He was turning red. ‘Agatha, don’t be absurd. You know fully well a fortune can’t really rest in the hands of a slip of a girl.’
‘That’s by far and away the most flattering thing anyone has ever said to a person of thirty-six.’
Lawrence seemed to see he was losing ground. ‘All that aside, girl, you’re endangering Jem’s life, and perhaps even the war itself. I’ve been seeing his name in the papers. The papers, for God’s sake! Mysterious man appears from nowhere, causes scandal with heiress; after everything I’ve done to keep him safe, the lives sacrificed, you will not simply hand a man with knowledge of the future to the Ministre de bloody Marine!’
Jem frowned and glanced at Kite, who shook his head a little.
Agatha fixed him with a look so narrow it came to a needle point. ‘What lives sacrificed?’
‘Navy business, and above your head,’ he snapped. His hand had tightened around his cane. Kite stiffened.
‘I rather think you’re making it my business.’
The cane twitched. ‘Agatha—’
‘That’s enough,’ Kite said.
Lawrence looked at him as if he’d never seen him before. Trying to convince himself that, really, twenty-five years without a broken nose was a lot more than most men could expect, Kite put himself in front of Agatha and Jem.
‘Sir. Look at what you’re doing with your hands.’
Lawrence looked. He had shifted his grip on the cane, ready to strike out with it.
‘Go away, stay at your club, and calm down,’ Kite said, a lot more steadily than he felt. ‘I’m sure it will all keep until the morning.’
Lawrence stared at him for a long time. Then his eyes went to Agatha. ‘I will have you put in an asylum, madam, if you don’t come to your senses. I apologise, Mr Castlereagh, none of this is your fault, but I urge you to consider your own safety, and the reputation of the lady. Good night.’
He stumped out. The front door clicked.
Agatha put her hands against her kidneys. ‘Right, I think we’d all better find a way to ensure he can’t do any of us any more violence. First concern is you, Miz; he can make life bloody unpleasant for you if he sends you to the Caribbean, so—’
‘No, it’s you,’ Kite said, urgent. ‘He’s your closest relative, he really can send you to an asylum.’
‘I’ll have to marry Wiltshire, then,’ she said, as if it was nothing, as if she’d given up decades ago on getting anything from marriage but a tolerable house and not too many interruptions to life. ‘He’s timid.’
‘Agatha – he’s sixty-four,’ Kite said softly.
‘I’m not prime stock either,’ she said, and he realised she was punishing herself for having let it get out of hand. She had clenched her fists so hard her knuckles were marble.
‘Don’t talk about yourself like that.’
‘Marry me,’ Jem said. It was a shock, not just because of what he’d said, but because he had been so silent before that Kite had forgotten he was there. ‘I’m not sixty-four, and I’ve no interest in sending anyone to an asylum.’
They both looked up at him. ‘What?’ said Agatha.
‘If that wouldn’t go down in your career like a lead balloon,’ he added carefully. He hesitated. ‘It would help us all. You and I can protect Missouri from Lawrence. Your being in the papers so much – that gives you the power to say whatever you like, loud and fast. Much more than Lawrence. And I have information. If the Admiralty isn’t decent to us all, I don’t divulge anything. Missouri protects you; if I turn out to be a bad husband then I’ve got nothing over him, so he can punch me in the face in perfect conscience. And you being yourself protects me. It legitimises any stories I tell about myself; they must be true if Agatha Lawrence says they are. It’s … a good balance. And needless to say I have no intention of being a demanding husband. Or even in your house, if you don’t want me here. I’ll sign any contract that ensures you retain sole power over your own assets, then there are no money worries.’
Her shoulders jolted and Kite thought she was laughing, and then, horribly, he realised she was starting to cry. He had never seen her cry. It felt indecent to watch. He stepped right away from them, towards the fire, though he wasn’t cold. Lawrence’s tiger curled up against his ankle. He knelt down to stroke her, to have some occupation.
‘Are you in earnest?’ Agatha was asking.
‘Yes, ma’am.’
‘Why would you do that?’
‘Well, I know it must sound premature to you,’ Jem said, ‘and I’ve only been here five minutes, but it has been an important five minutes, for me. I love you, both of you. What you’ve done for me – I expected to vanish into an interrogation room somewhere.’
They both turned back to look at Kite.
‘What do you think?’ Agatha asked him. She was shining.
He hadn’t meant to, but all the way home, like an idiot, he’d been stitching a fragile cloak of half-imagined hopes, barely with the substance of thule but there all the same. It dissolved and left him with a nasty residue of shame. Trying on hopes like that was no better than playing dress-up with her clothes. Jem was hers too.
He smiled. ‘Sounds good to me,’ he said.
32
Edinburgh, 1807
There were a few men Joe recognised from the Agamemnon downstairs, along with the two marines, who were clean and hunched over tankards of beer now. Kite avoided them and went to the fire, which was too hot to be anyone else’s place of choice. Joe was starting to think that he looked ill rather than just pale. Joe ordered them both some stew and some wine, which was quick coming, but Kite only sipped at the wine and ignored the food. Before long he gave it away to a sailor on the table next to theirs, who was drunk enough to call him an absolute sweetheart. More sober people thumped the sailor and looked mortified. Kite seemed not to care.
The door kept swinging. Deliveries were coming in, crates of them, even though it must have been ten at night by now. The street was full of carts making similar deliveries to all the bars and warehouses along the quayside.
Stockpiling for the siege, of course. How long had the blockade been covering the port? Joe couldn’t tell, but he didn’t think anyone here could be getting many supplies overland. The French had control of most of Scotland.
Joe watched as a young man carried past a crate of potatoes. The delivery boys were helping, but there was too much for them to get through quickly. Even though Joe only just had a grasp on English money, the price stencilled on the side of the crate looked insanely high. He did some dividing and frowned. Even if only half a potato per head went into the stew he’d just bought, the price of the combined meals wouldn’t have covered half the cost of that one crate. Siege inflation. He pushed his hand over his mouth and wished obscurely that he’d remembered to shave.
Kite was watching him, but he said nothing about machines, or helping, or duty, or any of it. He was just cradling the wine glass in both hands to warm it up. It was red, but icy, because the bottles must have been from the cellar, below the water line.
‘Quiet, you,’ Joe said to him, to see if he would smile.