pretty.”
“I thought you did that rather well.”
The little sentence hung in the air between them, and then Solomon, already nervous at the prospect of an evening of hobnobbing with the Upper Ten Thousand—spying, he thought, I’m nervous about spying—said, “Those little flowers in your hair match splendidly. Where did you find them?”
He cursed inwardly. Of all the things he might have said, why did he pick that one? It was like at school, when he hadn’t been able to talk about cards or racing or hounds or boxing, hadn’t known a thing about any of the usual pursuits of the wealthy, so he’d tried to talk about clothes. It was an acceptable topic of conversation for gentlemen, but when he did it, it was because he was the Hatherdasher.
Serena grinned at him, though. “I got a patch of material from my dressmaker and sent one of the maids out shopping.”
“You’re going to make Uncle Hathaway rich,” he said with awed sincerity. It was the nearest he could safely come to You’re beautiful. He thought it would make her uncomfortable if he said that.
She raised her eyebrows. “I didn’t do it for your uncle,” she said, pulling on her gloves. “This is a mission.” But there was a warm undercurrent in her voice that said she meant exactly the opposite. That she’d done it for him.
“I—I got you something to go with it.” Not looking at her, he lifted a thin, wrapped parcel from the inlaid table next to them. “I know you never wear jewelry, but—”
Her face went cold, suddenly. “Jewelry is a bad investment. You can never sell it for what it cost.”
He swallowed. This had seemed like such a good idea when he saw it in the window of the pawnshop. Of course jewelry was something men gave their mistresses, but they were going to a ball and she didn’t have any. And it had cost only four shillings and he’d thought it would be all right. “I didn’t mean—it wasn’t very expensive. And if you hate it, I can probably take it back, so don’t feel you have to, I just thought you might like it—” He tried to cut the string around the package, missed, and almost sliced his thumb open.
“Let me,” she said, and he handed her the knife. She sliced the wrapping open and unrolled it with movements so precise they seemed angry. Then she tipped the bracelet into her palm and stared at it. It was made of gray-and-white cameos, ringed with glittering chips of faceted steel and linked together by tiny wrought-iron loops. On each cameo was a woman’s face, contorted and howling with fury. Some had coiling snakes instead of hair.
“I’m a siren, not a gorgon, you know.” But the warmth was back in her voice. She liked it.
Solomon let out the breath he’d been holding and grinned at her. “You’d like to turn people to stone with a look, though, wouldn’t you? Hold out your wrist.”
Chapter 14
The first person Serena saw in Mrs. Elbourn’s ballroom was Lord Smollett. He took one look at the deep blue gown with its spangles and guffawed. “Must say, you never used to need that much fabric to dress as a lady of the evening!”
Serena met Solomon’s eyes and sighed. “I can’t win, can I?”
“No, so why try? You would look magnificent in scarlet.”
Serena hastily turned her attention to the ballroom. Everyone in the room was watching them. The low murmur of conversation rose to an excited hum. At least Mrs. Elbourn looked pleasantly scandalized instead of horrified. This would make her party the talk of London. Perhaps that would be enough to keep them from being tossed out on their ears.
Solomon’s shoulders slumped. “Shall we try the buffet table? Maybe there are lobster patties.”
Serena felt warm. Was it because of all the eyes on her, or because Solomon had noticed she loved lobster patties when Antoine made them last week for supper? Before she could answer, a young matron in a towering purple-and-gold turban appeared and grabbed Serena’s arm. With a small shock, she recognized Jenny Warrington, who had been so vivacious and pretty at school and had always made Serena feel like a colorless stick of a girl.
Serena hadn’t thought about her in years and was vaguely surprised to find she still existed.
“Serena! It’s been an age! How lovely to see you!”
“Good evening, Jenny,” Serena said bemusedly.
Jenny, as vivacious and pretty as ever, was unabashed. “I daresay I should have come visit you