A Lily Among Thorns(75)

“You created a scandal! You punched a customer, Sol! Braithwaite was a large account, and while I may not like him—”

“He called her a whore. What was I supposed to do?”

“She is a—” Uncle Hathaway stopped at the look on Solomon’s face. “Do you know why she left home?” he demanded instead.

“Yes,” Solomon said shortly. “She told me herself. May I ask where you got your information?”

“Our second seamster at the time had a cousin who worked at Ravenscroft.” Hathaway’s lips tightened. “He lost his job for her, and she hasn’t even the grace to be ashamed of it.”

Solomon’s brows drew together. “I assume my own job isn’t in danger?”

Hathaway looked taken aback. “Of course not.”

“Not that it’s any of your business, but she bitterly regrets what happened to H—her lover. And if I ever hear you’ve broached the subject with her, I—”

Hathaway waved his hand in a gesture of comprehension.

“Besides,” Solomon went on, “we should be the last people to criticize a girl for dallying with the servants. After all, my father was Uncle Dewington’s tutor.”

“Yes, and your father never got another tutoring job, I promise you!” Hathaway said sharply.

Solomon knew that already. He knew that his father had lost his job. He knew that Uncle Hathaway had supported the young couple until his father finished divinity school and a small living was found for him back in Shropshire by a patron of the family—a much more modest living in a much smaller parish than William Hathaway’s brilliant academic career had foreshadowed. He knew, too, that Uncle Hathaway did not quite approve of their mother. Uncle Hathaway had always tried to hide it, but over twenty-six years, things slipped out.

In the past, Solomon had always shrugged and ignored it. His mother had explained once that Uncle Hathaway just didn’t like the gentry, because he dealt with them so much in his shop. Suddenly, Solomon wasn’t sure that was the reason. And if it would make things easier for Serena, he wanted to know what the reason was.

“Father likes being a pastor,” he said neutrally. It was true. His father had never seemed anything but content living on three-hundred pounds per annum in their little house—anything but completely happy with his titled wife and his three half-breed children.

“Your father could have done anything, Sol,” Uncle Hathaway said wearily. “Everyone said he was brilliant, an orator, destined for great things. The whole family was sure he would make something of himself. I always knew I would be nothing but a tailor, but Will—there was talk of his one day going into Parliament. And after he eloped with your mother and the Dewingtons wouldn’t receive them, it was all over. His fine patrons dropped him like a hot potato.”

“But—what does that have to do with Serena?”

“Don’t be dense, Sol,” Elijah said, an edge in his voice that Solomon didn’t understand. “He means you’re the family’s hope for greatness now.”

“Me?”

“You’re just like him,” Uncle Hathaway said. “Always such a clever boy. Your uncle gave you an education. You could invent great things, be a famous scientist, lecture all over the world to admiring crowds. But you never will if you attach yourself to a scandal like that.”

Solomon’s jaw dropped. After he got over how unlikely a portrait of himself it was, however, many things were suddenly very clear. He said the most important thing first. “My uncle did give me an education. You did, here at Hathaway’s Fine Tailoring. You taught me everything. Uncle Dewington just paid for me to learn about chemistry.”

Uncle Hathaway pressed his lips together. “You could do so much better.”

“There is no better. Not for me. I always wanted to be just like you.” He had always thought his uncle was the interesting brother. Uncle Hathaway lived in London and could add a row of figures in his head. He threw Hannah More in the fire.

But now it appeared that Solomon was more like Uncle Hathaway than he had supposed, and it made him rather uncomfortable. However touching it was that his uncle had somehow decided that he, and not Elijah, was the brilliant one, he hoped that in thirty years he would not be making an idiotic speech like this to Elijah’s son.

“He did,” Elijah confirmed. “He asked for half-spectacles for his seventh birthday.”