Jem frowned at the odd description. ‘He’s been looking after me.’
‘Well.’ Lawrence’s face twisted into a peculiar wince that was trying to be a benevolent paternal smile of approval at Jem’s continued well-being, soured by his distaste for Kite. ‘You shall spend your shore leave with him and my niece at her London residence. You’ll be comfortable there. You may go, gentlemen. Not you, Heecham, we need to discuss what shall become of the crew.’
Heecham looked grey as he saw Kite and Jem out again, but he said nothing else except to wish them a good shore leave.
‘Wait, sir – what does he mean, what will become of the crew?’ Kite tried.
Heecham landed one heavy hand on his shoulder. ‘You just look after Castlereagh, Kite. Congratulations, by the way, lieutenant,’ he smiled to Jem. It was a pained smile, though. ‘On you go, boys.’ He vanished back inside.
Something must have been wrong, but there was no time to ask.
The Defiance was still anchored a good way offshore. The signal flags showed it hadn’t been paid off yet; the men were still stuck aboard. That was bad. The first piece of advice Heecham had ever given him had been about getting the ship paid off the second you arrived at a port. Abandoning them for hours or days was the quickest route to mutiny.
‘I hope he hurries up and lets them ashore,’ Kite said to Jem. ‘There’s barely any food left.’ He remembered abruptly that it wasn’t Jem’s job to care about the men, or not yet. ‘Are you all right?’
‘Yes. Are you?’ All Jem’s ease and confidence was gone again. ‘That horrible man rather saddled you with me.’
Kite lifted his eyebrow. ‘Oh savage world. I shall collapse under this immense and cruel burden.’
Jem gave him a shove and looked reassured.
*
London, 1797
Two days later, at Agatha’s house on Jermyn Street, there was a knock at his bedroom door at seven o’clock. Kite opened it before he was all the way into his shirt, certain it was Agatha’s butler – who spelled his name Frome but pronounced it Froom thank you very much – coming to tell him off for something, a continuation of a quiet war that had lasted for years, but it wasn’t Frome. It was Jem.
All he could think was that it was broad daylight, he was mostly undressed, and the person standing on his threshold was a sheening aristocrat who had probably never been in the sun enough to have even seen freckles before. He dragged his shirt on properly.
‘Sorry,’ he managed. ‘I thought you were Mr Frome. Is everything all right?’
‘Tea,’ said Jem. He was holding two cups, his sleeves turned back and showing the jade bracelet on his left wrist. Beside him, Lawrence’s tiger cub was pressing her face against his pocket, purring. She loved tobacco.
Lawrence had followed them up from Southampton yesterday and invited himself to stay. Project Make Thyself Scarce had ensued, at least at Kite’s end of things. Thankfully, Lawrence was taken with Jem. Kite was pretty certain he had only come because he hoped that the scent of actual nobility might be catching. Lawrence was a newly made lord, not an inherited one, and it turned out to his chagrin and Kite’s silent pleasure that everyone could tell.
Kite had been planning an early getaway to Mr Mahmud’s coffeehouse in Marylebone. It would take him well away from Lawrence, and away from Agatha’s sugar boycott. He’d been at sea for nine months and all he wanted from life now was quick access to marzipan. Mr Mahmud did marzipan fruit free with the coffee.
He’d assumed Jem would lose interest in him now that he had people of his own quality to talk to.
‘They’ll be downstairs,’ Kite said. ‘There should be a proper breakfast by now—’
‘Lawrence says you don’t eat with them,’ Jem interrupted. He gave him a cup and a wry look, as though he was telling a joke they both knew and he was waiting for Kite to join in for the punchline.
Kite had no idea about the joke. ‘No, it wouldn’t be proper.’
‘Apparently your father was a carpenter.’
‘Yes,’ said Kite, nervous he was being told off for not admitting that he had no business befriending noblemen, even lost ones.
‘And your sister seems content with this segregation.’
‘Half-sister. I don’t know she’s noticed. Why?’
‘It’s stupid. May I come in?’
‘It’s not very …’ Kite trailed off, because Jem had already settled down in the sunbeam in the middle of the narrow bed. So had the tiger.
‘I’m supposed to come up with a new name for myself,’ Jem said. He looked worried about it. ‘But Castlereagh isn’t the name the others will have told the French.’
‘Sorry? Why not?’ Kite had just sat down on the edge of the bed and the tiger had got her claws caught in the hem of his shirt.
‘Because my real one – wouldn’t go down very well in … well, a place like this,’ Jem said. ‘Castlereagh is my mother’s name.’
Kite felt absurdly double-crossed. ‘What’s wrong with your real one? What do you mean, a place like this?’
Jem only shook his head. ‘I’ve only known you for a week, so I don’t – know how you’d take it. Sorry. I’m sorry, I don’t mean to sound distrustful, just–’
‘No,’ Kite interrupted, coming to his senses. He didn’t understand what could possibly be so bad about Jem’s real name, but it wasn’t any of his business to try and poke at it. ‘No, you’re right not to trust people.’ He hesitated. ‘So no one is looking for a Jem Castlereagh?’
‘No.’
‘But – it is Jem?’ Somehow that was very important.
‘It is Jem,’ he confirmed. He sighed. ‘Sorry,’ he said again. ‘I’ll tell you one day.’
‘No need.’ Kite wanted to say he was just grateful that Jem had climbed four flights of stairs to tell him, but it sounded crawly even in his head, so he stayed quiet and drank his tea.
Jem came back every morning after.
Just after Christmas, Agatha sent Jem a note to meet her at a department store. It was an invitation to get a dress uniform made for the Admiralty’s New Year ball. A boy delivered it straight to the table at Mr Mahmud’s where Jem and Kite were sharing a piece of cake and Kite was trying to find out why Jem had bruised knuckles. Jem said he’d just flung himself into a door at a funny angle like an idiot, but Kite was worried that Lawrence might have done something, and searching about for a way to ask that without asking. It meant he was too distracted to think twice about what Agatha might do, which he regretted later.
Harding Howell & Co. of Pall Mall was bright in the dreary morning, lamps alight inside and out. It was just off St James’s Square, and the women coming out were in fur-lined cloaks and deep-coloured silk, comet-tailed by girls or footmen who carried packages tied up with ribbon.
The store was only four sections long, but they were broad, high-ceilinged sections, and mazey. The walls were lined with what scholars in a thousand years’ time would probably mistake for funeral alcoves – the whole place had the proportions of a church – but in fact they were for rolls of fabric. Each one had been unrolled just enough to bring a swathe of it right down to the floor, where the edges hung arranged over prettily upholstered chairs or over the shoulders of mannequins. They went in order of cost, starting with cotton and muslin, through to painted chintz from India, to silk, brocade, and damask that glinted in the lamplight. Everything smelled of brand-new carpets and fresh-cut fabric.