pressed him to do it, he had told them no. He hadn’t thought he would need to. His sirène would take him back, and everything would go forward as before.
He had heard that a man was living in his room, the Stuart Room. He knew that Lord Blackthorne had failed to oust him. But Blackthorne was a crude, vicious Englishman whom Serena hated. She would listen to René because he was her friend. Her friend—the irony of it made him clench his fist now.
He had come here, almost pleased to be back, and seen Hathaway. He had thought it was Thierry and been so glad. And then . . . Thierry was dead—and an Englishman—and this Hathaway was living in René’s room. Hathaway had stood there and looked at him with Thierry’s eyes, and Serena wouldn’t make him go away. She wouldn’t even make him leave her office so René could think. All he had had were those papers. And the man was a Hathaway from Shropshire, so René had not been able to risk waiting.
He closed his eyes against Serena’s look, but it stayed, her stricken face clear and perfect in the darkness. He hadn’t seen her look like that since—he had never seen her look like that.
In the beginning, he had seen her will herself calm every time an old protector walked in the door; he had seen her tense whenever someone casually touched her arm. He remembered her white face when one of the kitchen maids had nearly been raped in the courtyard. She had looked even worse two weeks later when the two of them had been out walking and passed the bastard who did it in the street. The man had been using a cane, his face one mottled, fading bruise. René had known at once that it was Serena’s doing, that she’d hired someone to do it; she had somehow looked miserable and terrifyingly fierce at the same time.
But that was just it. Before, she had always had that spark of ice in her eyes. She had always been fighting, daring the world to do its worst. There had never been that dazed, vulnerable look.
She had never felt betrayed because she had never expected better. But she had expected better of René. He’d worked so hard to win her trust, and he had, and now—
There must have been another way. He had cursed himself afterward for his stupidity. He had learned quickly enough that Solomon had no idea what the Hathaway legacy meant. But René hadn’t been able to think what to do. He had barely been able to speak. All he could think was that Thierry was dead—that he would never speak again.
It was too late now, of course. If he changed his mind and tried to find another way, she would be suspicious, and then when he made his move she would know. She would guess that he had set that fire. She would realize that he hadn’t threatened her until she refused him the room, and that would spell disaster—for him, for his informants, for the men in the French army who needed what he provided.
He thought about the years he had spent building his career, and about how they would be lost if he let his friendship for Serena rule him. He thought about his young cousin, serving in a regiment that was bound to come under heavy fire in the battles to come. It was no use; his mind kept coming back to his sirène, looking young and scared.
“Are you all right?” Thierry’s voice asked, and René jumped, his heart pounding. Of course it was only Hathaway, wondering why René was staring at the door to his room.
He had better start thinking of Thierry as Elijah Hathaway. Even the name Thierry had been a lie; even that was gone. Nothing was his anymore. “I’m fine,” he snapped, and went into the apricot room and slammed the door.
A knock came on the connecting door early the next morning. Solomon was already awake and dressed, gathering the things he needed for his trip to Hathaway’s Fine Tailoring to drop off the week’s commissions and get the following week’s. “Come,” he called, shoving a couple of hanks of dyed silk thread into his pocket.
Serena walked through the door. He glanced up—and stared. She was wearing a morning gown of cheap, pale orange cotton, a pretty linen ruffle tucked into the neckline. The lace shawl over her elbows looked to have been made