A Lily Among Thorns

Chapter 7


Solomon still didn’t have a plan to make Serena let him stay. He was hoping that after last night, she would just give in and save him the trouble. In the meantime, he was packing very slowly. He put on his shirt very slowly and buttoned his waistcoat very slowly.

If he couldn’t make her give in, he’d be back in Cheapside by dinnertime. The thought depressed his spirits unutterably.

Depression felt disturbingly normal, as if feeling alive and interested in the day, as he had for the past few mornings, was some sort of aberration. Welcome back, blue-devils.

Slowly shrugging into his coat, he looked out the window and saw Lord Blackthorne getting into his carriage. The old bastard must be delighted at this turn of events. A moment later Solomon felt guilty for his surge of resentment. If he left, the threat of Bedlam would be lifted. It would be a blessed relief for Serena, even if Sacreval remained to be dealt with.

But damn it, Solomon wanted to help her deal with him. He yanked open the wardrobe and started throwing things onto the bed.

A knock came at the door, and Serena walked in. She stopped short when she saw the pile of clothes, and his open valise. “Oh, good, you’re going,” she said flatly.

His heart sank. “What did your father want?”

She frowned. “How did you know—never mind. Nothing important. Be gone by lunchtime or I’ll have you evicted for trespassing.”

“Honestly, Serena, only you could add insult to injury with such—” She put up a hand to rub at her temple, and he saw white dents where her nails had bit the palm. He turned sharp eyes on her and saw her face was bloodless. “Good God, Serena, you look—you look bleached! What did that bastard say to you? Did he threaten to have you locked up again?”

She looked at her hand and smiled crookedly. “You’re too knowing by half. But—yes.” She took a breath. “He says he’ll let me alone if you just go. I’m sorry, but I can’t risk it. You may not have seen Bedlam, but I have. One of my protectors was keen on that sort of thing.” She actually shuddered.

A flood of stupid relief washed over him at the regret in her voice. Perhaps she’d meant to ask him to stay after all. That would have to be enough, because thinking of Serena in an asylum made him—actually, he preferred not to think of it. It didn’t matter what he wanted; it mattered that she was safe. “I understand,” he said, surprised at how calm he sounded. “I’ll find the earrings another way.” She was already turning to leave, not meeting his eyes, when he said, stumbling over the words now, “I . . . Good-bye, Serena. I—it’s been . . .”

She turned and fixed her gray eyes on him. He straightened his shoulders and tried to look stoic. He must have been failing because she got that annoyed look she always got—Solomon was beginning to realize—when she felt guilty. Now there was something else in it, too: fear. That bastard Blackthorne should be strung up by his thumbs.

Her next words took him by surprise. “Solomon, don’t go down any dark alleys for the next month or so, will you?”

His eyes narrowed. “What aren’t you telling me?”

“Nothing,” she said with absolute assurance and just the right undertone of amused impatience.

Two could play at that game. “All right. It looks to be a fine day, don’t you think? Maybe I’ll go for a walk along the river tonight.”

She gazed at him for long moments. “My father says he’ll have you killed if you stay here.”

“What?” It was Solomon’s turn to stare at his hands and, no doubt, look rather bleached. “R—really?”

She nodded.

“Do you think he would?”

She smiled unpleasantly. “I think he would, but I somehow suspect that he won’t.”

“And I somehow suspect he didn’t change his mind out of Christian charity.”

“Ah, the wisdom of Solomon! No, you are quite right. I told him that if he harmed you I would have his throat cut.”

“And he believed you?”

“I think so. But he may have thought it was an empty threat.”

He frowned. “Wasn’t it?”

She raised an eyebrow. “Of course not. One empty threat can damage a reputation more than twenty direct admissions of weakness. Now, will you be leaving? I think it the wiser course.”

He thought it over. He thought about eating mince pie alone at night. He thought about leaving her to deal with Sacreval on her own. “No.” He gave her a half smile. “I think I’ll feel safer here where you can keep an eye on me.”

She relaxed a little, and he felt warm. He’d lost all sense of proportion. Serena’s shoulders moving an eighth of an inch shouldn’t matter more than a direct threat to his life, but at the moment, it did. “Very well,” she said. “If you will excuse me, I’d better go and spread the word that you’re not to be touched, and put some arrangements in place. Watch your back, will you?”

He caught her wrist. “Don’t do it.”

She turned on him with a mocking smile. “And break my word? Have you no thought for my honor?”

“I mean it, Serena. I’m not worth becoming a murderer for.”

She gently removed his hand. “I’m afraid our opinions are destined to differ on this point, as on so many others. I’m damned if he’ll hurt you.”

He sighed. “A year ago I wouldn’t even have been afraid.”

“What do you mean?” she asked sharply.

“A year ago I would have been tempted to go walking by the river anyway.” He wouldn’t have done it, of course, but he would have thought about it. Never again waking up thinking, I dreamed Elijah was dead, and then realizing it was true. Never again finding himself standing in the middle of the room crying and not remembering how he got there. And not even having to do it himself—it would have sounded rather appealing. The sharp stab of fear he’d felt a minute ago had surprised him. He had felt, for a moment, almost like a traitor.

“Don’t even think about it,” Serena said in a biting tone of command, and he looked up in surprise to see that her eyes were blazing. “Don’t ever think about it. I wish your brother were here, too. He’d tell you not to be a fool. But I’m happy to do it for him. I meant what I said. If you’re hurt I’m damned.”

He rolled his eyes. For her, surely it was just one more tussle for dominance with her father.

She slammed her fist down on his worktable so hard Solomon had to leap forward to save his muriate of tin from an untimely end. He frowned at her, and she glared unrepentantly back.

“Serena, calm down. I’m not going to do anything rash. I was only saying—”

“Then don’t say it,” she said harshly, “because if I have to go collect your body from God knows where, I will be seriously displeased.”

She was fighting for him now. He couldn’t help it. He smiled at her.

She stood there a little longer, looking vaguely at a loss. Then she said, abruptly, “I’m sorry about last night. With the candle. That was stupid of me.” She spun on her heel and left the room, presumably to put arrangements in place. This time he didn’t try to stop her.

René came in late, feeling very harassed. Supper was over, and the hall was abandoned except for Serena, waiting alone at the desk for any latecomers in need of a room and going over what looked like next week’s grocery orders. “Well,” she inquired maliciously, “did my father find you?”

René glared at her. “Yes, he did. Really, sirène. How could you set him on me like that? I was peacefully viewing the antiquities, and then, there I was, cornered by your father! It was not amusant, I assure you!” Seeing Lord Blackthorne was never amusant. And the way he was dealing with Serena was a fool’s way. Of course, René had not been precisely clever himself.

Serena smiled. “What did he say?”

“He—er—he said that I must look to you closely, and that you are not faithful to me! I thanked him and tried to duck into the next room, but he had hold of my sleeve. My favorite coat, sirène! He touched it. I will have to have it washed and pressed!” He thrust the sleeve out for her inspection, but Serena was giggling and didn’t look at it. “Perhaps I should send him the bill, what do you think?”

Not many people, he thought, had seen Serena laugh like that. He’d always been proud of that—how after the first few months of their partnership, when she was too stiff and cold and desperate not to appear a frivolous little girl, he could always make her laugh. She had been so young; she was still so young. The lost look on her face when he’d handed her those marriage documents was like a hole in his chest. But now, for a moment at least, he could pretend everything was all right between them.

He drew himself up theatrically. “It is not to laugh, sirène! I can scarcely believe my ears! My beloved, sneaking about with a rascally tailor who is not so handsome as I!” Serena laughed harder. “Where is he, this wretch who has brought shame to the Sacreval name? I will teach him to cuckold me!”

Serena stopped laughing abruptly, and the hole in his chest widened. “No one can cuckold you, René, because we’re not married!” She went through the swinging door to the servants’ corridors, shoving it hard. René stood where she had left him, watching the door sweep back and forth.

In a few minutes Sophy came out. Without a word she walked to the desk, taking care not to come within three feet of him. She wobbled a little. It was Sunday night, so Serena had probably pulled her away from cards and whisky with Antoine. She was wearing long sleeves. He wondered whether she still hid aces up her cuffs.

She had been dear to him, too. “Sophy, we are old friends. Do not—”

“You and Serena are old friends too and it didn’t stop you stabbing her in the back first chance you got. So apparently old friendship permits me to tell you to get your ugly Frog mug out of our front hall. Good night to you, my lord.”

René bit his lip. “Good night, Sophy,” he said quietly, and went upstairs.

He stopped before his door—that is, he still thought of it as his door, but it was Solomon Hathaway’s door now. He cursed that damned anglais with all his heart. This was his fault. René had never wanted to use the marriage lines; when his superiors had pressed him to do it, he had told them no. He hadn’t thought he would need to. His sirène would take him back, and everything would go forward as before.

He had heard that a man was living in his room, the Stuart Room. He knew that Lord Blackthorne had failed to oust him. But Blackthorne was a crude, vicious Englishman whom Serena hated. She would listen to René because he was her friend. Her friend—the irony of it made him clench his fist now.

He had come here, almost pleased to be back, and seen Hathaway. He had thought it was Thierry and been so glad. And then . . . Thierry was dead—and an Englishman—and this Hathaway was living in René’s room. Hathaway had stood there and looked at him with Thierry’s eyes, and Serena wouldn’t make him go away. She wouldn’t even make him leave her office so René could think. All he had had were those papers. And the man was a Hathaway from Shropshire, so René had not been able to risk waiting.

He closed his eyes against Serena’s look, but it stayed, her stricken face clear and perfect in the darkness. He hadn’t seen her look like that since—he had never seen her look like that.

In the beginning, he had seen her will herself calm every time an old protector walked in the door; he had seen her tense whenever someone casually touched her arm. He remembered her white face when one of the kitchen maids had nearly been raped in the courtyard. She had looked even worse two weeks later when the two of them had been out walking and passed the bastard who did it in the street. The man had been using a cane, his face one mottled, fading bruise. René had known at once that it was Serena’s doing, that she’d hired someone to do it; she had somehow looked miserable and terrifyingly fierce at the same time.

But that was just it. Before, she had always had that spark of ice in her eyes. She had always been fighting, daring the world to do its worst. There had never been that dazed, vulnerable look.

She had never felt betrayed because she had never expected better. But she had expected better of René. He’d worked so hard to win her trust, and he had, and now—

There must have been another way. He had cursed himself afterward for his stupidity. He had learned quickly enough that Solomon had no idea what the Hathaway legacy meant. But René hadn’t been able to think what to do. He had barely been able to speak. All he could think was that Thierry was dead—that he would never speak again.

It was too late now, of course. If he changed his mind and tried to find another way, she would be suspicious, and then when he made his move she would know. She would guess that he had set that fire. She would realize that he hadn’t threatened her until she refused him the room, and that would spell disaster—for him, for his informants, for the men in the French army who needed what he provided.

He thought about the years he had spent building his career, and about how they would be lost if he let his friendship for Serena rule him. He thought about his young cousin, serving in a regiment that was bound to come under heavy fire in the battles to come. It was no use; his mind kept coming back to his sirène, looking young and scared.

“Are you all right?” Thierry’s voice asked, and René jumped, his heart pounding. Of course it was only Hathaway, wondering why René was staring at the door to his room.

He had better start thinking of Thierry as Elijah Hathaway. Even the name Thierry had been a lie; even that was gone. Nothing was his anymore. “I’m fine,” he snapped, and went into the apricot room and slammed the door.

A knock came on the connecting door early the next morning. Solomon was already awake and dressed, gathering the things he needed for his trip to Hathaway’s Fine Tailoring to drop off the week’s commissions and get the following week’s. “Come,” he called, shoving a couple of hanks of dyed silk thread into his pocket.

Serena walked through the door. He glanced up—and stared. She was wearing a morning gown of cheap, pale orange cotton, a pretty linen ruffle tucked into the neckline. The lace shawl over her elbows looked to have been made on one of the new Leavers machines. A chinoiserie ivory fan and a beaded reticule dangled from her wrist. More surprising still, her dark hair was wrapped in an orange-and-gold-striped bandeau and gathered into an adorably careless bundle at the crown of her head. Solomon could have sworn he even caught a touch of rouge on her magnolia skin. She looked like an adorable young bourgeoise. It was only on a second, closer inspection that he saw the pinning of the bodice and her careful walk to hide that the dress wasn’t hers. It had been made for someone larger in the bust, and maybe a little taller.

Her silver eyes glinted at his slack-jawed expression. “Oh, good, you’re wearing something middle-class. Come along, we’re going to St. Andrew of the Cross.” She held out her left hand and Solomon saw a little pearl ring on the third finger. “You’re my fiancé now. I hope you don’t mind.”