A Lily Among Thorns(106)
Serena glanced sideways at Solomon. “I think your brother might be too squeamish to know.”
He sighed. “I know you’re fine and I’m being foolish, but when I think about you all alone finding out things about Varney that are too lurid to be published—”
“But I wasn’t alone,” Serena said innocently.
Solomon gave up. “Well, I do love watching you put the fear of God into someone.”
“I never put the fear of God into anyone. I put the fear of me into them.”
“Mmm,” he agreed, lowering his voice. “And you do such a good job.”
Elijah looked away. Solomon felt guilty, suddenly, flirting with Serena when Elijah’s lover could already be captured or dead, for all they knew. “Sacreval will be all right,” he said.
Elijah gave him a glance that could have sliced him in half. “None of us has the right to hope for that.”
“That isn’t stopping me.”
“So I see. Interestingly neat pistol graze you’ve got there. Looks almost like it was made by a knife.”
He couldn’t lie to Elijah. “He was about to splatter his brains all over the wall”—Elijah sucked in his breath—“and he asked me to tell you not to feel guilty when he was dead. What was I supposed to do?”
Elijah’s face contorted unpleasantly. “He was manipulating you, you idiot.”
“He wasn’t manipulating me. He said—”
“I don’t want to hear what he said. I thought you didn’t approve of our—connection.”
Solomon flushed. “It’s not that I don’t approve, exactly—only I hate to see you exposing yourself to the insults of men like Varney.” Serena drew in a sharp breath, but he couldn’t take his eyes off Elijah. “When he said that about the pillory, Li—and that’s not the worst of it. You could be—”
“Hanged,” Elijah finished coldly.
Solomon shuddered.
“So I should arrange my life to please Varney now?” Elijah demanded. “I prefer to leave that sort of toadying to you. You’ve always been the dull, conventional one.”
The blood drained from Solomon’s face. “Elijah—”
“You just don’t approve.”
“How can you say that when I saved your lover’s life?”
Elijah’s eyes narrowed. “You want me to thank you for making me responsible for the escape of one of Napoleon’s best agents?”
“The war is over, Elijah.”
“You didn’t know that. Sol, you let me think he shot you!”
“It was the only way I could think of to distract you.”
“So much for all your wondering whether I really care about you. You damned hypocrite. I don’t think I’ve ever hated anyone as much as I hated René in that moment.”
Solomon stared at him.
“You abused my trust to make me betray my office,” Elijah said coldly. “And before you chime in with ‘you let me think you were dead for a year and a half’—I know. But I did it for my country—I did it so that you, so that our family would be safe from Napoleon. And you did this—why? To save Bonaparte’s lackey because you thought I loved him?”
“Don’t you?”
“You’ve made a mockery of both our sacrifices,” Elijah told him. “What was it Varney said? That ‘we sodomites stick together’? Do you expect me to thank you for proving him right?” He turned on his heel and stalked out.
Solomon ran out after him, but Elijah’s door was already locked and he didn’t answer when Solomon pounded on it.
Serena folded her arms and rested her cheek on the cool page of her account book, giving herself up to anxious thoughts. It was past two in the morning. She couldn’t sleep, and she couldn’t concentrate long enough to add a single set of figures.
She would have killed René for the Arms, but she had offered to trade it for Solomon. The crisis was over now: Solomon was safe, the Arms was hers, René would not be executed. But she could not feel relieved.
She would have traded anything to save Solomon—air and sunlight and freedom. She would have traded her life. Next time he told her he wouldn’t touch her unless she begged, she would do it. And every time she thought that might be all right, something happened to remind her of who she was and who he was. There would always be something. What had he said? I hate to see you exposing yourself to the insults of men like Varney. She had exposed herself to so many insults.