but at her now. “You needn’t come in if you don’t wish to.”
Oh. Somehow she hadn’t expected that. “I’ll try not to be too vulgar in front of your relations.”
His eyes flashed, and his mouth compressed into a thin, tight line. He slapped the flat of his hand against the door and pushed it open. A bell tinkled. Solomon bowed with a flourish. “After you,” he said, adding something under his breath that sounded like, Deserves what she gets.
Perhaps the tipsy cake had been a mistake. She felt decidedly sticky. “Is there any custard on my face?” she asked in as dignified a way as possible, but it was hard to sound dignified asking something like that.
He gave her a wicked smile and nodded.
Serena narrowed her eyes. “Where, might I ask?”
Solomon brushed his thumb over the side of her mouth. “There,” he said in his husky voice.
At once every nerve she had was tingling. The tears she knew were just below the surface threatened again. She hadn’t cried in years, and now it seemed that it was all she felt like doing.
She pulled a handkerchief out of her reticule and looked at it for a moment. Then, knowing there was no help for it, she spit into the handkerchief and rubbed at her mouth. “Is it gone?”
His hazel eyes were almost blue with amusement. He nodded, and she swept ahead of him through the door.
The shop was very clean and very neat. Bolts of cloth stacked on shelves completely obscured the wall to their left. To the right was a table covered in copies of Ackermann’s Repository, colored plates of French fashions, and diagrams on the proper method of tying a cravat. That was all, except for a door to the right of the counter that must lead to the fitting rooms. The walls were beautifully whitewashed, and the wooden floor shone. A boy in his late teens sprawled behind the counter, nose buried in a Minerva Press novel. His fair hair was flattened over his forehead and teased up farther back in an eager attempt at sophistication that only made him look impossibly youthful.
“Hullo, Arthur,” Solomon said. “Is Uncle about?”
“He’s in the back.”
Serena was momentarily disconcerted by his voice. It was distinctly London, where Solomon’s was Cambridge with a hint of Shropshire.
Arthur gave her the once-over and whistled appreciatively. “And you must be Lady Serena.”
She inclined her head. Solomon shot his cousin a warning glance. “Sorry. Lady Serena, may I present my cousin Arthur?”
Arthur sketched a bow from his chair. “Enchanté,” he said with a refreshing lack of concern for proper French pronunciation. “You’re much more beautiful than I was expecting, seeing as you’ve been taking liberties with our Sol.”
And yes, she had just been making a silent vow to be civil if it killed her, but she couldn’t be expected to let that slide. “That’s funny, because you’re much less mouthwatering than I was expecting, seeing as you’re Solomon’s cousin.”
Solomon flushed, and it was her turn for his warning glance, but Arthur laughed good-naturedly. “Perhaps I’ll just let you go and speak to Father.”
Solomon offered her his arm. They went through several unoccupied fitting rooms before emerging in the true back of the shop: a low-ceilinged room furnished with two long tables, at which half a dozen men sat and sewed by the light from several enormous windows. At the near end of the right-hand table, a heavyset man in his mid-forties was cutting out a coat. His blond hair was darker than Solomon’s and liberally streaked with gray, but his abstracted frown was very familiar. Serena assumed that his half-glasses were truly necessary. When he looked up, his eyes were brown, not hazel.
“Ah, Solomon,” Mr. Hathaway said in a tone not calculated to reassure. “Just the man I’ve been wanting to see.”
Solomon gulped. “Lady Serena, may I present my uncle, Mr. John Hathaway?”
Mr. Hathaway bowed very politely. “A privilege, my lady.”
“The same, I’m sure.”
He ushered them into a cramped office with only one tiny, high window. “Sol, I’ve had six ladies in since this morning wanting to buy our cloth. I thought I’d need a pair of shears to cut Lady Blakeney loose! You ought to realize that the margin of profit on a length of dyed cloth is much lower than on a finished garment. I was happy to contribute toward a new gown for Lady Serena since she is being so helpful to us, and the hangings for the Ravenshaw Arms are a large enough