A Lily Among Thorns(32)

He rolled his eyes. For her, surely it was just one more tussle for dominance with her father.

She slammed her fist down on his worktable so hard Solomon had to leap forward to save his muriate of tin from an untimely end. He frowned at her, and she glared unrepentantly back.

“Serena, calm down. I’m not going to do anything rash. I was only saying—”

“Then don’t say it,” she said harshly, “because if I have to go collect your body from God knows where, I will be seriously displeased.”

She was fighting for him now. He couldn’t help it. He smiled at her.

She stood there a little longer, looking vaguely at a loss. Then she said, abruptly, “I’m sorry about last night. With the candle. That was stupid of me.” She spun on her heel and left the room, presumably to put arrangements in place. This time he didn’t try to stop her.

René came in late, feeling very harassed. Supper was over, and the hall was abandoned except for Serena, waiting alone at the desk for any latecomers in need of a room and going over what looked like next week’s grocery orders. “Well,” she inquired maliciously, “did my father find you?”

René glared at her. “Yes, he did. Really, sirène. How could you set him on me like that? I was peacefully viewing the antiquities, and then, there I was, cornered by your father! It was not amusant, I assure you!” Seeing Lord Blackthorne was never amusant. And the way he was dealing with Serena was a fool’s way. Of course, René had not been precisely clever himself.

Serena smiled. “What did he say?”

“He—er—he said that I must look to you closely, and that you are not faithful to me! I thanked him and tried to duck into the next room, but he had hold of my sleeve. My favorite coat, sirène! He touched it. I will have to have it washed and pressed!” He thrust the sleeve out for her inspection, but Serena was giggling and didn’t look at it. “Perhaps I should send him the bill, what do you think?”

Not many people, he thought, had seen Serena laugh like that. He’d always been proud of that—how after the first few months of their partnership, when she was too stiff and cold and desperate not to appear a frivolous little girl, he could always make her laugh. She had been so young; she was still so young. The lost look on her face when he’d handed her those marriage documents was like a hole in his chest. But now, for a moment at least, he could pretend everything was all right between them.

He drew himself up theatrically. “It is not to laugh, sirène! I can scarcely believe my ears! My beloved, sneaking about with a rascally tailor who is not so handsome as I!” Serena laughed harder. “Where is he, this wretch who has brought shame to the Sacreval name? I will teach him to cuckold me!”

Serena stopped laughing abruptly, and the hole in his chest widened. “No one can cuckold you, René, because we’re not married!” She went through the swinging door to the servants’ corridors, shoving it hard. René stood where she had left him, watching the door sweep back and forth.

In a few minutes Sophy came out. Without a word she walked to the desk, taking care not to come within three feet of him. She wobbled a little. It was Sunday night, so Serena had probably pulled her away from cards and whisky with Antoine. She was wearing long sleeves. He wondered whether she still hid aces up her cuffs.

She had been dear to him, too. “Sophy, we are old friends. Do not—”

“You and Serena are old friends too and it didn’t stop you stabbing her in the back first chance you got. So apparently old friendship permits me to tell you to get your ugly Frog mug out of our front hall. Good night to you, my lord.”

René bit his lip. “Good night, Sophy,” he said quietly, and went upstairs.

He stopped before his door—that is, he still thought of it as his door, but it was Solomon Hathaway’s door now. He cursed that damned anglais with all his heart. This was his fault. René had never wanted to use the marriage lines; when his superiors had pressed him to do it, he had told them no. He hadn’t thought he would need to. His sirène would take him back, and everything would go forward as before.

He had heard that a man was living in his room, the Stuart Room. He knew that Lord Blackthorne had failed to oust him. But Blackthorne was a crude, vicious Englishman whom Serena hated. She would listen to René because he was her friend. Her friend—the irony of it made him clench his fist now.

He had come here, almost pleased to be back, and seen Hathaway. He had thought it was Thierry and been so glad. And then . . . Thierry was dead—and an Englishman—and this Hathaway was living in René’s room. Hathaway had stood there and looked at him with Thierry’s eyes, and Serena wouldn’t make him go away. She wouldn’t even make him leave her office so René could think. All he had had were those papers. And the man was a Hathaway from Shropshire, so René had not been able to risk waiting.