A Lily Among Thorns(71)

“Well, good for you. Women like that sort of thing.”

Solomon remembered Serena’s hot stare as he helped her on with her cloak. “I think she did, actually.”

But Elijah was looking at the card players again. Sir Nigel caught his eye and winked. Elijah gave an awkward nod. His earlier nonchalance appeared to have deserted him. He finished the last of his cider and started on Solomon’s.

“Have you eaten?” Solomon asked. Damn. He sounded like their mother.

Elijah shrugged.

“If you’re so nervous, maybe you oughtn’t to go. Maybe—maybe it isn’t safe.”

“I’m not nervous! Of course it isn’t safe, or—or pleasant, but”—Elijah drew a deep breath—“but it’s my duty and I mean to do it. I managed myself for a year and a half without your advice and I think I can still do so now.”

There was silence at the table for the next quarter of an hour. Elijah called defiantly for another pint.

“Li—” Solomon was beginning to remonstrate again, when Serena appeared at his elbow.

“I think I can arrange for some cake if the two of you—oh Lord, what are you fighting about now?”

She’d changed into one of her ordinary gray dresses and her hair was pulled back again. Solomon had a sudden, irrational sense of relief at the sight of her, as if she would be able to fix this, when there was no reason to think so. “Elijah is going to Sir Nigel’s, and he’s already on his third cider.”

“I see,” Serena said in a changed voice. She sat down at their table. “Drinking doesn’t make things easier, you know. It just makes you less able to pretend.”

“What do you know about it?” Elijah snapped.

Serena’s eyebrows rose. “I’m the Siren, remember? I imagine I know a damn sight more about it than you.” She leaned across the table and covered Elijah’s restlessly fidgeting hand with her own. He raised his eyes to hers, and she gave him a rueful smile.

Solomon stared at their linked hands. Serena’s words seemed to have some kind of hidden significance. How much experience did she have interrogating people and searching their houses, anyway? Was that even what she meant? Elijah certainly seemed to understand her.

Solomon looked at his brother. He hadn’t changed for evening, so he was still wearing tight-fitting corduroy trousers, wrinkled boots, and that old bottle-green coat. They emphasized his more athletic figure and made him look appealingly careless. Solomon suddenly felt prim and overdressed in his evening clothes, and as if he should have tried harder to keep up with rowing after Cambridge.

He had forgotten what it was like to be Elijah’s twin; these pangs of jealousy had once been familiar. Elijah was him, only cleverer, more charming, with a better hairstyle. Solomon, when Elijah was there, was always just last year’s fashion plate.

Across the room, Sir Nigel and the marquis stood up from their card game, and Serena pulled her hand back. Sir Nigel came back to their table, dangling a couple of notes triumphantly from between his fingers. Five pounds and a tenner. “Can’t hold their wine, the French.” He turned to Elijah, who was holding his liquor quite well. “Care to take a look at that rapier?”

Elijah smiled. “Delighted.” He stood and pulled his worn bottle-green jacket tighter around him. “I’ll see you later, Sol, Thorn,” he said, and followed Sir Nigel out.

Solomon looked at Serena. She was watching the door Elijah had just walked through. He thought she looked anxious.

“Oh, don’t worry about him.” Solomon knew he was being petty, but he couldn’t seem to stop himself. “He’s managed for a year and a half without advice, he’ll be fine.”

The anxious expression vanished, and Serena was instantly offended on his behalf. “Did he say that to you?”

Solomon felt better. “He was nervous, that’s all.”

Serena looked back at the door, anxious again, and Solomon couldn’t shake the feeling that she knew something she wasn’t saying.

Solomon tried to wait up for his brother. But at four o’clock he still hadn’t heard the familiar step on the stair, and reluctantly went to sleep. When he awoke the next morning, Elijah was back. When Solomon asked what had happened in South Audley Street, Elijah just said, “Do I ask you what you put in your dyes?”

At this rate, a week to catch the spies might have been an overestimate.

Early that afternoon, while Serena was in her office with Solomon looking at fabric samples for the new hangings, Sophy announced Lady Brendan. The third traitor.