Free A Lily Among Thorns by Rose Lerner Page A

least, m’dear. He is the spitting image of a baker I once knew, a member of the Committee of Public Safety. But that man would be at least thirty years older than your partner now, if he were still alive—and now I think of it, I saw him beheaded myself.”
    I’m only relieved because I’m afraid for the Arms,
Serena told herself.
I don’t care what happens to René. Not at all.
As she headed to the foot of the table to tell Joe to bring up more rolls, she happened to glance at the regent. He was watching René with narrowed, considering eyes. “The fellow’s back, is he?” he asked.
    Serena felt cold. “Indeed, Your Highness. He returned only a few days ago. He is waiting for the Bourbons to be restored once more so that he can return to France.”
    The regent nodded genially. Serena decided to see how things were progressing in the kitchens.
    It was a mistake.
    Solomon was leaning against the door frame of the pastrykitchen, covered in flour to the elbows, listening to something Antoine was saying. He glanced up at her and smiled just as he licked a large dollop of almond-pear off his thumb.
    Now she remembered why she disliked the kitchens during dinner. The ovens made everything so damned hot.
    “Want a taste?” he yelled above the kitchen’s racket.



Chapter 5
    Well. She had to make sure he hadn’t, oh, forgotten the sugar or something, didn’t she? It was her responsibility. She pulled a spoon from a jar of them that sat on the counter and headed over.
    “How are things upstairs?” he asked. He licked a last drop of sticky tart filling off his lip, and Serena swallowed.
    “Good. I don’t know how qualified our regent is to direct national politics, but he’s an excellent gourmand. Probably one of my few former patrons who’s wholeheartedly pleased with my change in professions.” She dipped her spoon in his bowl. Somehow, it seemed like an incredibly intimate act. Her cheeks heated.
It’s just the ovens
.
    His eyes widened. “You mean you—you
slept
with the Prince Regent?”
    The pleasant heat faded. Not this again. “I did.”
    He chewed at his lower lip. “Can I ask you something? I wouldn’t, but I’ve always wanted to know—”
    “Certainly,” she said coolly. “But I shan’t promise to answer it.”
    “Does he use French holes?”
    She stared at him. She hated to admit that Solomon knew of a perversion of which
she
had never heard, but there was nothing for it. “French holes?”
    “On his corset,” Solomon said impatiently. “You know—most use ordinary buttonholes, but some use a sort of eyelet made of ivory or bone. You can lace them tighter that way.”
    She blinked. Then she bit the back of her hand, shaking withsilent, helpless laughter. “I never noticed,” she admitted, when she could speak again.
    He sniffed scornfully, but his eyes were warm.
    She realized she was still holding her spoon, full of almond-pear filling. She put it in her mouth, and her eyes widened. “Oh.”
    He smiled at her. “It’s good, isn’t it?” he said in a low, warm voice, and she immediately pictured him saying the same thing in quite another context.
    She eyed him suspiciously. Had he
meant
that to sound indecent? He blinked innocently at her, and she decided that he had. “It’ll do,” she said. “Did you know that Sir Percy Blakeney is angling to be sent to France as a spy?”
    “No!” Solomon’s whole face lit up with glee.
    The prince’s eyes popped. “I say, Dewington, these are your Mrs. Jones’s pear-almond tartlets! I’ve been trying to buy the recipe from her for decades! What did you pay, Lady Serena?”
    The look of dawning horror on Dewington’s face as he realized exactly how that recipe had made its way into Serena’s kitchen would be forever precious to her. “Not a farthing, Your Highness,” she said.
    “Then how—no one knows the recipe but Dewington’s cook!”
    Serena met Dewington’s eyes. The man was fidgeting in his seat and twitching