A Lily Among Thorns Read Online Free PDF

only thing that could.
    When someone knocked on his door, he started as if awakening from a drug-induced stupor. When had it gone dark out? He looked at the mantel clock and saw that it was nine o’clock. Hours ago, then. “Come.”
    Lady Serena swung the door open. Her eyebrows rose at the disarray of the room, lifting that little birthmark of hers with them. The elegant rug was rolled up to where it met the bed; a jumble of glass, brass, and iron occupied the remaining space,some of it loaded onto a large table Solomon had talked Sophy into having brought up.
    He wasn’t spared a sweeping look, either, and he realized he was wearing his oldest shirt with the sleeves rolled up and a pair of awful mud-colored breeches someone had returned to his uncle’s shop. He’d lay odds there was a grimy smudge all across his forehead, too, where he’d wiped away the sweat. She was as alluring and perfect as ever, and he looked like a chimney sweep.
    Lady Serena wrinkled her nose and crossed to the window. “I make it a practice to keep all my rooms well-aired,” she said just as the wick in his lamp began to smoke.
    He flushed and took the glass chimney off to trim the wick. “You don’t smell it after a while. I can’t have varying temperatures and wind while I’m working.” Sure enough, the moment she opened the window, a damp gust of wind extinguished the lamp. Solomon felt at once vindicated and even more embarrassed. Fumbling for his tinder among the jars and crucibles, he glanced up at Lady Serena. In the moonlight her skin seemed to glint bluish-white, that distinctive birthmark thrown into sharp relief—
    “Serena!” came Sophy’s worried voice from the corridor just as Solomon’s fingers closed on the tinderbox. “Lord Blackthorne’s here!”
    Lady Serena froze. “What did you say?” Her voice sounded strangled.
    “Your father. He’s here!”



Chapter 2
    A tall, imperious man strode into the dark room. “Thank you, girl, that will be all.” Solomon thought Sophy would have liked to stay, but after a moment’s hesitation she bobbed a curtsey and whisked herself out the door.
    Lady Serena turned to face her father. Solomon realized with a jolt that she was several inches shorter than Lord Blackthorne, and wished, irrationally, that it were not so. He hurried to strike a spark, but the flint and steel refused to cooperate.
    “So this is where I find you. In his room, in the dark!”
    “Why are you here, Father? This is my property and you’re not welcome.”
    The lamp finally, blessedly, flared into light, and Solomon replaced the chimney before looking up at Lord Blackthorne. He blinked at the family resemblance: the razor-straight, patrician nose and hawklike gray eyes. It was impossible to guess if they’d shared the raven hair, as Lord Blackthorne’s thick locks were completely gray. And his attire, while expensive, was not as tasteful or well-tailored as his daughter’s. Solomon repressed a professional shudder at the combination of black and brown.
    “I’ve stayed away too long as it is. Even you must admit that I have been patient with you, Reenie.”
    “You certainly left me to myself,” she said lightly. A little too lightly, and it occurred to Solomon for the first time that she was probably younger than he was. She made it look easy, her self-reliance and her air of command, but it wasn’t, not really. And she had had to learn it, somewhere along the way.
You didn’t see her before
, Sophy had said.
    “It wasn’t enough that you dragged the Ravenshaw namethrough the mud, not enough that you gave it to a common inn, not enough that every day I hear your name bandied about by men I would never allow in my home, but now you take up with a Cit?” Lord Blackthorne’s eyes swept Solomon and his chiseled mouth curled into a sneer—less polished than his daughter’s, but still effective. “Hell, Cit is too good a name for him! You’ve allied yourself with a
tradesman
. You have