Lawrence softened instantly. ‘Why didn’t you say so? That casts things in a different light.’
‘Does it?’ said Jem.
‘I can hardly go around doubting a peer of the realm, sir.’
‘Can you not? I do it regularly,’ Jem said, and if there had been one atom of doubt before, it vanished now. He had to be who he said he was, or he wouldn’t be talking to Lawrence like this, like he was nothing special and this room was on the poky side of ordinary.
All of Kite’s organs shrank inwards. They’d shoved Jem into bunks with the lieutenants. He should have had Heecham’s stateroom.
Lawrence laughed. ‘Well,’ he said again, more finally. ‘This is rather a difficult situation. I cannot simply let you go into the wider world; the French know, by now, that you exist – your shipmates aboard the Kingdom will have told them – and that you are with us, telling us useful things, just as your fellow Kingdoms will be telling the French useful things. There will be a price on your head. However, I do not wish to imprison you either. Would you be willing to enter naval service? At lieutenant. On the proviso that you inform us immediately of anything that might possibly help the war effort.’
Kite shifted, excruciated. Lawrence’s rank had gone to his head. It would have made more sense to shackle a racehorse to a milk cart.
Jem, astonishingly, looked relieved. ‘Delighted.’ He glanced back at Kite. ‘I was wondering how I should make a living here.’
Lawrence nodded. ‘Captain Heecham here tells me that the entire crew of Defiance witnessed the Kingdom’s pursuit and capture by the French. That is most unfortunate. Officers, of course, are bound by strict laws and may be trusted to keep secrets, but the men move freely from ship to ship, and indeed from fleet to fleet; some of your current crew will assuredly be working for the French or Spanish sooner or later. We’ve haemorrhaged men ever since the French banned flogging.’ He was speaking more to Heecham now. ‘We must therefore take measures to ensure that this does not happen.’ His eyes came back to Jem. ‘Which leaves you with a responsibility to take every measure to ensure your own safety. You must come up with some kind of history for yourself. I suggest you name a sufficiently distant, obscure colony as your place of origin. You need a new name for yourself too. Every French spy in England will be looking for Jem Castlereagh.’ He looked at Kite for the first time. ‘I see you’ve acquired my niece’s brother.’
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
