A Lily Among Thorns (17 page)

There was a gap of about three feet between the staircase and the wall, and Solomon followed the glow of the candle under the stairs to a little icebox and Serena. She was leaning against the wall, her arms crossed tightly, huddled in on herself. When he neared, she turned her face away. “I’ll be fine in a minute,” she said indistinctly.

His first impulse was to go to her, but he tamped it down. He had learned she was a little like a wild bear—you had to tempt her to you with honey, or she would savage you.

Actually, now he thought about it, probably it wasn’t a very good idea to tempt a wild bear to you with honey. What would they do when the honey was gone? Or what if you accidentally got some on your hands? But the principle was sound. “What’s wrong, Serena?”

“I’ll be fine in a minute,” she repeated, and this time it sounded more like she was trying to convince herself than him. “Leave me alone.”

“You know I’m not going to do that.”

She nodded, huddling deeper into herself. “Sometimes I wish you would.”

Only sometimes. Well, that was a victory of sorts. “You’re not having a very good day, are you?”

She gestured at the icebox with one hand while the other stayed tightly clutching her upper arm. Her knuckles were white. “This is one more thing I’ll never get to do again.” She turned her face toward his at last, and the nakedness of her expression wrung something inside him. “How can I leave?” Her voice broke.

Thank you
, Solomon said silently.
Thank you for letting me see this.
He did go to her then, gathering her into his arms. “You won’t have to leave. We have another week. We’ll figure something out. I promise.”

She clung to him for long moments, as if she were still Miss Jeeves. He buried his face in her hair, breathing in the scent of
almonds. She pressed into his embrace, reminding him all too clearly of what it had been like earlier, in his room.

Afraid that in her tangle of emotions she would try to stage an encore of the earlier scene—and that this time he wouldn’t be able to resist—he moved away, holding her not quite at arm’s length to examine her face. A little to his surprise, it wasn’t tearstained, but it was lost and heartbroken and a number of other adjectives that Solomon didn’t like at all.

“You know what you need?”

She shook her head, her eyes large and dark in the candlelight. “Do you?”

“Cartwheels.”

She scoffed weakly, but didn’t protest when he put an arm around her waist and drew her back into the main part of the tunnel.

“Come on, this is perfect! Here, I’ll hold your robe for you—I don’t want you to trip.”

“But I’ll be cold,” she protested.

“You’ll warm up fast.” He held out his hand.

Obediently—and if anything could have told him how deeply miserable she was, it was that word,
obediently
, used in connection with Serena—she removed the robe and handed it to him. She stood there in her shift, shivering a little.

“Have you ever done one before?”

That spurred her into action. She spun away, took a few quick steps forward, and turned a long line of perfect cartwheels down the center of the tunnel.

He sat down on the steps and watched her spin back, bare feet and arms and long white legs flashing out of the darkness into the candlelight. She stopped a few yards from the stairs. Flushed with exertion, she pulled her shift quickly to rights—but not before he saw one dusky aureole.
Oh God.

“Do—” He cleared his throat. “Do you feel better?”

She smiled at him, still panting. “I do, actually. I feel lighter.”

“Good, I’ll fetch the strawberries. Here’s your robe.” He shoved it quickly into her hands and fled back under the stairs.

They ate the strawberries sitting on the stairs. He was uncomfortably aware of her nearness, and tried not to watch her put the strawberries in her mouth, or to think about what else she would have put in her mouth if he hadn’t had scruples.

When the strawberries were all gone Serena said with a sigh, “I suppose we should be getting back to bed.”

“Just a little longer? I don’t feel like sleeping just yet.”

“It’s late.”

“I know.” He looked down and rubbed at a strawberry stain on his finger. At least it didn’t clash with the splotches of black. “Last night, I had one of those dreams about Elijah again. I—just stay a little longer.”

He could hear the smile in her voice when she said, “Would you like me to stay all night?”

He looked askance at her.

“In an entirely platonic way, of course.”

“You promise?”

“I promise. I’m not too keen on my own bed right now either.”

He hesitated, as if there were any chance of his saying no. Serena in his bed. Waking up in the night and hearing her breathing, feeling her warmth. It would be torture, but he wanted it. Apparently, so did she. “Would you?”

“I never back out on a deal.”

Serena was not amused when she woke early the next morning to find herself lying next to an angelically slumbering Solomon, her nose pressed into his side and her arm flung across his chest. She sat up. In the morning light, his freckles were sprinkled across his face like gold dust.

Lord, what a stupid thing to think. She rubbed at her eyes.

Last night had gone all wrong. She had merely planned to
seduce him, to get him to beg her to stay the night. True, she hadn’t expected the experience to be unpleasant—quite the opposite. But she had planned to remain firmly in control.

Instead, the instant he gave in and kissed her, she’d forgotten all her skill and plans, lost in a wave of sensation, unable to do anything but pant and moan and—God, had she really?—
rub
herself against him like a cat in heat.

Her attempt to take back control had been disastrous. When he had recoiled, she’d thought she would die. When he’d said,
I’m not interested in strange women,
that awful ruined feeling from when she was eighteen had risen up and drowned her.
Whore
, she’d thought.
He’s too good for you, and he knows it
. For a second she’d hated him with the same sullen contempt she’d felt the first time she’d seen him. And Solomon—bizarre, wonderful Solomon—had yet again only wanted something more honest from her.

He’d pulled back, stopped her from wrapping her mouth around him and showing him all the advantages of bedding the most notorious ex-whore in London, and somehow they’d ended up sleeping side by side like a couple of innocent babes. She’d
clung
to him. She had let him see her almost in tears. And his ridiculous cartwheels had actually made her feel better.

What was next? Frolicking through a field of daisies? Sweet, tender lovemaking?
That idea does
not
make me feel all warm and tingly
, she told herself firmly. Her mind ignored her, dwelling on the last few moments before Solomon had put a stop to things.

She’d pleasured plenty of men with her mouth and received more than her share of compliments on her technique. But last night it had been different—she’d really
wanted
to, wanted to feel Solomon trembling and hear him gasp with pleasure and know that it was her doing. She had wanted him to look at her the way he looked at his experiments, or at the organ in St. Andrew’s—with utter concentration and joy. She had wanted to give him something wonderful.

She rolled over and looked at Solomon, stretched out in his bed with the morning sun caressing his limbs, and she felt it again. Her hands ached with the need to reach out and touch him. She could do it. He was right there. She could feel the heat from his body warming her legs.

It was seven o’clock. On an ordinary day she would have been up for two hours. She had all of yesterday’s work to do, and Sophy’s teasing to face. Sophy always came to her room in the mornings to help with her stays and buttons. Sophy would know she hadn’t been there. Antoine probably already knew, just as he knew she hadn’t looked at next week’s menus yet. What was the point, when she was going to lose the Arms? She could stay here and touch Solomon, and not face it.

That was when Serena panicked. Solomon had to go. He was clouding her mind, keeping her from figuring out a solution to her problems. Keeping her from caring as much as she should. She was letting him make her feel safe, but the only person who could keep her safe was herself. She had to find his earrings so that he could go.

She would go to Decker’s. She’d go right now. She slid out of bed as slowly as she could and tiptoed to the connecting door, which stood wide open. She shut the door quietly behind her and leaned against it, thinking. Decker required male attire.

Ten minutes later, Serena was tugging on a pair of gleaming Hessians that had stood hidden in her wardrobe behind a green wool evening gown. She shoved her hair inside an old beaver hat and inspected the result in the mirror.
I really must invest in a wig
, she thought distractedly, and left.

Fritz Decker’s was one of the less reputable molly houses in London—that is to say, one of the less reputable establishments catering to men who preferred the company of other men, at least for certain very personal activities—but that didn’t mean Decker was careless. Serena had to give her name, a sign, and a counter-countersign
to the burly, businesslike fellow at the door. At the conclusion of this formality, he ceremoniously showed her in to where the host was sitting in a corner of his taproom.

Decker was a red-nosed man, not many years past his prime. His green-and-gold-striped waistcoat had once been very fine, but was now several years further past its prime than its owner, and covered in grease and beer stains. “Morning, Thorn, it’s good to see you again. What brings you to my humble establishment?”

“Good to see you too, Fritz. I daresay you got my message.”

Decker shifted uneasily. “I warn you I can make no guarantees I’ll tell you what you want to know.”

She gave him a silky smile. “I’ll just have to hope, won’t I?”

Decker sighed lugubriously. “Come in the back and we’ll discuss it.”

Serena glanced about the taproom while he was heaving himself out of his chair. At half-past seven in the morning, there was almost no one about. A group of bleary-eyed men in one corner were glaring at two disgustingly cheery fellows in the opposite corner, who seemed to have just awoken from a good night’s sleep, probably in each other’s company. A few skinny, rouged boys sprawled across stools at the bar.

Serena didn’t recognize more than a handful of the house’s denizens, but she did note that Lord Hartleigh’s coloring was better suited to his wife’s peach sarsenet than Lady Hartleigh’s, and that young Ravi Bhattacharya was thinner than ever and sporting a black eye. They could use a new kitchen boy at the Arms; she’d speak to him about it on her way out. Of course, Sophy had reminded her just last week when she’d hired Charlotte that the Arms wasn’t a Home for Ruined Young Persons, but didn’t she and Sophy give that the lie already?

And then Lord Hartleigh moved a little to the left and Serena’s heart thudded and sank. Sitting just behind him, in close and
very
amiable conversation with Sir Nigel Anchridge, was Solomon.

Serena headed straight for him, ignoring Decker’s forceful sotto voce representations. “If you might give us a moment,” she said to Sir Nigel in freezing accents, and stared at him until he shrugged, grinned, and wandered off. Turning her gaze on Solomon, she saw him give Sir Nigel a conspiratorial wink. “Solomon, what the devil is going on here?” she asked in a furious undertone.

His brow wrinkled. He was wearing fetchingly disheveled riding gear that Serena had never seen before. “I’m sorry to disappoint such a lovely young man, but my name’s not Solomon.” He gave her a friendly leer. “However, since you’ve driven off my friend, perhaps I might be of service to you instead?” He was affecting a different accent, a little more Shropshire and less Cambridge, but she’d already heard him use it at St. Andrew of the Cross.

“I don’t give a damn how you choose to spend your spare time, but please have the courtesy not to lie to me to my face.” It occurred to her, painfully, that this explained the hundred and twenty-five pounds. Not to mention last night. He’d been so kind, so respectful—because he
didn’t want her
.

Solomon crossed a boot over his knee and tilted his head in just that way he had. “I’m very sorry, sir, but there’s been a mistake.” His right hand moved to rest lightly on his top-boot, and two things made Serena realize with a jolt that it was really not Solomon. For one thing, he evidently had a knife in his boot. For another, his hands were smooth and unstained. But they were unmistakably Solomon’s hands—

Serena’s eyes narrowed. “Elijah!” she hissed.

His left hand shot out and caught her by the wrist, and Elijah
said pleasantly, “I’d be very much obliged to you if you didn’t use my name here.”

Her lips thinned. “Very well,” she said quietly. “I’d be very much obliged to you if you’d come with me. Your brother has spent the past year and however long mourning you, and I don’t plan to allow that to continue one moment longer than necessary. I have some business to conduct with our host, but I shall return shortly. I trust you’ll still be here—but should you choose to go, I
can
find you.”