A Lily Among Thorns(70)

Solomon shook his hand and smiled, trying to be nonchalant and not suggest in any way that he knew Sir Nigel was a spy. Or that he was near to beaming at his first misidentification since Elijah’s return.

Elijah’s smile hit nonchalant dead in the center. “I’m glad you ran into Solomon. I’ve been wondering when I’d finally get a look at that perfectly balanced Spanish blade you were raving on about.”

“Tonight, I hope. You’re welcome to come by South Audley Street and try a few passes with it directly after I’ve dined with mine host.”

“Lady Serena?” Elijah asked in surprise.

Sir Nigel laughed. “The Siren? Not likely. No, I mean Sacreval. I daresay he’s got all kinds of stories about what’s going on in Paris right now. Besides, once he’s downed half a bottle of the cellar’s finest, I can usually get a few pounds out of him at piquet.”

Elijah snickered. “Poor Frog’ll never know what hit him.” Sir Nigel made his way over to Sacreval. He rapped the legs of the marquis’s stool with his cane, and the marquis waved everyone off with a regal gesture and allowed Sir Nigel to invite him to a private table.

Solomon turned back to Elijah. “Well, he was rather odd. It’s too bad we’re to lose him as a customer, though. He looks very dashing in that waistcoat.”

Elijah started and glanced over at Sir Nigel. “Do you think so?” He frowned. “I suppose he does. Shove over.” Solomon did, and Elijah slid into the booth beside him. He said in a voice pitched low enough that no one else could hear him, “His closest boyhood friend died last year, raiding an enemy camp in Spain. We think he arranged it with Sacreval, leaked information about the raid, because his friend knew too many of his secrets.”

“Oh.” Sir Nigel did not look capable of it. Daring waistcoat or no, he looked ordinary and harmless. But he wasn’t, and Elijah was going off with him. Alone. “How on earth will you manage to search his house without him catching you?”

Elijah gnawed at his lower lip. “I have my ways.” He didn’t look at Solomon. It was plain he did not mean to talk about it.

Solomon supposed liquor would be involved. “I think he’s ordered a coat from us too. I hope it was paid in advance.”

“Mmm,” Elijah murmured, his eyes still fixed broodingly on Sir Nigel.

“Li, it’s very conscientious of you, but Sir Nigel is hardly going to wander off.”

Elijah started. “You’re right,” he said firmly. “Tell me about the Elbourn ball.”

Solomon tried to ignore his mounting worry. “Here?”

“It’s better than upstairs—less potential for eavesdroppers where I can’t see them and more background noise to cover our voices. No one will think the two of us having a private conversation is the least suspicious.”

But they hadn’t had very many private conversations since Elijah had been back, had they? Oh, they’d talked about the family and Elijah’s mission and probably every book they’d read in the last year and a half, but they’d left out everything important. “We got evidence,” he said simply.

Elijah really looked at him for the first time, relief all over his face. “Oh, thank God. That buys us another few days at least. If I can pull this off tonight, I wager we’ll get the whole week. Where’s Lady Serena? Why aren’t we celebrating?”

“She’s doing the books.”

He thought it a perfectly good reason, but Elijah frowned. “We’ll celebrate just the two of us, then,” he said. “Hey, Charlotte! A pigeon pie and two pints of cider, if you please!”

But Elijah didn’t touch the pie when it came. He just drank the cider and watched Sir Nigel and the marquis. He didn’t ask for any more details of the evening either, until Solomon reached for the knife to cut the pie. “What happened to your hand?”

“I punched someone,” Solomon said.

Elijah frowned. “You punched someone? Did you get caught snooping? I thought you said—”

“It had nothing to do with that. Braithwaite called Serena a whore, so I punched him.”

Elijah blinked. “Braithwaite? That little snob you were always hanging around with at Cambridge?”

He nodded uncomfortably.

Elijah smiled. “I didn’t think you had it in you.”

Solomon smothered his quick flash of resentment. “Neither did I,” he said truthfully. “It felt magnificent, though.”