A Lily Among Thorns (40 page)

“No, thank you. Won’t they be expecting their dinner?”

Mrs. Hathaway’s eyes glinted brown like Solomon’s when he was particularly determined about something. “They can wait.” So they sat. Serena focused all her energy on not twisting her handkerchief in her lap.

“Allow me to apologize for my husband. I’ve spoken to him about his behavior, I promise you.”

“Oh, I wish you hadn’t—”

“I certainly did. But really, you mustn’t take it to heart. Mr. Hathaway was much ruder to Jonas, I assure you.”

“He was?” Serena wondered what Mr. Hathaway would think of René. Nothing good, probably.

“Jonas won’t even come to church anymore.”

“Isn’t he a Methodist?”

“Yes, but he used to come every week when he was first courting Susannah. That was before some rather sharp words passed between them on the subject of the church’s organ.”

“The organ?”

Mrs. Hathaway smiled. “My husband is emphatically low church, but he loves that organ, and Solomon plays it. When Jonas intimated that perhaps incense would be next, Mr. Hathaway was very intemperate in his response.”

Serena was surprised into a smile. “Oh, dear.”

Mrs. Hathaway sighed. “You can’t blame Solomon for wanting to show you off.”

“What do you mean?”

Mrs. Hathaway smiled fondly. “It’s obvious how proud he is of you, and well, he’s always been so shy. Elijah was the one who was more popular with girls, you know, and—”

“But Solomon and I aren’t—we’re not—you didn’t really think—” She had never lied so badly in her life.

But Mrs. Hathaway believed her. Her face fell. “Don’t you care for Solomon?”

When had she ever cared for anything more? “You thought that Solomon and I—You wouldn’t mind Solomon bringing home his—his—”

“Solomon wouldn’t bring anyone here that he wasn’t in deadly earnest about,” Mrs. Hathaway said flatly. “Oh, dear. Are you sure you can’t feel anything for him?”

Serena had not the slightest notion what to say. “He’ll get over me,” she said at last.

“I don’t know,” Mrs. Hathaway said worriedly. “He doesn’t get over things easily. And I’ve never seen him look at anyone the way he looks at you.”

“How—how does he look at me?”

“Don’t tell me you haven’t noticed! As if—as if he doesn’t quite believe he’s not dreaming. As if someone had lit a candle behind his eyes. Mr. Hathaway and I—we just assumed—”

Serena got that feeling again, as if everything was tilting sideways, the spoons about to slip off the table and crash onto the floor. “You really
want
me and Solomon to—”

Mrs. Hathaway sighed. “I just want my children to be happy.”

“And you think I can make him happy?” An edge of skepticism made its way into Serena’s voice despite her best efforts.

Mrs. Hathaway gave her a sharp look. “You don’t?”

“I’m not—I’m not the sort of woman who makes people happy,” she said, but it was starting to sound unconvincing even to her, as if the idea were a dress she had outgrown.

Mrs. Hathaway pursed her lips. “You don’t seem to have made yourself very happy, certainly.” She watched Serena, then said, “You know, I ran away from home too when I was a girl.”

“Yes, to get married.”

“True. I don’t say I approve of the choice you made. If Mr. Hathaway hadn’t married me, I would have gone back home. But—well, perhaps it’s rude of me to tell you this, but I never thought your father would be very easy to live with.”

Of course Mrs. Hathaway had known her father. They were all the same age. “Did you—did you know my mother?” she asked, her heart beating faster. She didn’t know what she wanted to hear.

Mrs. Hathaway hesitated. “Yes. I—well, she was a very pretty, charming girl. You reminded me of her when we first met. But I don’t suppose she could have stood up to him.”

Serena blinked back tears, suddenly, for the pretty, charming girl her mother had been—even if Mrs. Hathaway obviously hadn’t liked her. Of course Serena’s girlish airs and graces, when she used them, were clumsily copied from her mother, who had thought they would protect her and had found out her mistake.

“But what I meant to say is that I do understand what made you do it,” Mrs. Hathaway said. “I know what it’s like to be raised as a gently bred girl and to feel as if your family is smothering you with a pillow and telling you it’s for your own good. I told them to go hang, too, and then I cried myself to sleep when my parents wouldn’t speak to me anymore.” She laughed. “I was a great trial to him, but Mr. Hathaway was very patient.” She reached across the table and put her hand on Serena’s arm. “Can you not bring yourself to confide in me?”

To her surprise, Serena wanted to. That
was
how she’d felt, at home. It had been such a relief to break the rules. She’d never heard anyone say it out loud before. But she looked at Mrs. Hathaway, comfortable and motherly with the late afternoon sun streaming through the kitchen windows and turning her butter-colored hair to honey and her hazel eyes a warm gray, and the words dried up in her throat. “No, ma’am,” she said with some difficulty. “I’d like to, but—”

“All right, then.” Mrs. Hathaway squeezed her arm. “I’ve been awfully selfish, thinking only of my son, but of course you must follow your own heart. Don’t let him wear you down—Solomon can be awfully persistent when he wants something. When he was seven and wanted his first chemistry set, he talked about it for six weeks straight until we sent away to London for it. And then when he decided nothing would do but Cambridge, we heard of nothing else for a good half a year until I gave in and asked my brother if he would send him when he was ready. My brother-in-law didn’t want to hire him either. Thought he was born for better things, I suppose.” Mrs. Hathaway pressed her lips
together for a moment. “But Solomon talked him round. He’s always known what he wanted, that boy.”

Serena stared at the heap of spoons. Did Solomon really know what he wanted? Because if he did, then—

Serena had believed that she would make Solomon and herself miserable, and that he would let her. But—he wasn’t letting her, was he? He was breaking it off. All this time, she had called him naive and deluded for loving her. But maybe Mrs. Hathaway was right—he merely saw things as they were and knew what he wanted.

She had thought of herself as different from other women; she had thought of Mrs. Hathaway as practically another species. But they were the same, really. Or they could be. The difference between them was that, like Solomon, Mrs. Hathaway dared to try to be happy.

That wasn’t naiveté, it was confidence and courage, and Serena had refused to see it because then she would have to face her own fear and self-doubt, her own inability to believe she could have what she wanted—or having it, that she could be worthy of it.

What had Solomon said? That sometimes love wasn’t worth what one had to sacrifice for it? Serena was suddenly afraid that all the things she had refused to sacrifice might not be worth what she had lost, what she still stood to lose. She had moped all this time about being ruined, but here she was, ruining herself. Turning herself into a hermit and a coward.

“I—would you be very angry if I asked Solomon to take a walk with me instead of going to dinner?” she asked. It was rude, but she didn’t want to wait.

Mrs. Hathaway gave her a beaming smile. “Not at all.”

The sky was gray, but it was warm and the country lanes were picturesque. The path they were on led to an apple wood half a mile off, and when they wandered off onto the grass it was uneven and soft underfoot. Everything was so different from London. She had forgotten how clear the air was in the country.

“Solomon, I—” Now that the moment was here, she didn’t know how to begin. “I—I want to talk to you.”

“I thought you might.” His face, for once, gave nothing away.

“I don’t—I don’t know how to say it.” Her tongue felt clumsy in her mouth.

“You never do,” he said with a touch of bitterness.

“Don’t be an ass,” she said. “I’m trying.”

“You don’t have to.”

“Don’t patronize me. I know I don’t. But I am, because I want to.”

“You look like you’d rather have your teeth pulled with red-hot pincers,” he said. “When I tell you I love you, you look at me as if I’m holding your head underwater. I can’t—I don’t want to hurt you. I don’t want to be like Daubenay. I don’t want to make demands and beg until you hate me.” But he waited, listening. He’d always believed she could do this, if she wanted to.

A few drops of summer rain splashed onto her hand and she shook them off. “I could never hate you,” she got out. And yes, she
would
rather have her teeth pulled with red-hot pincers, but pulling out her teeth would never bring that wild, wary hope into Solomon’s eyes.

And surely nothing, not even this, could be more terrifying
than losing him. Serena was tired of putting a brave face on things. She plunged forward.

“I’m no good at hating people, can’t you see that? I try and I try and—oh, Lord Smollett is easy, I hate him right enough, but just look what happened with René. I thought he’d turned on me, I thought he didn’t care what became of me, and I still couldn’t hate him. I gossiped with him, I laughed at his jokes, I persuaded Elijah not to turn him in to the Foreign Office, and it wasn’t because of those marriage lines. It was because the thought of him with a noose around his neck and a knife in his gut made me ill. And what I feel for you—it’s so much more.” It was raining a little harder now, but Serena didn’t move, didn’t even raise a hand to shield her face. Neither did Solomon.

“It’s easy for you to say ‘I love you.’ Plenty of people have loved you and stood by you and told you you were worth the trouble. I—it isn’t easy for me. I don’t know how to say it, I don’t know how to do it. I don’t even know if this is love. It’s deeper than I thought it would be—if I tried to uproot it, it would pull my heart out of my chest. I need you so desperately. I need you to make demands, I need you to hurt me. I need you to love me, and you could
stop.
You could decide I’m not what you wanted after all, that I’m not worth the trouble, and I won’t be able to stop feeling this way, I won’t be able to hate you, I won’t be able to
live
—”

Tears stood in her eyes and Solomon, Solomon was looking at her like she was the Holy Grail, like she was the sacred thing he’d been seeking all his life.

“Oh, God, Serena, I—” he began incoherently. Then he stopped himself, smiling shakily. “I’ll try to save the transports and the fevered kisses for a few minutes from now, shall I?”

She stared at her interlocked hands. They were white at the knuckles. A drop of water fell from her hair into her eyes. “I would appreciate that.”

“You’ve never made any particular effort to be pleasant to me, have you?”

She shook her head.

“You’ve been quite a lot of trouble, haven’t you?”

“Yes,” she said in a low voice.

“I think you’re worth it. And I always will.”

“
Why?
”

“There isn’t—there isn’t a
reason.
I just love you.” She opened her mouth to protest and he said, “All of you. Even the wretched parts. Even your nasty streak and your boring gray gowns.”

She didn’t know what to say. She didn’t know what more she needed to hear.

“Now you’re just fishing for compliments,” he said.

“I am not,” she said indignantly, and he stopped trying to hide his smile. He pulled her to him, turning her so her back was to his front, and wrapped his arms around her. “I love you because you understand me,” he whispered in her ear. “I love you because you never give up. I love you because we both hate that Jack Ashton doesn’t pay his bills on time, and because there is no dye that can match the color of your eyes.” He nipped her ear. “Besides, have you ever looked in a mirror?”

She hit him, laughing, and then they were tussling and swatting at each other, giggling and dizzy and light-headed. They fetched up against an apple tree, shaking water down on themselves, and a small red-and-gold apple fell from the tree past Solomon’s shoulder. Solomon reached out and caught it with unwonted grace.

“‘As the apple tree among the trees of the wood, so is my beloved among the sons,’” she quoted, as he dried the fruit on his sleeve. “And what am I? A Thorn among the lilies.”

He stilled in his polishing, and met her gaze. “‘Thou art all fair, my love, there is no spot in thee,’” he promised softly, “no spot save this”—he brushed a thumb over the birthmark on her brow, and she shivered—“and this”—he made a small circle with
his finger on her chemisette, over where the second birthmark lay, and desire unfurled inside her like a flowering tree—“and this—”

“Solomon!” she snapped in a small, pleased tone, and his eyes gleamed.

“I wouldn’t trade one of those spots for all the muslin in India,” he told her. “And is there any difference, really, between a thorn among lilies and a lily among thorns?”

But Serena did not give this philosophical speculation the attention it deserved, because Solomon held out the apple in his scarred hand and the world ground to a halt. Slowly, she reached out and took it. Slowly she brought it to her lips, and just as her teeth broke the skin with a crunch, he said, “Marry me.”