A Lily Among Thorns (39 page)

“I don’t think any the worse of him for it,” Solomon protested, but he was starting to feel sick.

“Don’t you?” she demanded intently. “You blamed him for it. ‘I hate to see you exposing yourself to the insults of men like Varney,’” she mimicked. “As if he did it on purpose!”

Was that how it had sounded to Elijah? It wasn’t what he’d meant—was it? He just wanted his brother to be safe. “Sacreval told me that in Paris, the police beat Elijah so badly he could not walk. How am I supposed to approve of something that—that—”

“My father could have me locked up on a word,” Serena said flatly. “Lord Braithwaite threatened and insulted me at a
ton
party. René could pretend to be my husband and take everything I owned, and no one would stop him. Because I’m a woman and because of the life I’ve lived, I sleep with a bar across my door
and a loaded pistol in my night table. And I’m not asking for your
approval
for any of it.”

In a sudden, blinding flash everything was clear. It was as she said: Elijah and Serena weren’t angry with him. They were just sick of being afraid. But they couldn’t stop, because it was dangerous simply to be themselves, simply for them to live honest lives. And what he had said to Elijah was,
If you stopped being yourself, you would be safe.
No one had ever said that to Solomon, because it was already safe to be him. No wonder Elijah was angry.

And no wonder Serena was angry. He remembered what she’d said outside St. Andrew of the Cross:
You think that if you just keep digging at me and trying to crack me open I’ll giggle and say, ‘Oh, la, Mr. Hathaway, what a tease you are!’
It wasn’t really true; he had never wanted her to be sweeter or kinder. But he had wanted to crack her open. He still did. He wanted her to show herself to him, all the thoughts and feelings she’d been hiding for years.

He’d thought he could make her happy, that everything would be all right if she would just understand that he didn’t care about her past—but she was right, it was easy for him not to care. It was Serena who cared, who cared deeply because she’d been deeply hurt. She was still being hurt every day, every time some blackguard like Smollett made a crass joke and every time a party of young bloods bullied a waitress.

This wasn’t about him. It was about Serena, and about his brother. They were sick of being afraid—and hell, so was he. He was sick of being afraid that he wasn’t good enough, when it had never been about that to begin with. He was sick of dragging things out because he was afraid to put them to the test.

“You’re right,” he said.

She blinked, her face going from “ready for battle” to “speechless” in about five seconds. He couldn’t help laughing, even as his heart ached. How was he going to live, knowing that Serena was across town making a face and he couldn’t see it?
“You’re right,” he said again. “I haven’t been fair. I was afraid, too. Afraid of being alone, I suppose. Afraid of being without you. But—you know, I—” His voice cracked. Damn.

“Solomon—” she said, and he loved the way she said his name so much that he had to keep talking or he might do something selfish like tell her that.

“I never believed, before I met you, that I could go my own way,” he said. “That I could deserve more than someone was willing to give me. That love might not be worth the sacrifices we have to make for it. You’ve taught me that. What I mean is—I
do
understand, if you decide you don’t want—” He waved a hand between them, as if in a moment the word that would describe all that lay between them would pop into his head. As if such a word existed. He shook his head. “This.”

She stared at him, the shadows making her eyes look huge. “You’re giving up?”

He stood up. “That’s exactly the problem. This has turned into some kind of tug-of-war. I’m not giving up. I’m just saying that I won’t push you anymore. I won’t ask for anything. I’ve been torturing you, and it’s not fair. If nothing’s changed when we go back to London on Sunday, I’ll leave. Just please—make a decision that will make you happy. Take good care of yourself.”

She looked as lost as he felt. He went to the bed and stood looking down at her: at her perfect face and her perfect body that suddenly, for the first time, looked ordinary.

She wasn’t a goddess, or an angel, or a harpy. She was a woman, a frightened, unhappy, determined, beautiful woman, and he loved her so badly that just leaning down and brushing his lips across her left temple, where her birthmark was, brought tears to his eyes. “Thank you for everything,” he said, and left.

Solomon made his way back to the room he shared with Elijah—the room he had shared with his brother since they were born. The candle was out, and Elijah was lying on his side facing the wall, but Solomon could tell that he wasn’t sleeping. Last night at the posting inn, it had been the same; but then he had let Elijah pretend and gone directly to his own bed. Not tonight. He lit the candle. “Li?”

After a moment, Elijah turned over and sat up. Except for his boots, he was still fully dressed, wearing his old bottle-green coat. For a jolting moment Solomon thought maybe it was all a dream, that Elijah was dead and not sitting here a few feet away.
It couldn’t be a dream
, he told himself.
I would never dream that new darned place in the corner of Elijah’s pocket
.

Then he remembered Serena saying that very first night,
You didn’t just dream it
, and holding up the corner of her quilt, and the strange sense of vertigo receded. It was all real, and he had been ready to let it slip away without trying.

“Li,” he began, “I’ve been a fool. I ought never to have said what I did—
any
of it.”

Elijah’s eyes shot up to meet his. “
What
?”

“Don’t look so surprised. I know I’ve failed you—and if you don’t want to speak to me again, at least this time I’ll know you’re all right—”

To his surprise, Elijah exploded. “Damn it, Sol, what the hell is wrong with you? Of course I want to speak to you again!”

Solomon sat down on the edge of his bed with a thump. “Thank God.”

“How could you ever think I wouldn’t?”

Solomon rubbed at his temple. “Well—you did without me before, didn’t you? I didn’t know it, but in a way you’ve been doing without me all our lives. I thought I knew you like the back of my hand, and now—I don’t know what to think. I remember being jealous of you when we were boys because you’d wink at pretty girls in the street when I was afraid to, and I feel as if I must have been blind—”

Elijah said a French word Solomon was sure couldn’t be translated in front of their mother. “Afraid—you were
afraid?
It was easy to wink at girls in the street because I didn’t
want
them! When it came to what I did want, I was so terrified I could barely see straight. After I kissed Alan the first time, I was sick in the bushes on my way home. I was sure he’d never speak to me again, and he’d tell everyone, and
you’d
never speak to me again either because there was something wrong with me, something twisted and diseased.”

“There’s nothing wrong with you,” Solomon said fiercely.

“Thank you,” Elijah said with a rueful smile.

“God, how did I miss this? All those years—was I not paying attention? Didn’t I care? How could I have failed you this badly?”

“Oh, for God’s sake!” Elijah broke in. “We failed
each other
—you didn’t know anything was wrong, but I did, and I didn’t fix it. God, I was always so jealous of you, too.”

Solomon stared. “Jealous of
me
?”

“Yes, you! You always knew where you belonged. You wanted to work for Uncle Hathaway and you wanted to be a chemist and you were
good
at it. You always knew exactly what you wanted and you always seemed to know what was right. Father approved of you. You didn’t while away your hours tinkering in the blacksmith’s shop and reading immoral French poetry. And he had no notion of the sick, shameful things I was
really
doing there. When I found out you were all going to think I was dead, I thought, ‘At least it’s me and not Solomon. None of them would
know what to do without him.’” Elijah stopped for a moment. “You had no idea how lucky you were.”

So Serena had been right; Elijah didn’t think he was the dull, conventional one at all. His brother thought
he
was the lucky one, the one who had always known what to do. They had both been such blundering idiots. “I wish you had told me,” he said at last. “You didn’t have to do this alone.”

“I know that now. But I was afraid. I’m not the dashing, enigmatic one,” Elijah said desperately. “I’m just
me
, Sol, and you’re ready to let me go because you think I’ll be all right, but I
need
you.”

“You did all right without me in France,” he said, still struggling to accept this new vision of the world.

“You did all right, too.”

And as awful as the last year and a half had been, Solomon realized abruptly that Elijah was right. Even if his brother had never come back—life would have gone on, somehow. He could even have been happy. Serena had shown him that it was possible.

Elijah was still speaking. “In books they always say, ‘Without you it was as if someone had cut off my arm.’ Sol, without you I felt like someone had sawed open my skull and ripped out half my brain. But I had to get the hell out of here. I had to stop being afraid all the time. I had to be alone. Paris was so different from Shropshire—there were clubs full of people like me, and I was helping England, and I was
good
at it. All that careful acting, all those years, had just been
practice
. I felt right, suddenly. But I missed you.”

He pressed the heels of his hands into his eyes. “I should have told you I was alive. I told myself you would know so I wouldn’t have to admit I was taking the coward’s way out.”

“We failed each other,” Solomon said, and it felt like absolution. He smiled. “So we’re all right now?”

Elijah smiled back. “We’re all right now.”

After a moment, Solomon asked, “When are you leaving for France?”

Elijah looked up guiltily. “As soon as I can. And—I never thanked you—”

“You don’t have to.”

“I think I do. You shouldn’t have done it, but if I had walked into that room and seen his brains all over the wall—” Elijah swallowed.

“I know.”

“I may be back very soon. He may not want me anymore.”

Solomon snorted. “Doing it a little too brown, Li. When a man’s final thought before he blows his brains out is to say what will make you feel best about driving him to it, he wants you.”

Elijah looked up quickly. “It wasn’t
really
his final thought, was it?”

Solomon assumed a romantic attitude. “‘Please, tell him I’”—he sniffled and wiped away an imaginary tear with a dramatic forefinger—“‘tell him I never loved him. Tell him I knew all along. Tell him I was a blackhearted rogue. Oh, Elijah, Elijah!’”

Elijah reached over and punched him in the shoulder, but he was beaming. “So—you think he’ll take me back?”

“He’d better, or I’ll be facing him at twenty paces for trifling with my brother.”

“I thought you didn’t approve of dueling.”

“Well, no sense being slavish about it,” Solomon replied airily.

Elijah laughed. “Thanks, Sol.” He flashed a wicked grin. “So, you and Serena?”

Solomon swallowed hard and looked away, his relief fading. “I don’t know.” And finally, he began to tell his brother the whole story.

“I’m glad Solomon brought you,” Mrs. Hathaway told Serena as they were in the kitchen preparing for dinner on Saturday.

Serena set down the spoons with a clatter. “How can you be? He oughtn’t to have done it.”

Mrs. Hathaway’s eyebrows rose. “Well, perhaps it was a little thoughtless of him. It hasn’t been a very comfortable visit for you, has it?” She sighed. “I hope we haven’t given you a disgust of us.”

No, it hadn’t been a comfortable visit. True to his word, in the day and a half since their arrival Solomon had—not ignored her, never that, but there had been no more intimate conversations. He hadn’t flirted. He’d watched her, that was all. His private communications and whispered asides had been saved for Elijah, and while she was glad matters were mended between them, she missed him dreadfully already. And even the new distance between them didn’t spare her from Mr. Hathaway’s evident skepticism or his attempts to keep Susannah from spending too much time in her company.

The worst of it was that she couldn’t even long for the visit to be over, because when it was, they would go back to London and Solomon would leave—unless she asked him to stay. And how could she do that?

“Of course you haven’t,” she said. “That wasn’t what I meant at all. Solomon loves you and I don’t want—he’ll quarrel with his father and I
told
him he couldn’t bring me here even if you’re all being very kind ignoring my awful reputation—” Her voice was rising alarmingly; she snapped her mouth shut and stood very still.

“Oh, you poor dear!” Mrs. Hathaway put an arm around Serena’s shoulders. “Here, sit down, I see we need to talk. Would you like some tea?”