoine said with a Gallic shrug that was the image of Sacreval’s. “Let me show you what we have bought you. Ze finest pears in London, zat is what!”

The dining room was scrubbed, the good china laid out, and all the waiters and waitresses dressed in their finest livery. Serena resisted the urge to go and look at herself in the mirror again. The gown would look as perfect this time as it had the previous twenty-seven, and she would look just as pale and cold. It was how she wanted to look, and yet thinking of Solomon—with his grins and flushes and expressive hazel eyes, and the way the set of his shoulders could tell you exactly how he was feeling at all times—she couldn’t help wondering if she repelled him. She tried not to regret her tongue-tied schoolgirl self. That self could never have survived the past six years.

That self couldn’t have curtsied politely to the Prince Regent and ten of his closest friends. She couldn’t have smoothly ignored the men’s ogling, knowing she’d slept with at least half of them, or brushed off their wives’ avid stares, as if she were some outlandish creature in a menagerie.

That self certainly couldn’t have hidden her boundless contempt for Sir Percy Blakeney and his inane little wife. She didn’t care how many French aristocrats the former Scarlet Pimpernel had saved from the Terror, he was insufferable. It was only five minutes into the meal, and he was already telling that story about escaping through the gates of Paris in ’93 dressed as an old hag, with the de Tourneys hidden under the cabbages.

“Wherever did you get that stunning gown?” Lady Blakeney asked Serena in her charmingly accented English. “The clarity of the color is remarkable. It is as bright as those waistcoats my husband ordered from Hathaway’s Fine Tailoring!”

“As a matter of fact,” Serena said, “it is from Hathaway’s. It was designed for me by Mr. Solomon Hathaway himself.” She wondered what they would say if she told them he had fitted it, too.

Lord Alvanley, celebrated wit and dandy, smiled maliciously. “I say, Dewington, I believe she’s speaking of your nephew!”

“You’ve boasted often enough of having designed a gown for the Siren yourself,” Dewington snapped. Lady Dewington elbowed him.

Alvanley had the grace to look abashed. He threw Serena an apprehensive glance. She gritted her teeth. She remembered that gown. It hadn’t been very comfortable, but the dandy had offered her fifty pounds to wear it. He still owed her the money.

“He makes up the dyes, don’t he?” asked Sir Percy. “Talented fellow, for a shopkeeper—oh, sorry, your nevvy, of course, Dewington.”

“Well, a young man must sow his wild oats somehow,” Dewington said without conviction.

“There!” said Lady Blakeney. “Did I not say it was from Hathaway’s?”

Sir Percy beamed proudly. “So you did, m’dear. Demmed clever woman, my wife. Cleverest woman in Europe, don’t you know. Star of the Comédie Française. I had to fight my way into her greenroom.” No one had called Lady Blakeney the cleverest woman in Europe in at least fifteen years. Serena had her private suspicions that those who had, even then, had not been Europe’s brightest lights.

Lady Blakeney gave a trilling laugh. “Oh, that was years ago! We are not so young as we were, Sir Percy.”

Sir Percy glowered. “I’m still young enough to show those Frogs a thing or two about British ingenuity! I say, Your Highness, have you spoken to Varney about sending me to France as I asked? I speak French like a native, you know.”

Serena did not stare. She didn’t laugh. She didn’t picture Sir Percy—all foppish, red-faced, middle-aged six feet of him, who got out of breath walking from the dining room to his carriage—as an agent of the Crown in Napoleon’s Paris. She found, though—and it was an unsettling sensation—that she could not wait to tell Solomon all about it.

“Varney likes to hire his own agents,” Prinny said placidly. “He has some excellent French speakers already. I told him you were a deuced clever fellow, but he said your exploits as the Scarlet Pimpernel were too celebrated to allow you the proper incognito.”

“Indeed, Sir Percy,” Lady Blakeney scolded, “I have told you! I spent my youth worrying you would lose your head, but now we are older I wish we might simply be comfortable.”

“My wife worries too much,” Sir Percy said jovially. “Why, once I was forced to feign my own death to throw off that little Chauvelin, and I vow she nearly—”

Lady Blakeney hit him smartly with her fan. “I do not find that story amusant, Sir Percy!”

“But you would not have made such a regal little widow if you had known, m’dear—” Sir Percy’s eyes narrowed. “I say, who the devil is that?” He spoke in the same jovial tones, and gestured languidly in the direction of the kitchens, but Serena suddenly felt a little less sure that Sir Percy had never been a force to be reckoned with. She turned to look.

It was René, who had always managed to avoid Sir Percy in the past. Serena did not step protectively between them; she was bitterly ashamed that she still wanted to. “That is monseigneur du Sacreval, my former business partner. Do you know him, Sir Percy?”

But Sir Percy was shaking his head and leaning back in his chair. “Not in the least, m’dear. He is the spitting image of a baker I once knew, a member of the Committee of Public Safety. But that man would be at least thirty years older than your partner now, if he were still alive—and now I think of it, I saw him beheaded myself.”

I’m only relieved because I’m afraid for the Arms, Serena told herself. I don’t care what happens to René. Not at all. As she headed to the foot of the table to tell Joe to bring up more rolls, she happened to glance at the regent. He was watching René with narrowed, considering eyes. “The fellow’s back, is he?” he asked.

Serena felt cold. “Indeed, Your Highness. He returned only a few days ago. He is waiting for the Bourbons to be restored once more so that he can return to France.”

The regent nodded genially. Serena decided to see how things were progressing in the kitchens.

It was a mistake.

Solomon was leaning against the door frame of the pastry kitchen, covered in flour to the elbows, listening to something Antoine was saying. He glanced up at her and smiled just as he licked a large dollop of almond-pear off his thumb.

Now she remembered why she disliked the kitchens during dinner. The ovens made everything so damned hot.

“Want a taste?” he yelled above the kitchen’s racket.