A Lily Among Thorns(68)

Damn him. She drew her cloak tighter around her and didn’t answer.

He tried to wait her out, but she was better at silence than he was. After a few streets, he smiled and shrugged—not his annoyed shrug, just the shrug that meant he thought she was enacting a Cheltenham tragedy and he didn’t intend to indulge her. It wasn’t good, that she was starting to differentiate his shrugs. “I’m afraid our opinions are destined to differ on this point, as on so many others,” he said. “I wish I’d thrashed him to a pulp.”

She swallowed. I wish you had, too seemed like the wrong thing to say. “It would have been hell on your hands.”

He laughed. “It was Ash and Braithwaite who brought me to Mme Deveraux’s. We should thank them for that, at least.”

Her throat felt tight, and she couldn’t quite smile back. He could talk about Mme Deveraux’s so easily. He was thankful to have met her. He thought she was worth it. She ducked her head and bumped her shoulder against his, and he shoved her back and laughed. London was beautiful at night.

As they came up to the front doors of the Arms, some tipsy young men spilled out into the street stumbling and laughing, and warmth and light spilled out with them. Even at that hour the taproom was bright and noisy and full. Charlotte bustled here and there, two tankards of ale held expertly in each hand. Only a week ago she’d been clumsy and scared to look customers in the eye. Now she belonged here. Serena had created a place where she could be safe, and happy. She felt such a rush of emotion, suddenly. Such a sense that everything was right, that Solomon was beside her and that she was home. She had to hang on to this—she had to.





Chapter 16


When they reached the Arms, it was eleven o’clock, hours before anyone would expect them back. Though he was usually in bed by now, tonight Solomon was wide awake.

Serena had gone to her office to do the day’s books, and Elijah wasn’t in his room, so Solomon headed to the taproom to wait for his brother. Nursing a mug of ale in the corner and trying to arrange what he would say, he became slightly less enthused about telling Elijah what had happened at the ball.

The whole thing was a little embarrassing, after all. A passionate kiss to cover up illicit spying followed by a fistfight ought to sound dashing and heroic, but Solomon thought it would probably sound a little pathetic instead. If it had been a story about Elijah, it would have sounded dashing and heroic; it would have been dashing and heroic, because Elijah would have done it all differently.

“Hullo,” someone said. “Mind if I join you?”

He looked up. It was Sophy, her spectacles glinting in the yellow light from the taproom lamps and a cloak draped over her arm. He was a little surprised, but he said, “Please do. Would you like a pint?”

She smiled. “You paying?”

He nodded.

She waved at Charlotte, then slid into the booth across from him. She was wearing the orange dress Serena had worn to St. Andrew of the Cross. It disconcerted him how different it looked on her; even the color looked different against her dark skin. And she wasn’t wearing any linen ruffles in the neckline. “How did it go?”

He glanced involuntarily to where Sacreval sat at the bar, surrounded, as he had been since his return, by patrons eager to hear details of life in Bonaparte’s Paris.

“Don’t look,” Sophy said quietly. “He can’t hear us from there, but he’ll see if you look.”

Solomon propped his cheek on his fist and watched her for a moment. “Why don’t you ask Serena?”

“Because I want a straight answer,” Sophy said promptly.

He snorted. “She’s not very good at giving those, is she?”

She sucked her lower lip into her mouth. “No one is. But she’s worse than most.”

He spread his hands. “I don’t understand it! I don’t understand what is so dashed hard about admitting that you enjoyed a kiss, for heaven’s sake. Everybody likes kissing, don’t they?”

“I don’t.” Charlotte banged a small glass of dark liquor down in front of Sophy. Solomon blinked at her. “Well, I don’t. Thanks for helping me clean up that cucumber soup last week, by the way.”

“You’re welcome.”

“Thanks, Charlotte,” Sophy said, picking up her glass. “It’s on his tab.” The waitress nodded and headed back to the bar, and Sophy tipped back her head and downed the liquor. “You sure you wouldn’t like something stronger?”