A Lily Among Thorns, page 29
“Well, I hope you didn’t sell it to him,” Mrs. Hathaway said with a sniff.
“I did not.” When she looked back, the expression was gone from Solomon’s face, and she was left wondering if she had imagined it.
“You know who else liked your tartlets, Mama?” Solomon asked.
“Who, dear?”
“Sir Percy Blakeney.”
The effect was electric. Susannah groaned, Elijah laughed, Mr. Hathaway threw his napkin on the table in disgust, and Mrs. Hathaway sat straighter in her seat and said, “Really? You aren’t bamming me, are you, Sol?”
“Would I lie about something like that?”
“The Scarlet Pimpernel,” Susannah explained to Jonas. “You know, he saved all those French aristocrats. Mama used to have the most enormous tendre for him.”
“Oh, I did not. I was a married woman with more important things to think about, like keeping track of a naughty set of twins.”
“I seem to remember you following his exploits pretty closely in the papers,” Elijah said teasingly.
“I never saw what all the fuss was about,” Mr. Hathaway grumbled. “A show of aristocratic solidarity, that’s all. Afraid for their own necks if the peasants in England showed a bit of sense.”
“But you must admit it was dreadfully romantic! Remember when he dressed as an old hag to smuggle out the ci-devant comtesse de Tourney and her children?”
“Yes,” the entire family chorused.
“That’s one of his favorites, too,” Serena said. “He tells it at least once every time I see him. And he doesn’t tip.”
“So my brother-in-law tells me,” Mrs. Hathaway said sadly, and Mr. Hathaway looked at Serena with something almost like approval.
Solomon and Elijah had barely spoken to each other since the night of Sacreval’s escape. Solomon couldn’t bear to go back to their room and face Elijah’s stony silence, and if he lingered in one of the downstairs rooms, his mother was bound to hear him and want to know why. The only logical alternative was knocking on Serena’s door.
It was good to have a logical reason to do what he wanted to do anyway, even if the reason was that his brother wasn’t speaking to him. He knocked softly.
She opened the door in her shift and wrap. It occurred to him that he’d seen her in those maybe more than he’d seen her clothed. The bruise on her jaw had mostly faded already, the skin just faintly yellowed. He reached out to run his finger along it, and she flinched back. “Solomon!” she hissed. “We’re in your parents’ house, for God’s sake!”
“Nothing will happen,” he said softly, although he wanted it to. He wondered if she would let him. He thought they could be quiet.
She saw it in his face, he could tell; her lips parted and her eyes darkened, and then she said, “Go away!” and started to shut the door.
“I’ll sit on the floor,” he said quickly. “Please.”
“No,” she said, and held the door open for him. He sat on the floor under the window, and she sat on the edge of the bed. The candlelight made her look rich and rounded, darkness between her breasts and caressing her legs where the fringe of her wrap shivered and shook when she moved.
She cleared her throat. “So, the prodigal son returns,” she said, in a husky voice that told him she was looking at him, too.
He half-laughed and tried to keep his eyes on her face. “You noticed Mother made a fatted calf joke before we’d been here half a day.” Of course, if Elijah was the prodigal son, then he was the dutiful, bitter one. There was a truth to that that disturbed him. “Do you mean that I envy him?”
She shook her head. Probably she hadn’t, but he found he wanted to talk to her about it anyway. Even here, in the bosom of his family, it was her he turned to. “I’m ashamed of it,” he said. “Nothing’s ever made me happier than knowing he’s back. But mixed with the joy—I’m right back to envying him for dressing better than me, for heaven’s sake. I want to have outgrown that.”
“Do you want to know a secret? I think the way he does his hair looks rather silly.”
He gave her a quick, pleased smile, then looked away. “Mother will be so upset when she finds he’s going back to France.”
“René can never come back to England now, can he?” She sounded sad.
Solomon couldn’t help feeling that Sacreval didn’t deserve all this devotion. “No, and Elijah won’t come back either. He’ll run off to France, and I’ll never see him again.” He was going to be alone all over again. And this time, he would know that it was because Elijah chose it.
Serena made a restless, abrupt gesture. “You can’t blame him for being angry with you.” She sounded angry, too. She thought he was whining, probably. And he was.
“I know he’s right,” he said steadily. “I am the dull, conventional one. But I’m trying to—I’m doing my best. I don’t know what more I can do.”
Serena wrapped the end of one of her braids around her finger, her mouth twisting. “Solomon, you aren’t the dull, conventional one.”
“Aren’t I?”
“No. I agree it might look that way—”
He snorted.
“—to people who aren’t very bright,” she finished. “You’ve got to stop thinking he’s just the calf-bound, gilt-edged edition of you. It isn’t fair to either of you. You’re two different people.”
“Then why—Serena, he said it. And that’s why you don’t believe I love you, isn’t it? Because you think I’m just a narrow-minded parson’s son who can’t possibly really want you. No matter how many times I tell you I don’t care—”
“It’s easy for you not to care!” she snapped. “It’s easy for you not to consider it—for the moment, anyway, because no one’s making you. Solomon, this isn’t about you!”
He blinked. “What’s it about, then?”
She closed her eyes for a moment. “Solomon, do you remember what I said to you after we kissed in the hallway, that first time?”
His lips tightened. “You said it was boring.”
“But was it boring?”
He swallowed, remembering the way she’d trembled, the way the wool of her gown and the curve of her hips had felt under his hands. How shy and sweet her lips had been under his. “No.”
“I was afraid,” she said, a weight and a quiver in her voice that told him she meant, I am afraid. “I was afraid and I said what I knew would hurt you. Elijah—when he said that to you, he wasn’t angry with you. He was just angry, because he was sick of being afraid. Because now you knew his deepest, dirtiest secret, and you could do whatever you liked with it. And why shouldn’t he be afraid? You didn’t react well when you found out about René. And then—do you think he liked you to see the way Varney treated him? He didn’t want to make even scum like that angry enough at him to want revenge. Do you think that’s the figure he wanted to cut in front of his brother?”
“I don’t think any the worse of him for it,” Solomon protested, but he was starting to feel sick.
“Don’t you?” she demanded intently. “You blamed him for it. ‘I hate to see you exposing yourself to the insults of men like Varney,’” she mimicked. “As if he did it on purpose!”
Was that how it had sounded to Elijah? It wasn’t what he’d meant—was it? He just wanted his brother to be safe. “Sacreval told me that in Paris, the police beat Elijah so badly he could not walk. How am I supposed to approve of something that—that—”
“My father could have me locked up on a word,” Serena said flatly. “Lord Braithwaite threatened and insulted me at a ton party. René could pretend to be my husband and take everything I owned, and no one would stop him. Because I’m a woman and because of the life I’ve lived, I sleep with a bar across my door and a loaded pistol in my night table. And I’m not asking for your approval for any of it.”
In a sudden, blinding flash everything was clear. It was as she said: Elijah and Serena weren’t angry with him. They were just sick of being afraid. But they couldn’t stop, because it was dangerous simply to be themselves, simply for them to live honest lives. And what he had said to Elijah was, If you stopped being yourself, you would be safe. No one had ever said that to Solomon, because it was already safe to be him. No wonder Elijah was angry.
And no wonder Serena was angry. He remembered what she’d said outside St. Andrew of the Cross: You think that if you just keep digging at me and trying to crack me open I’ll giggle and say, ‘Oh, la, Mr. Hathaway, what a tease you are!’ It wasn’t really true; he had never wanted her to be sweeter or kinder. But he had wanted to crack her open. He still did. He wanted her to show herself to him, all the thoughts and feelings she’d been hiding for years.
He’d thought he could make her happy, that everything would be all right if she would just understand that he didn’t care about her past—but she was right, it was easy for him not to care. It was Serena who cared, who cared deeply because she’d been deeply hurt. She was still being hurt every day, every time some blackguard like Smollett made a crass joke and every time a party of young bloods bullied a waitress.
This wasn’t about him. It was about Serena, and about his brother. They were sick of being afraid—and hell, so was he. He was sick of being afraid that he wasn’t good enough, when it had never been about that to begin with. He was sick of dragging things out because he was afraid to put them to the test.
“You’re right,” he said.
She blinked, her face going from “ready for battle” to “speechless” in about five seconds. He couldn’t help laughing, even as his heart ached. How was he going to live, knowing that Serena was across town making a face and he couldn’t see it? “You’re right,” he said again. “I haven’t been fair. I was afraid, too. Afraid of being alone, I suppose. Afraid of being without you. But—you know, I—” His voice cracked. Damn.
“Solomon—” she said, and he loved the way she said his name so much that he had to keep talking or he might do something selfish like tell her that.
“I never believed, before I met you, that I could go my own way,” he said. “That I could deserve more than someone was willing to give me. That love might not be worth the sacrifices we have to make for it. You’ve taught me that. What I mean is—I do understand, if you decide you don’t want—” He waved a hand between them, as if in a moment the word that would describe all that lay between them would pop into his head. As if such a word existed. He shook his head. “This.”
She stared at him, the shadows making her eyes look huge. “You’re giving up?”
He stood up. “That’s exactly the problem. This has turned into some kind of tug-of-war. I’m not giving up. I’m just saying that I won’t push you anymore. I won’t ask for anything. I’ve been torturing you, and it’s not fair. If nothing’s changed when we go back to London on Sunday, I’ll leave. Just please—make a decision that will make you happy. Take good care of yourself.”
She looked as lost as he felt. He went to the bed and stood looking down at her: at her perfect face and her perfect body that suddenly, for the first time, looked ordinary.
She wasn’t a goddess, or an angel, or a harpy. She was a woman, a frightened, unhappy, determined, beautiful woman, and he loved her so badly that just leaning down and brushing his lips across her left temple, where her birthmark was, brought tears to his eyes. “Thank you for everything,” he said, and left.
Chapter 28
Solomon made his way back to the room he shared with Elijah—the room he had shared with his brother since they were born. The candle was out, and Elijah was lying on his side facing the wall, but Solomon could tell that he wasn’t sleeping. Last night at the posting inn, it had been the same; but then he had let Elijah pretend and gone directly to his own bed. Not tonight. He lit the candle. “Li?”
After a moment, Elijah turned over and sat up. Except for his boots, he was still fully dressed, wearing his old bottle-green coat. For a jolting moment Solomon thought maybe it was all a dream, that Elijah was dead and not sitting here a few feet away. It couldn’t be a dream, he told himself. I would never dream that new darned place in the corner of Elijah’s pocket.
Then he remembered Serena saying that very first night, You didn’t just dream it, and holding up the corner of her quilt, and the strange sense of vertigo receded. It was all real, and he had been ready to let it slip away without trying.
“Li,” he began, “I’ve been a fool. I ought never to have said what I did—any of it.”
Elijah’s eyes shot up to meet his. “What?”
“Don’t look so surprised. I know I’ve failed you—and if you don’t want to speak to me again, at least this time I’ll know you’re all right—”
To his surprise, Elijah exploded. “Damn it, Sol, what the hell is wrong with you? Of course I want to speak to you again!”
Solomon sat down on the edge of his bed with a thump. “Thank God.”
“How could you ever think I wouldn’t?”
Solomon rubbed at his temple. “Well—you did without me before, didn’t you? I didn’t know it, but in a way you’ve been doing without me all our lives. I thought I knew you like the back of my hand, and now—I don’t know what to think. I remember being jealous of you when we were boys because you’d wink at pretty girls in the street when I was afraid to, and I feel as if I must have been blind—”
Elijah said a French word Solomon was sure couldn’t be translated in front of their mother. “Afraid—you were afraid? It was easy to wink at girls in the street because I didn’t want them! When it came to what I did want, I was so terrified I could barely see straight. After I kissed Alan the first time, I was sick in the bushes on my way home. I was sure he’d never speak to me again, and he’d tell everyone, and you’d never speak to me again either because there was something wrong with me, something twisted and diseased.”
“There’s nothing wrong with you,” Solomon said fiercely.
“Thank you,” Elijah said with a rueful smile.
“God, how did I miss this? All those years—was I not paying attention? Didn’t I care? How could I have failed you this badly?”
“Oh, for God’s sake!” Elijah broke in. “We failed each other—you didn’t know anything was wrong, but I did, and I didn’t fix it. God, I was always so jealous of you, too.”
Solomon stared. “Jealous of me?”
“Yes, you! You always knew where you belonged. You wanted to work for Uncle Hathaway and you wanted to be a chemist and you were good at it. You always knew exactly what you wanted and you always seemed to know what was right. Father approved of you. You didn’t while away your hours tinkering in the blacksmith’s shop and reading immoral French poetry. And he had no notion of the sick, shameful things I was really doing there. When I found out you were all going to think I was dead, I thought, ‘At least it’s me and not Solomon. None of them would know what to do without him.’” Elijah stopped for a moment. “You had no idea how lucky you were.”
So Serena had been right; Elijah didn’t think he was the dull, conventional one at all. His brother thought he was the lucky one, the one who had always known what to do. They had both been such blundering idiots. “I wish you had told me,” he said at last. “You didn’t have to do this alone.”
“I know that now. But I was afraid. I’m not the dashing, enigmatic one,” Elijah said desperately. “I’m just me, Sol, and you’re ready to let me go because you think I’ll be all right, but I need you.”
“You did all right without me in France,” he said, still struggling to accept this new vision of the world.
“You did all right, too.”
And as awful as the last year and a half had been, Solomon realized abruptly that Elijah was right. Even if his brother had never come back—life would have gone on, somehow. He could even have been happy. Serena had shown him that it was possible.
Elijah was still speaking. “In books they always say, ‘Without you it was as if someone had cut off my arm.’ Sol, without you I felt like someone had sawed open my skull and ripped out half my brain. But I had to get the hell out of here. I had to stop being afraid all the time. I had to be alone. Paris was so different from Shropshire—there were clubs full of people like me, and I was helping England, and I was good at it. All that careful acting, all those years, had just been practice. I felt right, suddenly. But I missed you.”
He pressed the heels of his hands into his eyes. “I should have told you I was alive. I told myself you would know so I wouldn’t have to admit I was taking the coward’s way out.”
“We failed each other,” Solomon said, and it felt like absolution. He smiled. “So we’re all right now?”
Elijah smiled back. “We’re all right now.”
After a moment, Solomon asked, “When are you leaving for France?”
Elijah looked up guiltily. “As soon as I can. And—I never thanked you—”
“You don’t have to.”
“I think I do. You shouldn’t have done it, but if I had walked into that room and seen his brains all over the wall—” Elijah swallowed.
“I know.”
“I may be back very soon. He may not want me anymore.”
Solomon snorted. “Doing it a little too brown, Li. When a man’s final thought before he blows his brains out is to say what will make you feel best about driving him to it, he wants you.”
Elijah looked up quickly. “It wasn’t really his final thought, was it?”
Solomon assumed a romantic attitude. “‘Please, tell him I’”—he sniffled and wiped away an imaginary tear with a dramatic forefinger—“‘tell him I never loved him. Tell him I knew all along. Tell him I was a blackhearted rogue. Oh, Elijah, Elijah!’”
Elijah reached over and punched him in the shoulder, but he was beaming. “So—you think he’ll take me back?”
“He’d better, or I’ll be facing him at twenty paces for trifling with my brother.”
“I thought you didn’t approve of dueling.”
