A Lily Among Thorns (35 page)

“Non, ma petite sirène,”
he said gently. “I found you all on my own. Your father never had a say in anything I did. He took the money he needed and we used his coastline and that was all.”

Serena nodded. It was as good an answer as any, she decided. And it meant that her father’s threat of Bedlam would disappear now the war was over. It meant she would probably never see him again. It was cold in the tunnel. She leaned her head on René’s shoulder.

He went still for a moment, surprised, but then he put his arm around her shoulders. “You know how I finally figured out how the earrings worked?” he asked her, a teasing note in his voice.

She shook her head.

“When you recited that charming bit of verse to me, my first night back,” he told her. “As soon as I heard ‘place these jewels among Phoebe’s sweet hair’ and ‘shine in the sun,’ I remembered the missing rubies in the carving.”

Serena could have kicked herself.

“If I don’t get out of here, will you send some money to my mother? Elijah knows where.”

“Of course,” she promised. “But you’ll get out. Do you want me to give Elijah a message?”

“No. If he wants me, he knows where to find me.”

The thumping from above stopped abruptly. They both froze, listening. Serena thought about a minute and a half had passed. The couple had thirty seconds for pillow talk. Luckily, they didn’t bother with it at all. Someone laughed, footsteps shifted, and a few seconds later the door banged shut. There was silence.

“It is time,
sirène
,” René said. They stood. “How do you want to play your end of things?”

Serena had been thinking about this. “They can’t suspect I was involved. You’ll have to knock me out.”

René cursed. “Take your stockings off. I’ll bind and gag you. I should have been thinking of it all this time, instead of talking.”

“I’m glad we talked, and there’s no time.” As she said it, they both heard yelling from the kitchen.

“Take off your stockings,” René repeated.

Serena grabbed the lever that controlled the trapdoor from that end and pulled on it. Slowly, with a grinding of gears, the door swung open. Dim light and the scent of lye filled the tunnel.

Then she saw, as if in answer, a widening ray of light at the other end of the tunnel. The yelling was suddenly much louder.

“Don’t go down there,” Antoine shouted frantically. “Please! He’ll kill her!”

Sophy appeared in the doorway of Solomon’s room. “Is Serena all right—ohhh!” A hand flew up to cover her mouth when she saw the blood caked on Solomon’s forehead. “What happened?”

“I’m fine, Sophy,” he said reassuringly. “Here, why don’t you come help me get cleaned up so my brother can go chasing after Sacreval?” He smiled at Elijah, ignoring the fury in his brother’s eyes.

Elijah could hardly accuse him of treason in front of Sophy. His look promised a reckoning, however. “Yes, that would be very helpful, Sophy.”

Sophy shut the door behind Elijah and hastened to Solomon’s side. “Did Sacreval do that?” she asked bitterly, pointing to his wound.

“No,” he whispered, gesturing her to come closer. “Listen, Sophy—Sacreval gave Serena papers that will give her the Arms back. She’s taking him out the laundry tunnel right now. You’ve got to keep them from finding him.”

Her eyes widened. She pushed her glasses up her nose decisively and was halfway to the door when a thought struck him.

“Sophy!”

She came back.

“My brother suspects what’s going on. He may realize what I’ve told you and be waiting outside to follow you. If he is, you must lead him on a wild goose chase.”

She nodded grimly. “Just leave it to me.” She went and opened the door partway, poking her head out into the corridor and glancing about. Then she slipped out the door and shut it softly behind her.

After that, there wasn’t really anything useful to do but wait. Solomon took up the rag and began washing the blood out of his hair. The ticking of the clock filled the room. They were still cheering downstairs. It must be for Wellington’s victory; it must.

He should have let Sacreval blow his own brains out. He should never have let Serena out of his sight.

Solomon had never felt so helpless in his life. But there was nothing more he could do without risking making things much, much worse. He picked the broken pieces of his bottle of Madeira off the floor, piling them into a bowl.

Someone kicked the door open. Solomon sprang to his feet. The Foreign Office agents were entering the room, and one of them bore a lifeless Serena in his arms.

Solomon leaned on his worktable for support as the world spun around him. He watched them lay Serena on the bed. There didn’t seem to be any blood. Could he see her breathing, or was that just his light-headedness? No, she was definitely breathing, and Solomon could move his eyes again.

He seized one of the agents by his shirt and had him up against the wall before he knew what he was about. “What have you done to her? If you’ve hurt her, you bastard—”

Serena’s voice came weakly from the bed. “Solomon?”

He turned. She was watching him, an amused light in her eyes. He didn’t move. “I’m right here,” he said. “What did they do to you?”

Her lips curved. “I imagine they carried me upstairs after René knocked me out.”

“Oh.” He let out a breath and let go of the agent’s shirtfront. “Er, sorry. And did they catch him?”

Elijah raced into the room in time to hear this last question. He stood stock-still in the doorway and stared at his fellow agents. Serena swung herself into a sitting position on the edge of the bed.

“No,” said the man Solomon had assaulted, brushing himself off with a dirty look in his direction. “Forced her ladyship to take him out a secret tunnel, and then he knocked her cold and took off just ahead of us, like. Went over the wall.” The two agents were the only people in the room who were not secretly relieved, Solomon thought.

Elijah closed his eyes for a moment, then opened them. “It
doesn’t matter. We can still send men after him to recover him before he ships for France.”

“I must say I am not overly impressed with Foreign Office initiative,” Serena commented dryly. A livid bruise was forming on her jaw and her lower lip was swelling. “You set up an elaborate operation to capture a man who lives in an inn with which he is intimately familiar, and you don’t trouble to discover that there’s a tunnel to the laundry? One of my employees might have been injured.”

“Fortunate that no one was injured but the two of you, then,” Elijah said blandly.

Serena smiled at him. “Very.”

“Well,” Solomon said, ignoring Elijah’s gimlet eye, “all that terror has left me with a bit of an appetite. Do you think we might go down for a late supper?”

“Yes,” Serena said. “If you have no further use for us, I should like to get dressed and verify that your men have not unduly terrified my guests.”

“Don’t think much could dampen the mood tonight,” one of the agents said, grinning.

Solomon waited with bated breath. Had he and Serena won their gamble?

For the first time, Elijah smiled. “Bonaparte’s been decisively defeated. Rothschild was right.”

The cheering turned into a buzz of speculation when they walked into the taproom and everyone saw Serena’s bruised jaw. She climbed onto a bench.

“Silence, everyone,” she said in a carrying voice. “I am pleased to announce that my erstwhile business partner, the marquis du Sacreval, is no longer on the premises. No one but Mr. Hathaway and myself have been injured in his daring escape. It is to be hoped that the proper authorities can be relied upon to halt
him in his headlong flight to the Continent. In celebration of the decisive victory of His Majesty’s forces, champagne is on the house!”

Solomon and Serena were slumped on their stools, devouring a loaf of bread, when Lord Smollett walked in. “My, my,” he roared. “It’s a regular gin shop in here.”

Serena tried to draw herself up coolly and smile. Solomon could see her face trying to fall into its accustomed sardonic lines for several moments before she gave up and laughed exhaustedly.

Smollett looked rather puzzled, but he quickly recovered himself and gave Solomon a conspiratorial wink. “Women, you know. Apt to be hysterical.”

“Oh, go to hell,” Solomon said.

Serena stood up. “Lord Smollett. Lovely to see you.” She shook her head. “Christ. I can’t believe I wasted so many years giving a damn what you thought of me. Do you want to know something? I don’t regret having been your mistress. Know why?”

Lord Smollett patted his hair. “Don’t think
any
of my lights-o’-love have had much to complain of.”

“It was a small price to pay to be utterly ineligible ever to be your wife,” she told him. “Now that
would
have been a fate worse than death.”

Solomon thought he would treasure the look of stunned outrage on Smollett’s face for the rest of his life. His lordship harrumphed, turned round, and marched straight to the bar. “A large ale, please, and make it snappy.”

Serena sat down. “‘Forsake the foolish and live,’ right? What I don’t understand is why I could never do it before.”

“I think it’s one of those things that works better with two people.”

Solomon was trying to examine his cut in the mirror when a voice came from behind him. “Mr. Hathaway?”

Damn. He must have left the door open. He turned around
to see a small, middle-aged man with a nasty expression on his aquiline features.

“Yes?”

The man sneered. “Should have known I’d find you in front of a mirror. Man-milliner.”

“I beg your pardon!”

“Oh, don’t play the shocked parson’s son with me, Hathaway. We don’t pay you to have delicate sensibilities.”

The penny dropped. Keeping a firm rein on his temper, Solomon began, “Perhaps you are seeking my—”

“I am seeking to know how you came to let Sacreval escape. You sodomites do stick together, don’t you?”

Solomon, stunned into speechlessness, saw his brother standing in the doorway.

“Don’t speak to my brother like that, Varney,” Elijah said coldly.

“Don’t you think that’s my line, Li?” Solomon asked. His heart was racing with fury, but he managed to smile politely at his brother’s Foreign Office superior. “Don’t speak to my brother like that, Varney.”

Varney looked from one to the other of them in fascination. “Oh yes, the twin brother. Does he take after you in that respect, too?”

“None of your damn business!” Solomon said hotly.

“Sol, stop,” Elijah said harshly.

Solomon turned to him in surprise and almost missed Varney’s gleaming, sharp-toothed smile.

“Public morality must be the concern of every citizen,” Varney said. “I imagine that is why the pillory is such a popular spectacle.”

Solomon had a sudden pleasing vision of his hands round Varney’s neck while the man choked and turned purple.

“I am so glad to hear you say so,” Serena said from the doorway, breaking through Solomon’s anger. “Perhaps, as a concerned
citizen, you can offer me some advice on a rather delicate matter.”

Varney’s sharklike grin widened. “At your service, Siren.”

Solomon thought murderous thoughts, but he waited, because Serena could hold her own against this toad.

She smiled back and came to stand beside Solomon. “I’ve been thinking of publishing my memoirs.”

Varney’s grin disappeared.

“But you know,” she continued blithely, “there are a few passages I hesitate to include, for fear they will corrupt the impressionable reader. You have sons. Tell me, do you think they would be overly influenced by the frank description of the perversions of certain men of rank?”

Varney flushed and turned away with an impotent snarl. “Tell me about Sacreval, Hathaway.”

“Certainly, my lord,” Elijah said politely. “He escaped through a secret tunnel that runs from the kitchen to the laundry. The intelligence I was given had not included mention of this tunnel, so I was unable to have it properly guarded. None of the livery stables in the area would admit to having provided Sacreval with a horse. I have posted scouts on all the major roads leading out of the city and sent men ahead to watch the Cornish coast. He did not get more than a quarter-hour’s start of us. I still have hope of bringing him in before he sets sail.”

Varney swore. “You know there’s no hope of catching him. We can’t blockade all of Cornwall. I take it you’ve had no luck discovering where his couriers land?”

Solomon tried not to look at Serena and not to catch Elijah’s eye.

“None, I’m afraid,” Elijah confirmed.

Varney gnawed on the inside of his cheek. “This was bungled badly.”

Elijah drew himself up. “I assure you that all of us did our best,
my lord. The fault was with our information. I had planned to speak to you as soon as possible about the matter. The slip could well have cost Lady Serena, who was Sacreval’s unfortunate hostage, her life. We are all of us very lucky that she escaped with merely a bruise.”

“Very lucky,” Varney said with savage irony.

Serena’s lips twitched.

“Well, keep me informed. I suppose with Boney finally whipped, the Frog can’t do much harm at any rate.” With another seething glance round the room, Varney saw himself out.