A Lily Among Thorns by Rose Lerner Read Free Book Online Page A

register?”
    She had always loved René’s voice; it had meant safety to her to hear it ringing out from the other side of the taproom. Now it sounded diabolical.
    “How much does one have to pay the vicar of”—Solomon glanced at the paper—“Saint Andrew of the Cross to put false names in the register?” He was buying her time, hiding her weakness. It was the second time he’d had to do it.
    René tsked. “Do not be foolish, dear boy. If those were false—which I do not admit, mind you—would I take a vicar into my confidence? In England they can have scruples, these men of the cloth.”
    Serena spoke with an effort. “I thought I was inured to betrayal, but I must confess this somewhat surprises me. Where do you expect me to go, René?” Too late, she saw she’d made a play for his sympathy; she was a woman, bargaining from a position of weakness, and he and Solomon could both see it.
    “Go home to your father,
sirène
,” René said gently. “Or take the money I am offering you.”
    She laughed a little hysterically. “My father came here yesterday and threatened to lock me up in Bedlam.”
    René closed his eyes. “I am sorry.” He really did sound sorry, very sorry; that made her angrier. “But—there is nothing I can do about that,
chérie
.”
    Was that all he could say? Serena looked at René, at her oldest, dearest friend, and was possessed by a white-hot fury. As iffrom very far away, her voice said, “It hardly matters in any case, because I won’t be leaving. You have no next of kin, so as your widow, the Arms will revert to me. I shan’t like to see you hang, but one does what one must. Good day, René.”
    His familiar lively features seemed carved out of harsh white stone. “It is not like you to make empty threats,
sirène
.
Écoute
, I will give you two weeks to reflect. If you decide to sell to me, you will be still an independent woman, and rich. I hope you will. But if you are not
raisonnable
, I will be forced to take this paper into a court of law. I will move my things into the apricot room while you decide.”
    After he had gone, silence reigned in the office. Serena, still sizzling with furious energy, began creating and discarding ever more elaborate plots to destroy René. There was no point thinking of anything else, because she wasn’t going to lose the Arms.
    “Can you really get him hanged?” Solomon asked.
    “Nothing simpler.” Serena would never have imagined the words could be so easy to say. “He’s a French spy.”
    Solomon gaped. “Wh—what?”
    “This inn was only a front for him. I’m not sure why he thought I wouldn’t realize what was going on.”
    Solomon stared at her in horror. “You knew he was a spy, and you did nothing?”
    She shrugged. He didn’t need to know how she had agonized, weighing up the evidence of René’s guilt again and again, and the consequences if she were right. How she had imagined heroically informing on him, giving up the Arms, taking another protector. And how she couldn’t do it. “I needed the Arms,” she said flatly. “Besides, I didn’t
know
. It could all have been completely innocent.”
    “But—” He looked in the direction René had gone. She had never seen his face so cold. “He could have passed the information that killed Elijah.”
    Serena swallowed. He was right. Had she done that to him? Did she have that to answer for, too? She couldn’t think about it now. “Does that mean you’ll help me?”
    “What? Serena—”
    She gripped the underside of her desk tightly, where he couldn’t see, and tried not to raise her voice. “I’m sorry, Solomon, but I didn’t feel as if I owed it to English men to save them, after—at that point in my life, I didn’t feel I owed them anything. Besides . . .” She drew in a deep breath. “René was my friend.” It hurt to say it; if she went on, if she said enough to make him really understand, if she told him how René had taken care of her when she