A Lily Among Thorns

Chapter 6


To Solomon’s surprise, the only occupant of the room was Serena—fast asleep. Her fists were clenched and her face was set in lines of determination and fear as she threw herself from side to side, straining against invisible bonds. “No! No, damn you!”

Solomon took hold of her shoulders and shook her. “Serena, wake up!” he said as loudly as he dared. “Wake up, you’re all right!”

Serena jolted awake. It hadn’t just been a dream, then—someone was holding her shoulders, restraining her. She bolted upright and punched him squarely in the stomach. “Let me go, you son of a bitch!” she hissed, and went for the pistol in her bedside drawer.

Solomon held up the hand that wasn’t clutching his stomach and shook his head frantically. Oh. She was awake. That had been a dream. Right. She took a deep breath and abandoned the drawer. “Solomon? What the devil are you doing here?”

He pointed to his throat.

“Did I wind you? My humblest apologies. I imagine you have some perfectly innocent reason for having broken into my room in the dead of night?”

“You were yelling,” he croaked. “I was worried.”

Damn. “I’m fine. It was just a dream.”

He sat down on the edge of her bed, massaging his stomach. “You don’t look fine.” Abruptly his eyes widened, riveted on her breasts, all too exposed in her thin cotton shift.

Serena shivered nervously under his gaze, then wished she hadn’t. “It’s chilly in here,” she said shortly, although the room was very warm. “Hand me my robe.” Ordinarily she would have died rather than let Solomon see her robe (an orange silk fringed thing covered in a riot of embroidered chrysanthemums, peacock feathers, pomegranates, and other bright designs), but right now she just wanted another layer between him and her breasts. She crossed her arms over her chest.

Solomon reddened and jerked his eyes away. “Er. Sorry.”

When he handed her the robe, she shoved her arms into the fringed sleeves, wrapped the orange silk tight across her chest, and hugged herself. Solomon sighed, and said the last thing she would have expected. “Come on, I’ll make you a cup of chocolate.”

“You have chocolate in your room?”

“What kind of bachelor would I be if I didn’t?”

Chocolate seemed like the absolute best thing that could happen just then, so she followed him without demur. Handing her a chipped earthenware mug with “A Present from Swansea” painted on the side, he rummaged through his equipment. After a short search he lined up a battered crucible, a glass bowl, and a small, crinkled paper sack on the edge of the table.

“You’re making the chocolate in that? Have you washed it?”

Solomon gave her an exasperated look. “This is my chocolate-making equipment. I don’t use it for experiments. It’s safe.” He soon had a merry flame lit under the crucible. Serena relaxed a little in the light—that is, until Solomon said, “What were you dreaming about?”

She stared at him.

“Talking about it will make you feel better.”

Was he mad? “I assure you, I’m quite recovered already. Besides, there’s nothing you can do.”

“I can listen.”

Serena didn’t answer.

Solomon’s broad back was to her as he poured water into the crucible and the glass bowl. “After Elijah died,” he said in conversational tones, “I used to dream nearly every night that I saw him die. Over and over, and I felt it. The bullet would hit him in the chest, and the pain—sometimes he would fall off his horse, and I could feel my neck snap.” He paused. “In some ways that was better than the nights I dreamed he was back and it was all a mistake.”

Good Lord. “And did telling someone that make you feel better?” she asked harshly. “Did it make it go away?”

He set the bowl into the crucible’s mouth to make a small double boiler. “No, it didn’t make it go away. It will never go away. But—I do feel better now, actually.” He glanced over his shoulder with a rueful chuckle. Now. He believed that a trouble shared was a trouble halved and yet he hadn’t told anyone either, hadn’t had anyone to tell. He’d waited for nearly two years, only to tell her. Of all the people he could have chosen—people who might have known what to say, people who might not have kicked him out of their hotels the evening before for no good reason—he’d chosen her, and telling her had made him feel better.

She wanted to go to him—but he didn’t want that. He had told her what he wanted: he wanted her nightmare. “All right.” She sat down on the edge of his bed. He sat on his workbench and watched her. She fixed her eyes on the mug. “René came to take me off to Bedlam. Only I knew somehow that it wouldn’t be Bedlam, it would be Mme Deveraux’s house, but when I said so they all looked at me if I were raving. And then they dragged me out the front door, and they were turning everyone out into the street. All the staff, and it was cold, and they locked the front doors shut and put up a big ‘Closed’ placard. I couldn’t stop them, they wouldn’t listen to me and I couldn’t—I couldn’t do a damn thing.”

She could barely get the words out, they felt so intimate and shameful.

He sat down on the bed beside her with a thump. “That isn’t going to happen,” he told her.

“Why?” she demanded. “Because you won’t let it?”

He smiled at her. “No. Because you won’t.”

Which was stupid. She didn’t have a damn clue how to stop René. But Solomon saying it made her feel better anyway. Her authority, her control—it was all smoke and mirrors, but it hadn’t stopped working yet. He still believed in it.

He reached over and tugged one of her pigtails. “Maybe—” He got up and began measuring cocoa powder into the hot water with a spoon. “Maybe you should take Sacreval up on his offer to buy the place.”

She had thought about that too, lying in bed staring at the ceiling in the cold cowardly early morning, but it wasn’t just her blind panic at losing the Arms that stopped her. “Yes, and when I’ve used the money to buy a new establishment, perhaps he’ll decide he wants that one, too. As long as he’s alive and has a copy of those marriage lines, I’m beaten.”

He stirred the chocolate slowly. “Serena, can I ask you a question?”

“All right,” she said warily.

“Where did you get that robe? It’s not anyone in London that I recognize.”

Before she knew it she was smiling—a real, happy smile. It felt disturbingly unfamiliar on her face. “One thing I love about you, Solomon, is your predictability.” He watched her inquiringly through his blush, and finally she looked at her mug and told him the truth. “I made it myself.”

“What?”

“Well, you needn’t look so shocked. I was a bored young lady once, you know.”

“You did that yourself?”

“For the third time, yes.” Embroidery was a proper, ladylike occupation, and it didn’t require talking to anyone. She could spend hours at it and no one would bother her. The robe was one of the few things she’d taken with her when she left Ravenscroft.

“Would you consider doing piecework for my uncle?”

She laughed. “Where’s my chocolate?”

He held out his hand for her mug. She gave it to him reluctantly, not knowing what to do with her hands when it was gone. He set another mug beside it on the table—this one with Nelson’s portrait on it—and tipped steaming chocolate into them. Then he rummaged some more. Serena would have to take a more careful look at his things one of these days, because she’d never noticed that jar of sugar cubes or the little bottle of—Madeira? He flashed her a wicked smile. “Want some?”

“Of course.” He poured a healthy dollop into both cups. She took hers and sipped. It warmed her cold fingers, and warmth spread comfortably down her throat and into her stomach. Glancing up, she caught Solomon licking away chocolate from the corner of his mouth. A jolt of heat went through her that had nothing to do with chocolate or Madeira.

She looked at her mug. “Solomon?”

“Yes?”

“Why have you been so kind to me? I’ve been nothing but rude to you, and you—”

He looked at her silently for a moment, and suddenly she heard what he’d said when she asked him about the hundred and twenty-five pounds. Because you needed it. Was he going to say it again? It was true, of course, and she knew he knew it. She had needed his kindness, she needed it now, and she could already feel the resentment and gratitude twisting together in her chest—

Maybe it showed on her face. He turned away and picked up another sugar cube. It fell into his chocolate with a final little plop. “I was tired of dining on bread and cheese, that’s all.”

Her heart sank, but she hadn’t earned a better answer, had she? He’d given her more honesty than she deserved already. She hadn’t even managed to ask him to stay yet. She opened her mouth, then shut it and nodded.

He looked at her and sighed. “Serena, I put up with you because I liked you. That’s why people put up with each other.”

He liked her? What did that mean exactly?

He caught her wary look. “And I don’t mean because I want to kiss you. After tonight we both know I do want to kiss you, but that isn’t what I meant.” He crushed the sugar cube against the side of his mug with a spoon. “‘The full soul loatheth a honeycomb; but to the hungry soul every bitter thing is sweet.’”

Serena pressed her lips together. “Solomon, about that kiss— ”

He smiled suddenly. “Yes?”

“I was perhaps more harsh than necessary.”

He gave a choke of laughter. “You don’t say?” He took the spoon out of his mug and sucked it clean, slowly. She kept her breath from hitching, but only by stopping breathing altogether for several seconds. He set the spoon down with a smirk. “You enjoyed it as much as I did.”

Her lips twitched. “Well, maybe.”

For a few minutes there was nothing but the sound of chocolate being drunk. Then Solomon collected their empty mugs to put on the worktable till morning.

Serena did not want to go back to her room. You have to, she told herself. What, are you afraid of the dark now? She stood. “Thank you.”

“Any time,” he said, although he still thought he was leaving in the morning.

She paused at the door, hesitating. Go on, damn you!

“Are you sure you’re all right?”

“Of course I am.” She marched smartly through the door and shut it behind her. But it took her hours to fall asleep, and when she did, she dozed fitfully.

To an outside observer, it might have looked as though Serena were entering yesterday’s numbers in the ledger. Actually, she was composing her apology.

Perhaps I was a little hasty. I see no harm in your staying a little longer. No.

In the clear light of day, it is apparent to me that I may have overestimated— No.

I’m sorry. I was wrong. Please don’t go. It was so easy a child could do it. But not Serena. She couldn’t even say the words here, in the solitude of her own office.

Yes, you can. You’ve done plenty of more frightening things. She stood up. “I’m.” She cleared her throat. “I’m sorry. I—I was—I was rash. No. I was wrong, and—”

The door opened and Sophy stuck her head in. She frowned. “Serena? Is everything all right?”

She felt her face heating. “Why do you ask?”

“No reason. Your father’s here again, what should I do with him?”

Serena considered her options. She could have him thrown out, but he wouldn’t take it kindly; he might be vindictive, later. She could go out to meet him, but who knew what he would say? In the ordinary course of things her business thrived on gossip, of course, but she couldn’t afford to have people know how close she was to losing the Arms. Let them see blood in the water, and they’d be on her like sharks. “Show him in.”

In daylight, she could see that Lord Blackthorne looked much more prosperous than he ever had when she was growing up. His changes in farming techniques at Ravenscroft must have succeeded beyond his dreams, and she was willing to wager the tenants were seeing none of the benefits.

Well, that would be Cousin Bernard’s problem one day, not hers. She wished she hadn’t let him into her office; she hated having him here, in a place that meant so much to her. His eyes on her pictures and bookcases, her pens and paper and ink stains, made her feel exposed and dirty. Even settling deeper into her wellworn chair and regarding him across the familiar, solid mahogany failed to reassure her. She steepled her fingers. “Well?”

His mouth twisted as he sat. “In that much of a hurry to get rid of me, are you? Very well, I won’t mince words. I told you to get rid of that tradesman or I would take steps. And now instead of going away he is giving you gowns and baking for your customers.” He said this last word as if it pained him. “Reenie, you—”

After all these years, she still hated it when he called her that. “You never cared what I did before. Why this sudden interest?”

His eyes slid away. “You have been an innkeeper for too long if you have to ask that question.” He moved a hand restlessly. “I should have done something when you started this mad scheme.”

“Why didn’t you?” She leaned forward, more curious to hear his response than she wanted to be.

He blinked, startled, as if the answer were so obvious he didn’t understand why she had to ask. “You made your bed.”

She folded her hands tightly together. The stubborn old bastard would never change. She had known when she left Ravenscroft that from that day forward, he wouldn’t lift a finger to help her if she were drowning before his eyes. Not unless she begged him—and with just the right degree of humility. “So I did. And I’ll lie in it with whomever I please.”

He stood up. “Clearly you don’t take me seriously. I think it’s time I told you what happened to your last ill-bred lover.”

He was trying to tower over her, but standing herself wouldn’t make her taller than him. It would only show that she noticed. She tilted her head and smiled, ignoring her sudden unease. “Who, Harry Jenkins? He threw me over, if that’s what you mean. Why, did you bribe him to do it? I hope you’re satisfied with the results.”

His eyes glinted. “Don’t be a fool. The boy probably would have married you if he hadn’t died of a beating on the way to London.”

Her smile didn’t slip, but everything else did. The world was tipping sideways; at any moment the ledgers would start to slide off her desk, she was sure of it. Harry had had white-gold eyelashes, and a scar on his left hipbone that no one would ever again trace with her tongue. “You had a boy murdered just to prevent me from making a mésalliance?”

He shifted uncomfortably. “The idea was merely to beat some sense into him and warn him off, but my agents were regrettably—overenthusiastic.”

“I see.” Harry had been seventeen, a year younger than she. Too young to lie in his own blood on the highway. She’d hated him for abandoning her. Christ, how she wished now that he had! “I’m glad one of us had the presence of mind to preserve the family name from such an association.”

He smiled. “I’m glad you’re being so reasonable, my dear. Now for God’s sake send the tailor packing.”

It took a moment for her sluggish brain to catch his meaning, and then the slow sideways feeling was gone. Everything was very clear and easy. “I’m nothing if not reasonable, Father.” She stood, putting her palms on her desk and leaning forward. Every muscle in her body screamed at her to lunge across it and get her hands round his throat.

Instead, she let her smile spread. “That’s why I’m not going to have you killed outright. But I recommend you hire bodyguards for Solomon, because if he so much as nicks himself shaving, you’ll find yourself in a gutter with your throat cut. You should know I have the means to do it. Don’t think any foolish sentimentality will prevent me.” She nodded toward the door. “Now get out and be grateful for my forbearance.”

He was shaken, but he tried to bluster through. “What, you’d kill your own father? Surely—”

“If you’d ever bothered to inquire, you’d know I never make empty threats. I don’t give a tinker’s damn that you’re my father. I only still call you that because I know how much the connection mortifies you.”

“Does he really mean this much to you, then, this tradesman?”

She couldn’t remember ever being this angry, which was saying a great deal. She laughed softly. “Oh no. I’m not doing this for him.” It was a lie. But her father didn’t seem to know it. She thanked God for that, though she didn’t believe in Him. “No, it’s the principle of the thing. It’s time you learned not to meddle in my affairs. I hate you, you know.” She wasn’t sure if that was a lie or not. The bright sharp feeling that rose like bile in her throat at the sound of his voice—was that hatred? “I daresay I’ve been waiting for this excuse for a long time. I should have done it when you were here last week. But it’s never too late. If I end in Bedlam, you’re dead then too. I have friends who’ll make sure of it. Now get out and leave me alone.”

“Is there no end to your depravity, Reenie? I hear that Frenchman who was keeping you is back as well!” He gave her a sly look. “Maybe I ought to have a word with the fellow, tell him he’s been cuckolded.”

Serena blanched a little at the word “cuckolded.” There is no way he could know about those marriage lines, she told herself. “I’m sure if he were here, René would be shocked to hear that I’m not as chaste a mistress as he thought, but he went to the British Museum.” An odd choice, given that he’d never shown the slightest interest in antiquities before, but no doubt he found time hanging heavy on his hands while he waited to take possession of the Arms.

“Hmm, too bad,” Lord Blackthorne said, sounding pleased. Serena felt sure he would head over to the museum the moment he was out the door. At any other time, she would have been amused at her father trying to play Iago to René’s Othello. But the idea lost its piquancy now she knew that, like Iago, her father did not balk at murder.

There would be no apology to make, after all. There was that to be grateful for.

Serena didn’t feel grateful. She took a deep breath, picked a piece of lint off her sleeve, and went to find Solomon.