A Lily Among Thorns(42)

A ragged little girl of perhaps six or seven detached herself from the crowd and came scuttling over. “Yes, sir?”

“Do you know who this lady is, Mo?”

The girl shook her head.

“Look at her face.” Doyle tapped his brow meaningfully.

Mo’s eyes went wide as platters. She stared at Serena’s birthmark with something approaching worship. “You’re the Black Thorn!”

Solomon saw that Serena was trying very hard to make her expression more forbidding and less charmed. She was such a soft touch. “Yes, I’m the Black Thorn. And you’ve stolen my friend Solomon’s pocketbook.”

The little girl’s awe turned to horror. “He’s Solomon Hathaway?” Solomon frowned. She’d heard of him?

Serena nodded.

“Are you going to have my—”

“Not if you give it back,” Serena said very quickly. So she really had put it about that no one was to touch him, in terms so brutal she evidently didn’t want him to hear what they were. And people were genuinely afraid of her. He tried to wrap his mind around that.

Mo fished his pocketbook out of a ragged pocket and handed it back to Solomon, who checked it for fleas under pretense of counting the bills. Sixpence was missing, but he didn’t say anything. “I want to be just like you when I’m grown,” Mo was telling Serena, who looked decidedly taken aback. “I want an inn and people under me, and if anyone touches me I’ll have their—”

“I wish you luck,” Serena interrupted. “Give Bridget my regards,” she told Doyle, and tugged Solomon away.

As they walked away, he could hear Doyle saying, “I’ve told you a hundred times, you don’t touch ’em till I give you the signal, like this—”

“The Black Thorn?” he asked.

She grimaced. She was so adorable when she was embarrassed. “It’s a stupid nickname. I think it was a joke originally, because it sounded frightening and I was trying to be frightening and wasn’t yet. The only thing intimidating about me was my father’s title. By now it’s just what people call me.”

He wondered suddenly what it had been like for her when she was still learning how to be intimidating. What had she done then when someone pinched one of her waitresses or told her they’d liked her better as a whore? She used to have the most expressive eyes, Sophy had said. He hated the idea of everyone being able to see how scared she was. He hated the idea of her having to destroy that part of herself to become what she was. “What exactly did you tell people you would do to them if they hurt me?”

“You’re too squeamish to know.”

He looked back at Mo. “I’m too squeamish?”

Serena looked back at Mo, too. Her eyes were still expressive, when she wasn’t thinking about it. That made him feel better. “I’m sure she’s heard worse.”

As they walked down to Fleet Market, occasionally stopping to talk to a strolling receiver, Solomon listened to the cries of the vendors with a new ear. “Fine silver eels!” and “Sweet china oranges! Scarlet strawberries!” and “Fresh hot!” How many of them had watches hidden in the bottom of their baskets? How many of them had grubby little apprentices? What could Mo really do if anyone touched her? He wished she’d stolen a shilling.

By the time they reached Fleet Street, he also wished he had four hands. Two pies, an orange, a pitcher of hot tea, and a twist of newspaper with oysters and butter bread inside was a lot to carry even for two people. Luckily, the next man Serena stopped was a basket man.

Dina Levy had heard of his earrings. “Decker has them, unless he is breaking them down already,” she said in heavily accented English, pocketing the half-crown Doyle had refused. “He is a closemouthed old courva, but his client was down at the Blue Ruin last week. Everybody is a gossip with that much gin in them.”

Serena smiled brilliantly. If anything could cheer her up, this would. She was in her element. Solomon tried not to think that if they found the earrings, he’d have no excuse to remain at the Arms. “Thank you, Dina,” she said. “I can’t tell you how much I appreciate your help.”

“Anything I can do for you, Thorn.”

Serena smiled wider. “I’m glad you say that. I owe Pat Doyle a favor, you see, and I know his wife would kill for Abby’s apple fritter recipe.”

Solomon looked at the basket of food with hopeless longing. “Do we have time to eat, do you think, or ought we to go and find Decker now?”