A Lily Among Thorns(5)

There was something else, though, something Dewington had told her about his nephew. What was it?

“So will you help me?” he asked.

It was such a tiny favor, tracking down a stolen piece of jewelry. Would it really even the scales? She didn’t want to be in his debt anymore. Maybe you just want to keep him around, she suggested scornfully, and then told herself to shut up. “Certainly. I’d also like to order some cloth from you. Some of our beds need new hangings, and the wallpaper would have to be matched.” She tilted her head. “Are you sure you can do it?”

He straightened. Ha! She’d thought that would get him. “Yes,” he said curtly. “I could match the color of your eyes better than your current modiste, too.”

She glanced down at her gray bombazine in surprise. “Could you?” Didn’t it match? And—he’d noticed her eyes?

For the first time since he’d got there, he looked into her eyes for longer than a few seconds. Stared into them, and she couldn’t look away. Couldn’t help breathing faster.

He frowned, a tiny line between his brows. They arched so perfectly. She was drawn to him, and she didn’t want to be. “Solomon?” she said coolly, or meant to. Her voice was rough and hot.

He might not have noticed. That deep, deep flush swept over him again, and she smiled involuntarily. “Now I understand why you dyed your waistcoat that enchanting shade of red.”

“Wh—?” He cleared his throat. “What?” he asked, his husky voice dropping even further.

“It matches the tips of your ears to perfection.”

He rolled his eyes, but he smiled sheepishly back.

Christ, she was flirting with him. She had to get him out of here before she completely lost her dignity. “As charming as this interview has been, I’m sure you have business to attend to. Have supper with me tonight, and we’ll discuss the details of your little robbery.”

“Then you’ll help me?”

She nodded.

He looked relieved. “We can pay you, of course—”

There. Now she didn’t feel like flirting. “No,” she interrupted. You will never pay me for anything, ever again. She swallowed the feeling of claustrophobia. Maybe if she paid back this one great debt, she would feel free for once in her life. “Let Sophy show you to your room. You’ll be staying here. Gratis.”

His jaw dropped. “I couldn’t dream of it! This is much too elegant an establishment for me—I have rooms—”

“I daresay you do—in Cheapside,” she said, naming a neighborhood in the City filled with warehouses, butchers’ shops, and tradesmen’s lodgings.

He glared at her. “I’m not ashamed of my address.”

He was so prickly. She tried not to smile again. “As worthy and respectable as Cheapside no doubt is, it’s some little distance from me, and I want you on hand to consult with.”

“I don’t see why that’s necessary.”

It wasn’t necessary. In fact, it was probably a terrible idea. Too late. “You want my help, don’t you? Susannah and her betrothed are waiting . . .”

“You won’t help me unless I stay here?” He sounded as if he didn’t know whether to be annoyed, or just puzzled.

“Believe me, you won’t be arguing with me once you’ve had supper. My chef is the best in the business.” You just think he hasn’t been eating enough. You’re acting like somebody’s mother. She crossed her arms. “That’s my offer. Take it or leave it.”

He spread his hands in a frustrated, resigned gesture. “If I’m going to stay here, I’ll have to bring all my equipment from my rooms,” he warned her.

“Then do so at once.” She rang the bell on the wall behind her desk. When she was done with him, he’d be so far in her debt he’d never get out. She just had to do it before he realized who she was and headed for the hills.

How had he agreed to this? Lady Serena was strange and confusing and quite possibly mad, even if she was the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen. But Uncle Dewington had said she could help find the earrings, and his mother was at her wit’s end. It was his duty to obtain Lady Serena’s help by any means necessary, and if that meant free lodgings and fine dining, well—

Put that way, why had he ever demurred? He really had turned into a hermit this last year and a half.

When the young black woman in spectacles who’d shown him in reappeared, Lady Serena instructed her, without looking at him and without any more sarcasm than seemed present in everything she said, to show him to the Stuart bedroom.