A Lily Among Thorns(55)

“Serena’s room.” Solomon flushed at his brother’s raised brows. “She keeps the door locked.”

Elijah glanced at the melted keyhole.

“Well, she did, before I dissolved the lock.” Solomon flushed deeper. “She was having a nightmare.”

Elijah, miraculously, decided to save the teasing for later. “Is it easier to break into this room than that one?”

“I’m not sure—oh. Yes, it is. Serena has a bar on her door. And I’m sure he wanted it to look to Serena as if I had done it.”

“Can I take a look on the other side?”

Solomon hesitated. Serena would take a dim view of such proceedings, but maybe that was a good reason to get it over with while she wasn’t around. Elijah didn’t wait for his permission anyway. He just turned the doorknob and went in.

Solomon followed, trying not to get distracted by Serena’s shift lying on the bed, or the three hairpins and a brush on her dressing table, or any of the countless other intimate things that said Serena lives here. “He’s more likely to have been trying for my room anyway. It used to be his and he was very irritated that I’d got it.”

Elijah rapped on the wall and listened carefully to the sound. “Maybe he was just annoyed at having to cross the hall to reach the Siren’s bed,” he suggested morosely.

This lowering thought had occurred to Solomon, too. “Don’t call her that.”

Elijah examined the floor near the wall. “I may have to take this flooring up. The fire makes me wonder if there’s something important hidden in the Ravenshaw Arms. You’re right, it’s more likely to be on your side.”

“Shall we search for it now?”

Elijah hesitated, then shook his head. “Later. Right now I want to know all about Susannah’s engagement.”

Serena expected Elijah to join her and Solomon for dinner that evening, naturally. And she was definitely unsurprised when Elijah and Solomon talked feverishly, their conversation heavily punctuated with ancient private jokes and obscure allusions, while she toyed with her food. After the first couple of courses she got up and left altogether. She wasn’t sure Solomon noticed.

But that night she was awakened by knocking on the connecting door. “Come,” she called.

Solomon opened the door. She couldn’t quite see his face in the moonlight. “I’m sorry to bother you.”

Serena sat up on her elbows. “What is it?”

“It’s just—he’s really back, isn’t he? I didn’t dream it?”

She shook her head. “No. You didn’t dream it.”

The tension eased out of his shoulders. “Thanks. And thank you for finding him.”

She was angry with Elijah all over again, for tangling Solomon in whatever game he was playing. “Well,” she said softly, “you did engage me to find things you lost, didn’t you?”

The moon silvered his mouth as it curved, just a little. But she thought he was still staring at the floor.

“You must simply try to be a little less careless in future.” When his chin jerked up, as she’d known it would, she pulled up the corner of the quilt and patted the sheets next to her.

The hopeful lifting of his brows made her bite her tongue to keep from showing—she wasn’t sure what, but whatever it was she was feeling. He came to the side of the bed and stood there, looking down at her as if she were a puzzle he couldn’t figure out. Her skin began to tingle pleasantly. After a few improbably long moments, he climbed into bed, the mattress shifting under his weight. Serena settled comfortably down with her nose pushed into his side.

“But don’t think this is a permanent arrangement,” she told him in a muffled voice.

“I know,” he said. Then, “I was grieving for so long. I don’t know how to make sense of myself anymore. I don’t know how to feel.”

“We’ll just have to wait and see then, won’t we?”

His hand settled, warm and heavy, on the back of her head. She could hear his smile in his voice. “I suppose we will.”

Elijah had removed his coat and pried his boots off before he realized his cravat pin was missing. He didn’t see it anywhere on the floor, so he went out into the hall with his candle to look. He was prowling past René’s door when it swung open. Damn. This ought to be awkward.

“Thierry. You have lost something?”