A Lily Among Thorns (22 page)

“Oh, I
am
sorry, Braithwaite,” Solomon said earnestly, but there was a malicious note in his voice. “You know how clumsy I’ve always been. I hope I haven’t mussed your coat, I worked so hard on it. Here, let me help you up.” And he held out his hand. Braithwaite examined Solomon’s dye-stained, scarred hand for a weighty moment—then curled his lip and got to his feet unaided.

A wash of red clouded Serena’s vision. She lunged at Braithwaite, only to find herself cannoning solidly into Solomon’s broad chest as he stepped between them.

“
Move
,” she hissed, her gaze still fixed on Lord Braithwaite’s smirk.

“Stop it,” Solomon murmured. “It doesn’t matter, I don’t mind.” Then, when she didn’t step back, he added in an urgent undertone, “He’s our
customer
, Serena, stop making a scene.”

Her vision cleared, leaving her extremely conscious that she was pressed up against Solomon and that his hands were gripping her bare upper arms. She drew in a deep breath and stepped back. What had got into her?

Their entire set had stopped dancing and was staring at them. “This is precisely why people of their ilk should not be allowed in well-bred homes,” someone whispered audibly.

Serena drew herself up. “It’s getting stuffy in here,” she said,
with a disdainful, sweeping glance at the gawkers. “Let’s find a withdrawing room.” She took Solomon’s arm and pulled him away.

Solomon followed Serena out of the ballroom into the hall. She looked left and right, then led the way unerringly to Mr. Elbourn’s study. He looked a question at her. “A member of my staff bribed a member of his,” she explained as the heavy wooden doors closed behind them.

Solomon wondered if he should say anything about the scene in the ballroom. But as nothing occurred to him, and as Serena began immediately to look behind the pictures over the mantel, he sat down in Mr. Elbourn’s graceful chair and examined the drawers of his desk.

The first few drawers opened easily enough, but they merely contained stationery, old invitations, spare pen nibs, bottles of colored ink, and the like. The only thing that gave Solomon pause was the pistol in the shallow center drawer. The danger of their situation began to seem real.

The bottom left-hand drawer, which was deeper, was locked. “Serena.”

She turned toward him from where she was turning over the cushions of the window seat, and the breath caught in his throat at the blank, bitter look in her quicksilver eyes. He had been almost satisfied earlier with his small revenge on the gentlemen who insulted her, but now he felt he could have disemboweled each and every one.

“Yes?” she asked impatiently. “Have you found something?”

“This drawer is locked.” He pushed the chair back to give her room.

She knelt beside him, fishing in the neckline of her dress. He looked away hastily, and when he looked back she held a little roll of black velvet. With a flick of her wrist, the velvet unrolled to reveal a dozen curious steel implements. She laid her gloves on
the desk and set to work on the locks. He watched her, watched her arms and hands in the moonlight, the way it silvered and shaded them, the tender back of her neck. He wondered if she knew he was watching.

One week, she had told Elijah. One week before either Sacreval tossed her into the street, or she broke him and his network. If she lost the Arms, where would she go? Would she let Solomon help her, or would sheer stubborn pride and shame and misery send her off to lick her wounds alone? What if she went back to whoring again? It would break her heart—and, he was beginning to suspect, his. Whatever happened, she wouldn’t make it easy on either of them. It occurred to him that if they were successful and Sacreval was executed, she might not take that much better. And even if she did—

That thought, somehow, was even harder to face. When all the spying and the intrigue were over, what would be left? What did he want from her, and what would she give him? Could they really be happy together?

A week ago he had had nothing. He had looked forward to nothing. Now he had his brother again, and—and Serena, whatever she was to him. At some point in the last week, without his noticing, she had gone from an ice storm he wanted to breathe in to something as vital and familiar as the air in his lungs. Everything had changed in so short a time. He knew how easily it could change back. He was terribly, unbearably afraid that it would.

With an audible click, the drawer slid forward a fraction of an inch. Serena gave a satisfied smile and grasped the handle. Solomon shoved his thoughts aside and leaned forward.

At that moment there came the clear sound of footsteps in the corridor and the low murmur of well-bred masculine voices.

Solomon froze, but Serena never hesitated. Sweeping the lock picks out of sight under the desk, she straddled him. The rustle
of her petticoats as they slid up to reveal a dazzling length of silk stocking was the loudest sound he had ever heard. A hand fell heavily on the doorknob, and she took his face in her hands and kissed him.

It was for the benefit of the men outside, he knew that. And yet it felt more genuine than either of their previous kisses. The first time, he’d kissed her, and she’d merely let him. The second time, she’d been playing some twisted game that made sense only to her.

Now she was kissing him with no pretense at all, as if she’d only been waiting for this excuse. As if she’d seen her chance and taken it. Her bare hands were chilly against his face, her mouth was hot, and both trembled.

He slid one hand up to cup the back of her head, tiny silk flowers and dark hair against his palm, and kissed her back fiercely. After a moment, her hands and lips gentled and steadied. She opened her mouth and pressed against him, unfurling under his touch like a lily blossoming among thorns, bright and unexpected and vulnerable. Her hands slid down to his shoulders and chest. He knew they were going to have to stop soon, but he couldn’t remember why.

He ran his hand down over her thigh to where her petticoats pooled and slid it slowly up her leg under her skirts. Serena moaned against his mouth. He felt on the brink of being transmuted into something entirely new.

The door opened.

It felt as good as Serena had known it would. It felt better. It was wonderful, and Solomon was kissing her back, and she wanted it to be just like this forever. She wanted it so badly. She should pull back now. She should look at Mr. Elbourn. Solomon’s hand was warm and heavy on her thigh, and his other hand was tangled in her hair. His chest was rising and falling in great heaves under her palm; she could feel his breath on her skin in the tiny intervals between kisses.

Deep down she’d hoped all along she’d have to do this. It had been at the back of her mind all evening. She’d felt him watching her pick the lock, and she’d wanted his touch on the back of her neck the way a man wanted air when he was being smothered.

She wasn’t going to stop until she had to.

She heard Mr. Elbourn’s voice from the doorway. “I’ll show you my First Folio another time, MacOwen.” Footsteps retreated, and as the door closed behind them an undertone was carried back to them—“Get hold of yourself, man! It’s nothing we haven’t all seen before.”

Serena surfaced with a gasp. Solomon’s eyes were still closed, his chest still heaving under his purple silk waistcoat. She didn’t know if he’d even heard.

It’s nothing we haven’t all seen before.
But it was. True, they’d all seen her legs. They’d seen her naked body, but Solomon saw
her
. And she let him. None of them—not even Harry, her first, whom she’d thought she loved—had ever had the power over her that Solomon did after three kisses.

She climbed off him slowly, not meeting his eyes. Straightening her skirts, she leaned back against the desk, supporting herself
with the heels of her hands on the rosewood. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have done that.” Her voice sounded exposed, too, raw and thready.

He blinked, stung. “Why
not?
”

With a swirl of skirts she knelt on the floor, yanking the drawer out onto the floor with a clatter. “Because it was stupid,” she said savagely. She was so weak. Smollett and Elbourn and Braithwaite and all those men out there made her feel so awful and ashamed and angry with just their leers and their jibes, and she’d never given a damn about any of them. How would she feel when
Solomon
didn’t think her worth a second glance anymore? Just the tiny frown now settling between his brows made the whole world seem wrong.

“Why was it stupid?” he demanded. “Dash it, Serena, are we going to have to do this
every
time we—?”

Every time: he was so sure of her already. Her mouth twisted. “We have work to do.” She lifted out stacks of paper. Nothing interesting there that she could see, but the drawer looked shallower than it should. She felt around the edges of the bottom. Out of the corner of her eye she could see Solomon rolling up her lock-picking tools in their strip of black velvet and setting them next to her reticule. Then he waited.

With every movement she made, the gown he’d designed for her caught the light. The silk shifted against her legs. He’d had his hand on her thigh.

She could feel his presence even though she wasn’t looking at him. She could feel his frown. She wanted to kiss him again. She wanted to apologize. She wanted to kiss him, then apologize, then kiss him again until he forgave her. She wanted to make him smile.

But she couldn’t. She was a coward and she couldn’t do anything but slide her fingers around the edges of Elbourn’s desk drawer, pressing, pressing—

The bottom popped out of the drawer. “Aha!” She felt
ridiculous the next moment.
Aha?
But it was instantly clear that here were the incriminating documents they were looking for—the top one was in French, and under it was a map showing what looked to be troop movements.

It was working! It would work. She had bought herself and René a few more days. She selected a few sheets from the stack, replaced everything else in the drawer, and relocked it.

She turned her back to put the lock picks and the carefully folded documents into the bodice of her dress. “Solomon—” She paused for a long moment, drawing on her gloves.

He didn’t wait for her to figure out what to say. “I’ll go first. That way it will look like we’re trying to hide our rendezvous. Meet me in the ballroom in ten minutes.” And he left her there.

She had only managed to wait seven and a half minutes. She scanned the ballroom carefully. She couldn’t see Solomon anywhere. He must be behind one of the great pillars or potted orange trees. She shifted to the right, by the buffet table.

Something caught her eye, peeking from under the tablecloth. The edge of a pair of gloves: Solomon’s gloves. She bent down and picked them up. They were kid, butter-soft and expertly made with small mother-of-pearl buttons. They still retained, slightly, the shape of Solomon’s hands. He’d taken them off, and his hand had been bare against her thigh. Hurriedly, she stuffed the gloves into her reticule.

Scanning the room again, she spotted him—he was indeed behind one of the pillars. She’d recognize that edge of shoulder anywhere.

As she got closer, she saw that he was in close conversation with Jack Ashton. She’d never much liked Ashton—he was always late paying his tab at the Arms and he’d had a reputation for doing the same at Mme Deveraux’s. However, she supposed it stood to reason that Solomon would be happy to converse
with a less taxing companion than herself. Succumbing to a base impulse, she kept the pillar between them and listened when she got close.

“Braithwaite’s turned into a real ass since university, hasn’t he?” said Ashton.

“He was always an ass,” Solomon said.

Ashton made a noncommittal noise. “I still can’t believe
you
managed to bag the Siren.”

Serena couldn’t hear Solomon’s wince, but she could imagine it. “I wouldn’t call it ‘bagging,’” he said.

“So how many birthmarks have you seen?”

Had he seen the third in the library? Or had his eyes been closed by the time her skirts were pushed up high enough to reveal it?

There was a pause. Then Solomon asked, with an edge in his voice, “There’s more than one?”

“Oho, a setdown! I daresay I deserved that. Naturally you’ve seen all three. But listen, Hathaway, be careful, will you?”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“She isn’t called the Siren for nothing.”

Suddenly Serena couldn’t quite catch her breath.

“Well, no, I assumed it was for her startling beauty and considerable personal charm,” Solomon said bitterly.

“You’ve got it bad.” Ashton sounded concerned.

Serena bit the inside of her cheek.

“That’s not why,” Ashton said. “Well, it is, but it’s also because she lures men to their doom.”

“She lures men to their
doom?
Ash—” Solomon sounded so intensely, incredulously exasperated that Serena’s heart clenched with helpless affection. Oh God. She didn’t want him to hear this story. It was private.

It was ridiculous to want something to be private when the whole
ton
knew about it—it was ridiculous to want
anything
to be private when she’d lived the life she had. But Solomon didn’t
know. Not yet. And she didn’t want him to. She didn’t want to be the Siren to him.