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

was nineteen and scared, she would vomit. So she didn’t go on, and the skepticism in Solomon’s eyes hurt almost as much.
    She didn’t really expect him to let it go, but he did. “If you had no proof, then how are you going to have him hanged now?”
    She wanted to sit down, but that would be one more show of weakness. “He’s right, that was an empty threat. If he’s hanged for treason, his property is forfeit to the Crown. He would have nothing more to lose; he’d produce those documents and I’d lose the Arms. I have to prove the marriage is a forgery first. Vengeance can come later.”
    He looked disappointed. She wondered if he wanted to tell her that vengeance was unchristian, or if he simply didn’t want to wait for his own. “Yes,” he said. “Yes, I’ll help you.”
    His voice sounded like safety. She had been stupid once; she couldn’t do it again. No matter how much she wanted to. “Thank you.”
Pull yourself together
. “If you don’t mind, I’d like to be alone.”
    He frowned, giving her that piercing hazel look. “Are you sure you’ll be all right?”
    She nodded. For a moment she thought he wouldn’t listen to her, that he would refuse to go; the panicky, powerless feeling in her chest started to take up space she needed for her lungs. Buthe just looked at her for another moment, and then he nodded and left the room.
    She let out her breath, shakily, and sat behind her desk. She ran her hand over the smooth mahogany. She loved that desk. It had been René’s, before Serena discovered that he had no head for money. Gradually she’d taken over nearly all the management of the inn, but it had still been René’s idea. It was René who had come to her bijou residence that she hated, and sat in her dressing room amid French lingerie and perfume bottles and vaginal sponges—he hadn’t even lifted an eyebrow—and offered her, not carte blanche, but a business proposition. He would put up three-quarters of the money, and she would put up the rest, plus her father’s name.
    Serena pulled one of the heavy ledgers toward her and opened it.
Candles, 15l.,
she read, written in her own neat script.
Firewood, 26l. 6s. New register, 8s. 2p.
This was her life now. How could she abandon it?
    She had been staring blankly at the ledger for nearly a quarter of an hour when Sophy came in with a tea tray. “Mr. Hathaway said you wanted this.”
    Serena looked up at Sophy. Familiar Sophy, who had been there from the beginning. “René wants to take the Arms away from me.” She hated how lost her voice sounded.
    “What?” Sophy set the tea tray down on the edge of the desk and sat down.
    “He’s forged marriage lines that say he’s my husband.”
    Sophy’s eyes went grim behind her spectacles. “I never liked him.”
    Serena could not decide whether to laugh or mourn at the patent untruth. “Of course you liked him. I did too. Everybody liked him. But it doesn’t matter. He won’t get the Arms. Do you know if Antoine’s prepared the menus yet for Saturday?”
    Sophy accepted the change in topic without a flicker of an eyelid. “I have them right here. He was occupied with tonight’sragout, but he asked me to have you look them over and bring them back when you were through with them.”
    Serena spread the menus in front of her like a fan, her mind turning to sauces, wine selections, and table arrangements.
    This was her life. And she would see René hanged, drawn, and quartered before she would lose it.
    Solomon was awakened by muffled voices coming from Serena’s room.
    “René, he’s the hundred and twenty-five pounds. I’m not asking him to move and that’s final.”
    “Is he
really
?” The marquis sounded appreciative, even through several inches of oak. “I always imagined him more sickly looking.”
    Serena snorted with quickly bitten-off laughter. Solomon cringed. She had told Sacreval about him? What had she said?
    “Why do you need him in
my
room, however? I see the door