A Lily Among Thorns (23 page)

“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.

When they reached the Arms, it was eleven o’clock, hours before anyone would expect them back. Though he was usually in bed by now, tonight Solomon was wide awake.

Serena had gone to her office to do the day’s books, and Elijah wasn’t in his room, so Solomon headed to the taproom to wait for his brother. Nursing a mug of ale in the corner and trying to arrange what he would say, he became slightly less enthused about telling Elijah what had happened at the ball.

The whole thing was a little embarrassing, after all. A passionate kiss to cover up illicit spying followed by a fistfight ought to sound dashing and heroic, but Solomon thought it would probably sound a little pathetic instead. If it had been a story about Elijah, it would have sounded dashing and heroic; it would have
been
dashing and heroic, because Elijah would have done it all differently.

“Hullo,” someone said. “Mind if I join you?”

He looked up. It was Sophy, her spectacles glinting in the yellow light from the taproom lamps and a cloak draped over her arm. He was a little surprised, but he said, “Please do. Would you like a pint?”

She smiled. “You paying?”

He nodded.

She waved at Charlotte, then slid into the booth across from him. She was wearing the orange dress Serena had worn to St. Andrew of the Cross. It disconcerted him how different it looked on her; even the color looked different against her dark skin. And she wasn’t wearing any linen ruffles in the neckline. “How did it go?”

He glanced involuntarily to where Sacreval sat at the bar, surrounded, as he had been since his return, by patrons eager to hear details of life in Bonaparte’s Paris.

“Don’t look,” Sophy said quietly. “He can’t hear us from there, but he’ll see if you look.”

Solomon propped his cheek on his fist and watched her for a moment. “Why don’t you ask Serena?”

“Because I want a straight answer,” Sophy said promptly.

He snorted. “She’s not very good at giving those, is she?”

She sucked her lower lip into her mouth. “No one is. But she’s worse than most.”

He spread his hands. “I don’t understand it! I don’t understand what is so dashed hard about admitting that you enjoyed a
kiss
, for heaven’s sake. Everybody likes kissing, don’t they?”

“I don’t.” Charlotte banged a small glass of dark liquor down in front of Sophy. Solomon blinked at her. “Well, I don’t. Thanks for helping me clean up that cucumber soup last week, by the way.”