A Lily Among Thorns, page 11
Mr. Hathaway laughed. “Mm, yes, well, hand me that book.” He made a pretense of examining it. “No, it doesn’t look as though I need anything specific at the moment. Lady Pursleigh is giving a masquerade next Sunday, though, and I’m bound to get some last-minute orders, so any simple costume designs you think of would be welcome.”
Solomon smiled. “I’ll keep it in mind. We’ll be off, then.”
Mr. Hathaway cleared his throat. “I heard—that is, I heard Lady Serena’s gown was lovely. I should have liked to see it.”
Solomon looked absurdly pleased. “Thank you.”
Mr. Hathaway frowned. “Well, off you go.”
Off they went, Serena feeling decidedly morose. No sooner had the door clanged shut behind them than Solomon asked, “What did my uncle say to you?”
“What makes you think I didn’t start it?” she asked nastily.
“Because I know my uncle and I know you. Why do you think I didn’t want to leave you alone with him?”
She blinked. “I naturally assumed you thought I’d say something cutting if you weren’t there to restrain me.”
Solomon smiled at her. “I wasn’t worried. You’re polite enough when you’re not unduly provoked.”
Her head started to ache. “What is wrong with all of you?”
Solomon chewed his lip. “Was it that bad? I was only gone a minute—”
“I am not polite,” she said despairingly.
His smile returned, wider this time. “Is that all? It’s not as if I said you were a sensible girl with a good head on her shoulders. You can be debonair, faintly sinister, and polite, you know.”
Damn him, he was laughing at her. “Why must you always be so damned patient and reasonable?”
“Well, I could be unreasonable and accusatory if you prefer, but I don’t think you’d find it entertaining after the first few minutes.” When her scowl didn’t lift, he said, “Cut line, Serena! You’d have been twice as annoyed if I’d assumed you’d started it, anyway.”
“Don’t act like you know me! You don’t. None of you know me.” She saw with dull satisfaction that he was beginning to lose his patience. Not surprising, of course. She could try the patience of a saint.
“I may not know you, Serena, but I’ve figured out by now that you never pass up the opportunity to enact a Cheltenham tragedy. If you don’t want to tell me what my uncle said, well and good, but don’t insult both our intelligences with this claptrap.”
“Damnation, I don’t enact Cheltenham tragedies!”
“Then what the hell is this? What are you so bloody upset about?”
“Your uncle thinks we—I don’t even know what he thinks. I think he likes me.”
“That’s what this is about?” He stared at her. “Are you so determined to be universally detested?”
Frustration welled up inside her. She couldn’t explain it; he would never understand.
He shrugged. “So you can enjoy dramatically disillusioning him when you toss me out on my ear.”
She was a bit put out that he could sound so cavalier about it. “Before that, he as near as told me I was a dissolute lady, born with a silver spoon in my mouth, trifling with your naive affections for the sake of my own high-born amusement.”
Solomon’s jaw dropped. “But that’s ridiculous. You work for a living, same as anyone! He might as well say I—” His face changed. He rubbed at his temple, looking defeated. “But he does think that, of course.”
“He does?” she asked, startled.
He shrugged. She’d noticed that he always did that when he was angry with someone on his own account, as if it wasn’t important. As if it didn’t matter how he felt. “Oh, yes. When I started working there after Cambridge, he was always at me to weigh my options, not to let him hold me back. He never lets me sit behind the counter or do fittings, because that would be too menial for me—but he never lets me touch the books either, because I think he thinks anyone who’s half a toff and went to university must have a wretched head for business. He thinks I’m just dabbling and when I get bored, I’ll take Uncle Dewington’s allowance and go. I’ve been working for him for four years now, and he just won’t—”
“I haven’t traded a poke for a fistful of the ready in five years, but no one’s read that notice in the Gazette.”
He sighed. “I’m awfully sorry.”
“It’s hardly your fault.”
“I mean, I’m sorry about my uncle. I’ll explain to him that you’re not trifling with me—”
“Please don’t,” she said in heartfelt tones.
Solomon laughed. “Sorry, forgot about the horrors of being approved of. Damned if you do, damned if you don’t, eh? I guess you’ll just have to do what you want.”
Tears pricked at her eyes. “What if I don’t know what I want?”
“We’ll have to wait and see then, won’t we?” He stuck his hands in his pockets and looked at her as if that was nothing, as if he really was willing to wait as long as it took, as if he didn’t mind waiting. As if he thought they might still know each other in twenty years.
“I told him that when I tossed you out on your ear you were unlikely to go into a fatal decline.”
He smiled oddly. “Perhaps you give me too much credit.”
“I generally find I don’t give you enough,” she said gruffly.
He reached out and laced his fingers with hers. “Come on. You’ll feel better when you’re eating a hot steak-and-kidney pie.”
She had a thought. “How would you like it if we bought lunch and looked for your earrings at the same time?”
He tilted his head in a way that reminded her of his uncle. “How will we do that, pray?”
“You’ll see.”
Chapter 10
Solomon’s stomach was starting to growl. They had already strolled past several mouthwatering pie stalls set up along the Strand. Finally a pieman wheeling an enormous barrow caught Serena’s eye. “Hey there, Doyle!” she yelled.
He hurried over. “What’ll it be, madam? Steak-and-kidney, mutton, pork, eel, or apple?”
“Two of whichever are least likely to contain rat and pigeon, please.”
Doyle stared. “You want a pie?”
Serena snickered. “What, do they all contain rat?”
“Not on your life! My Bridget bakes these pies and they’re all fine and fresh.”
“In that case, I’ll have a steak-and-kidney. What will you have, Solomon?”
“Eel, please.”
Doyle bit his lip. “I shouldn’t try the eel, sir.”
Solomon laughed. “Steak-and-kidney for me, too, then.”
“Very well, sir, milady, and would you like hot gravy with your pies?”
Serena nodded. Pies were handed over and gravy poured through the hole in the crust; tuppence changed hands. Then Serena said, “Pat, I need your professional opinion. I’m looking for a pair of stolen earrings. Rubies and gold, taken by a gentleman on the high toby Wednesday before last.”
Solomon stared at her. “Serena—”
She smiled faintly at his puzzled expression. “Show him your wares, Pat.”
Doyle grinned and turned back the gaudy checkered cloth in which his pies nestled. Watches, billfolds, handkerchiefs, pocket knives, and dozens of other small items were revealed, crowding the bottom of the barrow.
He flicked back the cloth. “I haven’t seen anything of that description, Thorn. But then, I’m not a baubles man and everyone knows it. You ought to try Dina Levy. I doubt anybody’d bring her something that fine, but she keeps her ears open. If she hasn’t heard, you won’t find it in Whitechapel, St. Giles, or Holborn.”
“Dina’s usually at her Lawrence Street house at this time of day, isn’t she?”
“Not now, she’ll be at her daughter’s stall in the Fleet Market for elevenses. Make sure you try the apple fritters. My Bridget’s been trying to get the recipe off Abigail Levy for years now, but Abby’s a stubborn wench.”
“I shall be sure to do so. Well, you’ve been very helpful. Will half a crown suffice?”
Doyle gestured expansively. “Wouldn’t hear of it! You can be in my debt, if you like.”
Serena raised her eyebrows. “I shall owe you a very small favor then. Now, if your young associate will return my friend’s pocketbook, we’ll be on our way.”
Solomon started, feeling for his billfold. Sure enough, it was gone. He looked accusingly at Doyle, who sighed. “It’s a devil of a job training new workers. I’m sure you find it the same at the Arms. Moreen!” he called. “Come here!”
A ragged little girl of perhaps six or seven detached herself from the crowd and came scuttling over. “Yes, sir?”
“Do you know who this lady is, Mo?”
The girl shook her head.
“Look at her face.” Doyle tapped his brow meaningfully.
Mo’s eyes went wide as platters. She stared at Serena’s birthmark with something approaching worship. “You’re the Black Thorn!”
Solomon saw that Serena was trying very hard to make her expression more forbidding and less charmed. She was such a soft touch. “Yes, I’m the Black Thorn. And you’ve stolen my friend Solomon’s pocketbook.”
The little girl’s awe turned to horror. “He’s Solomon Hathaway?” Solomon frowned. She’d heard of him?
Serena nodded.
“Are you going to have my—”
“Not if you give it back,” Serena said very quickly. So she really had put it about that no one was to touch him, in terms so brutal she evidently didn’t want him to hear what they were. And people were genuinely afraid of her. He tried to wrap his mind around that.
Mo fished his pocketbook out of a ragged pocket and handed it back to Solomon, who checked it for fleas under pretense of counting the bills. Sixpence was missing, but he didn’t say anything. “I want to be just like you when I’m grown,” Mo was telling Serena, who looked decidedly taken aback. “I want an inn and people under me, and if anyone touches me I’ll have their—”
“I wish you luck,” Serena interrupted. “Give Bridget my regards,” she told Doyle, and tugged Solomon away.
As they walked away, he could hear Doyle saying, “I’ve told you a hundred times, you don’t touch ’em till I give you the signal, like this—”
“The Black Thorn?” he asked.
She grimaced. She was so adorable when she was embarrassed. “It’s a stupid nickname. I think it was a joke originally, because it sounded frightening and I was trying to be frightening and wasn’t yet. The only thing intimidating about me was my father’s title. By now it’s just what people call me.”
He wondered suddenly what it had been like for her when she was still learning how to be intimidating. What had she done then when someone pinched one of her waitresses or told her they’d liked her better as a whore? She used to have the most expressive eyes, Sophy had said. He hated the idea of everyone being able to see how scared she was. He hated the idea of her having to destroy that part of herself to become what she was. “What exactly did you tell people you would do to them if they hurt me?”
“You’re too squeamish to know.”
He looked back at Mo. “I’m too squeamish?”
Serena looked back at Mo, too. Her eyes were still expressive, when she wasn’t thinking about it. That made him feel better. “I’m sure she’s heard worse.”
As they walked down to Fleet Market, occasionally stopping to talk to a strolling receiver, Solomon listened to the cries of the vendors with a new ear. “Fine silver eels!” and “Sweet china oranges! Scarlet strawberries!” and “Fresh hot!” How many of them had watches hidden in the bottom of their baskets? How many of them had grubby little apprentices? What could Mo really do if anyone touched her? He wished she’d stolen a shilling.
By the time they reached Fleet Street, he also wished he had four hands. Two pies, an orange, a pitcher of hot tea, and a twist of newspaper with oysters and butter bread inside was a lot to carry even for two people. Luckily, the next man Serena stopped was a basket man.
Dina Levy had heard of his earrings. “Decker has them, unless he is breaking them down already,” she said in heavily accented English, pocketing the half-crown Doyle had refused. “He is a closemouthed old courva, but his client was down at the Blue Ruin last week. Everybody is a gossip with that much gin in them.”
Serena smiled brilliantly. If anything could cheer her up, this would. She was in her element. Solomon tried not to think that if they found the earrings, he’d have no excuse to remain at the Arms. “Thank you, Dina,” she said. “I can’t tell you how much I appreciate your help.”
“Anything I can do for you, Thorn.”
Serena smiled wider. “I’m glad you say that. I owe Pat Doyle a favor, you see, and I know his wife would kill for Abby’s apple fritter recipe.”
Solomon looked at the basket of food with hopeless longing. “Do we have time to eat, do you think, or ought we to go and find Decker now?”
Serena cut her eyes at him. “We aren’t going to Decker’s. I’m going to Decker’s. Alone.”
He frowned. “Is it dangerous? Surely it’s better if we go together.”
“It’s not dangerous. You just can’t go.”
“But he’s got my earrings!”
“And he won’t sell them between now and tomorrow morning. I’ll send him a message directly to hold them for me. He owes me a favor.”
“Why can’t I go?”
She looked away, but he saw her eyes crinkle in amusement. “You’re too squeamish to know.”
When they were finally settled under the mulberry trees in St. James’s Park with their lunch, Serena came out of a brown study to see that Solomon looked dejected, too. “I’ll get the earrings.”
He smiled at her. “I know.”
She looked away.
“I really am sorry about my uncle.”
“Why do you let him treat you like that?” She couldn’t have borne it, but then, maybe that explained why he had a large family that were at least fond of him and she didn’t. She took a bite of her pie.
Solomon looked surprised. “Isn’t that how family is?”
“Endlessly belittling? That’s certainly been my experience.”
Solomon snorted. “It’s different when it’s Uncle Hathaway. When Uncle Dewington tells me it’s time I put all this chemical dye nonsense behind me—deuced bad ton, don’t you know—I just want his guts for garters. Uncle Hathaway has my best interests at heart, at least.” He knotted his fingers and neatly cracked a walnut by snapping his palms together. It shouldn’t have been erotic, but it was. It was getting to the point where nearly everything he did was erotic, simply because he did it.
“So has Hannah More.”
Solomon smiled at the walnut in his hand, prying the meat out of its shell. “I’m fond of him, though. His family was awfully good to me when Elijah died.”
“You mean they fell awkwardly silent at your approach and gazed at you pityingly over dinner, and occasionally your uncle would lay a supportive hand on your shoulder.”
He laughed. “Well, yes. But—” He had eaten the walnut, but he kept his eyes on his hands. “Elijah was never interested in the shop. Uncle Hathaway was the only person I could be around without wondering if he would have rather I died instead.”
“But—” she began, appalled. “Surely your parents didn’t think that.”
“Probably not. Probably I was the only one who did. But they were all so unhappy. Elijah was always the one who knew what to say, who made everyone laugh. If it had been me, he could have made them feel better. I—I could barely speak to them anymore. I could barely speak to anyone. How could they not wish it?”
“But—”
“You never met him,” Solomon said with finality. “You don’t understand. He may have looked like me, but he was special. When he walked into a room, everyone turned to look.”
When Solomon walked into a room, every fiber of Serena’s being swung toward him like a needle toward the pole. “You’re special,” she said stubbornly. “And your uncle still doesn’t appreciate it enough.”
He sighed. “Serena, I’m going to tell you something, but I don’t necessarily want to discuss it.”
She nodded.
“After Elijah died, I moved my laboratory into the back of the shop for a while.”
“How kind of him, to allow you to use his space in your work for his business. I’ll wager he doesn’t pay you enough either.”
“Did you tell him that?”
“Maybe.”
The corner of his mouth quirked up. “Anyway, that’s not what I meant. I moved it there because I—well, I caught myself eyeing the bottle of arsenic. And I didn’t think I would, but I knew I wouldn’t if my cousin Clara might find the body.”
The oyster Serena had just eaten transformed itself into a brick in her stomach.
“I couldn’t sleep and I’d show up there at all hours to work. Uncle Hathaway took to waking at three or four in the morning and coming downstairs. He’d bring in tea, and then he’d go into the other room and work. He didn’t try to talk to me, but I could hear him through the door and it—it helped.”
Serena leaned back against a tree. “I—”
“I said I didn’t want to discuss it.”
“I know. I just wish I could have been there.”
Solomon looked at his hands. “So do I.”
“Have some gingerbread. It’s good.”
He raised an eyebrow at her, but he reached for the gingerbread. She took the opportunity to brush their fingers together.
“Elijah would have liked you,” he said. “I wish you could have met him.”
She chewed her lip. “Are you sure he wouldn’t have thought I was toying with your affections?”
“I’m sure you would have gone to a great deal of trouble to make him think so.” He grinned at her. “You really oughtn’t to think you’re a heartless bitch just because people tell you so. ‘Forsake the foolish, and live,’ remember?”
“Because you haven’t been affected at all by your family’s expectations that you’re a dull-as-ditchwater milquetoast Quakerish idiot.”
