A Lily Among Thorns(115)

“Then why—Serena, he said it. And that’s why you don’t believe I love you, isn’t it? Because you think I’m just a narrow-minded parson’s son who can’t possibly really want you. No matter how many times I tell you I don’t care—”

“It’s easy for you not to care!” she snapped. “It’s easy for you not to consider it—for the moment, anyway, because no one’s making you. Solomon, this isn’t about you!”

He blinked. “What’s it about, then?”

She closed her eyes for a moment. “Solomon, do you remember what I said to you after we kissed in the hallway, that first time?”

His lips tightened. “You said it was boring.”

“But was it boring?”

He swallowed, remembering the way she’d trembled, the way the wool of her gown and the curve of her hips had felt under his hands. How shy and sweet her lips had been under his. “No.”

“I was afraid,” she said, a weight and a quiver in her voice that told him she meant, I am afraid. “I was afraid and I said what I knew would hurt you. Elijah—when he said that to you, he wasn’t angry with you. He was just angry, because he was sick of being afraid. Because now you knew his deepest, dirtiest secret, and you could do whatever you liked with it. And why shouldn’t he be afraid? You didn’t react well when you found out about René. And then—do you think he liked you to see the way Varney treated him? He didn’t want to make even scum like that angry enough at him to want revenge. Do you think that’s the figure he wanted to cut in front of his brother?”

“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.