A Lily Among Thorns(94)

Elijah shook his head. “If she’s clever, and she is, she’s abandoned the money. It’s risking her neck to stay in London.”

“I’ll forgive you for saying that,” Solomon said, “because you’ve never lived on your own earnings. But listen carefully. Serena, would you ever abandon a large sum of money you had accumulated over years of hard work?”

Serena shook her head. “I couldn’t.”

“No one alive could.”

“In case, you’d better go to the Pursleigh townhouse,” Serena said. “We’ll go to Rothschild’s.”

Elijah nodded. “Why do you think she picked Rothschild’s?” he asked abruptly. “Do you think he’s disloyal?”

“No, I think he’s expended a good deal of time and energy backing England and received precious little thanks. But Rothschild’s clerks are less likely than, say, Lloyd’s to be starchedup old men who don’t hold with young women having bank accounts.”

“Nathan Rothschild came to us yesterday,” Elijah said slowly. “Claimed he knew Wellington had won.”

“Did the government believe him?” Serena asked.

Elijah bit his lip. “They want to. I want to. This war has gone on long enough.”

She shrugged. “All I know is that he has always given me an excellent rate of interest on the Arms accounts.”

Elijah rolled his eyes. “Bring her to Newgate if you get her. Then send me word care of Lord Varney. I’ll have to go report to him on all this. When we get back here, we can go through Sacreval’s things, see if—” His eyes went wide. “Oh Lord, I forgot! He’s got our earrings, Sol!”





Chapter 23


But the matter of the earrings had to be put on hold until Jenny Pursleigh was captured. Serena and Solomon caught a hackney and bribed him to drive far too fast to Rothschild’s bank. Awkward silence reigned in the carriage until Serena, frustrated, could not restrain herself. “Solomon, can’t we—can’t we just forget this love business and go on as we were?”

Solomon looked at her. Just that, just his eyes on her face, sent Serena’s heart skittering madly in her chest. “So you’ll sleep with me so long as I don’t ask for anything else? I want more than that. I want you. I told you that ages ago.”

And she wanted him. Oh, how she wanted him. But with the ache, last night’s terror welled up again. The terror of what she felt, the terror of what she would give up for him if he asked her to, the terror that, give up what she would, it could never make her what he wanted, what he needed. “You don’t want me,” she told him, her voice strange in her own ears. “I can’t be what you want.” He deserved someone open and sweet, someone for whom love was easy, someone who would never bring that hurt, strained look to his face.

“Don’t patronize me. I know what I want.”

The hackney jolted to a stop in St. Swithin’s Lane. Serena glanced out the window. Directly in front of the bank, another hackney waited. Could it be waiting for Jenny? If René didn’t escape, keeping the Arms from being forfeit to the Crown might yet depend on getting in the regent’s good graces, and that depended on catching Jenny. Yet Serena was tempted to waste precious time asking Solomon what, precisely, he wanted. “Pay the driver,” she said. “I’m going to talk to the driver of that hackney across the street.”

He nodded. She trusted him to follow her, to protect her and listen to her instructions in a crisis. Why couldn’t she trust him to love her? She hurried across the street. “Driver!”

He was a young black man—fresh-faced enough, but when he grinned down at her, half his teeth were rotted away. “Sorry, miss, I’ve been told to wait.”

Miss. Hmmph. Serena tapped the birthmark above her eye. “Do you know who I am?”

The jarvey sat up straighter on his perch, and looked a little overawed. “Thorn, miss—m’lady—”

Oh, for Christ’s sake. “Thorn will do nicely.” She smiled reassuringly before she could catch herself. A few weeks ago—oh, she might as well face it, before she met Solomon—she would never have done that. And yet it seemed to be all right. He didn’t look as if he were going to say, Wait a minute, you’re just a girl, why does everyone listen to you? He simply looked a little less likely to freeze up in panic. Perhaps her position—if she could keep it past this week—wasn’t entirely sleight of hand anymore. Perhaps she’d gained enough real clout that she could relax a little. “And your name is—”