A Lily Among Thorns(49)
He’d pulled back, stopped her from wrapping her mouth around him and showing him all the advantages of bedding the most notorious ex-whore in London, and somehow they’d ended up sleeping side by side like a couple of innocent babes. She’d clung to him. She had let him see her almost in tears. And his ridiculous cartwheels had actually made her feel better.
What was next? Frolicking through a field of daisies? Sweet, tender lovemaking? That idea does not make me feel all warm and tingly, she told herself firmly. Her mind ignored her, dwelling on the last few moments before Solomon had put a stop to things.
She’d pleasured plenty of men with her mouth and received more than her share of compliments on her technique. But last night it had been different—she’d really wanted to, wanted to feel Solomon trembling and hear him gasp with pleasure and know that it was her doing. She had wanted him to look at her the way he looked at his experiments, or at the organ in St. Andrew’s—with utter concentration and joy. She had wanted to give him something wonderful.
She rolled over and looked at Solomon, stretched out in his bed with the morning sun caressing his limbs, and she felt it again. Her hands ached with the need to reach out and touch him. She could do it. He was right there. She could feel the heat from his body warming her legs.
It was seven o’clock. On an ordinary day she would have been up for two hours. She had all of yesterday’s work to do, and Sophy’s teasing to face. Sophy always came to her room in the mornings to help with her stays and buttons. Sophy would know she hadn’t been there. Antoine probably already knew, just as he knew she hadn’t looked at next week’s menus yet. What was the point, when she was going to lose the Arms? She could stay here and touch Solomon, and not face it.
That was when Serena panicked. Solomon had to go. He was clouding her mind, keeping her from figuring out a solution to her problems. Keeping her from caring as much as she should. She was letting him make her feel safe, but the only person who could keep her safe was herself. She had to find his earrings so that he could go.
She would go to Decker’s. She’d go right now. She slid out of bed as slowly as she could and tiptoed to the connecting door, which stood wide open. She shut the door quietly behind her and leaned against it, thinking. Decker required male attire.
Ten minutes later, Serena was tugging on a pair of gleaming Hessians that had stood hidden in her wardrobe behind a green wool evening gown. She shoved her hair inside an old beaver hat and inspected the result in the mirror. I really must invest in a wig, she thought distractedly, and left.
Fritz Decker’s was one of the less reputable molly houses in London—that is to say, one of the less reputable establishments catering to men who preferred the company of other men, at least for certain very personal activities—but that didn’t mean Decker was careless. Serena had to give her name, a sign, and a counter-countersign to the burly, businesslike fellow at the door. At the conclusion of this formality, he ceremoniously showed her in to where the host was sitting in a corner of his taproom.
Decker was a red-nosed man, not many years past his prime. His green-and-gold-striped waistcoat had once been very fine, but was now several years further past its prime than its owner, and covered in grease and beer stains. “Morning, Thorn, it’s good to see you again. What brings you to my humble establishment?”
“Good to see you too, Fritz. I daresay you got my message.”
Decker shifted uneasily. “I warn you I can make no guarantees I’ll tell you what you want to know.”
She gave him a silky smile. “I’ll just have to hope, won’t I?”
Decker sighed lugubriously. “Come in the back and we’ll discuss it.”
Serena glanced about the taproom while he was heaving himself out of his chair. At half-past seven in the morning, there was almost no one about. A group of bleary-eyed men in one corner were glaring at two disgustingly cheery fellows in the opposite corner, who seemed to have just awoken from a good night’s sleep, probably in each other’s company. A few skinny, rouged boys sprawled across stools at the bar.
Serena didn’t recognize more than a handful of the house’s denizens, but she did note that Lord Hartleigh’s coloring was better suited to his wife’s peach sarsenet than Lady Hartleigh’s, and that young Ravi Bhattacharya was thinner than ever and sporting a black eye. They could use a new kitchen boy at the Arms; she’d speak to him about it on her way out. Of course, Sophy had reminded her just last week when she’d hired Charlotte that the Arms wasn’t a Home for Ruined Young Persons, but didn’t she and Sophy give that the lie already?